The Rainbow

The examination came, and then school was over. It was the

long vacation. Winifred Inger went away to London. Ursula was

left alone in Cossethay. A terrible, outcast, almost poisonous

despair possessed her. It was no use doing anything, or being

anything. She had no connection with other people. Her lot was

isolated and deadly. There was nothing for her anywhere, but

this black disintegration. Yet, within all the great attack of

disintegration upon her, she remained herself. It was the

terrible core of all her suffering, that she was always herself.

Never could she escape that: she could not put off being

herself.

She still adhered to Winifred Inger. But a sort of nausea was

coming over her. She loved her mistress. But a heavy, clogged

sense of deadness began to gather upon her, from the other

woman's contact. And sometimes she thought Winifred was ugly,

clayey. Her female hips seemed big and earthy, her ankles and

her arms were too thick. She wanted some fine intensity, instead

of this heavy cleaving of moist clay, that cleaves because it

has no life of its own.

Winifred still loved Ursula. She had a passion for the fine

flame of the girl, she served her endlessly, would have done

anything for her.

"Come with me to London," she pleaded to the girl. "I will

make it nice for you,--you shall do lots of things you will

enjoy."

"No," said Ursula, stubbornly and dully. "No, I don't want to

go to London, I want to be by myself."

Winifred knew what this meant. She knew that Ursula was

beginning to reject her. The fine, unquenchable flame of the

younger girl would consent no more to mingle with the perverted

life of the elder woman. Winifred knew it would come. But she

too was proud. At the bottom of her was a black pit of despair.

She knew perfectly well that Ursula would cast her off.

And that seemed like the end of her life. But she was too

hopeless to rage. Wisely, economizing what was left of Ursula's

love, she went away to London, leaving the beloved girl

alone.

And after a fortnight, Ursula's letters became tender again,

loving. Her Uncle Tom had invited her to go and stay with him.

He was managing a big, new colliery in Yorkshire. Would Winifred

come too?

For now Ursula was imagining marriage for Winifred. She

wanted her to marry her Uncle Tom. Winifred knew this. She said

she would come to Wiggiston. She would now let fate do as it

liked with her, since there was nothing remaining to be done.

Tom Brangwen also saw Ursula's intention. He too was at the end

of his desires. He had done the things he had wanted to. They

had all ended in a disintegrated lifelessness of soul, which he

hid under an utterly tolerant good-humour. He no longer cared

about anything on earth, neither man nor woman, nor God nor

humanity. He had come to a stability of nullification. He did

not care any more, neither about his body nor about his soul.

Only he would preserve intact his own life. Only the simple,

superficial fact of living persisted. He was still healthy. He

lived. Therefore he would fill each moment. That had always been

his creed. It was not instinctive easiness: it was the

inevitable outcome of his nature. When he was in the absolute

privacy of his own life, he did as he pleased, unscrupulous,

without any ulterior thought. He believed neither in good nor

evil. Each moment was like a separate little island, isolated

from time, and blank, unconditioned by time.