AtD 252 Spoiler (?)

[Dave Monroe]

   "Renata was gazing at him thoughtfully from huge
eyes of a curious verdigrised bronze color." (AtD, Pt.
I, p. 252)

Main Entry: ver·di·gris
Pronunciation: 'v&r-d&-"grEs, -"gris, -gr&s also -"grE
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English vertegrese, from
Anglo-French verdegrece, vert de Grece, literally,
green of Greece
1 a : a green or greenish-blue poisonous pigment
resulting from the action of acetic acid on copper and
consisting of one or more basic copper acetates b :
normal copper acetate Cu(C2H3O2)2·H2O
2 : a green or bluish deposit especially of copper
carbonates formed on copper, brass, or bronze surfaces

http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=verdigris

Cf., albeit inVERTedly (no puns where none intended,
to paraphrase Samuel Beckett) ...

"As the distance between them gradually diminished
Mondaugen saw that her left eye was artificial: she,
noticing, his curiosity, obligingly removed the eye
and held it out to him in the hollow of her hand.  A
bubble blown translucent, its 'white' would show up
when in the socket as a half-lit sea green.  A fine
network of nearly microscopic fractures covered its
surface.  Inside were the delicately-wrought wheels,
springs, ratchets of a watch, wound by a gold key
which Fraulein Meroving wore on a slender chain round
her neck.  Darker green and flecks of gold had been
fused into twelve vaguely zodiacal shapes, placed
annular on the surface of the bubble to represent the
iris and also the face of the watch."  (V., Ch. 9,
Sec. ii, p. 237)

>From Mario Praz, The Romantic Agony (2nd ed., trans.
Angus Davidson, New York: Oxford UP, 1951 [1933]),
Appendix I, "Swinburne and 'Le Vice Anglais,'" pp.
415-33 ...

"The mixture of flowers and instruments of torture is
to be found also in O. Mirbeau's Jardin des supplices
(written in 1898-9); but in this the English sadist is
a woman instead of a man, a woman with eyes 'verts,
pailletes d'or', like here 'diabolical' sister
described by Barbey d'Aurevilly in the Dessous de
cartes, the Comtesse de Stasseville ('ces deux
emeraudes, striees de jaune ...').  Eyes of this type
seem to be a regular characteristic of the sadists in
the works we are discussing...." (425)

I.e., "green, sequined with gold" and "two emeralds,
streaked with yellow."  Further, exhaustive examples,
discussion nigh unto ad nauseam @, e.g., ...

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0104&msg=54593

"The woman's eyes are green ('les deux etoiles vertes
de ses regards'), as is usual in such cases (the eyes
of sadistic characters in popular Romantic literature
are, as a rule, green)...." (Praz, p. 313)

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