The Rainbow

He did not count the days. But like a man who journeys in a

ship, he was suspended till the coming to port.

He worked at his carving, he worked in his office, he came to

see her; all was but a form of waiting, without thought or

question.

She was much more alive. She wanted to enjoy courtship. He

seemed to come and go like the wind, without asking why or

whither. But she wanted to enjoy his presence. For her, he was

the kernel of life, to touch him alone was bliss. But for him,

she was the essence of life. She existed as much when he was at

his carving in his lodging in Ilkeston, as when she sat looking

at him in the Marsh kitchen. In himself, he knew her. But his

outward faculties seemed suspended. He did not see her with his

eyes, nor hear her with his voice.

And yet he trembled, sometimes into a kind of swoon, holding

her in his arms. They would stand sometimes folded together in

the barn, in silence. Then to her, as she felt his young, tense

figure with her hands, the bliss was intolerable, intolerable

the sense that she possessed him. For his body was so keen and

wonderful, it was the only reality in her world. In her world,

there was this one tense, vivid body of a man, and then many

other shadowy men, all unreal. In him, she touched the centre of

reality. And they were together, he and she, at the heart of the

secret. How she clutched him to her, his body the central body

of all life. Out of the rock of his form the very fountain of

life flowed.

But to him, she was a flame that consumed him. The flame

flowed up his limbs, flowed through him, till he was consumed,

till he existed only as an unconscious, dark transit of flame,

deriving from her.

Sometimes, in the darkness, a cow coughed. There was, in the

darkness, a slow sound of cud chewing. And it all seemed to flow

round them and upon them as the hot blood flows through the

womb, laving the unborn young.

Sometimes, when it was cold, they stood to be lovers in the

stables, where the air was warm and sharp with ammonia. And

during these dark vigils, he learned to know her, her body

against his, they drew nearer and nearer together, the kisses

came more subtly close and fitting. So when in the thick

darkness a horse suddenly scrambled to its feet, with a dull,

thunderous sound, they listened as one person listening, they

knew as one person, they were conscious of the horse.

Tom Brangwen had taken them a cottage at Cossethay, on a

twenty-one years' lease. Will Brangwen's eyes lit up as he saw

it. It was the cottage next the church, with dark yew-trees,

very black old trees, along the side of the house and the grassy

front garden; a red, squarish cottage with a low slate roof, and

low windows. It had a long dairy-scullery, a big flagged

kitchen, and a low parlour, that went up one step from the

kitchen. There were whitewashed beams across the ceilings, and

odd corners with cupboards. Looking out through the windows,

there was the grassy garden, the procession of black yew trees

down one side, and along the other sides, a red wall with ivy

separating the place from the high-road and the churchyard. The

old, little church, with its small spire on a square tower,

seemed to be looking back at the cottage windows.