The Rainbow

And he was unsatisfied, unfulfilled, he raged in torment,

wanting, wanting. It was for her to satisfy him: then let her do

it. Let her not come with flowery handfuls of innocent love. He

would throw these aside and trample the flowers to nothing. He

would destroy her flowery, innocent bliss. Was he not entitled

to satisfaction from her, and was not his heart all raging

desire, his soul a black torment of unfulfilment. Let it be

fulfilled in him, then, as it was fulfilled in her. He had given

her her fulfilment. Let her rise up and do her part.

He was cruel to her. But all the time he was ashamed. And

being ashamed, he was more cruel. For he was ashamed that he

could not come to fulfilment without her. And he could not. And

she would not heed him. He was shackled and in darkness of

torment.

She beseeched him to work again, to do his wood-carving. But

his soul was too black. He had destroyed his panel of Adam and

Eve. He could not begin again, least of all now, whilst he was

in this condition.

For her there was no final release, since he could not be

liberated from himself. Strange and amorphous, she must go

yearning on through the trouble, like a warm, glowing cloud

blown in the middle of a storm. She felt so rich, in her warm

vagueness, that her soul cried out on him, because he harried

her and wanted to destroy her.

She had her moments of exaltation still, re-births of old

exaltations. As she sat by her bedroom window, watching the

steady rain, her spirit was somewhere far off.

She sat in pride and curious pleasure. When there was no one

to exult with, and the unsatisfied soul must dance and play,

then one danced before the Unknown.

Suddenly she realized that this was what she wanted to do.

Big with child as she was, she danced there in the bedroom by

herself, lifting her hands and her body to the Unseen, to the

unseen Creator who had chosen her, to Whom she belonged.

She would not have had anyone know. She danced in secret, and

her soul rose in bliss. She danced in secret before the Creator,

she took off her clothes and danced in the pride of her

bigness.

It surprised her, when it was over. She was shrinking and

afraid. To what was she now exposed? She half wanted to tell her

husband. Yet she shrank from him.

All the time she ran on by herself. She liked the story of

David, who danced before the Lord, and uncovered himself

exultingly. Why should he uncover himself to Michal, a common

woman? He uncovered himself to the Lord.

"Thou comest to me with a sword and a spear and a shield, but

I come to thee in the name of the Lord:--for the battle is

the Lord's, and he will give you into our hands."