The Rainbow

She could neither wake nor sleep. As if crushed between the

past and the future, like a flower that comes above-ground to

find a great stone lying above it, she was helpless.

The bewilderment and helplessness continued, she was

surrounded by great moving masses that must crush her. And there

was no escape. Save in the old obliviousness, the cold darkness

she strove to retain. But the vicar showed her eggs in the

thrush's nest near the back door. She saw herself the

mother-thrush upon the nest, and the way her wings were spread,

so eager down upon her secret. The tense, eager, nesting wings

moved her beyond endurance. She thought of them in the morning,

when she heard the thrush whistling as he got up, and she

thought, "Why didn't I die out there, why am I brought

here?"

She was aware of people who passed around her, not as

persons, but as looming presences. It was very difficult for her

to adjust herself. In Poland, the peasantry, the people, had

been cattle to her, they had been her cattle that she owned and

used. What were these people? Now she was coming awake, she was

lost.

But she had felt Brangwen go by almost as if he had brushed

her. She had tingled in body as she had gone on up the road.

After she had been with him in the Marsh kitchen, the voice of

her body had risen strong and insistent. Soon, she wanted him.

He was the man who had come nearest to her for her

awakening.

Always, however, between-whiles she lapsed into the old

unconsciousness, indifference and there was a will in her to

save herself from living any more. But she would wake in the

morning one day and feel her blood running, feel herself lying

open like a flower unsheathed in the sun, insistent and potent

with demand.

She got to know him better, and her instinct fixed on

him--just on him. Her impulse was strong against him,

because he was not of her own sort. But one blind instinct led

her, to take him, to leave him, and then to relinquish herself

to him. It would be safety. She felt the rooted safety of him,

and the life in him. Also he was young and very fresh. The blue,

steady livingness of his eyes she enjoyed like morning. He was

very young.

Then she lapsed again to stupor and indifference. This,

however, was bound to pass. The warmth flowed through her, she

felt herself opening, unfolding, asking, as a flower opens in

full request under the sun, as the beaks of tiny birds open

flat, to receive, to receive. And unfolded she turned to him,

straight to him. And he came, slowly, afraid, held back by

uncouth fear, and driven by a desire bigger than himself.