The Rainbow

Her heart rang to the words. She walked in her pride. And her

battle was her own Lord's, her husband was delivered over.

In these days she was oblivious of him. Who was he, to come

against her? No, he was not even the Philistine, the Giant. He

was like Saul proclaiming his own kingship. She laughed in her

heart. Who was he, proclaiming his kingship? She laughed in her

heart with pride.

And she had to dance in exultation beyond him. Because he was

in the house, she had to dance before her Creator in exemption

from the man. On a Saturday afternoon, when she had a fire in

the bedroom, again she took off her things and danced, lifting

her knees and her hands in a slow, rhythmic exulting. He was in

the house, so her pride was fiercer. She would dance his

nullification, she would dance to her unseen Lord. She was

exalted over him, before the Lord.

She heard him coming up the stairs, and she flinched. She

stood with the firelight on her ankles and feet, naked in the

shadowy, late afternoon, fastening up her hair. He was startled.

He stood in the doorway, his brows black and lowering.

"What are you doing?" he said, gratingly. "You'll catch a

cold."

And she lifted her hands and danced again, to annul him, the

light glanced on her knees as she made her slow, fine movements

down the far side of the room, across the firelight. He stood

away near the door in blackness of shadow, watching, transfixed.

And with slow, heavy movements she swayed backwards and

forwards, like a full ear of corn, pale in the dusky afternoon,

threading before the firelight, dancing his non-existence,

dancing herself to the Lord, to exultation.

He watched, and his soul burned in him. He turned aside, he

could not look, it hurt his eyes. Her fine limbs lifted and

lifted, her hair was sticking out all fierce, and her belly,

big, strange, terrifying, uplifted to the Lord. Her face was

rapt and beautiful, she danced exulting before her Lord, and

knew no man.

It hurt him as he watched as if he were at the stake. He felt

he was being burned alive. The strangeness, the power of her in

her dancing consumed him, he was burned, he could not grasp, he

could not understand. He waited obliterated. Then his eyes

became blind to her, he saw her no more. And through the

unseeing veil between them he called to her, in his jarring

voice: "What are you doing that for?"

"Go away," she said. "Let me dance by myself."

"That isn't dancing," he said harshly. "What do you want to

do that for?"

"I don't do it for you," she said. "You go away."

Her strange, lifted belly, big with his child! Had he no

right to be there? He felt his presence a violation. Yet he had

his right to be there. He went and sat on the bed.