The Rainbow

There was a moment of confusion, then the father bent over

his child: "What do you say?" he said. "Do you say thank you? Do you say

thank you, Ursula?"

"Her name's Ursula now," said the mother, smiling a

little bit ingratiatingly from the door. And she came out to

examine the jewel on the child's neck.

"It is Ursula, isn't it?" said Ursula Brangwen.

The father looked up at her, with an intimate, half-gallant,

half-impudent, but wistful look. His captive soul loved her: but

his soul was captive, he knew, always.

She wanted to go. He set a little ladder for her to climb up

to the wharf. She kissed the child, which was in its mother's

arms, then she turned away. The mother was effusive. The man

stood silent by the ladder.

Ursula joined Skrebensky. The two young figures crossed the

lock, above the shining yellow water. The barge-man watched them

go.

"I loved them," she was saying. "He was so

gentle--oh, so gentle! And the baby was such a dear!"

"Was he gentle?" said Skrebensky. "The woman had been a

servant, I'm sure of that."

Ursula winced.

"But I loved his impudence--it was so gentle

underneath."

She went hastening on, gladdened by having met the grimy,

lean man with the ragged moustache. He gave her a pleasant warm

feeling. He made her feel the richness of her own life.

Skrebensky, somehow, had created a deadness round her, a

sterility, as if the world were ashes.

They said very little as they hastened home to the big

supper. He was envying the lean father of three children, for

his impudent directness and his worship of the woman in Ursula,

a worship of body and soul together, the man's body and soul

wistful and worshipping the body and spirit of the girl, with a

desire that knew the inaccessibility of its object, but was only

glad to know that the perfect thing existed, glad to have had a

moment of communion.

Why could not he himself desire a woman so? Why did he never

really want a woman, not with the whole of him: never loved,

never worshipped, only just physically wanted her.

But he would want her with his body, let his soul do as it

would. A kind of flame of physical desire was gradually beating

up in the Marsh, kindled by Tom Brangwen, and by the fact of the

wedding of Fred, the shy, fair, stiff-set farmer with the

handsome, half-educated girl. Tom Brangwen, with all his secret

power, seemed to fan the flame that was rising. The bride was

strongly attracted by him, and he was exerting his influence on

another beautiful, fair girl, chill and burning as the sea, who

said witty things which he appreciated, making her glint with

more, like phosphorescence. And her greenish eyes seemed to rock

a secret, and her hands like mother-of-pearl seemed luminous,

transparent, as if the secret were burning visible in them.