The Rainbow

They went towards the stackyard. There he saw, with something

like terror, the great new stacks of corn glistening and

gleaming transfigured, silvery and present under the night-blue

sky, throwing dark, substantial shadows, but themselves majestic

and dimly present. She, like glimmering gossamer, seemed to burn

among them, as they rose like cold fires to the silvery-bluish

air. All was intangible, a burning of cold, glimmering,

whitish-steely fires. He was afraid of the great

moon-conflagration of the cornstacks rising above him. His heart

grew smaller, it began to fuse like a bead. He knew he would

die.

She stood for some moments out in the overwhelming luminosity

of the moon. She seemed a beam of gleaming power. She was afraid

of what she was. Looking at him, at his shadowy, unreal,

wavering presence a sudden lust seized her, to lay hold of him

and tear him and make him into nothing. Her hands and wrists

felt immeasurably hard and strong, like blades. He waited there

beside her like a shadow which she wanted to dissipate, destroy

as the moonlight destroys a darkness, annihilate, have done

with. She looked at him and her face gleamed bright and

inspired. She tempted him.

And an obstinacy in him made him put his arm round her and

draw her to the shadow. She submitted: let him try what he could

do. Let him try what he could do. He leaned against the side of

the stack, holding her. The stack stung him keenly with a

thousand cold, sharp flames. Still obstinately he held her.

And timorously, his hands went over her, over the salt,

compact brilliance of her body. If he could but have her, how he

would enjoy her! If he could but net her brilliant, cold,

salt-burning body in the soft iron of his own hands, net her,

capture her, hold her down, how madly he would enjoy her. He

strove subtly, but with all his energy, to enclose her, to have

her. And always she was burning and brilliant and hard as salt,

and deadly. Yet obstinately, all his flesh burning and

corroding, as if he were invaded by some consuming, scathing

poison, still he persisted, thinking at last he might overcome

her. Even, in his frenzy, he sought for her mouth with his

mouth, though it was like putting his face into some awful

death. She yielded to him, and he pressed himself upon her in

extremity, his soul groaning over and over: "Let me come--let me come."

She took him in the kiss, hard her kiss seized upon him, hard

and fierce and burning corrosive as the moonlight. She seemed to

be destroying him. He was reeling, summoning all his strength to

keep his kiss upon her, to keep himself in the kiss.

But hard and fierce she had fastened upon him, cold as the

moon and burning as a fierce salt. Till gradually his warm, soft

iron yielded, yielded, and she was there fierce, corrosive,

seething with his destruction, seething like some cruel,

corrosive salt around the last substance of his being,

destroying him, destroying him in the kiss. And her soul

crystallized with triumph, and his soul was dissolved with agony

and annihilation. So she held him there, the victim, consumed,

annihilated. She had triumphed: he was not any more.