The Rainbow

She crept to bed, and cried. But she was going to be married

to Will Brangwen, and then she need not bother any more.

Brangwen went to bed with a hard, cold heart, and cursed

himself. He looked at his wife. She was still his wife. Her dark

hair was threaded with grey, her face was beautiful in its

gathering age. She was just fifty. How poignantly he saw her!

And he wanted to cut out some of his own heart, which was

incontinent, and demanded still to share the rapid life of

youth. How he hated himself.

His wife was so poignant and timely. She was still young and

naive, with some girl's freshness. But she did not want any more

the fight, the battle, the control, as he, in his incontinence,

still did. She was so natural, and he was ugly, unnatural, in

his inability to yield place. How hideous, this greedy

middle-age, which must stand in the way of life, like a large

demon.

What was missing in his life, that, in his ravening soul, he

was not satisfied? He had had that friend at school, his mother,

his wife, and Anna? What had he done? He had failed with his

friend, he had been a poor son; but he had known satisfaction

with his wife, let it be enough; he loathed himself for the

state he was in over Anna. Yet he was not satisfied. It was

agony to know it.

Was his life nothing? Had he nothing to show, no work? He did

not count his work, anybody could have done it. What had he

known, but the long, marital embrace with his wife! Curious,

that this was what his life amounted to! At any rate, it was

something, it was eternal. He would say so to anybody, and be

proud of it. He lay with his wife in his arms, and she was still

his fulfilment, just the same as ever. And that was the be-all

and the end-all. Yes, and he was proud of it.

But the bitterness, underneath, that there still remained an

unsatisfied Tom Brangwen, who suffered agony because a girl

cared nothing for him. He loved his sons--he had them also.

But it was the further, the creative life with the girl, he

wanted as well. Oh, and he was ashamed. He trampled himself to

extinguish himself.

What weariness! There was no peace, however old one grew! One

was never right, never decent, never master of oneself. It was

as if his hope had been in the girl.

Anna quickly lapsed again into her love for the youth. Will

Brangwen had fixed his marriage for the Saturday before

Christmas. And he waited for her, in his bright, unquestioning

fashion, until then. He wanted her, she was his, he suspended

his being till the day should come. The wedding day, December

the twenty-third, had come into being for him as an absolute

thing. He lived in it.