The Rainbow

She became aware that he was trying to force his will upon

her, something, there was something he wanted, as he lay there

dark and tense. And her soul sighed in weariness.

Everything was so vague and lovely, and he wanted to wake her

up to the hard, hostile reality. She drew back in resistance.

Still he said nothing. But she felt his power persisting on her,

till she became aware of the strain, she cried out against the

exhaustion. He was forcing her, he was forcing her. And she

wanted so much the joy and the vagueness and the innocence of

her pregnancy. She did not want his bitter-corrosive love, she

did not want it poured into her, to burn her. Why must she have

it? Why, oh, why was he not content, contained?

She sat many hours by the window, in those days when he drove

her most with the black constraint of his will, and she watched

the rain falling on the yew trees. She was not sad, only

wistful, blanched. The child under her heart was a perpetual

warmth. And she was sure. The pressure was only upon her from

the outside, her soul had no stripes.

Yet in her heart itself was always this same strain, tense,

anxious. She was not safe, she was always exposed, she was

always attacked. There was a yearning in her for a fulness of

peace and blessedness. What a heavy yearning it was--so

heavy.

She knew, vaguely, that all the time he was not satisfied,

all the time he was trying to force something from her. Ah, how

she wished she could succeed with him, in her own way! He was

there, so inevitable. She lived in him also. And how she wanted

to be at peace with him, at peace. She loved him. She would give

him love, pure love. With a strange, rapt look in her face, she

awaited his homecoming that night.

Then, when he came, she rose with her hands full of love, as

of flowers, radiant, innocent. A dark spasm crossed his face. As

she watched, her face shining and flower-like with innocent

love, his face grew dark and tense, the cruelty gathered in his

brows, his eyes turned aside, she saw the whites of his eyes as

he looked aside from her. She waited, touching him with her

hands. But from his body through her hands came the

bitter-corrosive shock of his passion upon her, destroying her

in blossom. She shrank. She rose from her knees and went away

from him, to preserve herself. And it was great pain to her.

To him also it was agony. He saw the glistening, flower-like

love in her face, and his heart was black because he did not

want it. Not this--not this. He did not want flowery

innocence. He was unsatisfied. The rage and storm of

unsatisfaction tormented him ceaselessly. Why had she not

satisfied him? He had satisfied her. She was satisfied, at

peace, innocent round the doors of her own paradise.