The Rainbow

At the end of supper, during dessert, the music began to

play, violins, and flutes. Everybody's face was lit up. A glow

of excitement prevailed. When the little speeches were over, and

the port remained unreached for any more, those who wished were

invited out to the open for coffee. The night was warm.

Bright stars were shining, the moon was not yet up. And under

the stars burned two great, red, flameless fires, and round

these lights and lanterns hung, the marquee stood open before a

fire, with its lights inside.

The young people flocked out into the mysterious night. There

was sound of laughter and voices, and a scent of coffee. The

farm-buildings loomed dark in the background. Figures, pale and

dark, flitted about, intermingling. The red fire glinted on a

white or a silken skirt, the lanterns gleamed on the transient

heads of the wedding guests.

To Ursula it was wonderful. She felt she was a new being. The

darkness seemed to breathe like the sides of some great beast,

the haystacks loomed half-revealed, a crowd of them, a dark,

fecund lair just behind. Waves of delirious darkness ran through

her soul. She wanted to let go. She wanted to reach and be

amongst the flashing stars, she wanted to race with her feet and

be beyond the confines of this earth. She was mad to be gone. It

was as if a hound were straining on the leash, ready to hurl

itself after a nameless quarry into the dark. And she was the

quarry, and she was also the hound. The darkness was passionate

and breathing with immense, unperceived heaving. It was waiting

to receive her in her flight. And how could she start--and

how could she let go? She must leap from the known into the

unknown. Her feet and hands beat like a madness, her breast

strained as if in bonds.

The music began, and the bonds began to slip. Tom Brangwen

was dancing with the bride, quick and fluid and as if in another

element, inaccessible as the creatures that move in the water.

Fred Brangwen went in with another partner. The music came in

waves. One couple after another was washed and absorbed into the

deep underwater of the dance.

"Come," said Ursula to Skrebensky, laying her hand on his

arm.

At the touch of her hand on his arm, his consciousness melted

away from him. He took her into his arms, as if into the sure,

subtle power of his will, and they became one movement, one dual

movement, dancing on the slippery grass. It would be endless,

this movement, it would continue for ever. It was his will and

her will locked in a trance of motion, two wills locked in one

motion, yet never fusing, never yielding one to the other. It

was a glaucous, intertwining, delicious flux and contest in

flux.