The Rainbow

This frightened her. Always, her husband was to her the

unknown to which she was delivered up. She was a flower that has

been tempted forth into blossom, and has no retreat. He had her

nakedness in his power. And who was he, what was he? A blind

thing, a dark force, without knowledge. She wanted to preserve

herself.

Then she gathered him to herself again and was satisfied for

a moment. But as time went on, she began to realize more and

more that he did not alter, that he was something dark, alien to

herself. She had thought him just the bright reflex of herself.

As the weeks and months went by she realized that he was a dark

opposite to her, that they were opposites, not complements.

He did not alter, he remained separately himself, and he

seemed to expect her to be part of himself, the extension of his

will. She felt him trying to gain power over her, without

knowing her. What did he want? Was he going to bully her?

What did she want herself? She answered herself, that she

wanted to be happy, to be natural, like the sunlight and the

busy daytime. And, at the bottom of her soul, she felt he wanted

her to be dark, unnatural. Sometimes, when he seemed like the

darkness covering and smothering her, she revolted almost in

horror, and struck at him. She struck at him, and made him

bleed, and he became wicked. Because she dreaded him and held

him in horror, he became wicked, he wanted to destroy. And then

the fight between them was cruel.

She began to tremble. He wanted to impose himself on her. And

he began to shudder. She wanted to desert him, to leave him a

prey to the open, with the unclean dogs of the darkness setting

on to devour him. He must beat her, and make her stay with him.

Whereas she fought to keep herself free of him.

They went their ways now shadowed and stained with blood,

feeling the world far off, unable to give help. Till she began

to get tired. After a certain point, she became impassive,

detached utterly from him. He was always ready to burst out

murderously against her. Her soul got up and left him, she went

her way. Nevertheless in her apparent blitheness, that made his

soul black with opposition, she trembled as if she bled.

And ever and again, the pure love came in sunbeams between

them, when she was like a flower in the sun to him, so

beautiful, so shining, so intensely dear that he could scarcely

bear it. Then as if his soul had six wings of bliss he stood

absorbed in praise, feeling the radiance from the Almighty beat

through him like a pulse, as he stood in the upright flame of

praise, transmitting the pulse of Creation.