The Rainbow

Why was she the all, the everything, why must he live only

through her, why must he sink if he were detached from her? Why

must he cleave to her in a frenzy as for his very life?

The only other way to leave her was to die. The only straight

way to leave her was to die. His dark, raging soul knew that.

But he had no desire for death.

Why could he not leave her? Why could he not throw himself

into the hidden water to live or die, as might be? He could not,

he could not. But supposing he went away, right away, and found

work, and had a lodging again. He could be again as he had been

before.

But he knew he could not. A woman, he must have a woman. And

having a woman, he must be free of her. It would be the same

position. For he could not be free of her.

For how can a man stand, unless he have something sure under

his feet. Can a man tread the unstable water all his life, and

call that standing? Better give in and drown at once.

And upon what could he stand, save upon a woman? Was he then

like the old man of the seas, impotent to move save upon the

back of another life? Was he impotent, or a cripple, or a

defective, or a fragment?

It was black, mad, shameful torture, the frenzy of fear, the

frenzy of desire, and the horrible, grasping back-wash of

shame.

What was he afraid of? Why did life, without Anna, seem to

him just a horrible welter, everything jostling in a

meaningless, dark, fathomless flood? Why, if Anna left him even

for a week, did he seem to be clinging like a madman to the edge

of reality, and slipping surely, surely into the flood of

unreality that would drown him. This horrible slipping into

unreality drove him mad, his soul screamed with fear and

agony.

Yet she was pushing him off from her, pushing him away,

breaking his fingers from their hold on her, persistently,

ruthlessly. He wanted her to have pity. And sometimes for a

moment she had pity. But she always began again, thrusting him

off, into the deep water, into the frenzy and agony of

uncertainty.

She became like a fury to him, without any sense of him. Her

eyes were bright with a cold, unmoving hatred. Then his heart

seemed to die in its last fear. She might push him off into the

deeps.

She would not sleep with him any more. She said he destroyed

her sleep. Up started all his frenzy and madness of fear and

suffering. She drove him away. Like a cowed, lurking devil he

was driven off, his mind working cunningly against her, devising

evil for her. But she drove him off. In his moments of intense

suffering, she seemed to him inconceivable, a monster, the

principle of cruelty.