To Anna, the baby was a complete bliss and fulfilment. Her
desires sank into abeyance, her soul was in bliss over the baby.
It was rather a delicate child, she had trouble to rear it. She
never for a moment thought it would die. It was a delicate
infant, therefore it behoved her to make it strong. She threw
herself into the labour, the child was everything. Her
imagination was all occupied here. She was a mother. It was
enough to handle the new little limbs, the new little body, hear
the new little voice crying in the stillness. All the future
rang to her out of the sound of the baby's crying and cooing,
she balanced the coming years of life in her hands, as she
nursed the child. The passionate sense of fulfilment, of the
future germinated in her, made her vivid and powerful. All the
future was in her hands, in the hands of the woman. And before
this baby was ten months old, she was again with child. She
seemed to be in the fecund of storm life, every moment was full
and busy with productiveness to her. She felt like the earth,
the mother of everything.
Brangwen occupied himself with the church, he played the
organ, he trained the choir-boys, he taught a Sunday-school
class of youths. He was happy enough. There was an eager,
yearning kind of happiness in him as he taught the boys on
Sundays. He was all the time exciting himself with the proximity
of some secret that he had not yet fathomed.
In the house, he served his wife and the little matriarchy.
She loved him because he was the father of her children. And she
always had a physical passion for him. So he gave up trying to
have the spiritual superiority and control, or even her respect
for his conscious or public life. He lived simply by her
physical love for him. And he served the little matriarchy,
nursing the child and helping with the housework, indifferent
any more of his own dignity and importance. But his abandoning
of claims, his living isolated upon his own interest, made him
seem unreal, unimportant.
Anna was not publicly proud of him. But very soon she learned
to be indifferent to public life. He was not what is called a
manly man: he did not drink or smoke or arrogate importance. But
he was her man, and his very indifference to all claims of
manliness set her supreme in her own world with him. Physically,
she loved him and he satisfied her. He went alone and subsidiary
always. At first it had irritated her, the outer world existed
so little to him. Looking at him with outside eyes, she was
inclined to sneer at him. But her sneer changed to a sort of
respect. She respected him, that he could serve her so simply
and completely. Above all, she loved to bear his children. She
loved to be the source of children.