The Rainbow

And when he came home at night, his heart relenting and

growing hot for love of her, when he was just ready to feel he

had been wrong, and when he was expecting her to feel the same,

there she sat at the sewing-machine, the whole house was covered

with clipped calico, the kettle was not even on the fire.

She started up, affecting concern.

"Is it so late?" she cried.

But his face had gone stiff with rage. He walked through to

the parlour, then he walked back and out of the house again. Her

heart sank. Very swiftly she began to make his tea.

He went black-hearted down the road to Ilkeston. When he was

in this state he never thought. A bolt shot across the doors of

his mind and shut him in, a prisoner. He went back to Ilkeston,

and drank a glass of beer. What was he going to do? He did not

want to see anybody.

He would go to Nottingham, to his own town. He went to the

station and took a train. When he got to Nottingham, still he

had nowhere to go. However, it was more agreeable to walk

familiar streets. He paced them with a mad restlessness, as if

he were running amok. Then he turned to a book-shop and found a

book on Bamberg Cathedral. Here was a discovery! here was

something for him! He went into a quiet restaurant to look at

his treasure. He lit up with thrills of bliss as he turned from

picture to picture. He had found something at last, in these

carvings. His soul had great satisfaction. Had he not come out

to seek, and had he not found! He was in a passion of

fulfilment. These were the finest carvings, statues, he had ever

seen. The book lay in his hands like a doorway. The world around

was only an enclosure, a room. But he was going away. He

lingered over the lovely statues of women. A marvellous,

finely-wrought universe crystallized out around him as he looked

again, at the crowns, the twining hair, the woman-faces. He

liked all the better the unintelligible text of the German. He

preferred things he could not understand with the mind. He loved

the undiscovered and the undiscoverable. He pored over the

pictures intensely. And these were wooden statues,

"Holz"--he believed that meant wood. Wooden statues so

shapen to his soul! He was a million times gladdened. How

undiscovered the world was, how it revealed itself to his soul!

What a fine, exciting thing his life was, at his hand! Did not

Bamberg Cathedral make the world his own? He celebrated his

triumphant strength and life and verity, and embraced the vast

riches he was inheriting.

But it was about time to go home. He had better catch a

train. All the time there was a steady bruise at the bottom of

his soul, but so steady as to be forgettable. He caught a train

for Ilkeston.