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There, possibly, amid those emotions gradually approaching a Dionysiac frenzy, was the logical Mecca of her long pilgrimage, the end of all this hunger for sensuous reactions for the pleasures that came from strange fragrances and harmonies, from contacts with precious fabrics and the patina of perfect porcelains, from the perception of matchless color in painted canvas and gems, or from the grace that was fluent in the moving bodies of human beings and beasts?
At one end of the table stood a bronze faun's head with open lips, with hand cupped at listening ear. Surely that head must have come from some buried art-find of the very long ago. The faint greenish patina that covered it could have been painted only by the hand of the greatest artist of them all, Time. A book-case occupied the northern space, between the windows.
Corroded silverware lay scattered all about; and there was gold plate, too, intact save for the patina of extreme age platters, dishes, beakers. But of the table and the chairs, nothing remained save dust. Like curious children they poked and pried. "Dishes enough!" exclaimed she. "Gold, till you can't rest. But how about something to put on the dishes?
It is no sinecure being an official of this kind in Tunisia, with precise Government instructions in one pocket, and in the other his countrymen's contrary lamentations and suggestions, often reasonable enough.... Loaded down with a choice selection of Sidi Mansur flints, which are singular as having a white patina, I returned to Gafsa in the late afternoon and entered my favourite Arab cafe.
The bend of the horse-shoe forms a circuit of about six miles, the rim of which is a wall of precipices and steep patina mountains, which are about six or seven hundred feet above the basin or the bottom of the amphitheatre. The tops of the mountains are covered with good open forest, and ribbon-like strips descend to the base.
Deeply and slowly in the bluish patina, at the edge of the flowing locks, on the shoulder of the Christ, a glimmer of shadow traced itself, faintly and unmistakably. Confused murmurs ran through the darkness the voice of the director a woman's breath. "Ready, Berthold." It was the voice of the Herr Doctor.
He will also have discovered that, in addition to the healthiness of its climate, its natural resources are confined to its timber and mineral productions, as the soil is decidedly poor. The appearance of the latter has deceived every one, especially the black soil of the patina, which my bailiff, on his first arrival declared to be excellent.
All that's left of some forgotten white man who fell here, at the door, a thousand years ago!" Speechless, the girl took the shell from him and examined it. "You're right, Allan," she answered. "This certainly is a hollow gold crown. Any one can see that, in spite of the patina that's formed over the metal. Why what can it all mean?" "Search me!
And what of that jovial red-bearded personage who scorned honest work and yet contrived to dress so well? Everyone liked him, despite his borrowing propensities. He was so infernally pleasant, and always on the spot. He had a lovely varnish of culture; it was more than varnish; it was a veneer, a patina, an enamel: weather-proof stuff.
Is there much patina upon it?" he asked. She turned it over, displaying that thick green corrosion which bronze acquires only by great age. "Yes, quite a lot, dad. The raised portion at the back is pierced by a hole very much worn." "Worn by the thong by which it was attached to the girdle of successive abbots through centuries," he declared.
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