The Rainbow

She was joyfully active. Nothing pleased her more than to

hang out the washing in a high wind that came full-butt over the

round of the hill, tearing the wet garments out of her hands,

making flap-flap-flap of the waving stuff. She laughed and

struggled and grew angry. But she loved her solitary days.

Then he came home at night, and she knitted her brows because

of some endless contest between them. As he stood in the doorway

her heart changed. It steeled itself. The laughter and zest of

the day disappeared from her. She was stiffened.

They fought an unknown battle, unconsciously. Still they were

in love with each other, the passion was there. But the passion

was consumed in a battle. And the deep, fierce unnamed battle

went on. Everything glowed intensely about them, the world had

put off its clothes and was awful, with new, primal

nakedness.

Sunday came when the strange spell was cast over her by him.

Half she loved it. She was becoming more like him. All the

week-days, there was a glint of sky and fields, the little

church seemed to babble away to the cottages the morning

through. But on Sundays, when he stayed at home, a

deeply-coloured, intense gloom seemed to gather on the face of

the earth, the church seemed to fill itself with shadow, to

become big, a universe to her, there was a burning of blue and

ruby, a sound of worship about her. And when the doors were

opened, and she came out into the world, it was a world

new--created, she stepped into the resurrection of the

world, her heart beating to the memory of the darkness and the

Passion.

If, as very often, they went to the Marsh for tea on Sundays,

then she regained another, lighter world, that had never known

the gloom and the stained glass and the ecstasy of chanting. Her

husband was obliterated, she was with her father again, who was

so fresh and free and all daylight. Her husband, with his

intensity and his darkness, was obliterated. She left him, she

forgot him, she accepted her father.

Yet, as she went home again with the young man, she put her

hand on his arm tentatively, a little bit ashamed, her hand

pleaded that he would not hold it against her, her recusancy.

But he was obscured. He seemed to become blind, as if he were

not there with her.

Then she was afraid. She wanted him. When he was oblivious of

her, she almost went mad with fear. For she had become so

vulnerable, so exposed. She was in touch so intimately. All

things about her had become intimate, she had known them near

and lovely, like presences hovering upon her. What if they

should all go hard and separate again, standing back from her

terrible and distinct, and she, having known them, should be at

their mercy?