The Rainbow

When she crawled out, after an hour or so, she went rather

stiffly to play. She willed to forget. She cut off her childish

soul from memory, so that the pain, and the insult should not be

real. She asserted herself only. There was not nothing in the

world but her own self. So very soon, she came to believe in the

outward malevolence that was against her. And very early, she

learned that even her adored father was part of this

malevolence. And very early she learned to harden her soul in

resistance and denial of all that was outside her, harden

herself upon her own being.

She never felt sorry for what she had done, she never forgave

those who had made her guilty. If he had said to her, "Why,

Ursula, did you trample my carefully-made bed?" that would have

hurt her to the quick, and she would have done anything for him.

But she was always tormented by the unreality of outside things.

The earth was to walk on. Why must she avoid a certain patch,

just because it was called a seed-bed? It was the earth to walk

on. This was her instinctive assumption. And when he bullied

her, she became hard, cut herself off from all connection, lived

in the little separate world of her own violent will.

As she grew older, five, six, seven, the connection between

her and her father was even stronger. Yet it was always

straining to break. She was always relapsing on her own violent

will into her own separate world of herself. This made him grind

his teeth with bitterness, for he still wanted her. But she

could harden herself into her own self's universe,

impregnable.

He was very fond of swimming, and in warm weather would take

her down to the canal, to a silent place, or to a big pond or

reservoir, to bathe. He would take her on his back as he went

swimming, and she clung close, feeling his strong movement under

her, so strong, as if it would uphold all the world. Then he

taught her to swim.

She was a fearless little thing, when he dared her. And he

had a curious craving to frighten her, to see what she would do

with him. He said, would she ride on his back whilst he jumped

off the canal bridge down into the water beneath.

She would. He loved to feel the naked child clinging on to

his shoulders. There was a curious fight between their two

wills. He mounted the parapet of the canal bridge. The water was

a long way down. But the child had a deliberate will set upon

his. She held herself fixed to him.

He leapt, and down they went. The crash of the water as they

went under struck through the child's small body, with a sort of

unconsciousness. But she remained fixed. And when they came up

again, and when they went to the bank, and when they sat on the

grass side by side, he laughed, and said it was fine. And the

dark-dilated eyes of the child looked at him wonderingly,

darkly, wondering from the shock, yet reserved and unfathomable,

so he laughed almost with a sob.