The Rainbow

He lifted his cup to his lips, he watched the child with the

beads. But his mind was occupied with owls, and the atmosphere

of his boyhood, with his brothers and sisters. Elsewhere,

fundamental, he was with his wife in labour, the child was being

brought forth out of their one flesh. He and she, one flesh, out

of which life must be put forth. The rent was not in his body,

but it was of his body. On her the blows fell, but the quiver

ran through to him, to his last fibre. She must be torn asunder

for life to come forth, yet still they were one flesh, and

still, from further back, the life came out of him to her, and

still he was the unbroken that has the broken rock in its arms,

their flesh was one rock from which the life gushed, out of her

who was smitten and rent, from him who quivered and yielded.

He went upstairs to her. As he came to the bedside she spoke

to him in Polish.

"Is it very bad?" he asked.

She looked at him, and oh, the weariness to her, of the

effort to understand another language, the weariness of hearing

him, attending to him, making out who he was, as he stood there

fair-bearded and alien, looking at her. She knew something of

him, of his eyes. But she could not grasp him. She closed her

eyes.

He turned away, white to the gills.

"It's not so very bad," said the midwife.

He knew he was a strain on his wife. He went downstairs.

The child glanced up at him, frightened.

"I want my mother," she quavered.

"Ay, but she's badly," he said mildly, unheeding.

She looked at him with lost, frightened eyes.

"Has she got a headache?"

"No--she's going to have a baby."

The child looked round. He was unaware of her. She was alone

again in terror.

"I want my mother," came the cry of panic.

"Let Tilly undress you," he said. "You're tired."

There was another silence. Again came the cry of labour.

"I want my mother," rang automatically from the wincing,

panic-stricken child, that felt cut off and lost in a horror of

desolation.

Tilly came forward, her heart wrung.

"Come an' let me undress her then, pet-lamb," she crooned.

"You s'll have your mother in th' mornin', don't you fret, my

duckie; never mind, angel."

But Anna stood upon the sofa, her back to the wall.

"I want my mother," she cried, her little face quivering, and

the great tears of childish, utter anguish falling.

"She's poorly, my lamb, she's poorly to-night, but she'll be

better by mornin'. Oh, don't cry, don't cry, love, she doesn't

want you to cry, precious little heart, no, she doesn't."