The Rainbow

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.