The Rainbow

And he remained wrathful and distinct from her, unchanged

outwardly to her, but underneath a solid power of antagonism to

her. Of which she became gradually aware. And it irritated her

to be made aware of him as a separate power. She lapsed into a

sort of sombre exclusion, a curious communion with mysterious

powers, a sort of mystic, dark state which drove him and the

child nearly mad. He walked about for days stiffened with

resistance to her, stiff with a will to destroy her as she was.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, there was connection between them

again. It came on him as he was working in the fields. The

tension, the bond, burst, and the passionate flood broke forward

into a tremendous, magnificent rush, so that he felt he could

snap off the trees as he passed, and create the world

afresh.

And when he arrived home, there was no sign between them. He

waited and waited till she came. And as he waited, his limbs

seemed strong and splendid to him, his hands seemed like

passionate servants to him, goodly, he felt a stupendous power

in himself, of life, and of urgent, strong blood.

She was sure to come at last, and touch him. Then he burst

into flame for her, and lost himself. They looked at each other,

a deep laugh at the bottom of their eyes, and he went to take of

her again, wholesale, mad to revel in the inexhaustible wealth

of her, to bury himself in the depths of her in an inexhaustible

exploration, she all the while revelling in that he revelled in

her, tossed all her secrets aside and plunged to that which was

secret to her as well, whilst she quivered with fear and the

last anguish of delight.

What did it matter who they were, whether they knew each

other or not?

The hour passed away again, there was severance between them,

and rage and misery and bereavement for her, and deposition and

toiling at the mill with slaves for him. But no matter. They had

had their hour, and should it chime again, they were ready for

it, ready to renew the game at the point where it was left off,

on the edge of the outer darkness, when the secrets within the

woman are game for the man, hunted doggedly, when the secrets of

the woman are the man's adventure, and they both give themselves

to the adventure.

She was with child, and there was again the silence and

distance between them. She did not want him nor his secrets nor

his game, he was deposed, he was cast out. He seethed with fury

at the small, ugly-mouthed woman who had nothing to do with him.

Sometimes his anger broke on her, but she did not cry. She

turned on him like a tiger, and there was battle.