The Rainbow

She did not change. Unheeding, uncaring, she stood on the

sofa, standing back, alone, her hands shut and half lifted, her

face, all tears, raised and blind. And through the sobbing and

choking came the broken: "I--want--my--mother."

"Do you want a drink?" he said again.

There was no answer. He lifted the stiff, denying body

between his hands. Its stiff blindness made a flash of rage go

through him. He would like to break it.

He set the child on his knee, and sat again in his chair

beside the fire, the wet, sobbing, inarticulate noise going on

near his ear, the child sitting stiff, not yielding to him or

anything, not aware.

A new degree of anger came over him. What did it all matter?

What did it matter if the mother talked Polish and cried in

labour, if this child were stiff with resistance, and crying?

Why take it to heart? Let the mother cry in labour, let the

child cry in resistance, since they would do so. Why should he

fight against it, why resist? Let it be, if it were so. Let them

be as they were, if they insisted.

And in a daze he sat, offering no fight. The child cried on,

the minutes ticked away, a sort of torpor was on him.

It was some little time before he came to, and turned to

attend to the child. He was shocked by her little wet, blinded

face. A bit dazed, he pushed back the wet hair. Like a living

statue of grief, her blind face cried on.

"Nay," he said, "not as bad as that. It's not as bad as that,

Anna, my child. Come, what are you crying for so much? Come,

stop now, it'll make you sick. I wipe you dry, don't wet your

face any more. Don't cry any more wet tears, don't, it's better

not to. Don't cry--it's not so bad as all that. Hush now,

hush--let it be enough."

His voice was queer and distant and calm. He looked at the

child. She was beside herself now. He wanted her to stop, he

wanted it all to stop, to become natural.

"Come," he said, rising to turn away, "we'll go an' supper-up

the beast."

He took a big shawl, folded her round, and went out into the

kitchen for a lantern.

"You're never taking the child out, of a night like this,"

said Tilly.

"Ay, it'll quieten her," he answered.

It was raining. The child was suddenly still, shocked,

finding the rain on its face, the darkness.

"We'll just give the cows their something-to-eat, afore they

go to bed," Brangwen was saying to her, holding her close and

sure.

There was a trickling of water into the butt, a burst of

rain-drops sputtering on to her shawl, and the light of the

lantern swinging, flashing on a wet pavement and the base of a

wet wall. Otherwise it was black darkness: one breathed

darkness.