The Rainbow

They went home through the night that was all pale and

glowing around, with shadows and glimmerings and presences.

Distinctly, she saw the flowers in the hedge-bottoms, she saw

the thin, raked sheaves flung white upon the thorny hedge.

How beautiful, how beautiful it was! She thought with anguish

how wildly happy she was to-night, since he had kissed her. But

as he walked with his arm round her waist, she turned with a

great offering of herself to the night that glistened

tremendous, a magnificent godly moon white and candid as a

bridegroom, flowers silvery and transformed filling up the

shadows.

He kissed her again, under the yew trees at home, and she

left him. She ran from the intrusion of her parents at home, to

her bedroom, where, looking out on the moonlit country, she

stretched up her arms, hard, hard, in bliss, agony offering

herself to the blond, debonair presence of the night.

But there was a wound of sorrow, she had hurt herself, as if

she had bruised herself, in annihilating him. She covered up her

two young breasts with her hands, covering them to herself; and

covering herself with herself, she crouched in bed, to

sleep.

In the morning the sun shone, she got up strong and dancing.

Skrebensky was still at the Marsh. He was coming to church. How

lovely, how amazing life was! On the fresh Sunday morning she

went out to the garden, among the yellows and the deep-vibrating

reds of autumn, she smelled the earth and felt the gossamer, the

cornfields across the country were pale and unreal, everywhere

was the intense silence of the Sunday morning, filled with

unacquainted noises. She smelled the body of the earth, it

seemed to stir its powerful flank beneath her as she stood. In

the bluish air came the powerful exudation, the peace was the

peace of strong, exhausted breathing, the reds and yellows and

the white gleam of stubble were the quivers and motion of the

last subsiding transports and clear bliss of fulfilment.

The church-bells were ringing when he came. She looked up in

keen anticipation at his entry. But he was troubled and his

pride was hurt. He seemed very much clothed, she was conscious

of his tailored suit.

"Wasn't it lovely last night?" she whispered to him.

"Yes," he said. But his face did not open nor become

free.

The service and the singing in church that morning passed

unnoticed by her. She saw the coloured glow of the windows, the

forms of the worshippers. Only she glanced at the book of

Genesis, which was her favourite book in the Bible.

"And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be

fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.

"And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every

beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all

that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes in the sea;

into your hand are they delivered.