The Rainbow

Ursula stood and listened, her heart hard and cold. She was

so much upset, that she felt almost mad. Something in her

tempted her to turn on the headmaster and tell him to stop,

about the miserable pens. But she did not. She could not.

After every session, morning and evening, she had the pens

counted. Still they were missing. And pencils and india-rubbers

disappeared. She kept the class staying behind, till the things

were found. But as soon as Mr. Harby had gone out of the room,

the boys began to jump about and shout, and at last they bolted

in a body from the school.

This was drawing near a crisis. She could not tell Mr. Harby

because, while he would punish the class, he would make her the

cause of the punishment, and her class would pay her back with

disobedience and derision. Already there was a deadly hostility

grown up between her and the children. After keeping in the

class, at evening, to finish some work, she would find boys

dodging behind her, calling after her: "Brangwen,

Brangwen--Proud-acre."

When she went into Ilkeston of a Saturday morning with

Gudrun, she heard again the voices yelling after her: "Brangwen, Brangwen."

She pretended to take no notice, but she coloured with shame

at being held up to derision in the public street. She, Ursula

Brangwen of Cossethay, could not escape from the Standard Five

teacher which she was. In vain she went out to buy ribbon for

her hat. They called after her, the boys she tried to teach.

And one evening, as she went from the edge of the town into

the country, stones came flying at her. Then the passion of

shame and anger surpassed her. She walked on unheeding, beside

herself. Because of the darkness she could not see who were

those that threw. But she did not want to know.

Only in her soul a change took place. Never more, and never

more would she give herself as individual to her class. Never

would she, Ursula Brangwen, the girl she was, the person she

was, come into contact with those boys. She would be Standard

Five teacher, as far away personally from her class as if she

had never set foot in St. Philip's school. She would just

obliterate them all, and keep herself apart, take them as

scholars only.

So her face grew more and more shut, and over her flayed,

exposed soul of a young girl who had gone open and warm to give

herself to the children, there set a hard, insentient thing,

that worked mechanically according to a system imposed.

It seemed she scarcely saw her class the next day. She could

only feel her will, and what she would have of this class which

she must grasp into subjection. It was no good, any more, to

appeal, to play upon the better feelings of the class. Her

swift-working soul realized this.