The Rainbow

He ground his soul in uneasiness and fear. But she rose to a

real outburst of house-work, turning him away as she shoved the

furniture aside to her broom. He stood hanging miserable near.

He wanted her back. Dread, and desire for her to stay with him,

and shame at his own dependence on her drove him to anger. He

began to lose his head. The wonder was going to pass away again.

All the love, the magnificent new order was going to be lost,

she would forfeit it all for the outside things. She would admit

the outside world again, she would throw away the living fruit

for the ostensible rind. He began to hate this in her. Driven by

fear of her departure into a state of helplessness, almost of

imbecility, he wandered about the house.

And she, with her skirts kilted up, flew round at her work,

absorbed.

"Shake the rug then, if you must hang round," she said.

And fretting with resentment, he went to shake the rug. She

was blithely unconscious of him. He came back, hanging near to

her.

"Can't you do anything?" she said, as if to a child,

impatiently. "Can't you do your wood-work?"

"Where shall I do it?" he asked, harsh with pain.

"Anywhere."

How furious that made him.

"Or go for a walk," she continued. "Go down to the Marsh.

Don't hang about as if you were only half there."

He winced and hated it. He went away to read. Never had his

soul felt so flayed and uncreated.

And soon he must come down again to her. His hovering near

her, wanting her to be with him, the futility of him, the way

his hands hung, irritated her beyond bearing. She turned on him

blindly and destructively, he became a mad creature, black and

electric with fury. The dark storms rose in him, his eyes glowed

black and evil, he was fiendish in his thwarted soul.

There followed two black and ghastly days, when she was set

in anguish against him, and he felt as if he were in a black,

violent underworld, and his wrists quivered murderously. And she

resisted him. He seemed a dark, almost evil thing, pursuing her,

hanging on to her, burdening her. She would give anything to

have him removed.

"You need some work to do," she said. "You ought to be at

work. Can't you do something?"

His soul only grew the blacker. His condition now became

complete, the darkness of his soul was thorough. Everything had

gone: he remained complete in his own tense, black will. He was

now unaware of her. She did not exist. His dark, passionate soul

had recoiled upon itself, and now, clinched and coiled round a

centre of hatred, existed in its own power. There was a

curiously ugly pallor, an expressionlessness in his face. She

shuddered from him. She was afraid of him. His will seemed

grappled upon her.