The Rainbow

Skrebensky was busy, he could not come to see her. She asked

for no assurance, no security. What was between them, was, and

could not be altered by avowals. She knew that by instinct, she

trusted to the intrinsic reality.

But she felt an agony of helplessness. She could do nothing.

Vaguely she knew the huge powers of the world rolling and

crashing together, darkly, clumsily, stupidly, yet colossal, so

that one was brushed along almost as dust. Helpless, helpless,

swirling like dust! Yet she wanted so hard to rebel, to rage, to

fight. But with what?

Could she with her hands fight the face of the earth, beat

the hills in their places? Yet her breast wanted to fight, to

fight the whole world. And these two small hands were all she

had to do it with.

The months went by, and it was Christmas--the snowdrops

came. There was a little hollow in the wood near Cossethay,

where snowdrops grew wild. She sent him some in a box, and he

wrote her a quick little note of thanks--very grateful and

wistful he seemed. Her eyes grew childlike and puzzled. Puzzled

from day to day she went on, helpless, carried along by all that

must happen.

He went about at his duties, giving himself up to them. At

the bottom of his heart his self, the soul that aspired and had

true hope of self-effectuation lay as dead, still-born, a dead

weight in his womb. Who was he, to hold important his personal

connection? What did a man matter personally? He was just a

brick in the whole great social fabric, the nation, the modern

humanity. His personal movements were small, and entirely

subsidiary. The whole form must be ensured, not ruptured, for

any personal reason whatsoever, since no personal reason could

justify such a breaking. What did personal intimacy matter? One

had to fill one's place in the whole, the great scheme of man's

elaborate civilization, that was all. The Whole

mattered--but the unit, the person, had no importance,

except as he represented the Whole.

So Skrebensky left the girl out and went his way, serving

what he had to serve, and enduring what he had to endure,

without remark. To his own intrinsic life, he was dead. And he

could not rise again from the dead. His soul lay in the tomb.

His life lay in the established order of things. He had his five

senses too. They were to be gratified. Apart from this, he

represented the great, established, extant Idea of life, and as

this he was important and beyond question.

The good of the greatest number was all that mattered. That

which was the greatest good for them all, collectively, was the

greatest good for the individual. And so, every man must give

himself to support the state, and so labour for the greatest

good of all. One might make improvements in the state, perhaps,

but always with a view to preserving it intact.