The Rainbow

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.