And she was indeed Anna Victrix. He could not combat her any
more. He was out in the wilderness, alone with her. Having
occasion to go to London, he marvelled, as he returned, thinking
of naked, lurking savages on an island, how these had built up
and created the great mass of Oxford Street or Piccadilly. How
had helpless savages, running with their spears on the
riverside, after fish, how had they come to rear up this great
London, the ponderous, massive, ugly superstructure of a world
of man upon a world of nature! It frightened and awed him. Man
was terrible, awful in his works. The works of man were more
terrible than man himself, almost monstrous.
And yet, for his own part, for his private being, Brangwen
felt that the whole of the man's world was exterior and
extraneous to his own real life with Anna. Sweep away the whole
monstrous superstructure of the world of to-day, cities and
industries and civilization, leave only the bare earth with
plants growing and waters running, and he would not mind, so
long as he were whole, had Anna and the child and the new,
strange certainty in his soul. Then, if he were naked, he would
find clothing somewhere, he would make a shelter and bring food
to his wife.
And what more? What more would be necessary? The great mass
of activity in which mankind was engaged meant nothing to him.
By nature, he had no part in it. What did he live for, then? For
Anna only, and for the sake of living? What did he want on this
earth? Anna only, and his children, and his life with his
children and her? Was there no more?
He was attended by a sense of something more, something
further, which gave him absolute being. It was as if now he
existed in Eternity, let Time be what it might. What was there
outside? The fabricated world, that he did not believe in? What
should he bring to her, from outside? Nothing? Was it enough, as
it was? He was troubled in his acquiescence. She was not with
him. Yet he scarcely believed in himself, apart from her, though
the whole Infinite was with him. Let the whole world slide down
and over the edge of oblivion, he would stand alone. But he was
unsure of her. And he existed also in her. So he was unsure.
He hovered near to her, never quite able to forget the vague,
haunting uncertainty, that seemed to challenge him, and which he
would not hear. A pang of dread, almost guilt, as of
insufficiency, would go over him as he heard her talking to the
baby. She stood before the window, with the month-old child in
her arms, talking in a musical, young sing-song that he had not
heard before, and which rang on his heart like a claim from the
distance, or the voice of another world sounding its claim on
him. He stood near, listening, and his heart surged, surged to
rise and submit. Then it shrank back and stayed aloof. He could
not move, a denial was upon him, as if he could not deny
himself. He must, he must be himself.