"CHAPTER I\n\nHOW TOM BRANGWEN MARRIED A POLISH LADY\n\nI\n\nThe Brangwens had lived for generations on the Marsh Farm, in\nthe meadows where the Erewash twisted sluggishly through alder\ntrees, separating Derbyshire from Nottinghamshire. Two miles\naway, a church-tower stood on a hill, the houses of the little\ncountry town climbing assiduously up to it. Whenever one of the\nBrangwens in the fields lifted his head from his work, he saw\nthe church-tower at Ilkeston in the empty sky. So that as he\nturned again to the horizontal land, he was aware of something\nstanding above him and beyond him in the distance.\n\nThere was a look in the eyes of the Brangwens as if they were\nexpecting something unknown, about which they were eager. They\nhad that air of readiness for what would come to them, a kind of\nsurety, an expectancy, the look of an inheritor.\n\nThey were fresh, blond, slow-speaking people, revealing\nthemselves plainly, but slowly, so that one could watch the\nchange in their eyes from laughter to anger, blue, lit-up\nlaughter, to a hard blue-staring anger; through all the\nirresolute stages of the sky when the weather is changing.\n\nLiving on rich land, on their own land, near to a growing\ntown, they had forgotten what it was to be in straitened\ncircumstances. They had never become rich, because there were\nalways children, and the patrimony was divided every time. But\nalways, at the Marsh, there was ample.\n\nSo the Brangwens came and went without fear of necessity,\nworking hard because of the life that was in them, not for want\nof the money. Neither were they thriftless. They were aware of\nthe last halfpenny, and instinct made them not waste the peeling\nof their apple, for it would help to feed the cattle. But heaven\nand earth was teeming around them, and how should this cease?\nThey felt the rush of the sap in spring, they knew the wave\nwhich cannot halt, but every year throws forward the seed to\nbegetting, and, falling back, leaves the young-born on the\nearth. They knew the intercourse between heaven and earth,\nsunshine drawn into the breast and bowels, the rain sucked up in\nthe daytime, nakedness that comes under the wind in autumn,\nshowing the birds' nests no longer worth hiding. Their life and\ninterrelations were such; feeling the pulse and body of the\nsoil, that opened to their furrow for the grain, and became\nsmooth and supple after their ploughing, and clung to their feet\nwith a weight that pulled like desire, lying hard and\nunresponsive when the crops were to be shorn away. The young\ncorn waved and was silken, and the lustre slid along the limbs\nof the men who saw it. They took the udder of the cows, the cows\nyielded milk and pulse against the hands of the men, the pulse\nof the blood of the teats of the cows beat into the pulse of the\nhands of the men. They mounted their horses, and held life\nbetween the grip of their knees, they harnessed their horses at\nthe wagon, and, with hand on the bridle-rings, drew the heaving\nof the horses after their will.\n\nIn autumn the partridges whirred up, birds in flocks blew\nlike spray across the fallow, rooks appeared on the grey, watery\nheavens, and flew cawing into the winter. Then the men sat by\nthe fire in the house where the women moved about with surety,\nand the limbs and the body of the men were impregnated with the\nday, cattle and earth and vegetation and the sky, the men sat by\nthe fire and their brains were inert, as their blood flowed\nheavy with the accumulation from the living day.\n\nThe women were different. On them too was the drowse of\nblood-intimacy, calves sucking and hens running together in\ndroves, and young geese palpitating in the hand while the food\nwas pushed down their throttle. But the women looked out from\nthe heated, blind intercourse of farm-life, to the spoken world\nbeyond. They were aware of the lips and the mind of the world\nspeaking and giving utterance, they heard the sound in the\ndistance, and they strained to listen.\n\nIt was enough for the men, that the earth heaved and opened\nits furrow to them, that the wind blew to dry the wet wheat, and\nset the young ears of corn wheeling freshly round about; it was\nenough that they helped the cow in labour, or ferreted the rats\nfrom under the barn, or broke the back of a rabbit with a sharp\nknock of the hand. So much warmth and generating and pain and\ndeath did they know in their blood, earth and sky and beast and\ngreen plants, so much exchange and interchange they had with\nthese, that they lived full and surcharged, their senses full\nfed, their faces always turned to the heat of the blood, staring\ninto the sun, dazed with looking towards the source of\ngeneration, unable to turn round.\n\nBut the woman wanted another form of life than this,\nsomething that was not blood-intimacy. Her house faced out from\nthe farm-buildings and fields, looked out to the road and the\nvillage with church and Hall and the world beyond. She stood to\nsee the far-off world of cities and governments and the active\nscope of man, the magic land to her, where secrets were made\nknown and desires fulfilled. She faced outwards to where men\nmoved dominant and creative, having turned their back on the\npulsing heat of creation, and with this behind them, were set\nout to discover what was beyond, to enlarge their own scope and\nrange and freedom; whereas the Brangwen men faced inwards to the\nteeming life of creation, which poured unresolved into their\nveins.\n\nLooking out, as she must, from the front of her house towards\nthe activity of man in the world at large, whilst her husband\nlooked out to the back at sky and harvest and beast and land,\nshe strained her eyes to see what man had done in fighting\noutwards to knowledge, she strained to hear how he uttered\nhimself in his conquest, her deepest desire hung on the battle\nthat she heard, far off, being waged on the edge of the unknown.\nShe also wanted to know, and to be of the fighting host.\n\nAt home, even so near as Cossethay, was the vicar, who spoke\nthe other, magic language, and had the other, finer bearing,\nboth of which she could perceive, but could never attain to. The\nvicar moved in worlds beyond where her own menfolk existed. Did\nshe not know her own menfolk: fresh, slow, full-built men,\nmasterful enough, but easy, native to the earth, lacking\noutwardness and range of motion. Whereas the vicar, dark and dry\nand small beside her husband, had yet a quickness and a range of\nbeing that made Brangwen, in his large geniality, seem dull and\nlocal. She knew her husband. But in the vicar's nature was that\nwhich passed beyond her knowledge. As Brangwen had power over\nthe cattle so the vicar had power over her husband. What was it\nin the vicar, that raised him above the common men as man is\nraised above the beast? She craved to know. She craved to\nachieve this higher being, if not in herself, then in her\nchildren. That which makes a man strong even if he be little and\nfrail in body, just as any man is little and frail beside a\nbull, and yet stronger than the bull, what was it? It was not\nmoney nor power nor position. What power had the vicar over Tom\nBrangwen--none. Yet strip them and set them on a desert\nisland, and the vicar was the master. His soul was master of the\nother man's. And why--why? She decided it was a question of\nknowledge.\n\nThe curate was poor enough, and not very efficacious as a\nman, either, yet he took rank with those others, the superior.\nShe watched his children being born, she saw them running as\ntiny things beside their mother. And already they were separate\nfrom her own children, distinct. Why were her own children\nmarked below the others? Why should the curate's children\ninevitably take precedence over her children, why should\ndominance be given them from the start? It was not money, nor\neven class. It was education and experience, she decided.\n\nIt was this, this education, this higher form of being, that\nthe mother wished to give to her children, so that they too\ncould live the supreme life on earth. For her children, at least\nthe children of her heart, had the complete nature that should\ntake place in equality with the living, vital people in the\nland, not be left behind obscure among the labourers. Why must\nthey remain obscured and stifled all their lives, why should\nthey suffer from lack of freedom to move? How should they learn\nthe entry into the finer, more vivid circle of life?\n\nHer imagination was fired by the squire's lady at Shelly\nHall, who came to church at Cossethay with her little children,\ngirls in tidy capes of beaver fur, and smart little hats,\nherself like a winter rose, so fair and delicate. So fair, so\nfine in mould, so luminous, what was it that Mrs. Hardy felt\nwhich she, Mrs. Brangwen, did not feel? How was Mrs. Hardy's\nnature different from that of the common women of Cossethay, in\nwhat was it beyond them? All the women of Cossethay talked\neagerly about Mrs. Hardy, of her husband, her children, her\nguests, her dress, of her servants and her housekeeping. The\nlady of the Hall was the living dream of their lives, her life\nwas the epic that inspired their lives. In her they lived\nimaginatively, and in gossiping of her husband who drank, of her\nscandalous brother, of Lord William Bentley her friend, member\nof Parliament for the division, they had their own Odyssey\nenacting itself, Penelope and Ulysses before them, and Circe and\nthe swine and the endless web.\n\nSo the women of the village were fortunate. They saw\nthemselves in the lady of the manor, each of them lived her own\nfulfilment of the life of Mrs. Hardy. And the Brangwen wife of\nthe Marsh aspired beyond herself, towards the further life of\nthe finer woman, towards the extended being she revealed, as a\ntraveller in his self-contained manner reveals far-off countries\npresent in himself. But why should a knowledge of far-off\ncountries make a man's life a different thing, finer, bigger?\nAnd why is a man more than the beast and the cattle that serve\nhim? It is the same thing.\n\nThe male part of the poem was filled in by such men as the\nvicar and Lord William, lean, eager men with strange movements,\nmen who had command of the further fields, whose lives ranged\nover a great extent. Ah, it was something very desirable to\nknow, this touch of the wonderful men who had the power of\nthought and comprehension. The women of the village might be\nmuch fonder of Tom Brangwen, and more at their ease with him,\nyet if their lives had been robbed of the vicar, and of Lord\nWilliam, the leading shoot would have been cut away from them,\nthey would have been heavy and uninspired and inclined to hate.\nSo long as the wonder of the beyond was before them, they could\nget along, whatever their lot. And Mrs. Hardy, and the vicar,\nand Lord William, these moved in the wonder of the beyond, and\nwere visible to the eyes of Cossethay in their motion.\n\nII\n\nAbout 1840, a canal was constructed across the meadows of the\nMarsh Farm, connecting the newly-opened collieries of the\nErewash Valley. A high embankment travelled along the fields to\ncarry the canal, which passed close to the homestead, and,\nreaching the road, went over in a heavy bridge.\n\nSo the Marsh was shut off from Ilkeston, and enclosed in the\nsmall valley bed, which ended in a bushy hill and the village\nspire of Cossethay.\n\nThe Brangwens received a fair sum of money from this trespass\nacross their land. Then, a short time afterwards, a colliery was\nsunk on the other side of the canal, and in a while the Midland\nRailway came down the valley at the foot of the Ilkeston hill,\nand the invasion was complete. The town grew rapidly, the\nBrangwens were kept busy producing supplies, they became richer,\nthey were almost tradesmen.\n\nStill the Marsh remained remote and original, on the old,\nquiet side of the canal embankment, in the sunny valley where\nslow water wound along in company of stiff alders, and the road\nwent under ash-trees past the Brangwens' garden gate.\n\nBut, looking from the garden gate down the road to the right,\nthere, through the dark archway of the canal's square aqueduct,\nwas a colliery spinning away in the near distance, and further,\nred, crude houses plastered on the valley in masses, and beyond\nall, the dim smoking hill of the town.\n\nThe homestead was just on the safe side of civilization,\noutside the gate. The house stood bare from the road, approached\nby a straight garden path, along which at spring the daffodils\nwere thick in green and yellow. At the sides of the house were\nbushes of lilac and guelder-rose and privet, entirely hiding the\nfarm buildings behind.\n\nAt the back a confusion of sheds spread into the home-close\nfrom out of two or three indistinct yards. The duck-pond lay\nbeyond the furthest wall, littering its white feathers on the\npadded earthen banks, blowing its stray soiled feathers into the\ngrass and the gorse bushes below the canal embankment, which\nrose like a high rampart near at hand, so that occasionally a\nman's figure passed in silhouette, or a man and a towing horse\ntraversed the sky.\n\nAt first the Brangwens were astonished by all this commotion\naround them. The building of a canal across their land made them\nstrangers in their own place, this raw bank of earth shutting\nthem off disconcerted them. As they worked in the fields, from\nbeyond the now familiar embankment came the rhythmic run of the\nwinding engines, startling at first, but afterwards a narcotic\nto the brain. Then the shrill whistle of the trains re-echoed\nthrough the heart, with fearsome pleasure, announcing the\nfar-off come near and imminent.\n\nAs they drove home from town, the farmers of the land met the\nblackened colliers trooping from the pit-mouth. As they gathered\nthe harvest, the west wind brought a faint, sulphurous smell of\npit-refuse burning. As they pulled the turnips in November, the\nsharp clink-clink-clink-clink-clink of empty trucks shunting on\nthe line, vibrated in their hearts with the fact of other\nactivity going on beyond them.\n\nThe Alfred Brangwen of this period had married a woman from\nHeanor, a daughter of the \"Black Horse\". She was a slim, pretty,\ndark woman, quaint in her speech, whimsical, so that the sharp\nthings she said did not hurt. She was oddly a thing to herself,\nrather querulous in her manner, but intrinsically separate and\nindifferent, so that her long lamentable complaints, when she\nraised her voice against her husband in particular and against\neverybody else after him, only made those who heard her wonder\nand feel affectionately towards her, even while they were\nirritated and impatient with her. She railed long and loud about\nher husband, but always with a balanced, easy-flying voice and a\nquaint manner of speech that warmed his belly with pride and\nmale triumph while he scowled with mortification at the things\nshe said.\n\nConsequently Brangwen himself had a humorous puckering at the\neyes, a sort of fat laugh, very quiet and full, and he was\nspoilt like a lord of creation. He calmly did as he liked,\nlaughed at their railing, excused himself in a teasing tone that\nshe loved, followed his natural inclinations, and sometimes,\npricked too near the quick, frightened and broke her by a deep,\ntense fury which seemed to fix on him and hold him for days, and\nwhich she would give anything to placate in him. They were two\nvery separate beings, vitally connected, knowing nothing of each\nother, yet living in their separate ways from one root.\n\nThere were four sons and two daughters. The eldest boy ran\naway early to sea, and did not come back. After this the mother\nwas more the node and centre of attraction in the home. The\nsecond boy, Alfred, whom the mother admired most, was the most\nreserved. He was sent to school in Ilkeston and made some\nprogress. But in spite of his dogged, yearning effort, he could\nnot get beyond the rudiments of anything, save of drawing. At\nthis, in which he had some power, he worked, as if it were his\nhope. After much grumbling and savage rebellion against\neverything, after much trying and shifting about, when his\nfather was incensed against him and his mother almost\ndespairing, he became a draughtsman in a lace-factory in\nNottingham.\n\nHe remained heavy and somewhat uncouth, speaking with broad\nDerbyshire accent, adhering with all his tenacity to his work\nand to his town position, making good designs, and becoming\nfairly well-off. But at drawing, his hand swung naturally in\nbig, bold lines, rather lax, so that it was cruel for him to\npedgill away at the lace designing, working from the tiny\nsquares of his paper, counting and plotting and niggling. He did\nit stubbornly, with anguish, crushing the bowels within him,\nadhering to his chosen lot whatever it should cost. And he came\nback into life set and rigid, a rare-spoken, almost surly\nman.\n\nHe married the daughter of a chemist, who affected some\nsocial superiority, and he became something of a snob, in his\ndogged fashion, with a passion for outward refinement in the\nhousehold, mad when anything clumsy or gross occurred. Later,\nwhen his three children were growing up, and he seemed a staid,\nalmost middle-aged man, he turned after strange women, and\nbecame a silent, inscrutable follower of forbidden pleasure,\nneglecting his indignant bourgeois wife without a qualm.\n\nFrank, the third son, refused from the first to have anything\nto do with learning. From the first he hung round the\nslaughter-house which stood away in the third yard at the back\nof the farm. The Brangwens had always killed their own meat, and\nsupplied the neighbourhood. Out of this grew a regular butcher's\nbusiness in connection with the farm.\n\nAs a child Frank had been drawn by the trickle of dark blood\nthat ran across the pavement from the slaughter-house to the\ncrew-yard, by the sight of the man carrying across to the\nmeat-shed a huge side of beef, with the kidneys showing,\nembedded in their heavy laps of fat.\n\nHe was a handsome lad with soft brown hair and regular\nfeatures something like a later Roman youth. He was more easily\nexcitable, more readily carried away than the rest, weaker in\ncharacter. At eighteen he married a little factory girl, a pale,\nplump, quiet thing with sly eyes and a wheedling voice, who\ninsinuated herself into him and bore him a child every year and\nmade a fool of him. When he had taken over the butchery\nbusiness, already a growing callousness to it, and a sort of\ncontempt made him neglectful of it. He drank, and was often to\nbe found in his public house blathering away as if he knew\neverything, when in reality he was a noisy fool.\n\nOf the daughters, Alice, the elder, married a collier and\nlived for a time stormily in Ilkeston, before moving away to\nYorkshire with her numerous young family. Effie, the younger,\nremained at home.\n\nThe last child, Tom, was considerably younger than his\nbrothers, so had belonged rather to the company of his sisters.\nHe was his mother's favourite. She roused herself to\ndetermination, and sent him forcibly away to a grammar-school in\nDerby when he was twelve years old. He did not want to go, and\nhis father would have given way, but Mrs. Brangwen had set her\nheart on it. Her slender, pretty, tightly-covered body, with\nfull skirts, was now the centre of resolution in the house, and\nwhen she had once set upon anything, which was not often, the\nfamily failed before her.\n\nSo Tom went to school, an unwilling failure from the first.\nHe believed his mother was right in decreeing school for him,\nbut he knew she was only right because she would not acknowledge\nhis constitution. He knew, with a child's deep, instinctive\nforeknowledge of what is going to happen to him, that he would\ncut a sorry figure at school. But he took the infliction as\ninevitable, as if he were guilty of his own nature, as if his\nbeing were wrong, and his mother's conception right. If he could\nhave been what he liked, he would have been that which his\nmother fondly but deludedly hoped he was. He would have been\nclever, and capable of becoming a gentleman. It was her\naspiration for him, therefore he knew it as the true aspiration\nfor any boy. But you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear,\nas he told his mother very early, with regard to himself; much\nto her mortification and chagrin.\n\nWhen he got to school, he made a violent struggle against his\nphysical inability to study. He sat gripped, making himself pale\nand ghastly in his effort to concentrate on the book, to take in\nwhat he had to learn. But it was no good. If he beat down his\nfirst repulsion, and got like a suicide to the stuff, he went\nvery little further. He could not learn deliberately. His mind\nsimply did not work.\n\nIn feeling he was developed, sensitive to the atmosphere\naround him, brutal perhaps, but at the same time delicate, very\ndelicate. So he had a low opinion of himself. He knew his own\nlimitation. He knew that his brain was a slow hopeless\ngood-for-nothing. So he was humble.\n\nBut at the same time his feelings were more discriminating\nthan those of most of the boys, and he was confused. He was more\nsensuously developed, more refined in instinct than they. For\ntheir mechanical stupidity he hated them, and suffered cruel\ncontempt for them. But when it came to mental things, then he\nwas at a disadvantage. He was at their mercy. He was a fool. He\nhad not the power to controvert even the most stupid argument,\nso that he was forced to admit things he did not in the least\nbelieve. And having admitted them, he did not know whether he\nbelieved them or not; he rather thought he did.\n\nBut he loved anyone who could convey enlightenment to him\nthrough feeling. He sat betrayed with emotion when the teacher\nof literature read, in a moving fashion, Tennyson's \"Ulysses\",\nor Shelley's \"Ode to the West Wind\". His lips parted, his eyes\nfilled with a strained, almost suffering light. And the teacher\nread on, fired by his power over the boy. Tom Brangwen was moved\nby this experience beyond all calculation, he almost dreaded it,\nit was so deep. But when, almost secretly and shamefully, he\ncame to take the book himself, and began the words \"Oh wild west\nwind, thou breath of autumn's being,\" the very fact of the print\ncaused a prickly sensation of repulsion to go over his skin, the\nblood came to his face, his heart filled with a bursting passion\nof rage and incompetence. He threw the book down and walked over\nit and went out to the cricket field. And he hated books as if\nthey were his enemies. He hated them worse than ever he hated\nany person.\n\nHe could not voluntarily control his attention. His mind had\nno fixed habits to go by, he had nothing to get hold of, nowhere\nto start from. For him there was nothing palpable, nothing known\nin himself, that he could apply to learning. He did not know how\nto begin. Therefore he was helpless when it came to deliberate\nunderstanding or deliberate learning.\n\nHe had an instinct for mathematics, but if this failed him,\nhe was helpless as an idiot. So that he felt that the ground was\nnever sure under his feet, he was nowhere. His final downfall\nwas his complete inability to attend to a question put without\nsuggestion. If he had to write a formal composition on the Army,\nhe did at last learn to repeat the few facts he knew: \"You can\njoin the army at eighteen. You have to be over five foot eight.\"\nBut he had all the time a living conviction that this was a\ndodge and that his common-places were beneath contempt. Then he\nreddened furiously, felt his bowels sink with shame, scratched\nout what he had written, made an agonized effort to think of\nsomething in the real composition style, failed, became sullen\nwith rage and humiliation, put the pen down and would have been\ntorn to pieces rather than attempt to write another word.\n\nHe soon got used to the Grammar School, and the Grammar\nSchool got used to him, setting him down as a hopeless duffer at\nlearning, but respecting him for a generous, honest nature. Only\none narrow, domineering fellow, the Latin master, bullied him\nand made the blue eyes mad with shame and rage. There was a\nhorrid scene, when the boy laid open the master's head with a\nslate, and then things went on as before. The teacher got little\nsympathy. But Brangwen winced and could not bear to think of the\ndeed, not even long after, when he was a grown man.\n\nHe was glad to leave school. It had not been unpleasant, he\nhad enjoyed the companionship of the other youths, or had\nthought he enjoyed it, the time had passed very quickly, in\nendless activity. But he knew all the time that he was in an\nignominious position, in this place of learning. He was aware of\nfailure all the while, of incapacity. But he was too healthy and\nsanguine to be wretched, he was too much alive. Yet his soul was\nwretched almost to hopelessness.\n\nHe had loved one warm, clever boy who was frail in body, a\nconsumptive type. The two had had an almost classic friendship,\nDavid and Jonathan, wherein Brangwen was the Jonathan, the\nserver. But he had never felt equal with his friend, because the\nother's mind outpaced his, and left him ashamed, far in the\nrear. So the two boys went at once apart on leaving school. But\nBrangwen always remembered his friend that had been, kept him as\na sort of light, a fine experience to remember.\n\nTom Brangwen was glad to get back to the farm, where he was\nin his own again. \"I have got a turnip on my shoulders, let me\nstick to th' fallow,\" he said to his exasperated mother. He had\ntoo low an opinion of himself. But he went about at his work on\nthe farm gladly enough, glad of the active labour and the smell\nof the land again, having youth and vigour and humour, and a\ncomic wit, having the will and the power to forget his own\nshortcomings, finding himself violent with occasional rages, but\nusually on good terms with everybody and everything.\n\nWhen he was seventeen, his father fell from a stack and broke\nhis neck. Then the mother and son and daughter lived on at the\nfarm, interrupted by occasional loud-mouthed lamenting,\njealous-spirited visitations from the butcher Frank, who had a\ngrievance against the world, which he felt was always giving him\nless than his dues. Frank was particularly against the young\nTom, whom he called a mardy baby, and Tom returned the hatred\nviolently, his face growing red and his blue eyes staring. Effie\nsided with Tom against Frank. But when Alfred came, from\nNottingham, heavy jowled and lowering, speaking very little, but\ntreating those at home with some contempt, Effie and the mother\nsided with him and put Tom into the shade. It irritated the\nyouth that his elder brother should be made something of a hero\nby the women, just because he didn't live at home and was a\nlace-designer and almost a gentleman. But Alfred was something\nof a Prometheus Bound, so the women loved him. Tom came later to\nunderstand his brother better.\n\nAs youngest son, Tom felt some importance when the care of\nthe farm devolved on to him. He was only eighteen, but he was\nquite capable of doing everything his father had done. And of\ncourse, his mother remained as centre to the house.\n\nThe young man grew up very fresh and alert, with zest for\nevery moment of life. He worked and rode and drove to market, he\nwent out with companions and got tipsy occasionally and played\nskittles and went to the little travelling theatres. Once, when\nhe was drunk at a public house, he went upstairs with a\nprostitute who seduced him. He was then nineteen.\n\nThe thing was something of a shock to him. In the close\nintimacy of the farm kitchen, the woman occupied the supreme\nposition. The men deferred to her in the house, on all household\npoints, on all points of morality and behaviour. The woman was\nthe symbol for that further life which comprised religion and\nlove and morality. The men placed in her hands their own\nconscience, they said to her \"Be my conscience-keeper, be the\nangel at the doorway guarding my outgoing and my incoming.\" And\nthe woman fulfilled her trust, the men rested implicitly in her,\nreceiving her praise or her blame with pleasure or with anger,\nrebelling and storming, but never for a moment really escaping\nin their own souls from her prerogative. They depended on her\nfor their stability. Without her, they would have felt like\nstraws in the wind, to be blown hither and thither at random.\nShe was the anchor and the security, she was the restraining\nhand of God, at times highly to be execrated.\n\nNow when Tom Brangwen, at nineteen, a youth fresh like a\nplant, rooted in his mother and his sister, found that he had\nlain with a prostitute woman in a common public house, he was\nvery much startled. For him there was until that time only one\nkind of woman--his mother and sister.\n\nBut now? He did not know what to feel. There was a slight\nwonder, a pang of anger, of disappointment, a first taste of ash\nand of cold fear lest this was all that would happen, lest his\nrelations with woman were going to be no more than this\nnothingness; there was a slight sense of shame before the\nprostitute, fear that she would despise him for his\ninefficiency; there was a cold distaste for her, and a fear of\nher; there was a moment of paralyzed horror when he felt he\nmight have taken a disease from her; and upon all this startled\ntumult of emotion, was laid the steadying hand of common sense,\nwhich said it did not matter very much, so long as he had no\ndisease. He soon recovered balance, and really it did not matter\nso very much.\n\nBut it had shocked him, and put a mistrust into his heart,\nand emphasized his fear of what was within himself. He was,\nhowever, in a few days going about again in his own careless,\nhappy-go-lucky fashion, his blue eyes just as clear and honest\nas ever, his face just as fresh, his appetite just as keen.\n\nOr apparently so. He had, in fact, lost some of his buoyant\nconfidence, and doubt hindered his outgoing.\n\nFor some time after this, he was quieter, more conscious when\nhe drank, more backward from companionship. The disillusion of\nhis first carnal contact with woman, strengthened by his innate\ndesire to find in a woman the embodiment of all his\ninarticulate, powerful religious impulses, put a bit in his\nmouth. He had something to lose which he was afraid of losing,\nwhich he was not sure even of possessing. This first affair did\nnot matter much: but the business of love was, at the bottom of\nhis soul, the most serious and terrifying of all to him.\n\nHe was tormented now with sex desire, his imagination\nreverted always to lustful scenes. But what really prevented his\nreturning to a loose woman, over and above the natural\nsqueamishness, was the recollection of the paucity of the last\nexperience. It had been so nothing, so dribbling and functional,\nthat he was ashamed to expose himself to the risk of a\nrepetition of it.\n\nHe made a strong, instinctive fight to retain his native\ncheerfulness unimpaired. He had naturally a plentiful stream of\nlife and humour, a sense of sufficiency and exuberance, giving\nease. But now it tended to cause tension. A strained light came\ninto his eyes, he had a slight knitting of the brows. His\nboisterous humour gave place to lowering silences, and days\npassed by in a sort of suspense.\n\nHe did not know there was any difference in him, exactly; for\nthe most part he was filled with slow anger and resentment. But\nhe knew he was always thinking of women, or a woman, day in, day\nout, and that infuriated him. He could not get free: and he was\nashamed. He had one or two sweethearts, starting with them in\nthe hope of speedy development. But when he had a nice girl, he\nfound that he was incapable of pushing the desired development.\nThe very presence of the girl beside him made it impossible. He\ncould not think of her like that, he could not think of her\nactual nakedness. She was a girl and he liked her, and dreaded\nviolently even the thought of uncovering her. He knew that, in\nthese last issues of nakedness, he did not exist to her nor she\nto him. Again, if he had a loose girl, and things began to\ndevelop, she offended him so deeply all the time, that he never\nknew whether he was going to get away from her as quickly as\npossible, or whether he were going to take her out of inflamed\nnecessity. Again he learnt his lesson: if he took her it was a\npaucity which he was forced to despise. He did not despise\nhimself nor the girl. But he despised the net result in him of\nthe experience--he despised it deeply and bitterly.\n\nThen, when he was twenty-three, his mother died, and he was\nleft at home with Effie. His mother's death was another blow out\nof the dark. He could not understand it, he knew it was no good\nhis trying. One had to submit to these unforeseen blows that\ncome unawares and leave a bruise that remains and hurts whenever\nit is touched. He began to be afraid of all that which was up\nagainst him. He had loved his mother.\n\nAfter this, Effie and he quarrelled fiercely. They meant a\nvery great deal to each other, but they were both under a\nstrange, unnatural tension. He stayed out of the house as much\nas possible. He got a special corner for himself at the \"Red\nLion\" at Cossethay, and became a usual figure by the fire, a\nfresh, fair young fellow with heavy limbs and head held back,\nmostly silent, though alert and attentive, very hearty in his\ngreeting of everybody he knew, shy of strangers. He teased all\nthe women, who liked him extremely, and he was very attentive to\nthe talk of the men, very respectful.\n\nTo drink made him quickly flush very red in the face, and\nbrought out the look of self-consciousness and unsureness,\nalmost bewilderment, in his blue eyes. When he came home in this\nstate of tipsy confusion his sister hated him and abused him,\nand he went off his head, like a mad bull with rage.\n\nHe had still another turn with a light-o'-love. One\nWhitsuntide he went a jaunt with two other young fellows, on\nhorseback, to Matlock and thence to Bakewell. Matlock was at\nthat time just becoming a famous beauty-spot, visited from\nManchester and from the Staffordshire towns. In the hotel where\nthe young men took lunch, were two girls, and the parties struck\nup a friendship.\n\nThe Miss who made up to Tom Brangwen, then twenty-four years\nold, was a handsome, reckless girl neglected for an afternoon by\nthe man who had brought her out. She saw Brangwen and liked him,\nas all women did, for his warmth and his generous nature, and\nfor the innate delicacy in him. But she saw he was one who would\nhave to be brought to the scratch. However, she was roused and\nunsatisfied and made mischievous, so she dared anything. It\nwould be an easy interlude, restoring her pride.\n\nShe was a handsome girl with a bosom, and dark hair and blue\neyes, a girl full of easy laughter, flushed from the sun,\ninclined to wipe her laughing face in a very natural and taking\nmanner.\n\nBrangwen was in a state of wonder. He treated her with his\nchaffing deference, roused, but very unsure of himself, afraid\nto death of being too forward, ashamed lest he might be thought\nbackward, mad with desire yet restrained by instinctive regard\nfor women from making any definite approach, feeling all the\nwhile that his attitude was ridiculous, and flushing deep with\nconfusion. She, however, became hard and daring as he became\nconfused, it amused her to see him come on.\n\n\"When must you get back?\" she asked.\n\n\"I'm not particular,\" he said.\n\nThere the conversation again broke down.\n\nBrangwen's companions were ready to go on.\n\n\"Art commin', Tom,\" they called, \"or art for stoppin'?\"\n\n\"Ay, I'm commin',\" he replied, rising reluctantly, an angry\nsense of futility and disappointment spreading over him.\n\nHe met the full, almost taunting look of the girl, and he\ntrembled with unusedness.\n\n\"Shall you come an' have a look at my mare,\" he said to her,\nwith his hearty kindliness that was now shaken with\ntrepidation.\n\n\"Oh, I should like to,\" she said, rising.\n\nAnd she followed him, his rather sloping shoulders and his\ncloth riding-gaiters, out of the room. The young men got their\nown horses out of the stable.\n\n\"Can you ride?\" Brangwen asked her.\n\n\"I should like to if I could--I have never tried,\" she\nsaid.\n\n\"Come then, an' have a try,\" he said.\n\nAnd he lifted her, he blushing, she laughing, into the\nsaddle.\n\n\"I s'll slip off--it's not a lady's saddle,\" she\ncried.\n\n\"Hold yer tight,\" he said, and he led her out of the hotel\ngate.\n\nThe girl sat very insecurely, clinging fast. He put a hand on\nher waist, to support her. And he held her closely, he clasped\nher as in an embrace, he was weak with desire as he strode\nbeside her.\n\nThe horse walked by the river.\n\n\"You want to sit straddle-leg,\" he said to her.\n\n\"I know I do,\" she said.\n\nIt was the time of very full skirts. She managed to get\nastride the horse, quite decently, showing an intent concern for\ncovering her pretty leg.\n\n\"It's a lot's better this road,\" she said, looking down at\nhim.\n\n\"Ay, it is,\" he said, feeling the marrow melt in his bones\nfrom the look in her eyes. \"I dunno why they have that\nside-saddle business, twistin' a woman in two.\"\n\n\"Should us leave you then--you seem to be fixed up\nthere?\" called Brangwen's companions from the road.\n\nHe went red with anger.\n\n\"Ay--don't worry,\" he called back.\n\n\"How long are yer stoppin'?\" they asked.\n\n\"Not after Christmas,\" he said.\n\nAnd the girl gave a tinkling peal of laughter.\n\n\"All right--by-bye!\" called his friends.\n\nAnd they cantered off, leaving him very flushed, trying to be\nquite normal with the girl. But presently he had gone back to\nthe hotel and given his horse into the charge of an ostler and\nhad gone off with the girl into the woods, not quite knowing\nwhere he was or what he was doing. His heart thumped and he\nthought it the most glorious adventure, and was mad with desire\nfor the girl.\n\nAfterwards he glowed with pleasure. By Jove, but that was\nsomething like! He [stayed the afternoon with the girl, and]\nwanted to stay the night. She, however, told him this was impossible:\nher own man would be back by dark, and she must be with him.\nHe, Brangwen, must not let on that there had been anything\nbetween them.\n\nShe gave him an intimate smile, which made him feel confused\nand gratified.\n\nHe could not tear himself away, though he had promised not to\ninterfere with the girl. He stayed on at the hotel over night.\nHe saw the other fellow at the evening meal: a small,\nmiddle-aged man with iron-grey hair and a curious face, like a\nmonkey's, but interesting, in its way almost beautiful. Brangwen\nguessed that he was a foreigner. He was in company with another,\nan Englishman, dry and hard. The four sat at table, two men and\ntwo women. Brangwen watched with all his eyes.\n\nHe saw how the foreigner treated the women with courteous\ncontempt, as if they were pleasing animals. Brangwen's girl had\nput on a ladylike manner, but her voice betrayed her. She wanted\nto win back her man. When dessert came on, however, the little\nforeigner turned round from his table and calmly surveyed the\nroom, like one unoccupied. Brangwen marvelled over the cold,\nanimal intelligence of the face. The brown eyes were round,\nshowing all the brown pupil, like a monkey's, and just calmly\nlooking, perceiving the other person without referring to him at\nall. They rested on Brangwen. The latter marvelled at the old\nface turned round on him, looking at him without considering it\nnecessary to know him at all. The eyebrows of the round,\nperceiving, but unconcerned eyes were rather high up, with\nslight wrinkles above them, just as a monkey's had. It was an\nold, ageless face.\n\nThe man was most amazingly a gentleman all the time, an\naristocrat. Brangwen stared fascinated. The girl was pushing her\ncrumbs about on the cloth, uneasily, flushed and angry.\n\nAs Brangwen sat motionless in the hall afterwards, too much\nmoved and lost to know what to do, the little stranger came up\nto him with a beautiful smile and manner, offering a cigarette\nand saying:\n\n\"Will you smoke?\"\n\nBrangwen never smoked cigarettes, yet he took the one\noffered, fumbling painfully with thick fingers, blushing to the\nroots of his hair. Then he looked with his warm blue eyes at the\nalmost sardonic, lidded eyes of the foreigner. The latter sat\ndown beside him, and they began to talk, chiefly of horses.\n\nBrangwen loved the other man for his exquisite graciousness,\nfor his tact and reserve, and for his ageless, monkey-like\nself-surety. They talked of horses, and of Derbyshire, and of\nfarming. The stranger warmed to the young fellow with real\nwarmth, and Brangwen was excited. He was transported at meeting\nthis odd, middle-aged, dry-skinned man, personally. The talk was\npleasant, but that did not matter so much. It was the gracious\nmanner, the fine contact that was all.\n\nThey talked a long while together, Brangwen flushing like a\ngirl when the other did not understand his idiom. Then they said\ngood night, and shook hands. Again the foreigner bowed and\nrepeated his good night.\n\n\"Good night, and bon voyage.\"\n\nThen he turned to the stairs.\n\nBrangwen went up to his room and lay staring out at the stars\nof the summer night, his whole being in a whirl. What was it\nall? There was a life so different from what he knew it. What\nwas there outside his knowledge, how much? What was this that he\nhad touched? What was he in this new influence? What did\neverything mean? Where was life, in that which he knew or all\noutside him?\n\nHe fell asleep, and in the morning had ridden away before any\nother visitors were awake. He shrank from seeing any of them\nagain, in the morning.\n\nHis mind was one big excitement. The girl and the foreigner:\nhe knew neither of their names. Yet they had set fire to the\nhomestead of his nature, and he would be burned out of cover. Of\nthe two experiences, perhaps the meeting with the foreigner was\nthe more significant. But the girl--he had not settled\nabout the girl.\n\nHe did not know. He had to leave it there, as it was. He\ncould not sum up his experiences.\n\nThe result of these encounters was, that he dreamed day and\nnight, absorbedly, of a voluptuous woman and of the meeting with\na small, withered foreigner of ancient breeding. No sooner was\nhis mind free, no sooner had he left his own companions, than he\nbegan to imagine an intimacy with fine-textured, subtle-mannered\npeople such as the foreigner at Matlock, and amidst this subtle\nintimacy was always the satisfaction of a voluptuous woman.\n\nHe went about absorbed in the interest and the actuality of\nthis dream. His eyes glowed, he walked with his head up, full of\nthe exquisite pleasure of aristocratic subtlety and grace,\ntormented with the desire for the girl.\n\nThen gradually the glow began to fade, and the cold material\nof his customary life to show through. He resented it. Was he\ncheated in his illusion? He balked the mean enclosure of\nreality, stood stubbornly like a bull at a gate, refusing to\nre-enter the well-known round of his own life.\n\nHe drank more than usual to keep up the glow. But it faded\nmore and more for all that. He set his teeth at the commonplace,\nto which he would not submit. It resolved itself starkly before\nhim, for all that.\n\nHe wanted to marry, to get settled somehow, to get out of the\nquandary he found himself in. But how? He felt unable to move\nhis limbs. He had seen a little creature caught in bird-lime,\nand the sight was a nightmare to him. He began to feel mad with\nthe rage of impotency.\n\nHe wanted something to get hold of, to pull himself out. But\nthere was nothing. Steadfastly he looked at the young women, to\nfind a one he could marry. But not one of them did he want. And\nhe knew that the idea of a life among such people as the\nforeigner was ridiculous.\n\nYet he dreamed of it, and stuck to his dreams, and would not\nhave the reality of Cossethay and Ilkeston. There he sat\nstubbornly in his corner at the \"Red Lion\", smoking and musing\nand occasionally lifting his beer-pot, and saying nothing, for\nall the world like a gorping farm-labourer, as he said\nhimself.\n\nThen a fever of restless anger came upon him. He wanted to go\naway--right away. He dreamed of foreign parts. But somehow\nhe had no contact with them. And it was a very strong root which\nheld him to the Marsh, to his own house and land.\n\nThen Effie got married, and he was left in the house with\nonly Tilly, the cross-eyed woman-servant who had been with them\nfor fifteen years. He felt things coming to a close. All the\ntime, he had held himself stubbornly resistant to the action of\nthe commonplace unreality which wanted to absorb him. But now he\nhad to do something.\n\nHe was by nature temperate. Being sensitive and emotional,\nhis nausea prevented him from drinking too much.\n\nBut, in futile anger, with the greatest of determination and\napparent good humour, he began to drink in order to get drunk.\n\"Damn it,\" he said to himself, \"you must have it one road or\nanother--you can't hitch your horse to the shadow of a\ngate-post--if you've got legs you've got to rise off your\nbackside some time or other.\"\n\nSo he rose and went down to Ilkeston, rather awkwardly took\nhis place among a gang of young bloods, stood drinks to the\ncompany, and discovered he could carry it off quite well. He had\nan idea that everybody in the room was a man after his own\nheart, that everything was glorious, everything was perfect.\nWhen somebody in alarm told him his coat pocket was on fire, he\ncould only beam from a red, blissful face and say\n\"Iss-all-ri-ight--iss-al'-ri-ight--it's a'\nright--let it be, let it be----\" and he laughed\nwith pleasure, and was rather indignant that the others should\nthink it unnatural for his coat pocket to burn:--it was the\nhappiest and most natural thing in the world--what?\n\nHe went home talking to himself and to the moon, that was\nvery high and small, stumbling at the flashes of moonlight from\nthe puddles at his feet, wondering What the Hanover! then\nlaughing confidently to the moon, assuring her this was first\nclass, this was.\n\nIn the morning he woke up and thought about it, and for the\nfirst time in his life, knew what it was to feel really acutely\nirritable, in a misery of real bad temper. After bawling and\nsnarling at Tilly, he took himself off for very shame, to be\nalone. And looking at the ashen fields and the putty roads, he\nwondered what in the name of Hell he could do to get out of this\nprickly sense of disgust and physical repulsion. And he knew\nthat this was the result of his glorious evening.\n\nAnd his stomach did not want any more brandy. He went\ndoggedly across the fields with his terrier, and looked at\neverything with a jaundiced eye.\n\nThe next evening found him back again in his place at the\n\"Red Lion\", moderate and decent. There he sat and stubbornly\nwaited for what would happen next.\n\nDid he, or did he not believe that he belonged to this world\nof Cossethay and Ilkeston? There was nothing in it he wanted.\nYet could he ever get out of it? Was there anything in himself\nthat would carry him out of it? Or was he a dunderheaded baby,\nnot man enough to be like the other young fellows who drank a\ngood deal and wenched a little without any question, and were\nsatisfied.\n\nHe went on stubbornly for a time. Then the strain became too\ngreat for him. A hot, accumulated consciousness was always awake\nin his chest, his wrists felt swelled and quivering, his mind\nbecame full of lustful images, his eyes seemed blood-flushed. He\nfought with himself furiously, to remain normal. He did not seek\nany woman. He just went on as if he were normal. Till he must\neither take some action or beat his head against the wall.\n\nThen he went deliberately to Ilkeston, in silence, intent and\nbeaten. He drank to get drunk. He gulped down the brandy, and\nmore brandy, till his face became pale, his eyes burning. And\nstill he could not get free. He went to sleep in drunken\nunconsciousness, woke up at four o'clock in the morning and\ncontinued drinking. He would get free. Gradually the\ntension in him began to relax. He began to feel happy. His\nriveted silence was unfastened, he began to talk and babble. He\nwas happy and at one with all the world, he was united with all\nflesh in a hot blood-relationship. So, after three days of\nincessant brandy-drinking, he had burned out the youth from his\nblood, he had achieved this kindled state of oneness with all\nthe world, which is the end of youth's most passionate desire.\nBut he had achieved his satisfaction by obliterating his own\nindividuality, that which it depended on his manhood to preserve\nand develop.\n\nSo he became a bout-drinker, having at intervals these bouts\nof three or four days of brandy-drinking, when he was drunk for\nthe whole time. He did not think about it. A deep resentment\nburned in him. He kept aloof from any women, antagonistic.\n\nWhen he was twenty-eight, a thick-limbed, stiff, fair man\nwith fresh complexion, and blue eyes staring very straight\nahead, he was coming one day down from Cossethay with a load of\nseed out of Nottingham. It was a time when he was getting ready\nfor another bout of drinking, so he stared fixedly before him,\nwatchful yet absorbed, seeing everything and aware of nothing,\ncoiled in himself. It was early in the year.\n\nHe walked steadily beside the horse, the load clanked behind\nas the hill descended steeper. The road curved down-hill before\nhim, under banks and hedges, seen only for a few yards\nahead.\n\nSlowly turning the curve at the steepest part of the slope,\nhis horse britching between the shafts, he saw a woman\napproaching. But he was thinking for the moment of the\nhorse.\n\nThen he turned to look at her. She was dressed in black, was\napparently rather small and slight, beneath her long black\ncloak, and she wore a black bonnet. She walked hastily, as if\nunseeing, her head rather forward. It was her curious, absorbed,\nflitting motion, as if she were passing unseen by everybody,\nthat first arrested him.\n\nShe had heard the cart, and looked up. Her face was pale and\nclear, she had thick dark eyebrows and a wide mouth, curiously\nheld. He saw her face clearly, as if by a light in the air. He\nsaw her face so distinctly, that he ceased to coil on himself,\nand was suspended.\n\n\"That's her,\" he said involuntarily. As the cart passed by,\nsplashing through the thin mud, she stood back against the bank.\nThen, as he walked still beside his britching horse, his eyes\nmet hers. He looked quickly away, pressing back his head, a pain\nof joy running through him. He could not bear to think of\nanything.\n\nHe turned round at the last moment. He saw her bonnet, her\nshape in the black cloak, the movement as she walked. Then she\nwas gone round the bend.\n\nShe had passed by. He felt as if he were walking again in a\nfar world, not Cossethay, a far world, the fragile reality. He\nwent on, quiet, suspended, rarefied. He could not bear to think\nor to speak, nor make any sound or sign, nor change his fixed\nmotion. He could scarcely bear to think of her face. He moved\nwithin the knowledge of her, in the world that was beyond\nreality.\n\nThe feeling that they had exchanged recognition possessed him\nlike a madness, like a torment. How could he be sure, what\nconfirmation had he? The doubt was like a sense of infinite\nspace, a nothingness, annihilating. He kept within his breast\nthe will to surety. They had exchanged recognition.\n\nHe walked about in this state for the next few days. And then\nagain like a mist it began to break to let through the common,\nbarren world. He was very gentle with man and beast, but he\ndreaded the starkness of disillusion cropping through again.\n\nAs he was standing with his back to the fire after dinner a\nfew days later, he saw the woman passing. He wanted to know that\nshe knew him, that she was aware. He wanted it said that there\nwas something between them. So he stood anxiously watching,\nlooking at her as she went down the road. He called to\nTilly.\n\n\"Who might that be?\" he asked.\n\nTilly, the cross-eyed woman of forty, who adored him, ran\ngladly to the window to look. She was glad when he asked her for\nanything. She craned her head over the short curtain, the little\ntight knob of her black hair sticking out pathetically as she\nbobbed about.\n\n\"Oh why\"--she lifted her head and peered with her\ntwisted, keen brown eyes--\"why, you know who it\nis--it's her from th' vicarage--you know--\"\n\n\"How do I know, you hen-bird,\" he shouted.\n\nTilly blushed and drew her neck in and looked at him with her\nsquinting, sharp, almost reproachful look.\n\n\"Why you do--it's the new housekeeper.\"\n\n\"Ay--an' what by that?\"\n\n\"Well, an' what by that?\" rejoined the indignant\nTilly.\n\n\"She's a woman, isn't she, housekeeper or no housekeeper?\nShe's got more to her than that! Who is she--she's got a\nname?\"\n\n\"Well, if she has, I don't know,\" retorted Tilly, not\nto be badgered by this lad who had grown up into a man.\n\n\"What's her name?\" he asked, more gently.\n\n\"I'm sure I couldn't tell you,\" replied Tilly, on her\ndignity.\n\n\"An' is that all as you've gathered, as she's housekeeping at\nthe vicarage?\"\n\n\"I've 'eered mention of 'er name, but I couldn't remember it\nfor my life.\"\n\n\"Why, yer riddle-skulled woman o' nonsense, what have you got\na head for?\"\n\n\"For what other folks 'as got theirs for,\" retorted Tilly,\nwho loved nothing more than these tilts when he would call her\nnames.\n\nThere was a lull.\n\n\"I don't believe as anybody could keep it in their head,\" the\nwoman-servant continued, tentatively.\n\n\"What?\" he asked.\n\n\"Why, 'er name.\"\n\n\"How's that?\"\n\n\"She's fra some foreign parts or other.\"\n\n\"Who told you that?\"\n\n\"That's all I do know, as she is.\"\n\n\"An' wheer do you reckon she's from, then?\"\n\n\"I don't know. They do say as she hails fra th' Pole. I don't\nknow,\" Tilly hastened to add, knowing he would attack her.\n\n\"Fra th' Pole, why do you hail fra th' Pole? Who set\nup that menagerie confabulation?\"\n\n\"That's what they say--I don't know----\"\n\n\"Who says?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Bentley says as she's fra th' Pole--else she is a\nPole, or summat.\"\n\nTilly was only afraid she was landing herself deeper now.\n\n\"Who says she's a Pole?\"\n\n\"They all say so.\"\n\n\"Then what's brought her to these parts?\"\n\n\"I couldn't tell you. She's got a little girl with her.\"\n\n\"Got a little girl with her?\"\n\n\"Of three or four, with a head like a fuzz-ball.\"\n\n\"Black?\"\n\n\"White--fair as can be, an' all of a fuzz.\"\n\n\"Is there a father, then?\"\n\n\"Not to my knowledge. I don't know.\"\n\n\"What brought her here?\"\n\n\"I couldn't say, without th' vicar axed her.\"\n\n\"Is the child her child?\"\n\n\"I s'd think so--they say so.\"\n\n\"Who told you about her?\"\n\n\"Why, Lizzie--a-Monday--we seed her goin'\npast.\"\n\n\"You'd have to be rattling your tongues if anything went\npast.\"\n\nBrangwen stood musing. That evening he went up to Cossethay\nto the \"Red Lion\", half with the intention of hearing more.\n\nShe was the widow of a Polish doctor, he gathered. Her\nhusband had died, a refugee, in London. She spoke a bit\nforeign-like, but you could easily make out what she said. She\nhad one little girl named Anna. Lensky was the woman's name,\nMrs. Lensky.\n\nBrangwen felt that here was the unreality established at\nlast. He felt also a curious certainty about her, as if she were\ndestined to him. It was to him a profound satisfaction that she\nwas a foreigner.\n\nA swift change had taken place on the earth for him, as if a\nnew creation were fulfilled, in which he had real existence.\nThings had all been stark, unreal, barren, mere nullities\nbefore. Now they were actualities that he could handle.\n\nHe dared scarcely think of the woman. He was afraid. Only all\nthe time he was aware of her presence not far off, he lived in\nher. But he dared not know her, even acquaint himself with her\nby thinking of her.\n\nOne day he met her walking along the road with her little\ngirl. It was a child with a face like a bud of apple-blossom,\nand glistening fair hair like thistle-down sticking out in\nstraight, wild, flamy pieces, and very dark eyes. The child\nclung jealously to her mother's side when he looked at her,\nstaring with resentful black eyes. But the mother glanced at him\nagain, almost vacantly. And the very vacancy of her look\ninflamed him. She had wide grey-brown eyes with very dark,\nfathomless pupils. He felt the fine flame running under his\nskin, as if all his veins had caught fire on the surface. And he\nwent on walking without knowledge.\n\nIt was coming, he knew, his fate. The world was submitting to\nits transformation. He made no move: it would come, what would\ncome.\n\nWhen his sister Effie came to the Marsh for a week, he went\nwith her for once to church. In the tiny place, with its mere\ndozen pews, he sat not far from the stranger. There was a\nfineness about her, a poignancy about the way she sat and held\nher head lifted. She was strange, from far off, yet so intimate.\nShe was from far away, a presence, so close to his soul. She was\nnot really there, sitting in Cossethay church beside her little\ngirl. She was not living the apparent life of her days. She\nbelonged to somewhere else. He felt it poignantly, as something\nreal and natural. But a pang of fear for his own concrete life,\nthat was only Cossethay, hurt him, and gave him misgiving.\n\nHer thick dark brows almost met above her irregular nose, she\nhad a wide, rather thick mouth. But her face was lifted to\nanother world of life: not to heaven or death: but to some place\nwhere she still lived, in spite of her body's absence.\n\nThe child beside her watched everything with wide, black\neyes. She had an odd little defiant look, her little red mouth\nwas pinched shut. She seemed to be jealously guarding something,\nto be always on the alert for defence. She met Brangwen's near,\nvacant, intimate gaze, and a palpitating hostility, almost like\na flame of pain, came into the wide, over-conscious dark\neyes.\n\nThe old clergyman droned on, Cossethay sat unmoved as usual.\nAnd there was the foreign woman with a foreign air about her,\ninviolate, and the strange child, also foreign, jealously\nguarding something.\n\nWhen the service was over, he walked in the way of another\nexistence out of the church. As he went down the church-path\nwith his sister, behind the woman and child, the little girl\nsuddenly broke from her mother's hand, and slipped back with\nquick, almost invisible movement, and was picking at something\nalmost under Brangwen's feet. Her tiny fingers were fine and\nquick, but they missed the red button.\n\n\"Have you found something?\" said Brangwen to her.\n\nAnd he also stooped for the button. But she had got it, and\nshe stood back with it pressed against her little coat, her\nblack eyes flaring at him, as if to forbid him to notice her.\nThen, having silenced him, she turned with a swift\n\"Mother----,\" and was gone down the path.\n\nThe mother had stood watching impassive, looking not at the\nchild, but at Brangwen. He became aware of the woman looking at\nhim, standing there isolated yet for him dominant in her foreign\nexistence.\n\nHe did not know what to do, and turned to his sister. But the\nwide grey eyes, almost vacant yet so moving, held him beyond\nhimself.\n\n\"Mother, I may have it, mayn't I?\" came the child's proud,\nsilvery tones. \"Mother\"-she seemed always to be calling her\nmother to remember her-\"mother\"-and she had nothing to continue\nnow her mother had replied \"Yes, my child.\" But, with ready\ninvention, the child stumbled and ran on, \"What are those\npeople's names?\"\n\nBrangwen heard the abstract:\n\n\"I don't know, dear.\"\n\nHe went on down the road as if he were not living inside\nhimself, but somewhere outside.\n\n\"Who was that person?\" his sister Effie asked.\n\n\"I couldn't tell you,\" he answered unknowing.\n\n\"She's somebody very funny,\" said Effie, almost in\ncondemnation. \"That child's like one bewitched.\"\n\n\"Bewitched--how bewitched?\" he repeated.\n\n\"You can see for yourself. The mother's plain, I must\nsay--but the child is like a changeling. She'd be about\nthirty-five.\"\n\nBut he took no notice. His sister talked on.\n\n\"There's your woman for you,\" she continued. \"You'd better\nmarry her.\" But still he took no notice. Things were as\nthey were.\n\nAnother day, at tea-time, as he sat alone at table, there\ncame a knock at the front door. It startled him like a portent.\nNo one ever knocked at the front door. He rose and began\nslotting back the bolts, turning the big key. When he had opened\nthe door, the strange woman stood on the threshold.\n\n\"Can you give me a pound of butter?\" she asked, in a curious\ndetached way of one speaking a foreign language.\n\nHe tried to attend to her question. She was looking at him\nquestioningly. But underneath the question, what was there, in\nher very standing motionless, which affected him?\n\nHe stepped aside and she at once entered the house, as if the\ndoor had been opened to admit her. That startled him. It was the\ncustom for everybody to wait on the doorstep till asked inside.\nHe went into the kitchen and she followed.\n\nHis tea-things were spread on the scrubbed deal table, a big\nfire was burning, a dog rose from the hearth and went to her.\nShe stood motionless just inside the kitchen.\n\n\"Tilly,\" he called loudly, \"have we got any butter?\"\n\nThe stranger stood there like a silence in her black\ncloak.\n\n\"Eh?\" came the shrill cry from the distance.\n\nHe shouted his question again.\n\n\"We've got what's on t' table,\" answered Tilly's shrill voice\nout of the dairy.\n\nBrangwen looked at the table. There was a large pat of butter\non a plate, almost a pound. It was round, and stamped with\nacorns and oak-leaves.\n\n\"Can't you come when you're wanted?\" he shouted.\n\n\"Why, what d'you want?\" Tilly protested, as she came peeking\ninquisitively through the other door.\n\nShe saw the strange woman, stared at her with cross-eyes, but\nsaid nothing.\n\n\"Haven't we any butter?\" asked Brangwen again,\nimpatiently, as if he could command some by his question.\n\n\"I tell you there's what's on t' table,\" said Tilly,\nimpatient that she was unable to create any to his demand. \"We\nhaven't a morsel besides.\"\n\nThere was a moment's silence.\n\nThe stranger spoke, in her curiously distinct, detached\nmanner of one who must think her speech first.\n\n\"Oh, then thank you very much. I am sorry that I have come to\ntrouble you.\"\n\nShe could not understand the entire lack of manners, was\nslightly puzzled. Any politeness would have made the situation\nquite impersonal. But here it was a case of wills in confusion.\nBrangwen flushed at her polite speech. Still he did not let her\ngo.\n\n\"Get summat an' wrap that up for her,\" he said to\nTilly, looking at the butter on the table.\n\nAnd taking a clean knife, he cut off that side of the butter\nwhere it was touched.\n\nHis speech, the \"for her\", penetrated slowly into the foreign\nwoman and angered Tilly.\n\n\"Vicar has his butter fra Brown's by rights,\" said the\ninsuppressible servant-woman. \"We s'll be churnin' to-morrow\nmornin' first thing.\"\n\n\"Yes\"--the long-drawn foreign yes--\"yes,\" said the\nPolish woman, \"I went to Mrs. Brown's. She hasn't any more.\"\n\nTilly bridled her head, bursting to say that, according to\nthe etiquette of people who bought butter, it was no sort of\nmanners whatever coming to a place cool as you like and knocking\nat the front door asking for a pound as a stop-gap while your\nother people were short. If you go to Brown's you go to Brown's,\nan' my butter isn't just to make shift when Brown's has got\nnone.\n\nBrangwen understood perfectly this unspoken speech of\nTilly's. The Polish lady did not. And as she wanted butter for\nthe vicar, and as Tilly was churning in the morning, she\nwaited.\n\n\"Sluther up now,\" said Brangwen loudly after this silence had\nresolved itself out; and Tilly disappeared through the inner\ndoor.\n\n\"I am afraid that I should not come, so,\" said the stranger,\nlooking at him enquiringly, as if referring to him for what it\nwas usual to do.\n\nHe felt confused.\n\n\"How's that?\" he said, trying to be genial and being only\nprotective.\n\n\"Do you----?\" she began deliberately. But she was\nnot sure of her ground, and the conversation came to an end. Her\neyes looked at him all the while, because she could not speak\nthe language.\n\nThey stood facing each other. The dog walked away from her to\nhim. He bent down to it.\n\n\"And how's your little girl?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes, thank you, she is very well,\" was the reply, a phrase\nof polite speech in a foreign language merely.\n\n\"Sit you down,\" he said.\n\nAnd she sat in a chair, her slim arms, coming through the\nslits of her cloak, resting on her lap.\n\n\"You're not used to these parts,\" he said, still standing on\nthe hearthrug with his back to the fire, coatless, looking with\ncurious directness at the woman. Her self-possession pleased him\nand inspired him, set him curiously free. It seemed to him\nalmost brutal to feel so master of himself and of the\nsituation.\n\nHer eyes rested on him for a moment, questioning, as she\nthought of the meaning of his speech.\n\n\"No,\" she said, understanding. \"No--it is strange.\"\n\n\"You find it middlin' rough?\" he said.\n\nHer eyes waited on him, so that he should say it again.\n\n\"Our ways are rough to you,\" he repeated.\n\n\"Yes--yes, I understand. Yes, it is different, it is\nstrange. But I was in Yorkshire----\"\n\n\"Oh, well then,\" he said, \"it's no worse here than what they\nare up there.\"\n\nShe did not quite understand. His protective manner, and his\nsureness, and his intimacy, puzzled her. What did he mean? If he\nwas her equal, why did he behave so without formality?\n\n\"No----\" she said, vaguely, her eyes resting on\nhim.\n\nShe saw him fresh and naive, uncouth, almost entirely\nbeyond relationship with her. Yet he was good-looking, with his\nfair hair and blue eyes full of energy, and with his healthy\nbody that seemed to take equality with her. She watched him\nsteadily. He was difficult for her to understand, warm, uncouth,\nand confident as he was, sure on his feet as if he did not know\nwhat it was to be unsure. What then was it that gave him this\ncurious stability?\n\nShe did not know. She wondered. She looked round the room he\nlived in. It had a close intimacy that fascinated and almost\nfrightened her. The furniture was old and familiar as old\npeople, the whole place seemed so kin to him, as if it partook\nof his being, that she was uneasy.\n\n\"It is already a long time that you have lived in this\nhouse--yes?\" she asked.\n\n\"I've always lived here,\" he said.\n\n\"Yes--but your people--your family?\"\n\n\"We've been here above two hundred years,\" he said. Her eyes\nwere on him all the time, wide-open and trying to grasp him. He\nfelt that he was there for her.\n\n\"It is your own place, the house, the\nfarm----?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said. He looked down at her and met her look. It\ndisturbed her. She did not know him. He was a foreigner, they\nhad nothing to do with each other. Yet his look disturbed her to\nknowledge of him. He was so strangely confident and direct.\n\n\"You live quite alone?\"\n\n\"Yes--if you call it alone?\"\n\nShe did not understand. It seemed unusual to her. What was\nthe meaning of it?\n\nAnd whenever her eyes, after watching him for some time,\ninevitably met his, she was aware of a heat beating up over her\nconsciousness. She sat motionless and in conflict. Who was this\nstrange man who was at once so near to her? What was happening\nto her? Something in his young, warm-twinkling eyes seemed to\nassume a right to her, to speak to her, to extend her his\nprotection. But how? Why did he speak to her? Why were his eyes\nso certain, so full of light and confident, waiting for no\npermission nor signal?\n\nTilly returned with a large leaf and found the two silent. At\nonce he felt it incumbent on him to speak, now the serving-woman\nhad come back.\n\n\"How old is your little girl?\" he asked.\n\n\"Four years,\" she replied.\n\n\"Her father hasn't been dead long, then?\" he asked.\n\n\"She was one year when he died.\"\n\n\"Three years?\"\n\n\"Yes, three years that he is dead--yes.\"\n\nCuriously quiet she was, almost abstracted, answering these\nquestions. She looked at him again, with some maidenhood opening\nin her eyes. He felt he could not move, neither towards her nor\naway from her. Something about her presence hurt him, till he\nwas almost rigid before her. He saw the girl's wondering look\nrise in her eyes.\n\nTilly handed her the butter and she rose.\n\n\"Thank you very much,\" she said. \"How much is it?\"\n\n\"We'll make th' vicar a present of it,\" he said. \"It'll do\nfor me goin' to church.\"\n\n\"It 'ud look better of you if you went to church and took th'\nmoney for your butter,\" said Tilly, persistent in her claim to\nhim.\n\n\"You'd have to put in, shouldn't you?\" he said.\n\n\"How much, please?\" said the Polish woman to Tilly. Brangwen\nstood by and let be.\n\n\"Then, thank you very much,\" she said.\n\n\"Bring your little girl down sometime to look at th' fowls\nand horses,\" he said,--\"if she'd like it.\"\n\n\"Yes, she would like it,\" said the stranger.\n\nAnd she went. Brangwen stood dimmed by her departure. He\ncould not notice Tilly, who was looking at him uneasily, wanting\nto be reassured. He could not think of anything. He felt that he\nhad made some invisible connection with the strange woman.\n\nA daze had come over his mind, he had another centre of\nconsciousness. In his breast, or in his bowels, somewhere in his\nbody, there had started another activity. It was as if a strong\nlight were burning there, and he was blind within it, unable to\nknow anything, except that this transfiguration burned between\nhim and her, connecting them, like a secret power.\n\nSince she had come to the house he went about in a daze,\nscarcely seeing even the things he handled, drifting, quiescent,\nin a state of metamorphosis. He submitted to that which was\nhappening to him, letting go his will, suffering the loss of\nhimself, dormant always on the brink of ecstasy, like a creature\nevolving to a new birth.\n\nShe came twice with her child to the farm, but there was this\nlull between them, an intense calm and passivity like a torpor\nupon them, so that there was no active change took place. He was\nalmost unaware of the child, yet by his native good humour he\ngained her confidence, even her affection, setting her on a\nhorse to ride, giving her corn for the fowls.\n\nOnce he drove the mother and child from Ilkeston, picking\nthem up on the road. The child huddled close to him as if for\nlove, the mother sat very still. There was a vagueness, like a\nsoft mist over all of them, and a silence as if their wills were\nsuspended. Only he saw her hands, ungloved, folded in her lap,\nand he noticed the wedding-ring on her finger. It excluded him:\nit was a closed circle. It bound her life, the wedding-ring, it\nstood for her life in which he could have no part. Nevertheless,\nbeyond all this, there was herself and himself which should\nmeet.\n\nAs he helped her down from the trap, almost lifting her, he\nfelt he had some right to take her thus between his hands. She\nbelonged as yet to that other, to that which was behind. But he\nmust care for her also. She was too living to be neglected.\n\nSometimes her vagueness, in which he was lost, made him\nangry, made him rage. But he held himself still as yet. She had\nno response, no being towards him. It puzzled and enraged him,\nbut he submitted for a long time. Then, from the accumulated\ntroubling of her ignoring him, gradually a fury broke out,\ndestructive, and he wanted to go away, to escape her.\n\nIt happened she came down to the Marsh with the child whilst\nhe was in this state. Then he stood over against her, strong and\nheavy in his revolt, and though he said nothing, still she felt\nhis anger and heavy impatience grip hold of her, she was shaken\nagain as out of a torpor. Again her heart stirred with a quick,\nout-running impulse, she looked at him, at the stranger who was\nnot a gentleman yet who insisted on coming into her life, and\nthe pain of a new birth in herself strung all her veins to a new\nform. She would have to begin again, to find a new being, a new\nform, to respond to that blind, insistent figure standing over\nagainst her.\n\nA shiver, a sickness of new birth passed over her, the flame\nleaped up him, under his skin. She wanted it, this new life from\nhim, with him, yet she must defend herself against it, for it\nwas a destruction.\n\nAs he worked alone on the land, or sat up with his ewes at\nlambing time, the facts and material of his daily life fell\naway, leaving the kernel of his purpose clean. And then it came\nupon him that he would marry her and she would be his life.\n\nGradually, even without seeing her, he came to know her. He\nwould have liked to think of her as of something given into his\nprotection, like a child without parents. But it was forbidden\nhim. He had to come down from this pleasant view of the case.\nShe might refuse him. And besides, he was afraid of her.\n\nBut during the long February nights with the ewes in labour,\nlooking out from the shelter into the flashing stars, he knew he\ndid not belong to himself. He must admit that he was only\nfragmentary, something incomplete and subject. There were the\nstars in the dark heaven travelling, the whole host passing by\non some eternal voyage. So he sat small and submissive to the\ngreater ordering.\n\nUnless she would come to him, he must remain as a\nnothingness. It was a hard experience. But, after her repeated\nobliviousness to him, after he had seen so often that he did not\nexist for her, after he had raged and tried to escape, and said\nhe was good enough by himself, he was a man, and could stand\nalone, he must, in the starry multiplicity of the night humble\nhimself, and admit and know that without her he was nothing.\n\nHe was nothing. But with her, he would be real. If she were\nnow walking across the frosty grass near the sheep-shelter,\nthrough the fretful bleating of the ewes and lambs, she would\nbring him completeness and perfection. And if it should be so,\nthat she should come to him! It should be so--it was\nordained so.\n\nHe was a long time resolving definitely to ask her to marry\nhim. And he knew, if he asked her, she must really acquiesce.\nShe must, it could not be otherwise.\n\nHe had learned a little of her. She was poor, quite alone,\nand had had a hard time in London, both before and after her\nhusband died. But in Poland she was a lady well born, a\nlandowner's daughter.\n\nAll these things were only words to him, the fact of her\nsuperior birth, the fact that her husband had been a brilliant\ndoctor, the fact that he himself was her inferior in almost\nevery way of distinction. There was an inner reality, a logic of\nthe soul, which connected her with him.\n\nOne evening in March, when the wind was roaring outside, came\nthe moment to ask her. He had sat with his hands before him,\nleaning to the fire. And as he watched the fire, he knew almost\nwithout thinking that he was going this evening.\n\n\"Have you got a clean shirt?\" he asked Tilly.\n\n\"You know you've got clean shirts,\" she said.\n\n\"Ay,--bring me a white one.\"\n\nTilly brought down one of the linen shirts he had inherited\nfrom his father, putting it before him to air at the fire. She\nloved him with a dumb, aching love as he sat leaning with his\narms on his knees, still and absorbed, unaware of her. Lately, a\nquivering inclination to cry had come over her, when she did\nanything for him in his presence. Now her hands trembled as she\nspread the shirt. He was never shouting and teasing now. The\ndeep stillness there was in the house made her tremble.\n\nHe went to wash himself. Queer little breaks of consciousness\nseemed to rise and burst like bubbles out of the depths of his\nstillness.\n\n\"It's got to be done,\" he said as he stooped to take the\nshirt out of the fender, \"it's got to be done, so why balk it?\"\nAnd as he combed his hair before the mirror on the wall, he\nretorted to himself, superficially: \"The woman's not speechless\ndumb. She's not clutterin' at the nipple. She's got the right to\nplease herself, and displease whosoever she likes.\"\n\nThis streak of common sense carried him a little further.\n\n\"Did you want anythink?\" asked Tilly, suddenly appearing,\nhaving heard him speak. She stood watching him comb his fair\nbeard. His eyes were calm and uninterrupted.\n\n\"Ay,\" he said, \"where have you put the scissors?\"\n\nShe brought them to him, and stood watching as, chin forward,\nhe trimmed his beard.\n\n\"Don't go an' crop yourself as if you was at a shearin'\ncontest,\" she said, anxiously. He blew the fine-curled hair\nquickly off his lips.\n\nHe put on all clean clothes, folded his stock carefully, and\ndonned his best coat. Then, being ready, as grey twilight was\nfalling, he went across to the orchard to gather the daffodils.\nThe wind was roaring in the apple trees, the yellow flowers\nswayed violently up and down, he heard even the fine whisper of\ntheir spears as he stooped to break the flattened, brittle stems\nof the flowers.\n\n\"What's to-do?\" shouted a friend who met him as he left the\ngarden gate.\n\n\"Bit of courtin', like,\" said Brangwen.\n\nAnd Tilly, in a great state of trepidation and excitement,\nlet the wind whisk her over the field to the big gate, whence\nshe could watch him go.\n\nHe went up the hill and on towards the vicarage, the wind\nroaring through the hedges, whilst he tried to shelter his bunch\nof daffodils by his side. He did not think of anything, only\nknew that the wind was blowing.\n\nNight was falling, the bare trees drummed and whistled. The\nvicar, he knew, would be in his study, the Polish woman in the\nkitchen, a comfortable room, with her child. In the darkest of\ntwilight, he went through the gate and down the path where a few\ndaffodils stooped in the wind, and shattered crocuses made a\npale, colourless ravel.\n\nThere was a light streaming on to the bushes at the back from\nthe kitchen window. He began to hesitate. How could he do this?\nLooking through the window, he saw her seated in the\nrocking-chair with the child, already in its nightdress, sitting\non her knee. The fair head with its wild, fierce hair was\ndrooping towards the fire-warmth, which reflected on the bright\ncheeks and clear skin of the child, who seemed to be musing,\nalmost like a grown-up person. The mother's face was dark and\nstill, and he saw, with a pang, that she was away back in the\nlife that had been. The child's hair gleamed like spun glass,\nher face was illuminated till it seemed like wax lit up from the\ninside. The wind boomed strongly. Mother and child sat\nmotionless, silent, the child staring with vacant dark eyes into\nthe fire, the mother looking into space. The little girl was\nalmost asleep. It was her will which kept her eyes so wide.\n\nSuddenly she looked round, troubled, as the wind shook the\nhouse, and Brangwen saw the small lips move. The mother began to\nrock, he heard the slight crunch of the rockers of the chair.\nThen he heard the low, monotonous murmur of a song in a foreign\nlanguage. Then a great burst of wind, the mother seemed to have\ndrifted away, the child's eyes were black and dilated. Brangwen\nlooked up at the clouds which packed in great, alarming haste\nacross the dark sky.\n\nThen there came the child's high, complaining, yet imperative\nvoice:\n\n\"Don't sing that stuff, mother; I don't want to hear it.\"\n\nThe singing died away.\n\n\"You will go to bed,\" said the mother.\n\nHe saw the clinging protest of the child, the unmoved\nfarawayness of the mother, the clinging, grasping effort of the\nchild. Then suddenly the clear childish challenge:\n\n\"I want you to tell me a story.\"\n\nThe wind blew, the story began, the child nestled against the\nmother, Brangwen waited outside, suspended, looking at the wild\nwaving of the trees in the wind and the gathering darkness. He\nhad his fate to follow, he lingered there at the threshold.\n\nThe child crouched distinct and motionless, curled in against\nher mother, the eyes dark and unblinking among the keen wisps of\nhair, like a curled-up animal asleep but for the eyes. The\nmother sat as if in shadow, the story went on as if by itself.\nBrangwen stood outside seeing the night fall. He did not notice\nthe passage of time. The hand that held the daffodils was fixed\nand cold.\n\nThe story came to an end, the mother rose at last, with the\nchild clinging round her neck. She must be strong, to carry so\nlarge a child so easily. The little Anna clung round her\nmother's neck. The fair, strange face of the child looked over\nthe shoulder of the mother, all asleep but the eyes, and these,\nwide and dark, kept up the resistance and the fight with\nsomething unseen.\n\nWhen they were gone, Brangwen stirred for the first time from\nthe place where he stood, and looked round at the night. He\nwished it were really as beautiful and familiar as it seemed in\nthese few moments of release. Along with the child, he felt a\ncurious strain on him, a suffering, like a fate.\n\nThe mother came down again, and began folding the child's\nclothes. He knocked. She opened wondering, a little bit at bay,\nlike a foreigner, uneasy.\n\n\"Good evening,\" he said. \"I'll just come in a minute.\"\n\nA change went quickly over her face; she was unprepared. She\nlooked down at him as he stood in the light from the window,\nholding the daffodils, the darkness behind. In his black clothes\nshe again did not know him. She was almost afraid.\n\nBut he was already stepping on to the threshold, and closing\nthe door behind him. She turned into the kitchen, startled out\nof herself by this invasion from the night. He took off his hat,\nand came towards her. Then he stood in the light, in his black\nclothes and his black stock, hat in one hand and yellow flowers\nin the other. She stood away, at his mercy, snatched out of\nherself. She did not know him, only she knew he was a man come\nfor her. She could only see the dark-clad man's figure standing\nthere upon her, and the gripped fist of flowers. She could not\nsee the face and the living eyes.\n\nHe was watching her, without knowing her, only aware\nunderneath of her presence.\n\n\"I come to have a word with you,\" he said, striding forward\nto the table, laying down his hat and the flowers, which tumbled\napart and lay in a loose heap. She had flinched from his\nadvance. She had no will, no being. The wind boomed in the\nchimney, and he waited. He had disembarrassed his hands. Now he\nshut his fists.\n\nHe was aware of her standing there unknown, dread, yet\nrelated to him.\n\n\"I came up,\" he said, speaking curiously matter-of-fact and\nlevel, \"to ask if you'd marry me. You are free, aren't you?\"\n\nThere was a long silence, whilst his blue eyes, strangely\nimpersonal, looked into her eyes to seek an answer to the truth.\nHe was looking for the truth out of her. And she, as if\nhypnotized, must answer at length.\n\n\"Yes, I am free to marry.\"\n\nThe expression of his eyes changed, became less impersonal,\nas if he were looking almost at her, for the truth of her.\nSteady and intent and eternal they were, as if they would never\nchange. They seemed to fix and to resolve her. She quivered,\nfeeling herself created, will-less, lapsing into him, into a\ncommon will with him.\n\n\"You want me?\" she said.\n\nA pallor came over his face.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said.\n\nStill there was no response and silence.\n\n\"No,\" she said, not of herself. \"No, I don't know.\"\n\nHe felt the tension breaking up in him, his fists slackened,\nhe was unable to move. He stood there looking at her, helpless\nin his vague collapse. For the moment she had become unreal to\nhim. Then he saw her come to him, curiously direct and as if\nwithout movement, in a sudden flow. She put her hand to his\ncoat.\n\n\"Yes I want to,\" she said, impersonally, looking at him with\nwide, candid, newly-opened eyes, opened now with supreme truth.\nHe went very white as he stood, and did not move, only his eyes\nwere held by hers, and he suffered. She seemed to see him with\nher newly-opened, wide eyes, almost of a child, and with a\nstrange movement, that was agony to him, she reached slowly\nforward her dark face and her breast to him, with a slow\ninsinuation of a kiss that made something break in his brain,\nand it was darkness over him for a few moments.\n\nHe had her in his arms, and, obliterated, was kissing her.\nAnd it was sheer, bleached agony to him, to break away from\nhimself. She was there so small and light and accepting in his\narms, like a child, and yet with such an insinuation of embrace,\nof infinite embrace, that he could not bear it, he could not\nstand.\n\nHe turned and looked for a chair, and keeping her still in\nhis arms, sat down with her close to him, to his breast. Then,\nfor a few seconds, he went utterly to sleep, asleep and sealed\nin the darkest sleep, utter, extreme oblivion.\n\nFrom which he came to gradually, always holding her warm and\nclose upon him, and she as utterly silent as he, involved in the\nsame oblivion, the fecund darkness.\n\nHe returned gradually, but newly created, as after a\ngestation, a new birth, in the womb of darkness. Aerial and\nlight everything was, new as a morning, fresh and newly-begun.\nLike a dawn the newness and the bliss filled in. And she sat\nutterly still with him, as if in the same.\n\nThen she looked up at him, the wide, young eyes blazing with\nlight. And he bent down and kissed her on the lips. And the dawn\nblazed in them, their new life came to pass, it was beyond all\nconceiving good, it was so good, that it was almost like a\npassing-away, a trespass. He drew her suddenly closer to\nhim.\n\nFor soon the light began to fade in her, gradually, and as\nshe was in his arms, her head sank, she leaned it against him,\nand lay still, with sunk head, a little tired, effaced because\nshe was tired. And in her tiredness was a certain negation of\nhim.\n\n\"There is the child,\" she said, out of the long silence.\n\nHe did not understand. It was a long time since he had heard\na voice. Now also he heard the wind roaring, as if it had just\nbegun again.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, not understanding. There was a slight\ncontraction of pain at his heart, a slight tension on his brows.\nSomething he wanted to grasp and could not.\n\n\"You will love her?\" she said.\n\nThe quick contraction, like pain, went over him again.\n\n\"I love her now,\" he said.\n\nShe lay still against him, taking his physical warmth without\nheed. It was great confirmation for him to feel her there,\nabsorbing the warmth from him, giving him back her weight and\nher strange confidence. But where was she, that she seemed so\nabsent? His mind was open with wonder. He did not know her.\n\n\"But I am much older than you,\" she said.\n\n\"How old?\" he asked.\n\n\"I am thirty-four,\" she said.\n\n\"I am twenty-eight,\" he said.\n\n\"Six years.\"\n\nShe was oddly concerned, even as if it pleased her a little.\nHe sat and listened and wondered. It was rather splendid, to be\nso ignored by her, whilst she lay against him, and he lifted her\nwith his breathing, and felt her weight upon his living, so he\nhad a completeness and an inviolable power. He did not interfere\nwith her. He did not even know her. It was so strange that she\nlay there with her weight abandoned upon him. He was silent with\ndelight. He felt strong, physically, carrying her on his\nbreathing. The strange, inviolable completeness of the two of\nthem made him feel as sure and as stable as God. Amused, he\nwondered what the vicar would say if he knew.\n\n\"You needn't stop here much longer, housekeeping,\" he\nsaid.\n\n\"I like it also, here,\" she said. \"When one has been in many\nplaces, it is very nice here.\"\n\nHe was silent again at this. So close on him she lay, and yet\nshe answered him from so far away. But he did not mind.\n\n\"What was your own home like, when you were little?\" he\nasked.\n\n\"My father was a landowner,\" she replied. \"It was near a\nriver.\"\n\nThis did not convey much to him. All was as vague as before.\nBut he did not care, whilst she was so close.\n\n\"I am a landowner--a little one,\" he said.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said.\n\nHe had not dared to move. He sat there with his arms round\nher, her lying motionless on his breathing, and for a long time\nhe did not stir. Then softly, timidly, his hand settled on the\nroundness of her arm, on the unknown. She seemed to lie a little\ncloser. A hot flame licked up from his belly to his chest.\n\nBut it was too soon. She rose, and went across the room to a\ndrawer, taking out a little tray-cloth. There was something\nquiet and professional about her. She had been a nurse beside\nher husband, both in Warsaw and in the rebellion afterwards. She\nproceeded to set a tray. It was as if she ignored Brangwen. He\nsat up, unable to bear a contradiction in her. She moved about\ninscrutably.\n\nThen, as he sat there, all mused and wondering, she came near\nto him, looking at him with wide, grey eyes that almost smiled\nwith a low light. But her ugly-beautiful mouth was still unmoved\nand sad. He was afraid.\n\nHis eyes, strained and roused with unusedness, quailed a\nlittle before her, he felt himself quailing and yet he rose, as\nif obedient to her, he bent and kissed her heavy, sad, wide\nmouth, that was kissed, and did not alter. Fear was too strong\nin him. Again he had not got her.\n\nShe turned away. The vicarage kitchen was untidy, and yet to\nhim beautiful with the untidiness of her and her child. Such a\nwonderful remoteness there was about her, and then something in\ntouch with him, that made his heart knock in his chest. He stood\nthere and waited, suspended.\n\nAgain she came to him, as he stood in his black clothes, with\nblue eyes very bright and puzzled for her, his face tensely\nalive, his hair dishevelled. She came close up to him, to his\nintent, black-clothed body, and laid her hand on his arm. He\nremained unmoved. Her eyes, with a blackness of memory\nstruggling with passion, primitive and electric away at the back\nof them, rejected him and absorbed him at once. But he remained\nhimself. He breathed with difficulty, and sweat came out at the\nroots of his hair, on his forehead.\n\n\"Do you want to marry me?\" she asked slowly, always\nuncertain.\n\nHe was afraid lest he could not speak. He drew breath hard,\nsaying:\n\n\"I do.\"\n\nThen again, what was agony to him, with one hand lightly\nresting on his arm, she leaned forward a little, and with a\nstrange, primeval suggestion of embrace, held him her mouth. It\nwas ugly-beautiful, and he could not bear it. He put his mouth\non hers, and slowly, slowly the response came, gathering force\nand passion, till it seemed to him she was thundering at him\ntill he could bear no more. He drew away, white, unbreathing.\nOnly, in his blue eyes, was something of himself concentrated.\nAnd in her eyes was a little smile upon a black void.\n\nShe was drifting away from him again. And he wanted to go\naway. It was intolerable. He could bear no more. He must go. Yet\nhe was irresolute. But she turned away from him.\n\nWith a little pang of anguish, of denial, it was decided.\n\n\"I'll come an' speak to the vicar to-morrow,\" he said, taking\nhis hat.\n\nShe looked at him, her eyes expressionless and full of\ndarkness. He could see no answer.\n\n\"That'll do, won't it?\" he said.\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered, mere echo without body or meaning.\n\n\"Good night,\" he said.\n\n\"Good night.\"\n\nHe left her standing there, expressionless and void as she\nwas. Then she went on laying the tray for the vicar. Needing the\ntable, she put the daffodils aside on the dresser without\nnoticing them. Only their coolness, touching her hand, remained\nechoing there a long while.\n\nThey were such strangers, they must for ever be such\nstrangers, that his passion was a clanging torment to him. Such\nintimacy of embrace, and such utter foreignness of contact! It\nwas unbearable. He could not bear to be near her, and know the\nutter foreignness between them, know how entirely they were\nstrangers to each other. He went out into the wind. Big holes\nwere blown into the sky, the moonlight blew about. Sometimes a\nhigh moon, liquid-brilliant, scudded across a hollow space and\ntook cover under electric, brown-iridescent cloud-edges. Then\nthere was a blot of cloud, and shadow. Then somewhere in the\nnight a radiance again, like a vapour. And all the sky was\nteeming and tearing along, a vast disorder of flying shapes and\ndarkness and ragged fumes of light and a great brown circling\nhalo, then the terror of a moon running liquid-brilliant into\nthe open for a moment, hurting the eyes before she plunged under\ncover of cloud again.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHEY LIVE AT THE MARSH\n\nShe was the daughter of a Polish landowner who, deeply in\ndebt to the Jews, had married a German wife with money, and who\nhad died just before the rebellion. Quite young, she had married\nPaul Lensky, an intellectual who had studied at Berlin, and had\nreturned to Warsaw a patriot. Her mother had married a German\nmerchant and gone away.\n\nLydia Lensky, married to the young doctor, became with him a\npatriot and an emancipee. They were poor, but they\nwere very conceited. She learned nursing as a mark of her\nemancipation. They represented in Poland the new movement just\nbegun in Russia. But they were very patriotic: and, at the same\ntime, very \"European\".\n\nThey had two children. Then came the great rebellion. Lensky,\nvery ardent and full of words, went about inciting his\ncountrymen. Little Poles flamed down the streets of Warsaw, on\nthe way to shoot every Muscovite. So they crossed into the south\nof Russia, and it was common for six little insurgents to ride\ninto a Jewish village, brandishing swords and words, emphasizing\nthe fact that they were going to shoot every living\nMuscovite.\n\nLensky was something of a fire-eater also. Lydia, tempered by\nher German blood, coming of a different family, was obliterated,\ncarried along in her husband's emphasis of declaration, and his\nwhirl of patriotism. He was indeed a brave man, but no bravery\ncould quite have equalled the vividness of his talk. He worked\nvery hard, till nothing lived in him but his eyes. And Lydia, as\nif drugged, followed him like a shadow, serving, echoing.\nSometimes she had her two children, sometimes they were left\nbehind.\n\nShe returned once to find them both dead of diphtheria. Her\nhusband wept aloud, unaware of everybody. But the war went on,\nand soon he was back at his work. A darkness had come over\nLydia's mind. She walked always in a shadow, silenced, with a\nstrange, deep terror having hold of her, her desire was to seek\nsatisfaction in dread, to enter a nunnery, to satisfy the\ninstincts of dread in her, through service of a dark religion.\nBut she could not.\n\nThen came the flight to London. Lensky, the little, thin man,\nhad got all his life locked into a resistance and could not\nrelax again. He lived in a sort of insane irritability, touchy,\nhaughty to the last degree, fractious, so that as assistant\ndoctor in one of the hospitals he soon became impossible. They\nwere almost beggars. But he kept still his great ideas of\nhimself, he seemed to live in a complete hallucination, where he\nhimself figured vivid and lordly. He guarded his wife jealously\nagainst the ignominy of her position, rushed round her like a\nbrandished weapon, an amazing sight to the English eye, had her\nin his power, as if he hypnotized her. She was passive, dark,\nalways in shadow.\n\nHe was wasting away. Already when the child was born he\nseemed nothing but skin and bone and fixed idea. She watched him\ndying, nursed him, nursed the baby, but really took no notice of\nanything. A darkness was on her, like remorse, or like a\nremembering of the dark, savage, mystic ride of dread, of death,\nof the shadow of revenge. When her husband died, she was\nrelieved. He would no longer dart about her.\n\nEngland fitted her mood, its aloofness and foreignness. She\nhad known a little of the language before coming, and a sort of\nparrot-mind made her pick it up fairly easily. But she knew\nnothing of the English, nor of English life. Indeed, these did\nnot exist for her. She was like one walking in the Underworld,\nwhere the shades throng intelligibly but have no connection with\none. She felt the English people as a potent, cold, slightly\nhostile host amongst whom she walked isolated.\n\nThe English people themselves were almost deferential to her,\nthe Church saw that she did not want. She walked without\npassion, like a shade, tormented into moments of love by the\nchild. Her dying husband with his tortured eyes and the skin\ndrawn tight over his face, he was as a vision to her, not a\nreality. In a vision he was buried and put away. Then the vision\nceased, she was untroubled, time went on grey, uncoloured, like\na long journey where she sat unconscious as the landscape\nunrolled beside her. When she rocked her baby at evening, maybe\nshe fell into a Polish slumber song, or she talked sometimes to\nherself in Polish. Otherwise she did not think of Poland, nor of\nthat life to which she had belonged. It was a great blot looming\nblank in its darkness. In the superficial activity of her life,\nshe was all English. She even thought in English. But her long\nblanks and darknesses of abstraction were Polish.\n\nSo she lived for some time. Then, with slight uneasiness, she\nused half to awake to the streets of London. She realized that\nthere was something around her, very foreign, she realized she\nwas in a strange place. And then, she was sent away into the\ncountry. There came into her mind now the memory of her home\nwhere she had been a child, the big house among the land, the\npeasants of the village.\n\nShe was sent to Yorkshire, to nurse an old rector in his\nrectory by the sea. This was the first shake of the kaleidoscope\nthat brought in front of her eyes something she must see. It\nhurt her brain, the open country and the moors. It hurt her and\nhurt her. Yet it forced itself upon her as something living, it\nroused some potency of her childhood in her, it had some\nrelation to her.\n\nThere was green and silver and blue in the air about her now.\nAnd there was a strange insistence of light from the sea, to\nwhich she must attend. Primroses glimmered around, many of them,\nand she stooped to the disturbing influence near her feet, she\neven picked one or two flowers, faintly remembering in the new\ncolour of life, what had been. All the day long, as she sat at\nthe upper window, the light came off the sea, constantly,\nconstantly, without refusal, till it seemed to bear her away,\nand the noise of the sea created a drowsiness in her, a\nrelaxation like sleep. Her automatic consciousness gave way a\nlittle, she stumbled sometimes, she had a poignant, momentary\nvision of her living child, that hurt her unspeakably. Her soul\nroused to attention.\n\nVery strange was the constant glitter of the sea unsheathed\nin heaven, very warm and sweet the graveyard, in a nook of the\nhill catching the sunshine and holding it as one holds a bee\nbetween the palms of the hands, when it is benumbed. Grey grass\nand lichens and a little church, and snowdrops among coarse\ngrass, and a cupful of incredibly warm sunshine.\n\nShe was troubled in spirit. Hearing the rushing of the beck\naway down under the trees, she was startled, and wondered what\nit was. Walking down, she found the bluebells around her glowing\nlike a presence, among the trees.\n\nSummer came, the moors were tangled with harebells like water\nin the ruts of the roads, the heather came rosy under the skies,\nsetting the whole world awake. And she was uneasy. She went past\nthe gorse bushes shrinking from their presence, she stepped into\nthe heather as into a quickening bath that almost hurt. Her\nfingers moved over the clasped fingers of the child, she heard\nthe anxious voice of the baby, as it tried to make her talk,\ndistraught.\n\nAnd she shrank away again, back into her darkness, and for a\nlong while remained blotted safely away from living. But autumn\ncame with the faint red glimmer of robins singing, winter\ndarkened the moors, and almost savagely she turned again to\nlife, demanding her life back again, demanding that it should be\nas it had been when she was a girl, on the land at home, under\nthe sky. Snow lay in great expanses, the telegraph posts strode\nover the white earth, away under the gloom of the sky. And\nsavagely her desire rose in her again, demanding that this was\nPoland, her youth, that all was her own again.\n\nBut there were no sledges nor bells, she did not see the\npeasants coming out like new people, in their sheepskins and\ntheir fresh, ruddy, bright faces, that seemed to become new and\nvivid when the snow lit up the ground. It did not come to her,\nthe life of her youth, it did not come back. There was a little\nagony of struggle, then a relapse into the darkness of the\nconvent, where Satan and the devils raged round the walls, and\nChrist was white on the cross of victory.\n\nShe watched from the sick-room the snow whirl past, like\nflocks of shadows in haste, flying on some final mission out to\na leaden inalterable sea, beyond the final whiteness of the\ncurving shore, and the snow-speckled blackness of the rocks half\nsubmerged. But near at hand on the trees the snow was soft in\nbloom. Only the voice of the dying vicar spoke grey and\nquerulous from behind.\n\nBy the time the snowdrops were out, however, he was dead. He\nwas dead. But with curious equanimity the returning woman\nwatched the snowdrops on the edge of the grass below, blown\nwhite in the wind, but not to be blown away. She watched them\nfluttering and bobbing, the white, shut flowers, anchored by a\nthread to the grey-green grass, yet never blown away, not\ndrifting with the wind.\n\nAs she rose in the morning, the dawn was beating up white,\ngusts of light blown like a thin snowstorm from the east, blown\nstronger and fiercer, till the rose appeared, and the gold, and\nthe sea lit up below. She was impassive and indifferent. Yet she\nwas outside the enclosure of darkness.\n\nThere passed a space of shadow again, the familiarity of\ndread-worship, during which she was moved, oblivious, to\nCossethay. There, at first, there was nothing--just grey\nnothing. But then one morning there was a light from the yellow\njasmine caught her, and after that, morning and evening, the\npersistent ringing of thrushes from the shrubbery, till her\nheart, beaten upon, was forced to lift up its voice in rivalry\nand answer. Little tunes came into her mind. She was full of\ntrouble almost like anguish. Resistant, she knew she was beaten,\nand from fear of darkness turned to fear of light. She would\nhave hidden herself indoors, if she could. Above all, she craved\nfor the peace and heavy oblivion of her old state. She could not\nbear to come to, to realize. The first pangs of this new\nparturition were so acute, she knew she could not bear it. She\nwould rather remain out of life, than be torn, mutilated into\nthis birth, which she could not survive. She had not the\nstrength to come to life now, in England, so foreign, skies so\nhostile. She knew she would die like an early, colourless,\nscentless flower that the end of the winter puts forth\nmercilessly. And she wanted to harbour her modicum of twinkling\nlife.\n\nBut a sunshiny day came full of the scent of a mezereon tree,\nwhen bees were tumbling into the yellow crocuses, and she\nforgot, she felt like somebody else, not herself, a new person,\nquite glad. But she knew it was fragile, and she dreaded it. The\nvicar put pea-flower into the crocuses, for his bees to roll in,\nand she laughed. Then night came, with brilliant stars that she\nknew of old, from her girlhood. And they flashed so bright, she\nknew they were victors.\n\nShe could neither wake nor sleep. As if crushed between the\npast and the future, like a flower that comes above-ground to\nfind a great stone lying above it, she was helpless.\n\nThe bewilderment and helplessness continued, she was\nsurrounded by great moving masses that must crush her. And there\nwas no escape. Save in the old obliviousness, the cold darkness\nshe strove to retain. But the vicar showed her eggs in the\nthrush's nest near the back door. She saw herself the\nmother-thrush upon the nest, and the way her wings were spread,\nso eager down upon her secret. The tense, eager, nesting wings\nmoved her beyond endurance. She thought of them in the morning,\nwhen she heard the thrush whistling as he got up, and she\nthought, \"Why didn't I die out there, why am I brought\nhere?\"\n\nShe was aware of people who passed around her, not as\npersons, but as looming presences. It was very difficult for her\nto adjust herself. In Poland, the peasantry, the people, had\nbeen cattle to her, they had been her cattle that she owned and\nused. What were these people? Now she was coming awake, she was\nlost.\n\nBut she had felt Brangwen go by almost as if he had brushed\nher. She had tingled in body as she had gone on up the road.\nAfter she had been with him in the Marsh kitchen, the voice of\nher body had risen strong and insistent. Soon, she wanted him.\nHe was the man who had come nearest to her for her\nawakening.\n\nAlways, however, between-whiles she lapsed into the old\nunconsciousness, indifference and there was a will in her to\nsave herself from living any more. But she would wake in the\nmorning one day and feel her blood running, feel herself lying\nopen like a flower unsheathed in the sun, insistent and potent\nwith demand.\n\nShe got to know him better, and her instinct fixed on\nhim--just on him. Her impulse was strong against him,\nbecause he was not of her own sort. But one blind instinct led\nher, to take him, to leave him, and then to relinquish herself\nto him. It would be safety. She felt the rooted safety of him,\nand the life in him. Also he was young and very fresh. The blue,\nsteady livingness of his eyes she enjoyed like morning. He was\nvery young.\n\nThen she lapsed again to stupor and indifference. This,\nhowever, was bound to pass. The warmth flowed through her, she\nfelt herself opening, unfolding, asking, as a flower opens in\nfull request under the sun, as the beaks of tiny birds open\nflat, to receive, to receive. And unfolded she turned to him,\nstraight to him. And he came, slowly, afraid, held back by\nuncouth fear, and driven by a desire bigger than himself.\n\nWhen she opened and turned to him, then all that had been and\nall that was, was gone from her, she was as new as a flower that\nunsheathes itself and stands always ready, waiting, receptive.\nHe could not understand this. He forced himself, through lack of\nunderstanding, to the adherence to the line of honourable\ncourtship and sanctioned, licensed marriage. Therefore, after he\nhad gone to the vicarage and asked for her, she remained for\nsome days held in this one spell, open, receptive to him, before\nhim. He was roused to chaos. He spoke to the vicar and gave in\nthe banns. Then he stood to wait.\n\nShe remained attentive and instinctively expectant before\nhim, unfolded, ready to receive him. He could not act, because\nof self-fear and because of his conception of honour towards\nher. So he remained in a state of chaos.\n\nAnd after a few days, gradually she closed again, away from\nhim, was sheathed over, impervious to him, oblivious. Then a\nblack, bottomless despair became real to him, he knew what he\nhad lost. He felt he had lost it for good, he knew what it was\nto have been in communication with her, and to be cast off\nagain. In misery, his heart like a heavy stone, he went about\nunliving.\n\nTill gradually he became desperate, lost his understanding,\nwas plunged in a revolt that knew no bounds. Inarticulate, he\nmoved with her at the Marsh in violent, gloomy, wordless\npassion, almost in hatred of her. Till gradually she became\naware of him, aware of herself with regard to him, her blood\nstirred to life, she began to open towards him, to flow towards\nhim again. He waited till the spell was between them again, till\nthey were together within one rushing, hastening flame. And then\nagain he was bewildered, he was tied up as with cords, and could\nnot move to her. So she came to him, and unfastened the breast\nof his waistcoat and his shirt, and put her hand on him, needing\nto know him. For it was cruel to her, to be opened and offered\nto him, yet not to know what he was, not even that he was there.\nShe gave herself to the hour, but he could not, and he bungled\nin taking her.\n\nSo that he lived in suspense, as if only half his faculties\nworked, until the wedding. She did not understand. But the\nvagueness came over her again, and the days lapsed by. He could\nnot get definitely into touch with her. For the time being, she\nlet him go again.\n\nHe suffered very much from the thought of actual marriage,\nthe intimacy and nakedness of marriage. He knew her so little.\nThey were so foreign to each other, they were such strangers.\nAnd they could not talk to each other. When she talked, of\nPoland or of what had been, it was all so foreign, she scarcely\ncommunicated anything to him. And when he looked at her, an\nover-much reverence and fear of the unknown changed the nature\nof his desire into a sort of worship, holding her aloof from his\nphysical desire, self-thwarting.\n\nShe did not know this, she did not understand. They had\nlooked at each other, and had accepted each other. It was so,\nthen there was nothing to balk at, it was complete between\nthem.\n\nAt the wedding, his face was stiff and expressionless. He\nwanted to drink, to get rid of his forethought and afterthought,\nto set the moment free. But he could not. The suspense only\ntightened at his heart. The jesting and joviality and jolly,\nbroad insinuation of the guests only coiled him more. He could\nnot hear. That which was impending obsessed him, he could not\nget free.\n\nShe sat quiet, with a strange, still smile. She was not\nafraid. Having accepted him, she wanted to take him, she\nbelonged altogether to the hour, now. No future, no past, only\nthis, her hour. She did not even notice him, as she sat beside\nhim at the head of the table. He was very near, their coming\ntogether was close at hand. What more!\n\nAs the time came for all the guests to go, her dark face was\nsoftly lighted, the bend of her head was proud, her grey eyes\nclear and dilated, so that the men could not look at her, and\nthe women were elated by her, they served her. Very wonderful\nshe was, as she bade farewell, her ugly wide mouth smiling with\npride and recognition, her voice speaking softly and richly in\nthe foreign accent, her dilated eyes ignoring one and all the\ndeparting guests. Her manner was gracious and fascinating, but\nshe ignored the being of him or her to whom she gave her\nhand.\n\nAnd Brangwen stood beside her, giving his hearty handshake to\nhis friends, receiving their regard gratefully, glad of their\nattention. His heart was tormented within him, he did not try to\nsmile. The time of his trial and his admittance, his Gethsemane\nand his Triumphal Entry in one, had come now.\n\nBehind her, there was so much unknown to him. When he\napproached her, he came to such a terrible painful unknown. How\ncould he embrace it and fathom it? How could he close his arms\nround all this darkness and hold it to his breast and give\nhimself to it? What might not happen to him? If he stretched and\nstrained for ever he would never be able to grasp it all, and to\nyield himself naked out of his own hands into the unknown power!\nHow could a man be strong enough to take her, put his arms round\nher and have her, and be sure he could conquer this awful\nunknown next his heart? What was it then that she was, to which\nhe must also deliver himself up, and which at the same time he\nmust embrace, contain?\n\nHe was to be her husband. It was established so. And he\nwanted it more than he wanted life, or anything. She stood\nbeside him in her silk dress, looking at him strangely, so that\na certain terror, horror took possession of him, because she was\nstrange and impending and he had no choice. He could not bear to\nmeet her look from under her strange, thick brows.\n\n\"Is it late?\" she said.\n\nHe looked at his watch.\n\n\"No--half-past eleven,\" he said. And he made an excuse\nto go into the kitchen, leaving her standing in the room among\nthe disorder and the drinking-glasses.\n\nTilly was seated beside the fire in the kitchen, her head in\nher hands. She started up when he entered.\n\n\"Why haven't you gone to bed?\" he said.\n\n\"I thought I'd better stop an' lock up an' do,\" she said. Her\nagitation quietened him. He gave her some little order, then\nreturned, steadied now, almost ashamed, to his wife. She stood a\nmoment watching him, as he moved with averted face. Then she\nsaid:\n\n\"You will be good to me, won't you?\"\n\nShe was small and girlish and terrible, with a queer, wide\nlook in her eyes. His heart leaped in him, in anguish of love\nand desire, he went blindly to her and took her in his arms.\n\n\"I want to,\" he said as he drew her closer and closer in. She\nwas soothed by the stress of his embrace, and remained quite\nstill, relaxed against him, mingling in to him. And he let\nhimself go from past and future, was reduced to the moment with\nher. In which he took her and was with her and there was nothing\nbeyond, they were together in an elemental embrace beyond their\nsuperficial foreignness. But in the morning he was uneasy again.\nShe was still foreign and unknown to him. Only, within the fear\nwas pride, belief in himself as mate for her. And she,\neverything forgotten in her new hour of coming to life, radiated\nvigour and joy, so that he quivered to touch her.\n\nIt made a great difference to him, marriage. Things became so\nremote and of so little significance, as he knew the powerful\nsource of his life, his eyes opened on a new universe, and he\nwondered in thinking of his triviality before. A new, calm\nrelationship showed to him in the things he saw, in the cattle\nhe used, the young wheat as it eddied in a wind.\n\nAnd each time he returned home, he went steadily,\nexpectantly, like a man who goes to a profound, unknown\nsatisfaction. At dinner-time, he appeared in the doorway,\nhanging back a moment from entering, to see if she was there. He\nsaw her setting the plates on the white-scrubbed table. Her arms\nwere slim, she had a slim body and full skirts, she had a dark,\nshapely head with close-banded hair. Somehow it was her head, so\nshapely and poignant, that revealed her his woman to him. As she\nmoved about clothed closely, full-skirted and wearing her little\nsilk apron, her dark hair smoothly parted, her head revealed\nitself to him in all its subtle, intrinsic beauty, and he knew\nshe was his woman, he knew her essence, that it was his to\npossess. And he seemed to live thus in contact with her, in\ncontact with the unknown, the unaccountable and\nincalculable.\n\nThey did not take much notice of each other, consciously.\n\n\"I'm betimes,\" he said.\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered.\n\nHe turned to the dogs, or to the child if she was there. The\nlittle Anna played about the farm, flitting constantly in to\ncall something to her mother, to fling her arms round her\nmother's skirts, to be noticed, perhaps caressed, then,\nforgetting, to slip out again.\n\nThen Brangwen, talking to the child, or to the dog between\nhis knees, would be aware of his wife, as, in her tight, dark\nbodice and her lace fichu, she was reaching up to the corner\ncupboard. He realized with a sharp pang that she belonged to\nhim, and he to her. He realized that he lived by her. Did he own\nher? Was she here for ever? Or might she go away? She was not\nreally his, it was not a real marriage, this marriage between\nthem. She might go away. He did not feel like a master, husband,\nfather of her children. She belonged elsewhere. Any moment, she\nmight be gone. And he was ever drawn to her, drawn after her,\nwith ever-raging, ever-unsatisfied desire. He must always turn\nhome, wherever his steps were taking him, always to her, and he\ncould never quite reach her, he could never quite be satisfied,\nnever be at peace, because she might go away.\n\nAt evening, he was glad. Then, when he had finished in the\nyard, and come in and washed himself, when the child was put to\nbed, he could sit on the other side of the fire with his beer on\nthe hob and his long white pipe in his fingers, conscious of her\nthere opposite him, as she worked at her embroidery, or as she\ntalked to him, and he was safe with her now, till morning. She\nwas curiously self-sufficient and did not say very much.\nOccasionally she lifted her head, her grey eyes shining with a\nstrange light, that had nothing to do with him or with this\nplace, and would tell him about herself. She seemed to be back\nagain in the past, chiefly in her childhood or her girlhood,\nwith her father. She very rarely talked of her first husband.\nBut sometimes, all shining-eyed, she was back at her own home,\ntelling him about the riotous times, the trip to Paris with her\nfather, tales of the mad acts of the peasants when a burst of\nreligious, self-hurting fervour had passed over the country.\n\nShe would lift her head and say:\n\n\"When they brought the railway across the country, they made\nafterwards smaller railways, of shorter width, to come down to\nour town-a hundred miles. When I was a girl, Gisla, my German\ngouvernante, was very shocked and she would not tell me. But I\nheard the servants talking. I remember, it was Pierre, the\ncoachman. And my father, and some of his friends, landowners,\nthey had taken a wagon, a whole railway wagon--that you\ntravel in----\"\n\n\"A railway-carriage,\" said Brangwen.\n\nShe laughed to herself.\n\n\"I know it was a great scandal: yes--a whole wagon, and\nthey had girls, you know, filles, naked, all the\nwagon-full, and so they came down to our village. They came\nthrough villages of the Jews, and it was a great scandal. Can\nyou imagine? All the countryside! And my mother, she did not\nlike it. Gisla said to me, 'Madame, she must not know that you\nhave heard such things.'\n\n\"My mother, she used to cry, and she wished to beat my\nfather, plainly beat him. He would say, when she cried because\nhe sold the forest, the wood, to jingle money in his pocket, and\ngo to Warsaw or Paris or Kiev, when she said he must take back\nhis word, he must not sell the forest, he would stand and say,\n'I know, I know, I have heard it all, I have heard it all\nbefore. Tell me some new thing. I know, I know, I know.' Oh, but\ncan you understand, I loved him when he stood there under the\ndoor, saying only, 'I know, I know, I know it all already.' She\ncould not change him, no, not if she killed herself for it. And\nshe could change everybody else, but him, she could not change\nhim----\"\n\nBrangwen could not understand. He had pictures of a\ncattle-truck full of naked girls riding from nowhere to nowhere,\nof Lydia laughing because her father made great debts and said,\n\"I know, I know\"; of Jews running down the street shouting in\nYiddish, \"Don't do it, don't do it,\" and being cut down by\ndemented peasants--she called them \"cattle\"--whilst\nshe looked on interested and even amused; of tutors and\ngovernesses and Paris and a convent. It was too much for him.\nAnd there she sat, telling the tales to the open space, not to\nhim, arrogating a curious superiority to him, a distance between\nthem, something strange and foreign and outside his life,\ntalking, rattling, without rhyme or reason, laughing when he was\nshocked or astounded, condemning nothing, confounding his mind\nand making the whole world a chaos, without order or stability\nof any kind. Then, when they went to bed, he knew that he had\nnothing to do with her. She was back in her childhood, he was a\npeasant, a serf, a servant, a lover, a paramour, a shadow, a\nnothing. He lay still in amazement, staring at the room he knew\nso well, and wondering whether it was really there, the window,\nthe chest of drawers, or whether it was merely a figment in the\natmosphere. And gradually he grew into a raging fury against\nher. But because he was so much amazed, and there was as yet\nsuch a distance between them, and she was such an amazing thing\nto him, with all wonder opening out behind her, he made no\nretaliation on her. Only he lay still and wide-eyed with rage,\ninarticulate, not understanding, but solid with hostility.\n\nAnd he remained wrathful and distinct from her, unchanged\noutwardly to her, but underneath a solid power of antagonism to\nher. Of which she became gradually aware. And it irritated her\nto be made aware of him as a separate power. She lapsed into a\nsort of sombre exclusion, a curious communion with mysterious\npowers, a sort of mystic, dark state which drove him and the\nchild nearly mad. He walked about for days stiffened with\nresistance to her, stiff with a will to destroy her as she was.\nThen suddenly, out of nowhere, there was connection between them\nagain. It came on him as he was working in the fields. The\ntension, the bond, burst, and the passionate flood broke forward\ninto a tremendous, magnificent rush, so that he felt he could\nsnap off the trees as he passed, and create the world\nafresh.\n\nAnd when he arrived home, there was no sign between them. He\nwaited and waited till she came. And as he waited, his limbs\nseemed strong and splendid to him, his hands seemed like\npassionate servants to him, goodly, he felt a stupendous power\nin himself, of life, and of urgent, strong blood.\n\nShe was sure to come at last, and touch him. Then he burst\ninto flame for her, and lost himself. They looked at each other,\na deep laugh at the bottom of their eyes, and he went to take of\nher again, wholesale, mad to revel in the inexhaustible wealth\nof her, to bury himself in the depths of her in an inexhaustible\nexploration, she all the while revelling in that he revelled in\nher, tossed all her secrets aside and plunged to that which was\nsecret to her as well, whilst she quivered with fear and the\nlast anguish of delight.\n\nWhat did it matter who they were, whether they knew each\nother or not?\n\nThe hour passed away again, there was severance between them,\nand rage and misery and bereavement for her, and deposition and\ntoiling at the mill with slaves for him. But no matter. They had\nhad their hour, and should it chime again, they were ready for\nit, ready to renew the game at the point where it was left off,\non the edge of the outer darkness, when the secrets within the\nwoman are game for the man, hunted doggedly, when the secrets of\nthe woman are the man's adventure, and they both give themselves\nto the adventure.\n\nShe was with child, and there was again the silence and\ndistance between them. She did not want him nor his secrets nor\nhis game, he was deposed, he was cast out. He seethed with fury\nat the small, ugly-mouthed woman who had nothing to do with him.\nSometimes his anger broke on her, but she did not cry. She\nturned on him like a tiger, and there was battle.\n\nHe had to learn to contain himself again, and he hated it. He\nhated her that she was not there for him. And he took himself\noff, anywhere.\n\nBut an instinct of gratitude and a knowledge that she would\nreceive him back again, that later on she would be there for him\nagain, prevented his straying very far. He cautiously did not go\ntoo far. He knew she might lapse into ignorance of him, lapse\naway from him, farther, farther, farther, till she was lost to\nhim. He had sense enough, premonition enough in himself, to be\naware of this and to measure himself accordingly. For he did not\nwant to lose her: he did not want her to lapse away.\n\nCold, he called her, selfish, only caring about herself, a\nforeigner with a bad nature, caring really about nothing, having\nno proper feelings at the bottom of her, and no proper niceness.\nHe raged, and piled up accusations that had some measure of\ntruth in them all. But a certain grace in him forbade him from\ngoing too far. He knew, and he quivered with rage and hatred,\nthat she was all these vile things, that she was everything vile\nand detestable. But he had grace at the bottom of him, which\ntold him that, above all things, he did not want to lose her, he\nwas not going to lose her.\n\nSo he kept some consideration for her, he preserved some\nrelationship. He went out more often, to the \"Red Lion\" again,\nto escape the madness of sitting next to her when she did not\nbelong to him, when she was as absent as any woman in\nindifference could be. He could not stay at home. So he went to\nthe \"Red Lion\". And sometimes he got drunk. But he preserved his\nmeasure, some things between them he never forfeited.\n\nA tormented look came into his eyes, as if something were\nalways dogging him. He glanced sharp and quick, he could not\nbear to sit still doing nothing. He had to go out, to find\ncompany, to give himself away there. For he had no other outlet,\nhe could not work to give himself out, he had not the\nknowledge.\n\nAs the months of her pregnancy went on, she left him more and\nmore alone, she was more and more unaware of him, his existence\nwas annulled. And he felt bound down, bound, unable to stir,\nbeginning to go mad, ready to rave. For she was quiet and\npolite, as if he did not exist, as one is quiet and polite to a\nservant.\n\nNevertheless she was great with his child, it was his turn to\nsubmit. She sat opposite him, sewing, her foreign face\ninscrutable and indifferent. He felt he wanted to break her into\nacknowledgment of him, into awareness of him. It was\ninsufferable that she had so obliterated him. He would smash her\ninto regarding him. He had a raging agony of desire to do\nso.\n\nBut something bigger in him withheld him, kept him\nmotionless. So he went out of the house for relief. Or he turned\nto the little girl for her sympathy and her love, he appealed\nwith all his power to the small Anna. So soon they were like\nlovers, father and child.\n\nFor he was afraid of his wife. As she sat there with bent\nhead, silent, working or reading, but so unutterably silent that\nhis heart seemed under the millstone of it, she became herself\nlike the upper millstone lying on him, crushing him, as\nsometimes a heavy sky lies on the earth.\n\nYet he knew he could not tear her away from the heavy\nobscurity into which she was merged. He must not try to tear her\ninto recognition of himself, and agreement with himself. It were\ndisastrous, impious. So, let him rage as he might, he must\nwithhold himself. But his wrists trembled and seemed mad, seemed\nas if they would burst.\n\nWhen, in November, the leaves came beating against the window\nshutters, with a lashing sound, he started, and his eyes\nflickered with flame. The dog looked up at him, he sunk his head\nto the fire. But his wife was startled. He was aware of her\nlistening.\n\n\"They blow up with a rattle,\" he said.\n\n\"What?\" she asked.\n\n\"The leaves.\"\n\nShe sank away again. The strange leaves beating in the wind\non the wood had come nearer than she. The tension in the room\nwas overpowering, it was difficult for him to move his head. He\nsat with every nerve, every vein, every fibre of muscle in his\nbody stretched on a tension. He felt like a broken arch thrust\nsickeningly out from support. For her response was gone, he\nthrust at nothing. And he remained himself, he saved himself\nfrom crashing down into nothingness, from being squandered into\nfragments, by sheer tension, sheer backward resistance.\n\nDuring the last months of her pregnancy, he went about in a\nsurcharged, imminent state that did not exhaust itself. She was\nalso depressed, and sometimes she cried. It needed so much life\nto begin afresh, after she had lost so lavishly. Sometimes she\ncried. Then he stood stiff, feeling his heart would burst. For\nshe did not want him, she did not want even to be made aware of\nhim. By the very puckering of her face he knew that he must\nstand back, leave her intact, alone. For it was the old grief\ncome back in her, the old loss, the pain of the old life, the\ndead husband, the dead children. This was sacred to her, and he\nmust not violate her with his comfort. For what she wanted she\nwould come to him. He stood aloof with turgid heart.\n\nHe had to see her tears come, fall over her scarcely moving\nface, that only puckered sometimes, down on to her breast, that\nwas so still, scarcely moving. And there was no noise, save now\nand again, when, with a strange, somnambulant movement, she took\nher handkerchief and wiped her face and blew her nose, and went\non with the noiseless weeping. He knew that any offer of comfort\nfrom himself would be worse than useless, hateful to her,\njangling her. She must cry. But it drove him insane. His heart\nwas scalded, his brain hurt in his head, he went away, out of\nthe house.\n\nHis great and chiefest source of solace was the child. She\nhad been at first aloof from him, reserved. However friendly she\nmight seem one day, the next she would have lapsed to her\noriginal disregard of him, cold, detached, at her distance.\n\nThe first morning after his marriage he had discovered it\nwould not be so easy with the child. At the break of dawn he had\nstarted awake hearing a small voice outside the door saying\nplaintively:\n\n\"Mother!\"\n\nHe rose and opened the door. She stood on the threshold in\nher night-dress, as she had climbed out of bed, black eyes\nstaring round and hostile, her fair hair sticking out in a wild\nfleece. The man and child confronted each other.\n\n\"I want my mother,\" she said, jealously accenting the\n\"my\".\n\n\"Come on then,\" he said gently.\n\n\"Where's my mother?\"\n\n\"She's here--come on.\"\n\nThe child's eyes, staring at the man with ruffled hair and\nbeard, did not change. The mother's voice called softly. The\nlittle bare feet entered the room with trepidation.\n\n\"Mother!\"\n\n\"Come, my dear.\"\n\nThe small bare feet approached swiftly.\n\n\"I wondered where you were,\" came the plaintive voice. The\nmother stretched out her arms. The child stood beside the high\nbed. Brangwen lightly lifted the tiny girl, with an\n\"up-a-daisy\", then took his own place in the bed again.\n\n\"Mother!\" cried the child, as in anguish.\n\n\"What, my pet?\"\n\nAnna wriggled close into her mother's arms, clinging tight,\nhiding from the fact of the man. Brangwen lay still, and waited.\nThere was a long silence.\n\nThen suddenly, Anna looked round, as if she thought he would\nbe gone. She saw the face of the man lying upturned to the\nceiling. Her black eyes stared antagonistic from her exquisite\nface, her arms clung tightly to her mother, afraid. He did not\nmove for some time, not knowing what to say. His face was smooth\nand soft-skinned with love, his eyes full of soft light. He\nlooked at her, scarcely moving his head, his eyes smiling.\n\n\"Have you just wakened up?\" he said.\n\n\"Go away,\" she retorted, with a little darting forward of the\nhead, something like a viper.\n\n\"Nay,\" he answered, \"I'm not going. You can go.\"\n\n\"Go away,\" came the sharp little command.\n\n\"There's room for you,\" he said.\n\n\"You can't send your father from his own bed, my little\nbird,\" said her mother, pleasantly.\n\nThe child glowered at him, miserable in her impotence.\n\n\"There's room for you as well,\" he said. \"It's a big bed\nenough.\"\n\nShe glowered without answering, then turned and clung to her\nmother. She would not allow it.\n\nDuring the day she asked her mother several times:\n\n\"When are we going home, mother?\"\n\n\"We are at home, darling, we live here now. This is our\nhouse, we live here with your father.\"\n\nThe child was forced to accept it. But she remained against\nthe man. As night came on, she asked:\n\n\"Where are you going to sleep, mother?\"\n\n\"I sleep with the father now.\"\n\nAnd when Brangwen came in, the child asked fiercely:\n\n\"Why do you sleep with my mother? My mother\nsleeps with me,\" her voice quivering.\n\n\"You come as well, an' sleep with both of us,\" he coaxed.\n\n\"Mother!\" she cried, turning, appealing against him.\n\n\"But I must have a husband, darling. All women must have a\nhusband.\"\n\n\"And you like to have a father with your mother, don't you?\"\nsaid Brangwen.\n\nAnna glowered at him. She seemed to cogitate.\n\n\"No,\" she cried fiercely at length, \"no, I don't\nwant.\" And slowly her face puckered, she sobbed bitterly.\nHe stood and watched her, sorry. But there could be no altering\nit.\n\nWhich, when she knew, she became quiet. He was easy with her,\ntalking to her, taking her to see the live creatures, bringing\nher the first chickens in his cap, taking her to gather the\neggs, letting her throw crusts to the horse. She would easily\naccompany him, and take all he had to give, but she remained\nneutral still.\n\nShe was curiously, incomprehensibly jealous of her mother,\nalways anxiously concerned about her. If Brangwen drove with his\nwife to Nottingham, Anna ran about happily enough, or\nunconcerned, for a long time. Then, as afternoon came on, there\nwas only one cry--\"I want my mother, I want my\nmother----\" and a bitter, pathetic sobbing that soon\nhad the soft-hearted Tilly sobbing too. The child's anguish was\nthat her mother was gone, gone.\n\nYet as a rule, Anna seemed cold, resenting her mother,\ncritical of her. It was:\n\n\"I don't like you to do that, mother,\" or, \"I don't like you\nto say that.\" She was a sore problem to Brangwen and to all the\npeople at the Marsh. As a rule, however, she was active, lightly\nflitting about the farmyard, only appearing now and again to\nassure herself of her mother. Happy she never seemed, but quick,\nsharp, absorbed, full of imagination and changeability. Tilly\nsaid she was bewitched. But it did not matter so long as she did\nnot cry. There was something heart-rending about Anna's crying,\nher childish anguish seemed so utter and so timeless, as if it\nwere a thing of all the ages.\n\nShe made playmates of the creatures of the farmyard, talking\nto them, telling them the stories she had from her mother,\ncounselling them and correcting them. Brangwen found her at the\ngate leading to the paddock and to the duckpond. She was peering\nthrough the bars and shouting to the stately white geese, that\nstood in a curving line:\n\n\"You're not to call at people when they want to come. You\nmust not do it.\"\n\nThe heavy, balanced birds looked at the fierce little face\nand the fleece of keen hair thrust between the bars, and they\nraised their heads and swayed off, producing the long,\ncan-canking, protesting noise of geese, rocking their ship-like,\nbeautiful white bodies in a line beyond the gate.\n\n\"You're naughty, you're naughty,\" cried Anna, tears of dismay\nand vexation in her eyes. And she stamped her slipper.\n\n\"Why, what are they doing?\" said Brangwen.\n\n\"They won't let me come in,\" she said, turning her flushed\nlittle face to him.\n\n\"Yi, they will. You can go in if you want to,\" and he pushed\nopen the gate for her.\n\nShe stood irresolute, looking at the group of bluey-white\ngeese standing monumental under the grey, cold day.\n\n\"Go on,\" he said.\n\nShe marched valiantly a few steps in. Her little body started\nconvulsively at the sudden, derisive can-cank-ank of the geese.\nA blankness spread over her. The geese trailed away with\nuplifted heads under the low grey sky.\n\n\"They don't know you,\" said Brangwen. \"You should tell 'em\nwhat your name is.\"\n\n\"They're naughty to shout at me,\" she flashed.\n\n\"They think you don't live here,\" he said.\n\nLater he found her at the gate calling shrilly and\nimperiously:\n\n\"My name is Anna, Anna Lensky, and I live here, because Mr.\nBrangwen's my father now. He is, yes he is. And I\nlive here.\"\n\nThis pleased Brangwen very much. And gradually, without\nknowing it herself, she clung to him, in her lost, childish,\ndesolate moments, when it was good to creep up to something big\nand warm, and bury her little self in his big, unlimited being.\nInstinctively he was careful of her, careful to recognize her\nand to give himself to her disposal.\n\nShe was difficult of her affections. For Tilly, she had a\nchildish, essential contempt, almost dislike, because the poor\nwoman was such a servant. The child would not let the\nserving-woman attend to her, do intimate things for her, not for\na long time. She treated her as one of an inferior race.\nBrangwen did not like it.\n\n\"Why aren't you fond of Tilly?\" he asked.\n\n\"Because--because--because she looks at me with her\neyes bent.\"\n\nThen gradually she accepted Tilly as belonging to the\nhousehold, never as a person.\n\nFor the first weeks, the black eyes of the child were for\never on the watch. Brangwen, good-humoured but impatient,\nspoiled by Tilly, was an easy blusterer. If for a few minutes he\nupset the household with his noisy impatience, he found at the\nend the child glowering at him with intense black eyes, and she\nwas sure to dart forward her little head, like a serpent, with\nher biting:\n\n\"Go away.\"\n\n\"I'm not going away,\" he shouted, irritated at last.\n\"Go yourself--hustle--stir thysen--hop.\" And he\npointed to the door. The child backed away from him, pale with\nfear. Then she gathered up courage, seeing him become\npatient.\n\n\"We don't live with you,\" she said, thrusting forward\nher little head at him. \"You--you're--you're a\nbomakle.\"\n\n\"A what?\" he shouted.\n\nHer voice wavered--but it came.\n\n\"A bomakle.\"\n\n\"Ay, an' you're a comakle.\"\n\nShe meditated. Then she hissed forwards her head.\n\n\"I'm not.\"\n\n\"Not what?\"\n\n\"A comakle.\"\n\n\"No more am I a bomakle.\"\n\nHe was really cross.\n\nOther times she would say:\n\n\"My mother doesn't live here.\"\n\n\"Oh, ay?\"\n\n\"I want her to go away.\"\n\n\"Then want's your portion,\" he replied laconically.\n\nSo they drew nearer together. He would take her with him when\nhe went out in the trap. The horse ready at the gate, he came\nnoisily into the house, which seemed quiet and peaceful till he\nappeared to set everything awake.\n\n\"Now then, Topsy, pop into thy bonnet.\"\n\nThe child drew herself up, resenting the indignity of the\naddress.\n\n\"I can't fasten my bonnet myself,\" she said haughtily.\n\n\"Not man enough yet,\" he said, tying the ribbons under her\nchin with clumsy fingers.\n\nShe held up her face to him. Her little bright-red lips moved\nas he fumbled under her chin.\n\n\"You talk--nonsents,\" she said, re-echoing one of his\nphrases.\n\n\"That face shouts for th' pump,\" he said, and taking\nout a big red handkerchief, that smelled of strong tobacco,\nbegan wiping round her mouth.\n\n\"Is Kitty waiting for me?\" she asked.\n\n\"Ay,\" he said. \"Let's finish wiping your face--it'll\npass wi' a cat-lick.\"\n\nShe submitted prettily. Then, when he let her go, she began\nto skip, with a curious flicking up of one leg behind her.\n\n\"Now my young buck-rabbit,\" he said. \"Slippy!\"\n\nShe came and was shaken into her coat, and the two set off.\nShe sat very close beside him in the gig, tucked tightly,\nfeeling his big body sway, against her, very splendid. She loved\nthe rocking of the gig, when his big, live body swayed upon her,\nagainst her. She laughed, a poignant little shrill laugh, and\nher black eyes glowed.\n\nShe was curiously hard, and then passionately tenderhearted.\nHer mother was ill, the child stole about on tip-toe in the\nbedroom for hours, being nurse, and doing the thing thoughtfully\nand diligently. Another day, her mother was unhappy. Anna would\nstand with her legs apart, glowering, balancing on the sides of\nher slippers. She laughed when the goslings wriggled in Tilly's\nhand, as the pellets of food were rammed down their throats with\na skewer, she laughed nervously. She was hard and imperious with\nthe animals, squandering no love, running about amongst them\nlike a cruel mistress.\n\nSummer came, and hay-harvest, Anna was a brown elfish mite\ndancing about. Tilly always marvelled over her, more than she\nloved her.\n\nBut always in the child was some anxious connection with the\nmother. So long as Mrs. Brangwen was all right, the little girl\nplayed about and took very little notice of her. But\ncorn-harvest went by, the autumn drew on, and the mother, the\nlater months of her pregnancy beginning, was strange and\ndetached, Brangwen began to knit his brows, the old, unhealthy\nuneasiness, the unskinned susceptibility came on the child\nagain. If she went to the fields with her father, then, instead\nof playing about carelessly, it was:\n\n\"I want to go home.\"\n\n\"Home, why tha's nobbut this minute come.\"\n\n\"I want to go home.\"\n\n\"What for? What ails thee?\"\n\n\"I want my mother.\"\n\n\"Thy mother! Thy mother none wants thee.\"\n\n\"I want to go home.\"\n\nThere would be tears in a moment.\n\n\"Can ter find t'road, then?\"\n\nAnd he watched her scudding, silent and intent, along the\nhedge-bottom, at a steady, anxious pace, till she turned and was\ngone through the gateway. Then he saw her two fields off, still\npressing forward, small and urgent. His face was clouded as he\nturned to plough up the stubble.\n\nThe year drew on, in the hedges the berries shone red and\ntwinkling above bare twigs, robins were seen, great droves of\nbirds dashed like spray from the fallow, rooks appeared, black\nand flapping down to earth, the ground was cold as he pulled the\nturnips, the roads were churned deep in mud. Then the turnips\nwere pitted and work was slack.\n\nInside the house it was dark, and quiet. The child flitted\nuneasily round, and now and again came her plaintive, startled\ncry:\n\n\"Mother!\"\n\nMrs. Brangwen was heavy and unresponsive, tired, lapsed back.\nBrangwen went on working out of doors.\n\nAt evening, when he came in to milk, the child would run\nbehind him. Then, in the cosy cow-sheds, with the doors shut and\nthe air looking warm by the light of the hanging lantern, above\nthe branching horns of the cows, she would stand watching his\nhands squeezing rhythmically the teats of the placid beast,\nwatch the froth and the leaping squirt of milk, watch his hand\nsometimes rubbing slowly, understandingly, upon a hanging udder.\nSo they kept each other company, but at a distance, rarely\nspeaking.\n\nThe darkest days of the year came on, the child was fretful,\nsighing as if some oppression were on her, running hither and\nthither without relief. And Brangwen went about at his work,\nheavy, his heart heavy as the sodden earth.\n\nThe winter nights fell early, the lamp was lighted before\ntea-time, the shutters were closed, they were all shut into the\nroom with the tension and stress. Mrs. Brangwen went early to\nbed, Anna playing on the floor beside her. Brangwen sat in the\nemptiness of the downstairs room, smoking, scarcely conscious\neven of his own misery. And very often he went out to escape\nit.\n\nChristmas passed, the wet, drenched, cold days of January\nrecurred monotonously, with now and then a brilliance of blue\nflashing in, when Brangwen went out into a morning like crystal,\nwhen every sound rang again, and the birds were many and sudden\nand brusque in the hedges. Then an elation came over him in\nspite of everything, whether his wife were strange or sad, or\nwhether he craved for her to be with him, it did not matter, the\nair rang with clear noises, the sky was like crystal, like a\nbell, and the earth was hard. Then he worked and was happy, his\neyes shining, his cheeks flushed. And the zest of life was\nstrong in him.\n\nThe birds pecked busily round him, the horses were fresh and\nready, the bare branches of the trees flung themselves up like a\nman yawning, taut with energy, the twigs radiated off into the\nclear light. He was alive and full of zest for it all. And if\nhis wife were heavy, separated from him, extinguished, then, let\nher be, let him remain himself. Things would be as they would\nbe. Meanwhile he heard the ringing crow of a cockerel in the\ndistance, he saw the pale shell of the moon effaced on a blue\nsky.\n\nSo he shouted to the horses, and was happy. If, driving into\nIlkeston, a fresh young woman were going in to do her shopping,\nhe hailed her, and reined in his horse, and picked her up. Then\nhe was glad to have her near him, his eyes shone, his voice,\nlaughing, teasing in a warm fashion, made the poise of her head\nmore beautiful, her blood ran quicker. They were both\nstimulated, the morning was fine.\n\nWhat did it matter that, at the bottom of his heart, was care\nand pain? It was at the bottom, let it stop at the bottom. His\nwife, her suffering, her coming pain--well, it must be so.\nShe suffered, but he was out of doors, full in life, and it\nwould be ridiculous, indecent, to pull a long face and to insist\non being miserable. He was happy, this morning, driving to town,\nwith the hoofs of the horse spanking the hard earth. Well he was\nhappy, if half the world were weeping at the funeral of the\nother half. And it was a jolly girl sitting beside him. And\nWoman was immortal, whatever happened, whoever turned towards\ndeath. Let the misery come when it could not be resisted.\n\nThe evening arrived later very beautiful, with a rosy flush\nhovering above the sunset, and passing away into violet and\nlavender, with turquoise green north and south in the sky, and\nin the east, a great, yellow moon hanging heavy and radiant. It\nwas magnificent to walk between the sunset and the moon, on a\nroad where little holly trees thrust black into the rose and\nlavender, and starlings flickered in droves across the light.\nBut what was the end of the journey? The pain came right enough,\nlater on, when his heart and his feet were heavy, his brain\ndead, his life stopped.\n\nOne afternoon, the pains began, Mrs. Brangwen was put to bed,\nthe midwife came. Night fell, the shutters were closed, Brangwen\ncame in to tea, to the loaf and the pewter teapot, the child,\nsilent and quivering, playing with glass beads, the house,\nempty, it seemed, or exposed to the winter night, as if it had\nno walls.\n\nSometimes there sounded, long and remote in the house,\nvibrating through everything, the moaning cry of a woman in\nlabour. Brangwen, sitting downstairs, was divided. His lower,\ndeeper self was with her, bound to her, suffering. But the big\nshell of his body remembered the sound of owls that used to fly\nround the farmstead when he was a boy. He was back in his youth,\na boy, haunted by the sound of the owls, waking up his brother\nto speak to him. And his mind drifted away to the birds, their\nsolemn, dignified faces, their flight so soft and broad-winged.\nAnd then to the birds his brother had shot, fluffy,\ndust-coloured, dead heaps of softness with faces absurdly\nasleep. It was a queer thing, a dead owl.\n\nHe lifted his cup to his lips, he watched the child with the\nbeads. But his mind was occupied with owls, and the atmosphere\nof his boyhood, with his brothers and sisters. Elsewhere,\nfundamental, he was with his wife in labour, the child was being\nbrought forth out of their one flesh. He and she, one flesh, out\nof which life must be put forth. The rent was not in his body,\nbut it was of his body. On her the blows fell, but the quiver\nran through to him, to his last fibre. She must be torn asunder\nfor life to come forth, yet still they were one flesh, and\nstill, from further back, the life came out of him to her, and\nstill he was the unbroken that has the broken rock in its arms,\ntheir flesh was one rock from which the life gushed, out of her\nwho was smitten and rent, from him who quivered and yielded.\n\nHe went upstairs to her. As he came to the bedside she spoke\nto him in Polish.\n\n\"Is it very bad?\" he asked.\n\nShe looked at him, and oh, the weariness to her, of the\neffort to understand another language, the weariness of hearing\nhim, attending to him, making out who he was, as he stood there\nfair-bearded and alien, looking at her. She knew something of\nhim, of his eyes. But she could not grasp him. She closed her\neyes.\n\nHe turned away, white to the gills.\n\n\"It's not so very bad,\" said the midwife.\n\nHe knew he was a strain on his wife. He went downstairs.\n\nThe child glanced up at him, frightened.\n\n\"I want my mother,\" she quavered.\n\n\"Ay, but she's badly,\" he said mildly, unheeding.\n\nShe looked at him with lost, frightened eyes.\n\n\"Has she got a headache?\"\n\n\"No--she's going to have a baby.\"\n\nThe child looked round. He was unaware of her. She was alone\nagain in terror.\n\n\"I want my mother,\" came the cry of panic.\n\n\"Let Tilly undress you,\" he said. \"You're tired.\"\n\nThere was another silence. Again came the cry of labour.\n\n\"I want my mother,\" rang automatically from the wincing,\npanic-stricken child, that felt cut off and lost in a horror of\ndesolation.\n\nTilly came forward, her heart wrung.\n\n\"Come an' let me undress her then, pet-lamb,\" she crooned.\n\"You s'll have your mother in th' mornin', don't you fret, my\nduckie; never mind, angel.\"\n\nBut Anna stood upon the sofa, her back to the wall.\n\n\"I want my mother,\" she cried, her little face quivering, and\nthe great tears of childish, utter anguish falling.\n\n\"She's poorly, my lamb, she's poorly to-night, but she'll be\nbetter by mornin'. Oh, don't cry, don't cry, love, she doesn't\nwant you to cry, precious little heart, no, she doesn't.\"\n\nTilly took gently hold of the child's skirts. Anna snatched\nback her dress, and cried, in a little hysteria:\n\n\"No, you're not to undress me--I want my\nmother,\"--and her child's face was running with grief and\ntears, her body shaken.\n\n\"Oh, but let Tilly undress you. Let Tilly undress you, who\nloves you, don't be wilful to-night. Mother's poorly, she\ndoesn't want you to cry.\"\n\nThe child sobbed distractedly, she could not hear.\n\n\"I want--my--mother,\" she wept.\n\n\"When you're undressed, you s'll go up to see your\nmother--when you're undressed, pet, when you've let Tilly\nundress you, when you're a little jewel in your nightie, love.\nOh, don't you cry, don't you--\"\n\nBrangwen sat stiff in his chair. He felt his brain going\ntighter. He crossed over the room, aware only of the maddening\nsobbing.\n\n\"Don't make a noise,\" he said.\n\nAnd a new fear shook the child from the sound of his voice.\nShe cried mechanically, her eyes looking watchful through her\ntears, in terror, alert to what might happen.\n\n\"I want--my--mother,\" quavered the sobbing, blind\nvoice.\n\nA shiver of irritation went over the man's limbs. It was the\nutter, persistent unreason, the maddening blindness of the voice\nand the crying.\n\n\"You must come and be undressed,\" he said, in a quiet voice\nthat was thin with anger.\n\nAnd he reached his hand and grasped her. He felt her body\ncatch in a convulsive sob. But he too was blind, and intent,\nirritated into mechanical action. He began to unfasten her\nlittle apron. She would have shrunk from him, but could not. So\nher small body remained in his grasp, while he fumbled at the\nlittle buttons and tapes, unthinking, intent, unaware of\nanything but the irritation of her. Her body was held taut and\nresistant, he pushed off the little dress and the petticoats,\nrevealing the white arms. She kept stiff, overpowered, violated,\nhe went on with his task. And all the while she sobbed,\nchoking:\n\n\"I want my mother.\"\n\nHe was unheedingly silent, his face stiff. The child was now\nincapable of understanding, she had become a little, mechanical\nthing of fixed will. She wept, her body convulsed, her voice\nrepeating the same cry.\n\n\"Eh, dear o' me!\" cried Tilly, becoming distracted herself.\nBrangwen, slow, clumsy, blind, intent, got off all the little\ngarments, and stood the child naked in its shift upon the\nsofa.\n\n\"Where's her nightie?\" he asked.\n\nTilly brought it, and he put it on her. Anna did not move her\nlimbs to his desire. He had to push them into place. She stood,\nwith fixed, blind will, resistant, a small, convulsed,\nunchangeable thing weeping ever and repeating the same phrase.\nHe lifted one foot after the other, pulled off slippers and\nsocks. She was ready.\n\n\"Do you want a drink?\" he asked.\n\nShe did not change. Unheeding, uncaring, she stood on the\nsofa, standing back, alone, her hands shut and half lifted, her\nface, all tears, raised and blind. And through the sobbing and\nchoking came the broken:\n\n\"I--want--my--mother.\"\n\n\"Do you want a drink?\" he said again.\n\nThere was no answer. He lifted the stiff, denying body\nbetween his hands. Its stiff blindness made a flash of rage go\nthrough him. He would like to break it.\n\nHe set the child on his knee, and sat again in his chair\nbeside the fire, the wet, sobbing, inarticulate noise going on\nnear his ear, the child sitting stiff, not yielding to him or\nanything, not aware.\n\nA new degree of anger came over him. What did it all matter?\nWhat did it matter if the mother talked Polish and cried in\nlabour, if this child were stiff with resistance, and crying?\nWhy take it to heart? Let the mother cry in labour, let the\nchild cry in resistance, since they would do so. Why should he\nfight against it, why resist? Let it be, if it were so. Let them\nbe as they were, if they insisted.\n\nAnd in a daze he sat, offering no fight. The child cried on,\nthe minutes ticked away, a sort of torpor was on him.\n\nIt was some little time before he came to, and turned to\nattend to the child. He was shocked by her little wet, blinded\nface. A bit dazed, he pushed back the wet hair. Like a living\nstatue of grief, her blind face cried on.\n\n\"Nay,\" he said, \"not as bad as that. It's not as bad as that,\nAnna, my child. Come, what are you crying for so much? Come,\nstop now, it'll make you sick. I wipe you dry, don't wet your\nface any more. Don't cry any more wet tears, don't, it's better\nnot to. Don't cry--it's not so bad as all that. Hush now,\nhush--let it be enough.\"\n\nHis voice was queer and distant and calm. He looked at the\nchild. She was beside herself now. He wanted her to stop, he\nwanted it all to stop, to become natural.\n\n\"Come,\" he said, rising to turn away, \"we'll go an' supper-up\nthe beast.\"\n\nHe took a big shawl, folded her round, and went out into the\nkitchen for a lantern.\n\n\"You're never taking the child out, of a night like this,\"\nsaid Tilly.\n\n\"Ay, it'll quieten her,\" he answered.\n\nIt was raining. The child was suddenly still, shocked,\nfinding the rain on its face, the darkness.\n\n\"We'll just give the cows their something-to-eat, afore they\ngo to bed,\" Brangwen was saying to her, holding her close and\nsure.\n\nThere was a trickling of water into the butt, a burst of\nrain-drops sputtering on to her shawl, and the light of the\nlantern swinging, flashing on a wet pavement and the base of a\nwet wall. Otherwise it was black darkness: one breathed\ndarkness.\n\nHe opened the doors, upper and lower, and they entered into\nthe high, dry barn, that smelled warm even if it were not warm.\nHe hung the lantern on the nail and shut the door. They were in\nanother world now. The light shed softly on the timbered barn,\non the whitewashed walls, and the great heap of hay; instruments\ncast their shadows largely, a ladder rose to the dark arch of a\nloft. Outside there was the driving rain, inside, the\nsoftly-illuminated stillness and calmness of the barn.\n\nHolding the child on one arm, he set about preparing the food\nfor the cows, filling a pan with chopped hay and brewer's grains\nand a little meal. The child, all wonder, watched what he did. A\nnew being was created in her for the new conditions. Sometimes,\na little spasm, eddying from the bygone storm of sobbing, shook\nher small body. Her eyes were wide and wondering, pathetic. She\nwas silent, quite still.\n\nIn a sort of dream, his heart sunk to the bottom, leaving the\nsurface of him still, quite still, he rose with the panful of\nfood, carefully balancing the child on one arm, the pan in the\nother hand. The silky fringe of the shawl swayed softly, grains\nand hay trickled to the floor; he went along a dimly-lit passage\nbehind the mangers, where the horns of the cows pricked out of\nthe obscurity. The child shrank, he balanced stiffly, rested the\npan on the manger wall, and tipped out the food, half to this\ncow, half to the next. There was a noise of chains running, as\nthe cows lifted or dropped their heads sharply; then a\ncontented, soothing sound, a long snuffing as the beasts ate in\nsilence.\n\nThe journey had to be performed several times. There was the\nrhythmic sound of the shovel in the barn, then the man returned\nwalking stiffly between the two weights, the face of the child\npeering out from the shawl. Then the next time, as he stooped,\nshe freed her arm and put it round his neck, clinging soft and\nwarm, making all easier.\n\nThe beasts fed, he dropped the pan and sat down on a box, to\narrange the child.\n\n\"Will the cows go to sleep now?\" she said, catching her\nbreath as she spoke.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Will they eat all their stuff up first?\"\n\n\"Yes. Hark at them.\"\n\nAnd the two sat still listening to the snuffing and breathing\nof cows feeding in the sheds communicating with this small barn.\nThe lantern shed a soft, steady light from one wall. All outside\nwas still in the rain. He looked down at the silky folds of the\npaisley shawl. It reminded him of his mother. She used to go to\nchurch in it. He was back again in the old irresponsibility and\nsecurity, a boy at home.\n\nThe two sat very quiet. His mind, in a sort of trance, seemed\nto become more and more vague. He held the child close to him. A\nquivering little shudder, re-echoing from her sobbing, went down\nher limbs. He held her closer. Gradually she relaxed, the\neyelids began to sink over her dark, watchful eyes. As she sank\nto sleep, his mind became blank.\n\nWhen he came to, as if from sleep, he seemed to be sitting in\na timeless stillness. What was he listening for? He seemed to be\nlistening for some sound a long way off, from beyond life. He\nremembered his wife. He must go back to her. The child was\nasleep, the eyelids not quite shut, showing a slight film of\nblack pupil between. Why did she not shut her eyes? Her mouth\nwas also a little open.\n\nHe rose quickly and went back to the house.\n\n\"Is she asleep?\" whispered Tilly.\n\nHe nodded. The servant-woman came to look at the child who\nslept in the shawl, with cheeks flushed hot and red, and a\nwhiteness, a wanness round the eyes.\n\n\"God-a-mercy!\" whispered Tilly, shaking her head.\n\nHe pushed off his boots and went upstairs with the child. He\nbecame aware of the anxiety grasped tight at his heart, because\nof his wife. But he remained still. The house was silent save\nfor the wind outside, and the noisy trickling and splattering of\nwater in the water-butts. There was a slit of light under his\nwife's door.\n\nHe put the child into bed wrapped as she was in the shawl,\nfor the sheets would be cold. Then he was afraid that she might\nnot be able to move her arms, so he loosened her. The black eyes\nopened, rested on him vacantly, sank shut again. He covered her\nup. The last little quiver from the sobbing shook her\nbreathing.\n\nThis was his room, the room he had had before he married. It\nwas familiar. He remembered what it was to be a young man,\nuntouched.\n\nHe remained suspended. The child slept, pushing her small\nfists from the shawl. He could tell the woman her child was\nasleep. But he must go to the other landing. He started. There\nwas the sound of the owls--the moaning of the woman. What\nan uncanny sound! It was not human--at least to a man.\n\nHe went down to her room, entering softly. She was lying\nstill, with eyes shut, pale, tired. His heart leapt, fearing she\nwas dead. Yet he knew perfectly well she was not. He saw the way\nher hair went loose over her temples, her mouth was shut with\nsuffering in a sort of grin. She was beautiful to him--but\nit was not human. He had a dread of her as she lay there. What\nhad she to do with him? She was other than himself.\n\nSomething made him go and touch her fingers that were still\ngrasped on the sheet. Her brown-grey eyes opened and looked at\nhim. She did not know him as himself. But she knew him as the\nman. She looked at him as a woman in childbirth looks at the man\nwho begot the child in her: an impersonal look, in the extreme\nhour, female to male. Her eyes closed again. A great, scalding\npeace went over him, burning his heart and his entrails, passing\noff into the infinite.\n\nWhen her pains began afresh, tearing her, he turned aside,\nand could not look. But his heart in torture was at peace, his\nbowels were glad. He went downstairs, and to the door, outside,\nlifted his face to the rain, and felt the darkness striking\nunseen and steadily upon him.\n\nThe swift, unseen threshing of the night upon him silenced\nhim and he was overcome. He turned away indoors, humbly. There\nwas the infinite world, eternal, unchanging, as well as the\nworld of life.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nCHILDHOOD OF ANNA LENSKY\n\nTom Brangwen never loved his own son as he loved his\nstepchild Anna. When they told him it was a boy, he had a thrill\nof pleasure. He liked the confirmation of fatherhood. It gave\nhim satisfaction to know he had a son. But he felt not very much\noutgoing to the baby itself. He was its father, that was\nenough.\n\nHe was glad that his wife was mother of his child. She was\nserene, a little bit shadowy, as if she were transplanted. In\nthe birth of the child she seemed to lose connection with her\nformer self. She became now really English, really Mrs.\nBrangwen. Her vitality, however, seemed lowered.\n\nShe was still, to Brangwen, immeasurably beautiful. She was\nstill passionate, with a flame of being. But the flame was not\nrobust and present. Her eyes shone, her face glowed for him, but\nlike some flower opened in the shade, that could not bear the\nfull light. She loved the baby. But even this, with a sort of\ndimness, a faint absence about her, a shadowiness even in her\nmother-love. When Brangwen saw her nursing his child, happy,\nabsorbed in it, a pain went over him like a thin flame. For he\nperceived how he must subdue himself in his approach to her. And\nhe wanted again the robust, moral exchange of love and passion\nsuch as he had had at first with her, at one time and another,\nwhen they were matched at their highest intensity. This was the\none experience for him now. And he wanted it, always, with\nremorseless craving.\n\nShe came to him again, with the same lifting of her mouth as\nhad driven him almost mad with trammelled passion at first. She\ncame to him again, and, his heart delirious in delight and\nreadiness, he took her. And it was almost as before.\n\nPerhaps it was quite as before. At any rate, it made him know\nperfection, it established in him a constant eternal\nknowledge.\n\nBut it died down before he wanted it to die down. She was\nfinished, she could take no more. And he was not exhausted, he\nwanted to go on. But it could not be.\n\nSo he had to begin the bitter lesson, to abate himself, to\ntake less than he wanted. For she was Woman to him, all other\nwomen were her shadows. For she had satisfied him. And he wanted\nit to go on. And it could not. However he raged, and, filled\nwith suppression that became hot and bitter, hated her in his\nsoul that she did not want him, however he had mad outbursts,\nand drank and made ugly scenes, still he knew, he was only\nkicking against the pricks. It was not, he had to learn, that\nshe would not want him enough, as much as he demanded that she\nshould want him. It was that she could not. She could only want\nhim in her own way, and to her own measure. And she had spent\nmuch life before he found her as she was, the woman who could\ntake him and give him fulfilment. She had taken him and given\nhim fulfilment. She still could do so, in her own times and\nways. But he must control himself, measure himself to her.\n\nHe wanted to give her all his love, all his passion, all his\nessential energy. But it could not be. He must find other things\nthan her, other centres of living. She sat close and impregnable\nwith the child. And he was jealous of the child.\n\nBut he loved her, and time came to give some sort of course\nto his troublesome current of life, so that it did not foam and\nflood and make misery. He formed another centre of love in her\nchild, Anna. Gradually a part of his stream of life was diverted\nto the child, relieving the main flood to his wife. Also he\nsought the company of men, he drank heavily now and again.\n\nThe child ceased to have so much anxiety for her mother after\nthe baby came. Seeing the mother with the baby boy, delighted\nand serene and secure, Anna was at first puzzled, then gradually\nshe became indignant, and at last her little life settled on its\nown swivel, she was no more strained and distorted to support\nher mother. She became more childish, not so abnormal, not\ncharged with cares she could not understand. The charge of the\nmother, the satisfying of the mother, had devolved elsewhere\nthan on her. Gradually the child was freed. She became an\nindependent, forgetful little soul, loving from her own\ncentre.\n\nOf her own choice, she then loved Brangwen most, or most\nobviously. For these two made a little life together, they had a\njoint activity. It amused him, at evening, to teach her to\ncount, or to say her letters. He remembered for her all the\nlittle nursery rhymes and childish songs that lay forgotten at\nthe bottom of his brain.\n\nAt first she thought them rubbish. But he laughed, and she\nlaughed. They became to her a huge joke. Old King Cole she\nthought was Brangwen. Mother Hubbard was Tilly, her mother was\nthe old woman who lived in a shoe. It was a huge, it was a\nfrantic delight to the child, this nonsense, after her years\nwith her mother, after the poignant folk-tales she had had from\nher mother, which always troubled and mystified her soul.\n\nShe shared a sort of recklessness with her father, a\ncomplete, chosen carelessness that had the laugh of ridicule in\nit. He loved to make her voice go high and shouting and defiant\nwith laughter. The baby was dark-skinned and dark-haired, like\nthe mother, and had hazel eyes. Brangwen called him the\nblackbird.\n\n\"Hallo,\" Brangwen would cry, starting as he heard the wail of\nthe child announcing it wanted to be taken out of the cradle,\n\"there's the blackbird tuning up.\"\n\n\"The blackbird's singing,\" Anna would shout with delight,\n\"the blackbird's singing.\"\n\n\"When the pie was opened,\" Brangwen shouted in his bawling\nbass voice, going over to the cradle, \"the bird began to\nsing.\"\n\n\"Wasn't it a dainty dish to set before a king?\" cried Anna,\nher eyes flashing with joy as she uttered the cryptic words,\nlooking at Brangwen for confirmation. He sat down with the baby,\nsaying loudly:\n\n\"Sing up, my lad, sing up.\"\n\nAnd the baby cried loudly, and Anna shouted lustily, dancing\nin wild bliss:\n\n \"Sing a song of sixpence\n Pocketful of posies,\n Ascha! Ascha!----\"\n\nThen she stopped suddenly in silence and looked at Brangwen\nagain, her eyes flashing, as she shouted loudly and\ndelightedly:\n\n\"I've got it wrong, I've got it wrong.\"\n\n\"Oh, my sirs,\" said Tilly entering, \"what a racket!\"\n\nBrangwen hushed the child and Anna flipped and danced on. She\nloved her wild bursts of rowdiness with her father. Tilly hated\nit, Mrs. Brangwen did not mind.\n\nAnna did not care much for other children. She domineered\nthem, she treated them as if they were extremely young and\nincapable, to her they were little people, they were not her\nequals. So she was mostly alone, flying round the farm,\nentertaining the farm-hands and Tilly and the servant-girl,\nwhirring on and never ceasing.\n\nShe loved driving with Brangwen in the trap. Then, sitting\nhigh up and bowling along, her passion for eminence and\ndominance was satisfied. She was like a little savage in her\narrogance. She thought her father important, she was installed\nbeside him on high. And they spanked along, beside the high,\nflourishing hedge-tops, surveying the activity of the\ncountryside. When people shouted a greeting to him from the road\nbelow, and Brangwen shouted jovially back, her little voice was\nsoon heard shrilling along with his, followed by her chuckling\nlaugh, when she looked up at her father with bright eyes, and\nthey laughed at each other. And soon it was the custom for the\npasserby to sing out: \"How are ter, Tom? Well, my lady!\" or\nelse, \"Mornin', Tom, mornin', my Lass!\" or else, \"You're off\ntogether then?\" or else, \"You're lookin' rarely, you two.\"\n\nAnna would respond, with her father: \"How are you, John!\nGood mornin', William! Ay, makin' for Derby,\" shrilling\nas loudly as she could. Though often, in response to \"You're off\nout a bit then,\" she would reply, \"Yes, we are,\" to the great\njoy of all. She did not like the people who saluted him and did\nnot salute her.\n\nShe went into the public-house with him, if he had to call,\nand often sat beside him in the bar-parlour as he drank his beer\nor brandy. The landladies paid court to her, in the obsequious\nway landladies have.\n\n\"Well, little lady, an' what's your name?\"\n\n\"Anna Brangwen,\" came the immediate, haughty answer.\n\n\"Indeed it is! An' do you like driving in a trap with your\nfather?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Anna, shy, but bored by these inanities. She had\na touch-me-not way of blighting the inane inquiries of grown-up\npeople.\n\n\"My word, she's a fawce little thing,\" the landlady would say\nto Brangwen.\n\n\"Ay,\" he answered, not encouraging comments on the child.\nThen there followed the present of a biscuit, or of cake, which\nAnna accepted as her dues.\n\n\"What does she say, that I'm a fawce little thing?\" the small\ngirl asked afterwards.\n\n\"She means you're a sharp-shins.\"\n\nAnna hesitated. She did not understand. Then she laughed at\nsome absurdity she found.\n\nSoon he took her every week to market with him. \"I can come,\ncan't I?\" she asked every Saturday, or Thursday morning, when he\nmade himself look fine in his dress of a gentleman farmer. And\nhis face clouded at having to refuse her.\n\nSo at last, he overcame his own shyness, and tucked her\nbeside him. They drove into Nottingham and put up at the \"Black\nSwan\". So far all right. Then he wanted to leave her at the inn.\nBut he saw her face, and knew it was impossible. So he mustered\nhis courage, and set off with her, holding her hand, to the\ncattle-market.\n\nShe stared in bewilderment, flitting silent at his side. But\nin the cattle-market she shrank from the press of men, all men,\nall in heavy, filthy boots, and leathern leggins. And the road\nunderfoot was all nasty with cow-muck. And it frightened her to\nsee the cattle in the square pens, so many horns, and so little\nenclosure, and such a madness of men and a yelling of drovers.\nAlso she felt her father was embarrassed by her, and\nill-at-ease.\n\nHe brought her a cake at the refreshment-booth, and set her\non a seat. A man hailed him.\n\n\"Good morning, Tom. That thine, then?\"--and the\nbearded farmer jerked his head at Anna.\n\n\"Ay,\" said Brangwen, deprecating.\n\n\"I did-na know tha'd one that old.\"\n\n\"No, it's my missis's.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's it!\" And the man looked at Anna as if she were\nsome odd little cattle. She glowered with black eyes.\n\nBrangwen left her there, in charge of the barman, whilst he\nwent to see about the selling of some young stirks. Farmers,\nbutchers, drovers, dirty, uncouth men from whom she shrank\ninstinctively stared down at her as she sat on her seat, then\nwent to get their drink, talking in unabated tones. All was big\nand violent about her.\n\n\"Whose child met that be?\" they asked of the barman.\n\n\"It belongs to Tom Brangwen.\"\n\nThe child sat on in neglect, watching the door for her\nfather. He never came; many, many men came, but not he, and she\nsat like a shadow. She knew one did not cry in such a place. And\nevery man looked at her inquisitively, she shut herself away\nfrom them.\n\nA deep, gathering coldness of isolation took hold on her. He\nwas never coming back. She sat on, frozen, unmoving.\n\nWhen she had become blank and timeless he came, and she\nslipped off her seat to him, like one come back from the dead.\nHe had sold his beast as quickly as he could. But all the\nbusiness was not finished. He took her again through the\nhurtling welter of the cattle-market.\n\nThen at last they turned and went out through the gate. He\nwas always hailing one man or another, always stopping to gossip\nabout land and cattle and horses and other things she did not\nunderstand, standing in the filth and the smell, among the legs\nand great boots of men. And always she heard the questions:\n\n\"What lass is that, then? I didn't know tha'd one o' that\nage.\"\n\n\"It belongs to my missis.\"\n\nAnna was very conscious of her derivation from her mother, in\nthe end, and of her alienation.\n\nBut at last they were away, and Brangwen went with her into a\nlittle dark, ancient eating-house in the Bridlesmith-Gate. They\nhad cow's-tail soup, and meat and cabbage and potatoes. Other\nmen, other people, came into the dark, vaulted place, to eat.\nAnna was wide-eyed and silent with wonder.\n\nThen they went into the big market, into the corn exchange,\nthen to shops. He bought her a little book off a stall. He loved\nbuying things, odd things that he thought would be useful. Then\nthey went to the \"Black Swan\", and she drank milk and he brandy,\nand they harnessed the horse and drove off, up the Derby\nRoad.\n\nShe was tired out with wonder and marvelling. But the next\nday, when she thought of it, she skipped, flipping her leg in\nthe odd dance she did, and talked the whole time of what had\nhappened to her, of what she had seen. It lasted her all the\nweek. And the next Saturday she was eager to go again.\n\nShe became a familiar figure in the cattle-market, sitting\nwaiting in the little booth. But she liked best to go to Derby.\nThere her father had more friends. And she liked the familiarity\nof the smaller town, the nearness of the river, the strangeness\nthat did not frighten her, it was so much smaller. She liked the\ncovered-in market, and the old women. She liked the \"George\nInn\", where her father put up. The landlord was Brangwen's old\nfriend, and Anna was made much of. She sat many a day in the\ncosy parlour talking to Mr. Wigginton, a fat man with red hair,\nthe landlord. And when the farmers all gathered at twelve\no'clock for dinner, she was a little heroine.\n\nAt first she would only glower or hiss at these strange men\nwith their uncouth accent. But they were good-humoured. She was\na little oddity, with her fierce, fair hair like spun glass\nsticking out in a flamy halo round the apple-blossom face and\nthe black eyes, and the men liked an oddity. She kindled their\nattention.\n\nShe was very angry because Marriott, a gentleman-farmer from\nAmbergate, called her the little pole-cat.\n\n\"Why, you're a pole-cat,\" he said to her.\n\n\"I'm not,\" she flashed.\n\n\"You are. That's just how a pole-cat goes.\"\n\nShe thought about it.\n\n\"Well, you're--you're----\" she began.\n\n\"I'm what?\"\n\nShe looked him up and down.\n\n\"You're a bow-leg man.\"\n\nWhich he was. There was a roar of laughter. They loved her\nthat she was indomitable.\n\n\"Ah,\" said Marriott. \"Only a pole-cat says that.\"\n\n\"Well, I am a pole-cat,\" she flamed.\n\nThere was another roar of laughter from the men.\n\nThey loved to tease her.\n\n\"Well, me little maid,\" Braithwaite would say to her, \"an'\nhow's th' lamb's wool?\"\n\nHe gave a tug at a glistening, pale piece of her hair.\n\n\"It's not lamb's wool,\" said Anna, indignantly putting back\nher offended lock.\n\n\"Why, what'st ca' it then?\"\n\n\"It's hair.\"\n\n\"Hair! Wheriver dun they rear that sort?\"\n\n\"Wheriver dun they?\" she asked, in dialect, her curiosity\novercoming her.\n\nInstead of answering he shouted with joy. It was the triumph,\nto make her speak dialect.\n\nShe had one enemy, the man they called Nut-Nat, or Nat-Nut, a\ncretin, with inturned feet, who came flap-lapping along,\nshoulder jerking up at every step. This poor creature sold nuts\nin the public-houses where he was known. He had no roof to his\nmouth, and the men used to mock his speech.\n\nThe first time he came into the \"George\" when Anna was there,\nshe asked, after he had gone, her eyes very round:\n\n\"Why does he do that when he walks?\"\n\n\"'E canna 'elp 'isself, Duckie, it's th' make o' th'\nfellow.\"\n\nShe thought about it, then she laughed nervously. And then\nshe bethought herself, her cheeks flushed, and she cried:\n\n\"He's a horrid man.\"\n\n\"Nay, he's non horrid; he canna help it if he wor struck that\nroad.\"\n\nBut when poor Nat came wambling in again, she slid away. And\nshe would not eat his nuts, if the men bought them for her. And\nwhen the farmers gambled at dominoes for them, she was\nangry.\n\n\"They are dirty-man's nuts,\" she cried.\n\nSo a revulsion started against Nat, who had not long after to\ngo to the workhouse.\n\nThere grew in Brangwen's heart now a secret desire to make\nher a lady. His brother Alfred, in Nottingham, had caused a\ngreat scandal by becoming the lover of an educated woman, a\nlady, widow of a doctor. Very often, Alfred Brangwen went down\nas a friend to her cottage, which was in Derbyshire, leaving his\nwife and family for a day or two, then returning to them. And\nno-one dared gainsay him, for he was a strong-willed, direct\nman, and he said he was a friend of this widow.\n\nOne day Brangwen met his brother on the station.\n\n\"Where are you going to, then?\" asked the younger\nbrother.\n\n\"I'm going down to Wirksworth.\"\n\n\"You've got friends down there, I'm told.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I s'll have to be lookin' in when I'm down that road.\"\n\n\"You please yourself.\"\n\nTom Brangwen was so curious about the woman that the next\ntime he was in Wirksworth he asked for her house.\n\nHe found a beautiful cottage on the steep side of a hill,\nlooking clean over the town, that lay in the bottom of the\nbasin, and away at the old quarries on the opposite side of the\nspace. Mrs. Forbes was in the garden. She was a tall woman with\nwhite hair. She came up the path taking off her thick gloves,\nlaying down her shears. It was autumn. She wore a wide-brimmed\nhat.\n\nBrangwen blushed to the roots of his hair, and did not know\nwhat to say.\n\n\"I thought I might look in,\" he said, \"knowing you were\nfriends of my brother's. I had to come to Wirksworth.\"\n\nShe saw at once that he was a Brangwen.\n\n\"Will you come in?\" she said. \"My father is lying down.\"\n\nShe took him into a drawing-room, full of books, with a piano\nand a violin-stand. And they talked, she simply and easily. She\nwas full of dignity. The room was of a kind Brangwen had never\nknown; the atmosphere seemed open and spacious, like a\nmountain-top to him.\n\n\"Does my brother like reading?\" he asked.\n\n\"Some things. He has been reading Herbert Spencer. And we\nread Browning sometimes.\"\n\nBrangwen was full of admiration, deep thrilling, almost\nreverential admiration. He looked at her with lit-up eyes when\nshe said, \"we read\". At last he burst out, looking round the\nroom:\n\n\"I didn't know our Alfred was this way inclined.\"\n\n\"He is quite an unusual man.\"\n\nHe looked at her in amazement. She evidently had a new idea\nof his brother: she evidently appreciated him. He looked again\nat the woman. She was about forty, straight, rather hard, a\ncurious, separate creature. Himself, he was not in love with\nher, there was something chilling about her. But he was filled\nwith boundless admiration.\n\nAt tea-time he was introduced to her father, an invalid who\nhad to be helped about, but who was ruddy and well-favoured,\nwith snowy hair and watery blue eyes, and a courtly naive manner\nthat again was new and strange to Brangwen, so suave, so merry,\nso innocent.\n\nHis brother was this woman's lover! It was too amazing.\nBrangwen went home despising himself for his own poor way of\nlife. He was a clod-hopper and a boor, dull, stuck in the mud.\nMore than ever he wanted to clamber out, to this visionary\npolite world.\n\nHe was well off. He was as well off as Alfred, who could not\nhave above six hundred a year, all told. He himself made about\nfour hundred, and could make more. His investments got better\nevery day. Why did he not do something? His wife was a lady\nalso.\n\nBut when he got to the Marsh, he realized how fixed\neverything was, how the other form of life was beyond him, and\nhe regretted for the first time that he had succeeded to the\nfarm. He felt a prisoner, sitting safe and easy and\nunadventurous. He might, with risk, have done more with himself.\nHe could neither read Browning nor Herbert Spencer, nor have\naccess to such a room as Mrs. Forbes's. All that form of life\nwas outside him.\n\nBut then, he said he did not want it. The excitement of the\nvisit began to pass off. The next day he was himself, and if he\nthought of the other woman, there was something about her and\nher place that he did not like, something cold something alien,\nas if she were not a woman, but an inhuman being who used up\nhuman life for cold, unliving purposes.\n\nThe evening came on, he played with Anna, and then sat alone\nwith his own wife. She was sewing. He sat very still, smoking,\nperturbed. He was aware of his wife's quiet figure, and quiet\ndark head bent over her needle. It was too quiet for him. It was\ntoo peaceful. He wanted to smash the walls down, and let the\nnight in, so that his wife should not be so secure and quiet,\nsitting there. He wished the air were not so close and narrow.\nHis wife was obliterated from him, she was in her own world,\nquiet, secure, unnoticed, unnoticing. He was shut down by\nher.\n\nHe rose to go out. He could not sit still any longer. He must\nget out of this oppressive, shut-down, woman-haunt.\n\nHis wife lifted her head and looked at him.\n\n\"Are you going out?\" she asked.\n\nHe looked down and met her eyes. They were darker than\ndarkness, and gave deeper space. He felt himself retreating\nbefore her, defensive, whilst her eyes followed and tracked him\nown.\n\n\"I was just going up to Cossethay,\" he said.\n\nShe remained watching him.\n\n\"Why do you go?\" she said.\n\nHis heart beat fast, and he sat down, slowly.\n\n\"No reason particular,\" he said, beginning to fill his pipe\nagain, mechanically.\n\n\"Why do you go away so often?\" she said.\n\n\"But you don't want me,\" he replied.\n\nShe was silent for a while.\n\n\"You do not want to be with me any more,\" she said.\n\nIt startled him. How did she know this truth? He thought it\nwas his secret.\n\n\"Yi,\" he said.\n\n\"You want to find something else,\" she said.\n\nHe did not answer. \"Did he?\" he asked himself.\n\n\"You should not want so much attention,\" she said. \"You are\nnot a baby.\"\n\n\"I'm not grumbling,\" he said. Yet he knew he was.\n\n\"You think you have not enough,\" she said.\n\n\"How enough?\"\n\n\"You think you have not enough in me. But how do you know me?\nWhat do you do to make me love you?\"\n\nHe was flabbergasted.\n\n\"I never said I hadn't enough in you,\" he replied. \"I didn't\nknow you wanted making to love me. What do you want?\"\n\n\"You don't make it good between us any more, you are not\ninterested. You do not make me want you.\"\n\n\"And you don't make me want you, do you now?\" There was a\nsilence. They were such strangers.\n\n\"Would you like to have another woman?\" she asked.\n\nHis eyes grew round, he did not know where he was. How could\nshe, his own wife, say such a thing? But she sat there, small\nand foreign and separate. It dawned upon him she did not\nconsider herself his wife, except in so far as they agreed. She\ndid not feel she had married him. At any rate, she was willing\nto allow he might want another woman. A gap, a space opened\nbefore him.\n\n\"No,\" he said slowly. \"What other woman should I want?\"\n\n\"Like your brother,\" she said.\n\nHe was silent for some time, ashamed also.\n\n\"What of her?\" he said. \"I didn't like the woman.\"\n\n\"Yes, you liked her,\" she answered persistently.\n\nHe stared in wonder at his own wife as she told him his own\nheart so callously. And he was indignant. What right had she to\nsit there telling him these things? She was his wife, what right\nhad she to speak to him like this, as if she were a\nstranger.\n\n\"I didn't,\" he said. \"I want no woman.\"\n\n\"Yes, you would like to be like Alfred.\"\n\nHis silence was one of angry frustration. He was astonished.\nHe had told her of his visit to Wirksworth, but briefly, without\ninterest, he thought.\n\nAs she sat with her strange dark face turned towards him, her\neyes watched him, inscrutable, casting him up. He began to\noppose her. She was again the active unknown facing him. Must he\nadmit her? He resisted involuntarily.\n\n\"Why should you want to find a woman who is more to you than\nme?\" she said.\n\nThe turbulence raged in his breast.\n\n\"I don't,\" he said.\n\n\"Why do you?\" she repeated. \"Why do you want to deny me?\"\n\nSuddenly, in a flash, he saw she might be lonely, isolated,\nunsure. She had seemed to him the utterly certain, satisfied,\nabsolute, excluding him. Could she need anything?\n\n\"Why aren't you satisfied with me?--I'm not satisfied\nwith you. Paul used to come to me and take me like a man does.\nYou only leave me alone or take me like your cattle, quickly, to\nforget me again--so that you can forget me again.\"\n\n\"What am I to remember about you?\" said Brangwen.\n\n\"I want you to know there is somebody there besides\nyourself.\"\n\n\"Well, don't I know it?\"\n\n\"You come to me as if it was for nothing, as if I was nothing\nthere. When Paul came to me, I was something to him--a\nwoman, I was. To you I am nothing--it is like\ncattle--or nothing----\"\n\n\"You make me feel as if I was nothing,\" he said.\n\nThey were silent. She sat watching him. He could not move,\nhis soul was seething and chaotic. She turned to her sewing\nagain. But the sight of her bent before him held him and would\nnot let him be. She was a strange, hostile, dominant thing. Yet\nnot quite hostile. As he sat he felt his limbs were strong and\nhard, he sat in strength.\n\nShe was silent for a long time, stitching. He was aware,\npoignantly, of the round shape of her head, very intimate,\ncompelling. She lifted her head and sighed. The blood burned in\nhim, her voice ran to him like fire.\n\n\"Come here,\" she said, unsure.\n\nFor some moments he did not move. Then he rose slowly and\nwent across the hearth. It required an almost deathly effort of\nvolition, or of acquiescence. He stood before her and looked\ndown at her. Her face was shining again, her eyes were shining\nagain like terrible laughter. It was to him terrible, how she\ncould be transfigured. He could not look at her, it burnt his\nheart.\n\n\"My love!\" she said.\n\nAnd she put her arms round him as he stood before her round\nhis thighs, pressing him against her breast. And her hands on\nhim seemed to reveal to him the mould of his own nakedness, he\nwas passionately lovely to himself. He could not bear to look at\nher.\n\n\"My dear!\" she said. He knew she spoke a foreign language.\nThe fear was like bliss in his heart. He looked down. Her face\nwas shining, her eyes were full of light, she was awful. He\nsuffered from the compulsion to her. She was the awful unknown.\nHe bent down to her, suffering, unable to let go, unable to let\nhimself go, yet drawn, driven. She was now the transfigured, she\nwas wonderful, beyond him. He wanted to go. But he could not as\nyet kiss her. He was himself apart. Easiest he could kiss her\nfeet. But he was too ashamed for the actual deed, which were\nlike an affront. She waited for him to meet her, not to bow\nbefore her and serve her. She wanted his active participation,\nnot his submission. She put her fingers on him. And it was\ntorture to him, that he must give himself to her actively,\nparticipate in her, that he must meet and embrace and know her,\nwho was other than himself. There was that in him which shrank\nfrom yielding to her, resisted the relaxing towards her, opposed\nthe mingling with her, even while he most desired it. He was\nafraid, he wanted to save himself.\n\nThere were a few moments of stillness. Then gradually, the\ntension, the withholding relaxed in him, and he began to flow\ntowards her. She was beyond him, the unattainable. But he let go\nhis hold on himself, he relinquished himself, and knew the\nsubterranean force of his desire to come to her, to be with her,\nto mingle with her, losing himself to find her, to find himself\nin her. He began to approach her, to draw near.\n\nHis blood beat up in waves of desire. He wanted to come to\nher, to meet her. She was there, if he could reach her. The\nreality of her who was just beyond him absorbed him. Blind and\ndestroyed, he pressed forward, nearer, nearer, to receive the\nconsummation of himself, he received within the darkness which\nshould swallow him and yield him up to himself. If he could come\nreally within the blazing kernel of darkness, if really he could\nbe destroyed, burnt away till he lit with her in one\nconsummation, that were supreme, supreme.\n\nTheir coming together now, after two years of married life,\nwas much more wonderful to them than it had been before. It was\nthe entry into another circle of existence, it was the baptism\nto another life, it was the complete confirmation. Their feet\ntrod strange ground of knowledge, their footsteps were lit-up\nwith discovery. Wherever they walked, it was well, the world\nre-echoed round them in discovery. They went gladly and\nforgetful. Everything was lost, and everything was found. The\nnew world was discovered, it remained only to be explored.\n\nThey had passed through the doorway into the further space,\nwhere movement was so big, that it contained bonds and\nconstraints and labours, and still was complete liberty. She was\nthe doorway to him, he to her. At last they had thrown open the\ndoors, each to the other, and had stood in the doorways facing\neach other, whilst the light flooded out from behind on to each\nof their faces, it was the transfiguration, glorification, the\nadmission.\n\nAnd always the light of the transfiguration burned on in\ntheir hearts. He went his way, as before, she went her way, to\nthe rest of the world there seemed no change. But to the two of\nthem, there was the perpetual wonder of the transfiguration.\n\nHe did not know her any better, any more precisely, now that\nhe knew her altogether. Poland, her husband, the war--he\nunderstood no more of this in her. He did not understand her\nforeign nature, half German, half Polish, nor her foreign\nspeech. But he knew her, he knew her meaning, without\nunderstanding. What she said, what she spoke, this was a blind\ngesture on her part. In herself she walked strong and clear, he\nknew her, he saluted her, was with her. What was memory after\nall, but the recording of a number of possibilities which had\nnever been fulfilled? What was Paul Lensky to her, but an\nunfulfilled possibility to which he, Brangwen, was the reality\nand the fulfilment? What did it matter, that Anna Lensky was\nborn of Lydia and Paul? God was her father and her mother. He\nhad passed through the married pair without fully making Himself\nknown to them.\n\nNow He was declared to Brangwen and to Lydia Brangwen, as\nthey stood together. When at last they had joined hands, the\nhouse was finished, and the Lord took up his abode. And they\nwere glad.\n\nThe days went on as before, Brangwen went out to his work,\nhis wife nursed her child and attended in some measure to the\nfarm. They did not think of each other-why should they? Only\nwhen she touched him, he knew her instantly, that she was with\nhim, near him, that she was the gateway and the way out, that\nshe was beyond, and that he was travelling in her through the\nbeyond. Whither?--What does it matter? He responded always.\nWhen she called, he answered, when he asked, her response came\nat once, or at length.\n\nAnna's soul was put at peace between them. She looked from\none to the other, and she saw them established to her safety,\nand she was free. She played between the pillar of fire and the\npillar of cloud in confidence, having the assurance on her right\nhand and the assurance on her left. She was no longer called\nupon to uphold with her childish might the broken end of the\narch. Her father and her mother now met to the span of the\nheavens, and she, the child, was free to play in the space\nbeneath, between.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nGIRLHOOD OF ANNE BRANGWEN\n\nWhen Anna was nine years old, Brangwen sent her to the dames'\nschool in Cossethay. There she went, flipping and dancing in her\ninconsequential fashion, doing very much as she liked,\ndisconcerting old Miss Coates by her indifference to\nrespectability and by her lack of reverence. Anna only laughed\nat Miss Coates, liked her, and patronized her in superb,\nchildish fashion.\n\nThe girl was at once shy and wild. She had a curious contempt\nfor ordinary people, a benevolent superiority. She was very shy,\nand tortured with misery when people did not like her. On the\nother hand, she cared very little for anybody save her mother,\nwhom she still rather resentfully worshipped, and her father,\nwhom she loved and patronized, but upon whom she depended. These\ntwo, her mother and father, held her still in fee. But she was\nfree of other people, towards whom, on the whole, she took the\nbenevolent attitude. She deeply hated ugliness or intrusion or\narrogance, however. As a child, she was as proud and shadowy as\na tiger, and as aloof. She could confer favours, but, save from\nher mother and father, she could receive none. She hated people\nwho came too near to her. Like a wild thing, she wanted her\ndistance. She mistrusted intimacy.\n\nIn Cossethay and Ilkeston she was always an alien. She had\nplenty of acquaintances, but no friends. Very few people whom\nshe met were significant to her. They seemed part of a herd,\nundistinguished. She did not take people very seriously.\n\nShe had two brothers, Tom, dark-haired, small, volatile, whom\nshe was intimately related to but whom she never mingled with,\nand Fred, fair and responsive, whom she adored but did not\nconsider as a real, separate thing. She was too much the centre\nof her own universe, too little aware of anything outside.\n\nThe first person she met, who affected her as a real,\nliving person, whom she regarded as having definite existence,\nwas Baron Skrebensky, her mother's friend. He also was a Polish\nexile, who had taken orders, and had received from Mr. Gladstone\na small country living in Yorkshire.\n\nWhen Anna was about ten years old, she went with her mother\nto spend a few days with the Baron Skrebensky. He was very\nunhappy in his red-brick vicarage. He was vicar of a country\nchurch, a living worth a little over two hundred pounds a year,\nbut he had a large parish containing several collieries, with a\nnew, raw, heathen population. He went to the north of England\nexpecting homage from the common people, for he was an\naristocrat. He was roughly, even cruelly received. But he never\nunderstood it. He remained a fiery aristocrat. Only he had to\nlearn to avoid his parishioners.\n\nAnna was very much impressed by him. He was a smallish man\nwith a rugged, rather crumpled face and blue eyes set very deep\nand glowing. His wife was a tall thin woman, of noble Polish\nfamily, mad with pride. He still spoke broken English, for he\nhad kept very close to his wife, both of them forlorn in this\nstrange, inhospitable country, and they always spoke in Polish\ntogether. He was disappointed with Mrs. Brangwen's soft, natural\nEnglish, very disappointed that her child spoke no Polish.\n\nAnna loved to watch him. She liked the big, new, rambling\nvicarage, desolate and stark on its hill. It was so exposed, so\nbleak and bold after the Marsh. The Baron talked endlessly in\nPolish to Mrs. Brangwen; he made furious gestures with his\nhands, his blue eyes were full of fire. And to Anna, there was a\nsignificance about his sharp, flinging movements. Something in\nher responded to his extravagance and his exuberant manner. She\nthought him a very wonderful person. She was shy of him, she\nliked him to talk to her. She felt a sense of freedom near\nhim.\n\nShe never could tell how she knew it, but she did know that\nhe was a knight of Malta. She could never remember whether she\nhad seen his star, or cross, of his order or not, but it flashed\nin her mind, like a symbol. He at any rate represented to the\nchild the real world, where kings and lords and princes moved\nand fulfilled their shining lives, whilst queens and ladies and\nprincesses upheld the noble order.\n\nShe had recognized the Baron Skrebensky as a real person, he\nhad had some regard for her. But when she did not see him any\nmore, he faded and became a memory. But as a memory he was\nalways alive to her.\n\nAnna became a tall, awkward girl. Her eyes were still very\ndark and quick, but they had grown careless, they had lost their\nwatchful, hostile look. Her fierce, spun hair turned brown, it\ngrew heavier and was tied back. She was sent to a young ladies'\nschool in Nottingham.\n\nAnd at this period she was absorbed in becoming a young lady.\nShe was intelligent enough, but not interested in learning. At\nfirst, she thought all the girls at school very ladylike and\nwonderful, and she wanted to be like them. She came to a speedy\ndisillusion: they galled and maddened her, they were petty and\nmean. After the loose, generous atmosphere of her home, where\nlittle things did not count, she was always uneasy in the world,\nthat would snap and bite at every trifle.\n\nA quick change came over her. She mistrusted herself, she\nmistrusted the outer world. She did not want to go on, she did\nnot want to go out into it, she wanted to go no further.\n\n\"What do I care about that lot of girls?\" she would\nsay to her father, contemptuously; \"they are nobody.\"\n\nThe trouble was that the girls would not accept Anna at her\nmeasure. They would have her according to themselves or not at\nall. So she was confused, seduced, she became as they were for a\ntime, and then, in revulsion, she hated them furiously.\n\n\"Why don't you ask some of your girls here?\" her father would\nsay.\n\n\"They're not coming here,\" she cried.\n\n\"And why not?\"\n\n\"They're bagatelle,\" she said, using one of her mother's rare\nphrases.\n\n\"Bagatelles or billiards, it makes no matter, they're nice\nyoung lasses enough.\"\n\nBut Anna was not to be won over. She had a curious shrinking\nfrom commonplace people, and particularly from the young lady of\nher day. She would not go into company because of the\nill-at-ease feeling other people brought upon her. And she never\ncould decide whether it were her fault or theirs. She half\nrespected these other people, and continuous disillusion\nmaddened her. She wanted to respect them. Still she thought the\npeople she did not know were wonderful. Those she knew seemed\nalways to be limiting her, tying her up in little falsities that\nirritated her beyond bearing. She would rather stay at home and\navoid the rest of the world, leaving it illusory.\n\nFor at the Marsh life had indeed a certain freedom and\nlargeness. There was no fret about money, no mean little\nprecedence, nor care for what other people thought, because\nneither Mrs. Brangwen nor Brangwen could be sensible of any\njudgment passed on them from outside. Their lives were too\nseparate.\n\nSo Anna was only easy at home, where the common sense and the\nsupreme relation between her parents produced a freer standard\nof being than she could find outside. Where, outside the Marsh,\ncould she find the tolerant dignity she had been brought up in?\nHer parents stood undiminished and unaware of criticism. The\npeople she met outside seemed to begrudge her her very\nexistence. They seemed to want to belittle her also. She was\nexceedingly reluctant to go amongst them. She depended upon her\nmother and her father. And yet she wanted to go out.\n\nAt school, or in the world, she was usually at fault, she\nfelt usually that she ought to be slinking in disgrace. She\nnever felt quite sure, in herself, whether she were wrong, or\nwhether the others were wrong. She had not done her lessons:\nwell, she did not see any reason why she should do her\nlessons, if she did not want to. Was there some occult reason\nwhy she should? Were these people, schoolmistresses,\nrepresentatives of some mystic Right, some Higher Good? They\nseemed to think so themselves. But she could not for her life\nsee why a woman should bully and insult her because she did not\nknow thirty lines of As You Like It. After all, what did\nit matter if she knew them or not? Nothing could persuade her\nthat it was of the slightest importance. Because she despised\ninwardly the coarsely working nature of the mistress. Therefore\nshe was always at outs with authority. From constant telling,\nshe came almost to believe in her own badness, her own intrinsic\ninferiority. She felt that she ought always to be in a state of\nslinking disgrace, if she fulfilled what was expected of her.\nBut she rebelled. She never really believed in her own badness.\nAt the bottom of her heart she despised the other people, who\ncarped and were loud over trifles. She despised them, and wanted\nrevenge on them. She hated them whilst they had power over\nher.\n\nStill she kept an ideal: a free, proud lady absolved from the\npetty ties, existing beyond petty considerations. She would see\nsuch ladies in pictures: Alexandra, Princess of Wales, was one\nof her models. This lady was proud and royal, and stepped\nindifferently over all small, mean desires: so thought Anna, in\nher heart. And the girl did up her hair high under a little\nslanting hat, her skirts were fashionably bunched up, she wore\nan elegant, skin-fitting coat.\n\nHer father was delighted. Anna was very proud in her bearing,\ntoo naturally indifferent to smaller bonds to satisfy Ilkeston,\nwhich would have liked to put her down. But Brangwen was having\nno such thing. If she chose to be royal, royal she should be. He\nstood like a rock between her and the world.\n\nAfter the fashion of his family, he grew stout and handsome.\nHis blue eyes were full of light, twinkling and sensitive, his\nmanner was deliberate, but hearty, warm. His capacity for living\nhis own life without attention from his neighbours made them\nrespect him. They would run to do anything for him. He did not\nconsider them, but was open-handed towards them, so they made\nprofit of their willingness. He liked people, so long as they\nremained in the background.\n\nMrs. Brangwen went on in her own way, following her own\ndevices. She had her husband, her two sons and Anna. These\nstaked out and marked her horizon. The other people were\noutsiders. Inside her own world, her life passed along like a\ndream for her, it lapsed, and she lived within its lapse, active\nand always pleased, intent. She scarcely noticed the outer\nthings at all. What was outside was outside, non-existent. She\ndid not mind if the boys fought, so long as it was out of her\npresence. But if they fought when she was by, she was angry, and\nthey were afraid of her. She did not care if they broke a window\nof a railway carriage or sold their watches to have a revel at\nthe Goose Fair. Brangwen was perhaps angry over these things. To\nthe mother they were insignificant. It was odd little things\nthat offended her. She was furious if the boys hung around the\nslaughter-house, she was displeased when the school reports were\nbad. It did not matter how many sins her boys were accused of,\nso long as they were not stupid, or inferior. If they seemed to\nbrook insult, she hated them. And it was only a certain\ngaucherie, a gawkiness on Anna's part that irritated her\nagainst the girl. Certain forms of clumsiness, grossness, made\nthe mother's eyes glow with curious rage. Otherwise she was\npleased, indifferent.\n\nPursuing her splendid-lady ideal, Anna became a lofty\ndemoiselle of sixteen, plagued by family shortcomings. She was\nvery sensitive to her father. She knew if he had been drinking,\nwere he ever so little affected, and she could not bear it. He\nflushed when he drank, the veins stood out on his temples, there\nwas a twinkling, cavalier boisterousness in his eye, his manner\nwas jovially overbearing and mocking. And it angered her. When\nshe heard his loud, roaring, boisterous mockery, an anger of\nresentment filled her. She was quick to forestall him, the\nmoment he came in.\n\n\"You look a sight, you do, red in the face,\" she cried.\n\n\"I might look worse if I was green,\" he answered.\n\n\"Boozing in Ilkeston.\"\n\n\"And what's wrong wi' Il'son?\"\n\nShe flounced away. He watched her with amused, twinkling\neyes, yet in spite of himself said that she flouted him.\n\nThey were a curious family, a law to themselves, separate\nfrom the world, isolated, a small republic set in invisible\nbounds. The mother was quite indifferent to Ilkeston and\nCossethay, to any claims made on her from outside, she was very\nshy of any outsider, exceedingly courteous, winning even. But\nthe moment the visitor had gone, she laughed and dismissed him,\nhe did not exist. It had been all a game to her. She was still a\nforeigner, unsure of her ground. But alone with her own children\nand husband at the Marsh, she was mistress of a little native\nland that lacked nothing.\n\nShe had some beliefs somewhere, never defined. She had been\nbrought up a Roman Catholic. She had gone to the Church of\nEngland for protection. The outward form was a matter of\nindifference to her. Yet she had some fundamental religion. It\nwas as if she worshipped God as a mystery, never seeking in the\nleast to define what He was.\n\nAnd inside her, the subtle sense of the Great Absolute\nwherein she had her being was very strong. The English dogma\nnever reached her: the language was too foreign. Through it all\nshe felt the great Separator who held life in His hands,\ngleaming, imminent, terrible, the Great Mystery, immediate\nbeyond all telling.\n\nShe shone and gleamed to the Mystery, Whom she knew through\nall her senses, she glanced with strange, mystic superstitions\nthat never found expression in the English language, never\nmounted to thought in English. But so she lived, within a\npotent, sensuous belief that included her family and contained\nher destiny.\n\nTo this she had reduced her husband. He existed with her\nentirely indifferent to the general values of the world. Her\nvery ways, the very mark of her eyebrows were symbols and\nindication to him. There, on the farm with her, he lived through\na mystery of life and death and creation, strange, profound\necstasies and incommunicable satisfactions, of which the rest of\nthe world knew nothing; which made the pair of them apart and\nrespected in the English village, for they were also\nwell-to-do.\n\nBut Anna was only half safe within her mother's unthinking\nknowledge. She had a mother-of-pearl rosary that had been her\nown father's. What it meant to her she could never say. But the\nstring of moonlight and silver, when she had it between her\nfingers, filled her with strange passion. She learned at school\na little Latin, she learned an Ave Maria and a Pater Noster, she\nlearned how to say her rosary. But that was no good. \"Ave Maria,\ngratia plena, Dominus tecum, Benedicta tu in mulieribus et\nbenedictus fructus ventris tui Jesus. Ave Maria, Sancta Maria,\nora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae,\nAmen.\"\n\nIt was not right, somehow. What these words meant when\ntranslated was not the same as the pale rosary meant. There was\na discrepancy, a falsehood. It irritated her to say, \"Dominus\ntecum,\" or, \"benedicta tu in mulieribus.\" She loved the mystic\nwords, \"Ave Maria, Sancta Maria;\" she was moved by \"benedictus\nfructus ventris tui Jesus,\" and by \"nunc et in hora mortis\nnostrae.\" But none of it was quite real. It was not\nsatisfactory, somehow.\n\nShe avoided her rosary, because, moving her with curious\npassion as it did, it meant only these not very\nsignificant things. She put it away. It was her instinct to put\nall these things away. It was her instinct to avoid thinking, to\navoid it, to save herself.\n\nShe was seventeen, touchy, full of spirits, and very moody:\nquick to flush, and always uneasy, uncertain. For some reason or\nother, she turned more to her father, she felt almost flashes of\nhatred for her mother. Her mother's dark muzzle and curiously\ninsidious ways, her mother's utter surety and confidence, her\nstrange satisfaction, even triumph, her mother's way of laughing\nat things and her mother's silent overriding of vexatious\npropositions, most of all her mother's triumphant power maddened\nthe girl.\n\nShe became sudden and incalculable. Often she stood at the\nwindow, looking out, as if she wanted to go. Sometimes she went,\nshe mixed with people. But always she came home in anger, as if\nshe were diminished, belittled, almost degraded.\n\nThere was over the house a kind of dark silence and\nintensity, in which passion worked its inevitable conclusions.\nThere was in the house a sort of richness, a deep, inarticulate\ninterchange which made other places seem thin and unsatisfying.\nBrangwen could sit silent, smoking in his chair, the mother\ncould move about in her quiet, insidious way, and the sense of\nthe two presences was powerful, sustaining. The whole\nintercourse was wordless, intense and close.\n\nBut Anna was uneasy. She wanted to get away. Yet wherever she\nwent, there came upon her that feeling of thinness, as if she\nwere made smaller, belittled. She hastened home.\n\nThere she raged and interrupted the strong, settled\ninterchange. Sometimes her mother turned on her with a fierce,\ndestructive anger, in which was no pity or consideration. And\nAnna shrank, afraid. She went to her father.\n\nHe would still listen to the spoken word, which fell sterile\non the unheeding mother. Sometimes Anna talked to her father.\nShe tried to discuss people, she wanted to know what was meant.\nBut her father became uneasy. He did not want to have things\ndragged into consciousness. Only out of consideration for her he\nlistened. And there was a kind of bristling rousedness in the\nroom. The cat got up and stretching itself, went uneasily to the\ndoor. Mrs. Brangwen was silent, she seemed ominous. Anna could\nnot go on with her fault-finding, her criticism, her expression\nof dissatisfactions. She felt even her father against her. He\nhad a strong, dark bond with her mother, a potent intimacy that\nexisted inarticulate and wild, following its own course, and\nsavage if interrupted, uncovered.\n\nNevertheless Brangwen was uneasy about the girl, the whole\nhouse continued to be disturbed. She had a pathetic, baffled\nappeal. She was hostile to her parents, even whilst she lived\nentirely with them, within their spell.\n\nMany ways she tried, of escape. She became an assiduous\nchurch-goer. But the language meant nothing to her: it\nseemed false. She hated to hear things expressed, put into\nwords. Whilst the religious feelings were inside her they were\npassionately moving. In the mouth of the clergyman, they were\nfalse, indecent. She tried to read. But again the tedium and the\nsense of the falsity of the spoken word put her off. She went to\nstay with girl friends. At first she thought it splendid. But\nthen the inner boredom came on, it seemed to her all\nnothingness. And she felt always belittled, as if never, never\ncould she stretch her length and stride her stride.\n\nHer mind reverted often to the torture cell of a certain\nBishop of France, in which the victim could neither stand nor\nlie stretched out, never. Not that she thought of herself in any\nconnection with this. But often there came into her mind the\nwonder, how the cell was built, and she could feel the horror of\nthe crampedness, as something very real.\n\nShe was, however, only eighteen when a letter came from Mrs.\nAlfred Brangwen, in Nottingham, saying that her son William was\ncoming to Ilkeston to take a place as junior draughtsman,\nscarcely more than apprentice, in a lace factory. He was twenty\nyears old, and would the Marsh Brangwens be friendly with\nhim.\n\nTom Brangwen at once wrote offering the young man a home at\nthe Marsh. This was not accepted, but the Nottingham Brangwens\nexpressed gratitude.\n\nThere had never been much love lost between the Nottingham\nBrangwens and the Marsh. Indeed, Mrs. Alfred, having inherited\nthree thousand pounds, and having occasion to be dissatisfied\nwith her husband, held aloof from all the Brangwens whatsoever.\nShe affected, however, some esteem of Mrs. Tom, as she called\nthe Polish woman, saying that at any rate she was a lady.\n\nAnna Brangwen was faintly excited at the news of her Cousin\nWill's coming to Ilkeston. She knew plenty of young men, but\nthey had never become real to her. She had seen in this young\ngallant a nose she liked, in that a pleasant moustache, in the\nother a nice way of wearing clothes, in one a ridiculous fringe\nof hair, in another a comical way of talking. They were objects\nof amusement and faint wonder to her, rather than real beings,\nthe young men.\n\nThe only man she knew was her father; and, as he was\nsomething large, looming, a kind of Godhead, he embraced all\nmanhood for her, and other men were just incidental.\n\nShe remembered her cousin Will. He had town clothes and was\nthin, with a very curious head, black as jet, with hair like\nsleek, thin fur. It was a curious head: it reminded her she knew\nnot of what: of some animal, some mysterious animal that lived\nin the darkness under the leaves and never came out, but which\nlived vividly, swift and intense. She always thought of him with\nthat black, keen, blind head. And she considered him odd.\n\nHe appeared at the Marsh one Sunday morning: a rather long,\nthin youth with a bright face and a curious self-possession\namong his shyness, a native unawareness of what other people\nmight be, since he was himself.\n\nWhen Anna came downstairs in her Sunday clothes, ready for\nchurch, he rose and greeted her conventionally, shaking hands.\nHis manners were better than hers. She flushed. She noticed that\nhe now had a thick fledge on his upper lip, a black,\nfinely-shapen line marking his wide mouth. It rather repelled\nher. It reminded her of the thin, fine fur of his hair. She was\naware of something strange in him.\n\nHis voice had rather high upper notes, and very resonant\nmiddle notes. It was queer. She wondered why he did it. But he\nsat very naturally in the Marsh living-room. He had some\nuncouthness, some natural self-possession of the Brangwens, that\nmade him at home there.\n\nAnna was rather troubled by the strangely intimate,\naffectionate way her father had towards this young man. He\nseemed gentle towards him, he put himself aside in order to fill\nout the young man. This irritated Anna.\n\n\"Father,\" she said abruptly, \"give me some collection.\"\n\n\"What collection?\" asked Brangwen.\n\n\"Don't be ridiculous,\" she cried, flushing.\n\n\"Nay,\" he said, \"what collection's this?\"\n\n\"You know it's the first Sunday of the month.\"\n\nAnna stood confused. Why was he doing this, why was he making\nher conspicuous before this stranger?\n\n\"I want some collection,\" she reasserted.\n\n\"So tha says,\" he replied indifferently, looking at her, then\nturning again to this nephew.\n\nShe went forward, and thrust her hand into his breeches\npocket. He smoked steadily, making no resistance, talking to his\nnephew. Her hand groped about in his pocket, and then drew out\nhis leathern purse. Her colour was bright in her clear cheeks,\nher eyes shone. Brangwen's eyes were twinkling. The nephew sat\nsheepishly. Anna, in her finery, sat down and slid all the money\ninto her lap. There was silver and gold. The youth could not\nhelp watching her. She was bent over the heap of money,\nfingering the different coins.\n\n\"I've a good mind to take half a sovereign,\" she said, and\nshe looked up with glowing dark eyes. She met the light-brown\neyes of her cousin, close and intent upon her. She was startled.\nShe laughed quickly, and turned to her father.\n\n\"I've a good mind to take half a sovereign, our Dad,\" she\nsaid.\n\n\"Yes, nimble fingers,\" said her father. \"You take what's your\nown.\"\n\n\"Are you coming, our Anna?\" asked her brother from the\ndoor.\n\nShe suddenly chilled to normal, forgetting both her father\nand her cousin.\n\n\"Yes, I'm ready,\" she said, taking sixpence from the heap of\nmoney and sliding the rest back into the purse, which she laid\non the table.\n\n\"Give it here,\" said her father.\n\nHastily she thrust the purse into his pocket and was going\nout.\n\n\"You'd better go wi' 'em, lad, hadn't you?\" said the father\nto the nephew.\n\nWill Brangwen rose uncertainly. He had golden-brown, quick,\nsteady eyes, like a bird's, like a hawk's, which cannot look\nafraid.\n\n\"Your Cousin Will 'll come with you,\" said the father.\n\nAnna glanced at the strange youth again. She felt him waiting\nthere for her to notice him. He was hovering on the edge of her\nconsciousness, ready to come in. She did not want to look at\nhim. She was antagonistic to him.\n\nShe waited without speaking. Her cousin took his hat and\njoined her. It was summer outside. Her brother Fred was plucking\na sprig of flowery currant to put in his coat, from the bush at\nthe angle of the house. She took no notice. Her cousin followed\njust behind her.\n\nThey were on the high road. She was aware of a strangeness in\nher being. It made her uncertain. She caught sight of the\nflowering currant in her brother's buttonhole.\n\n\"Oh, our Fred,\" she cried. \"Don't wear that stuff to go to\nchurch.\"\n\nFred looked down protectively at the pink adornment on his\nbreast.\n\n\"Why, I like it,\" he said.\n\n\"Then you're the only one who does, I'm sure,\" she said.\n\nAnd she turned to her cousin.\n\n\"Do you like the smell of it?\" she asked.\n\nHe was there beside her, tall and uncouth and yet\nself-possessed. It excited her.\n\n\"I can't say whether I do or not,\" he replied.\n\n\"Give it here, Fred, don't have it smelling in church,\" she\nsaid to the little boy, her page.\n\nHer fair, small brother handed her the flower dutifully. She\nsniffed it and gave it without a word to her cousin, for his\njudgment. He smelled the dangling flower curiously.\n\n\"It's a funny smell,\" he said.\n\nAnd suddenly she laughed, and a quick light came on all their\nfaces, there was a blithe trip in the small boy's walk.\n\nThe bells were ringing, they were going up the summery hill\nin their Sunday clothes. Anna was very fine in a silk frock of\nbrown and white stripes, tight along the arms and the body,\nbunched up very elegantly behind the skirt. There was something\nof the cavalier about Will Brangwen, and he was well\ndressed.\n\nHe walked along with the sprig of currant-blossom dangling\nbetween his fingers, and none of them spoke. The sun shone\nbrightly on little showers of buttercup down the bank, in the\nfields the fool's-parsley was foamy, held very high and proud\nabove a number of flowers that flitted in the greenish twilight\nof the mowing-grass below.\n\nThey reached the church. Fred led the way to the pew,\nfollowed by the cousin, then Anna. She felt very conspicuous and\nimportant. Somehow, this young man gave her away to other\npeople. He stood aside and let her pass to her place, then sat\nnext to her. It was a curious sensation, to sit next to him.\n\nThe colour came streaming from the painted window above her.\nIt lit on the dark wood of the pew, on the stone, worn aisle, on\nthe pillar behind her cousin, and on her cousin's hands, as they\nlay on his knees. She sat amid illumination, illumination and\nluminous shadow all around her, her soul very bright. She sat,\nwithout knowing it, conscious of the hands and motionless knees\nof her cousin. Something strange had entered into her world,\nsomething entirely strange and unlike what she knew.\n\nShe was curiously elated. She sat in a glowing world of\nunreality, very delightful. A brooding light, like laughter, was\nin her eyes. She was aware of a strange influence entering in to\nher, which she enjoyed. It was a dark enrichening influence she\nhad not known before. She did not think of her cousin. But she\nwas startled when his hands moved.\n\nShe wished he would not say the responses so plainly. It\ndiverted her from her vague enjoyment. Why would he obtrude, and\ndraw notice to himself? It was bad taste. But she went on all\nright till the hymn came. He stood up beside her to sing, and\nthat pleased her. Then suddenly, at the very first word, his\nvoice came strong and over-riding, filling the church. He was\nsinging the tenor. Her soul opened in amazement. His voice\nfilled the church! It rang out like a trumpet, and rang out\nagain. She started to giggle over her hymn-book. But he went on,\nperfectly steady. Up and down rang his voice, going its own way.\nShe was helplessly shocked into laughter. Between moments of\ndead silence in herself she shook with laughter. On came the\nlaughter, seized her and shook her till the tears were in her\neyes. She was amazed, and rather enjoyed it. And still the hymn\nrolled on, and still she laughed. She bent over her hymn-book\ncrimson with confusion, but still her sides shook with laughter.\nShe pretended to cough, she pretended to have a crumb in her\nthroat. Fred was gazing up at her with clear blue eyes. She was\nrecovering herself. And then a slur in the strong, blind voice\nat her side brought it all on again, in a gust of mad\nlaughter.\n\nShe bent down to prayer in cold reproof of herself. And yet,\nas she knelt, little eddies of giggling went over her. The very\nsight of his knees on the praying cushion sent the little shock\nof laughter over her.\n\nShe gathered herself together and sat with prim, pure face,\nwhite and pink and cold as a Christmas rose, her hands in her\nsilk gloves folded on her lap, her dark eyes all vague,\nabstracted in a sort of dream, oblivious of everything.\n\nThe sermon rolled on vaguely, in a tide of pregnant\npeace.\n\nHer cousin took out his pocket-handkerchief. He seemed to be\ndrifted absorbed into the sermon. He put his handkerchief to his\nface. Then something dropped on to his knee. There lay the bit\nof flowering currant! He was looking down at it in real\nastonishment. A wild snort of laughter came from Anna. Everybody\nheard: it was torture. He had shut the crumpled flower in his\nhand and was looking up again with the same absorbed attention\nto the sermon. Another snort of laughter from Anna. Fred nudged\nher remindingly.\n\nHer cousin sat motionless. Somehow he was aware that his face\nwas red. She could feel him. His hand, closed over the flower,\nremained quite still, pretending to be normal. Another wild\nstruggle in Anna's breast, and the snort of laughter. She bent\nforward shaking with laughter. It was now no joke. Fred was\nnudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another\nvicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off\nin a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She\nwanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket.\nWhilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at\nher, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower\naway.\n\nIn the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly\ndepressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She\nhated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite\nhaughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more.\n\nWhen the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin\nwas again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In\nspite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it\namused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement.\nAnd the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was\nmingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out,\nit flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood\nand giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a\nfigure of shame.\n\n\"What were you laughing about, our Anna?\" asked Fred, the\nmoment they were out of the church.\n\n\"Oh, I couldn't help it,\" she said, in her careless,\nhalf-mocking fashion. \"I don't know why Cousin Will's\nsinging set me off.\"\n\n\"What was there in my singing to make you laugh?\" he\nasked.\n\n\"It was so loud,\" she said.\n\nThey did not look at each other, but they both laughed again,\nboth reddening.\n\n\"What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?\" asked\nTom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes\nbright with joy. \"Everybody stopped to look at you.\" Tom was in\nthe choir.\n\nShe was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her,\nwaiting for her to speak.\n\n\"It was Cousin Will's singing,\" she said.\n\nAt which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh,\nsuddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth, and\njust as quickly closing his mouth again.\n\n\"Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then?\" asked\nBrangwen.\n\n\"No, it's not that,\" said Anna. \"Only it tickled me--I\ncouldn't tell you why.\"\n\nAnd again a ripple of laughter went down the table.\n\nWill Brangwen thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing,\nand said:\n\n\"I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas.\"\n\n\"Oh, you go to church then!\" said Brangwen.\n\n\"Mother does--father doesn't,\" replied the youth.\n\nIt was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of\nhis voice, that showed up big to Anna. The matter-of-fact things\nhe said were absurd in contrast. The things her father said\nseemed meaningless and neutral.\n\nDuring the afternoon they sat in the parlour, that smelled of\ngeranium, and they ate cherries, and talked. Will Brangwen was\ncalled on to give himself forth. And soon he was drawn out.\n\nHe was interested in churches, in church architecture. The\ninfluence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the\nmedieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half\narticulate. But listening to him, as he spoke of church after\nchurch, of nave and chancel and transept, of rood-screen and\nfont, of hatchet-carving and moulding and tracery, speaking\nalways with close passion of particular things, particular\nplaces, there gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches,\na mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a\ndim-coloured light through which something took place obscurely,\npassing into darkness: a high, delighted framework of the mystic\nscreen, and beyond, in the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a\nvery real experience. She was carried away. And the land seemed\nto be covered with a vast, mystic church, reserved in gloom,\nthrilled with an unknown Presence.\n\nAlmost it hurt her, to look out of the window and see the\nlilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jewelled\nglass?\n\nHe talked of Gothic and Renaissance and Perpendicular, and\nEarly English and Norman. The words thrilled her.\n\n\"Have you been to Southwell?\" he said. \"I was there at twelve\no'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard. And the\nbells played a hymn.\n\n\"Ay, it's a fine Minster, Southwell, heavy. It's got heavy,\nround arches, rather low, on thick pillars. It's grand, the way\nthose arches travel forward.\n\n\"There's a sedilia as well--pretty. But I like the main\nbody of the church--and that north porch--\"\n\nHe was very much excited and filled with himself that\nafternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience\npassionate and glowing, burningly real.\n\nHis uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half-moved. His aunt\nbent forward her dark face, half-moved, but held by other\nknowledge. Anna went with him.\n\nHe returned to his lodging at night treading quick, his eyes\nglittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some\npassionate, vital tryst.\n\nThe glow remained in him, the fire burned, his heart was\nfierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self.\nAnd he was ready to go back to the Marsh.\n\nWithout knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she\nhad escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were\ntransgressed: he was the hole in the wall, beyond which the\nsunshine blazed on an outside world.\n\nHe came. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, talking again,\nthere recurred the strange, remote reality which carried\neverything before it. Sometimes, he talked of his father, whom\nhe hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his\nmother, whom he loved, with a love that was keenly close to\nhatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy, he was only\nhalf articulate. But he had the wonderful voice, that could ring\nits vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his\nfeeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory, sometimes\nit had a strange, twanging, almost cat-like sound, sometimes it\nhesitated, puzzled, sometimes there was the break of a little\nlaugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that\ncoursed through her as she listened to him. And his mother and\nhis father became to her two separate people in her life.\n\nFor some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received\ngladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing,\nan eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth,\nsomething grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a\nbird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the\nfellow, Brangwen irritably thought. He was like a grinning young\ntom-cat, that came when he thought he would, and without\ncognizance of the other person.\n\nAt first the youth had looked towards Tom Brangwen when he\ntalked; and then he looked towards his aunt, for her\nappreciation, valuing it more than his uncle's; and then he\nturned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which\nwas not in the elder people.\n\nSo that the two young people, from being always attendant on\nthe elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom.\nSometimes Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephew irritated him.\nThe lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature\nwas fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate\nthing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully\non the hearthrug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony\na yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs.\nWhat did the lad really care about anything, save his own\ninstinctive affairs?\n\nBrangwen was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected\nhis nephew. Mrs. Brangwen was irritated by Anna, who was\nsuddenly changed, under the influence of the youth. The mother\nliked the boy: he was not quite an outsider. But she did not\nlike her daughter to be so much under the spell.\n\nSo that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped\nfrom the elders, to create a new thing by themselves. He worked\nin the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked churches to\npropitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow: like a\nlong, persistent, unswerving black shadow he went after the\ngirl. It irritated Brangwen exceedingly. It exasperated him\nbeyond bearing, to see the lit-up grin, the cat-grin as he\ncalled it, on his nephew's face.\n\nAnd Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she\nbegan to act independently of her parents, to live beyond them.\nHer mother had flashes of anger.\n\nBut the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go\nshopping in Ilkeston at evening. She always returned with her\ncousin; he walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit\nbehind her, like the Devil looking over Lincoln, as Brangwen\nnoted angrily and yet with satisfaction.\n\nTo his own wonder, Will Brangwen found himself in an electric\nstate of passion. To his wonder, he had stopped her at the gate\nas they came home from Ilkeston one night, and had kissed her,\nblocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blow\nwere struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors, he\nwas acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizing at him\nand her. What right had they there: why should they look up! Let\nthem remove themselves, or look elsewhere.\n\nAnd the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling\nfiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce,\ninsistent, but fierce as if he felt something baulking him. He\nwanted to smash through something.\n\nA spell was cast over her. And how uneasy her parents were,\nas she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them,\nmoving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was\ninvisible to them. It made them angry. Yet they had to submit.\nShe went about absorbed, obscured for a while.\n\nOver him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to\nbe hidden in a tense, electric darkness, in which his soul, his\nlife was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His\nmind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he\nproduced some beautiful things.\n\nHis favourite work was wood-carving. The first thing he made\nfor her was a butter-stamper. In it he carved a mythological\nbird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical\nwings, from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that\nrose upwards from the rim of the cup.\n\nAnna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave\nit to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made,\nshe fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of\noak-leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it\nwould turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird moulded there, in the\ncup-like hollow, with curious, thick waverings running inwards\nfrom a smooth rim. She pressed another mould. Strange, to lift\nthe stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to\nher. She loved creating it over and over again. And every time\nshe looked, it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of\nbutter became this strange, vital emblem.\n\nShe showed it to her mother and father.\n\n\"That is beautiful,\" said her mother, a little light coming\non to her face.\n\n\"Beautiful!\" exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. \"Why,\nwhat sort of a bird does he call it?\"\n\nAnd this was the question put by the customers during the\nnext weeks.\n\n\"What sort of a bird do you call that, as you've got\non th' butter?\"\n\nWhen he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to\nshow him.\n\n\"Do you like it?\" he asked, in his loud, vibrating voice that\nalways sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her\nbeing.\n\nThey very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone\ntogether, near to each other, but there was still a distance\nbetween them.\n\nIn the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large, white\nsurfaces of the cream pans. He turned his head sharply. It was\nso cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open in a\nlittle, strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned\naside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once.\nAgain his eye rested on the round blocks of butter, where the\nemblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the\ncandle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him;\nhis head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly,\nwith an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms\nround her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like\na bird that swoops and sinks close, closer.\n\nHe was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her\neyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and\nbright with a fierce purpose and gladness, like a hawk's. She\nfelt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand,\nlike a gleaming hawk.\n\nThey had looked at each other, and seen each other strange,\nyet near, very near, like a hawk stooping, swooping, dropping\ninto a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went\nback to the kitchen.\n\nThey went on in this way for some time, always coming\ntogether, but rarely touching, very seldom did they kiss. And\nthen, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her\neyes began to waken with a constant fire, she paused often in\nthe midst of her transit, as if to recollect something, or to\ndiscover something.\n\nAnd his face became sombre, intent, he did not really hear\nwhat was said to him.\n\nOne evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in\nwith his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his\nface wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the\nchill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he\nsat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst\nher blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him\nnow, only to touch him.\n\nThere was the queer, abstract look on her silvery radiant\nface that maddened her father, her dark eyes were hidden. But\nshe raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare\nthat made him quail for a moment.\n\nShe went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her\nfather watched her as she returned.\n\n\"Come with me, Will,\" she said to her cousin. \"I want to see\nif I put the brick over where that rat comes in.\"\n\n\"You've no need to do that,\" retorted her father. She took no\nnotice. The youth was between the two wills. The colour mounted\ninto the father's face, his blue eyes stared. The girl stood\nnear the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication\nthat the youth must come. He rose, in his silent, intent way,\nand was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwen's forehead\nveins.\n\nIt was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the\ncobbled path and the bottom of the wall. She came to a small\nladder, and climbed up. He reached her the lantern, and\nfollowed. Up there in the fowl-loft, the birds sat in fat\nbunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright,\nsharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crawk of expostulation as\none of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow\nneck-feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor.\nBrangwen crouched in the loft watching. The light was soft under\nthe red, naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was\nanother explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch.\n\nAnna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting\nfor her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was\nclinging close to him, cleaving her body against his, and\ncrying, in a whispering, whimpering sound.\n\n\"Will, I love you, I love you, Will, I love you.\" It sounded\nas if it were tearing her.\n\nHe was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms,\nand his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door\nof the loft was open. Outside, the rain slanted by in fine,\nsteely, mysterious haste, emerging out of the gulf of darkness.\nHe held her in his arms, and he and she together seemed to be\nswinging in big, swooping oscillations, the two of them clasped\ntogether up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft\nin which they stood, beyond them and below them, was darkness,\nwith a travelling veil of rain.\n\n\"I love you, Will, I love you,\" she moaned, \"I love you,\nWill.\"\n\nHe held her as thought they were one, and was silent.\n\nIn the house, Tom Brangwen waited a while. Then he got up and\nwent out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious misty shaft\ncoming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in\nthe rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly.\nThen looking up, through the blurr, he saw the youth and the\ngirl together, the youth with his back against the wall, his\nhead sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them,\nblurred through the rain, but lit up. They thought themselves so\nburied in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft\nbehind, and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls, up in the\nnight, strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor.\n\nAnd a black gloom of anger, and a tenderness of\nself-effacement, fought in his heart. She did not understand\nwhat she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a\nmere child. She did not know how much of herself she was\nsquandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he\nthen an old man, that he should be giving her away in marriage?\nWas he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young\nthoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her--he\nor that blind-headed youth? To whom did she belong, if not to\nhimself?\n\nHe thought again of the child he had carried out at night\ninto the barn, whilst his wife was in labour with the young Tom.\nHe remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his\narm, round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was\ngoing away, to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in\nhim, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How\ndared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain, sweating\nwith pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of\nhaving to relinquish what was life to him.\n\nWill Brangwen went home without having seen his uncle. He\nheld his hot face to the rain, and walked on in a trance. \"I\nlove you, Will, I love you.\" The words repeated themselves\nendlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the\nendless space, and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out\nand given him a vast space to walk in. Whither, through this\ndarkness of infinite space, was he walking blindly? Where, at\nthe end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly,\nseated, thrusting him on? \"I love you, Will, I love you.\" He\ntrembled with fear as the words beat in his heart again. And he\ndared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone, and of her\nstrange, transfigured face. The hand of the Hidden Almighty,\nburning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him.\nHe went on subject and in fear, his heart gripped and burning\nfrom the touch.\n\nThe days went by, they ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He\nwent to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between\nthem. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes sombre. Anna was\nstrange and delivered up. Her face in its delicate colouring was\nmute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and\nmoved in her own dark world, that was pregnant again with\nfulfilment.\n\nWill Brangwen worked at his wood-carving. It was a passion, a\npassion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the\npassion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was\ncarving, as he had always wanted, the Creation of Eve. It was a\npanel in low relief, for a church. Adam lay asleep as if\nsuffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him,\nstretching forward His unveiled hand; and Eve, a small vivid,\nnaked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of\nGod, from the torn side of Adam.\n\nNow, Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a\nkeen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as a breath of\nair, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small\nbelly. She was a stiff little figure, with sharp lines, in the\nthroes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled\nas he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There\nwas a bird on a bough overhead, lifting its wings for flight,\nand a serpent wreathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He\ntrembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp\nbody of his Eve.\n\nAt the sides, at the far sides, at either end, were two\nAngels covering their faces with their wings. They were like\ntrees. As he went to the Marsh, in the twilight, he felt that\nthe Angels, with covered faces, were standing back as he went\nby. The darkness was of their shadows and the covering of their\nfaces. When he went through the Canal bridge, the evening glowed\nin its last deep colours, the sky was dark blue, the stars\nglittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the\ndarkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along\nthe edge of the heavens.\n\nShe waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face\nwere covered. And he dared not lift his face to look at her.\n\nCorn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the\nfarm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to\nthe grey horizon, trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk,\nwaiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the\nhedge, along where the farm-carts had made dark ruts in the\ngrass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where\nstill much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the\nunder-shadow the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had\nleft them, many sheaves like bodies prostrate in shadowy bulk;\nothers were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of\nmoonlight and of dusk, farther off.\n\nThey did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go,\ntowards the moon? For they were separate, single.\n\n\"We will put up some sheaves,\" said Anna. So they could\nremain there in the broad, open place.\n\nThey went across the stubble to where the long rows of\nupreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field\nlooked, where the shocks rode erect; the rest was open and\nprostrate.\n\nThe air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees\nstood vaguely at their distance, as if waiting like heralds, for\nthe signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart\nseemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should\nbe heard.\n\n\"You take this row,\" she said to the youth, and passing on,\nshe stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands\nin the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either\nhand, carrying it, as it hung heavily against her, to the\ncleared space, where she set the two sheaves sharply down,\nbringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks\nstood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with\nthe gossamer dusk, carrying his two sheaves. She waited near-by.\nHe set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash, next to her\nsheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn.\nIt hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed.\n\nThen she turned away towards the moon, which seemed glowingly\nto uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the\nvague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully.\n\nThey stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted\nthe heavy bundles, and returned. She was always first. She set\ndown her sheaves, making a pent-house with those others. He was\ncoming shadowy across the stubble, carrying his bundles, She\nturned away, hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn.\nShe walked between the moon and his shadowy figure.\n\nShe took her two new sheaves and walked towards him, as he\nrose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near\ndistance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They\nwere unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away, and turned\nto the moon, which laid bare her bosom, so she felt as if her\nbosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put\nup her two sheaves, which had fallen down. He worked in silence.\nThe rhythm of the work carried him away again, as she was coming\nnear.\n\nThey worked together, coming and going, in a rhythm, which\ncarried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she\nlifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness\nwhere he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She\nhesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of\nmingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And\nthere was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again, making\nher drift and ebb like a wave.\n\nHe worked steadily, engrossed, threading backwards and\nforwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble,\nweaving the long line of riding shocks, nearer and nearer to the\nshadowy trees, threading his sheaves with hers.\n\nAnd always, she was gone before he came. As he came, she drew\naway, as he drew away, she came. Were they never to meet?\nGradually a low, deep-sounding will in him vibrated to her,\ntried to set her in accord, tried to bring her gradually to him,\nto a meeting, till they should be together, till they should\nmeet as the sheaves that swished together.\n\nAnd the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer, the\ncorn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles, there was a\nhiss as the sheaves left the ground, a trailing of heavy bodies\nagainst him, a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes. And then he was\nsetting the corn together at the stook. And she was coming\nnear.\n\nHe waited for her, he fumbled at the stook. She came. But she\nstood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark\ncolumn, and spoke to her, and she answered. She saw the\nmoonlight flash question on his face. But there was a space\nbetween them, and he went away, the work carried them,\nrhythmic.\n\nWhy was there always a space between them, why were they\napart? Why, as she came up from under the moon, would she halt\nand stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will\ndrummed persistently, darkly, it drowned everything else.\n\nInto the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied\npurpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight, he heaved it towards\nher, setting it as in her, under the moonlit space. And he went\nback for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the\nsheaves and swung striding to the centre with them, ever he\ndrove her more nearly to the meeting, ever he did his share, and\ndrew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to\nand fro in the moonlight, engrossed, the swinging in the\nsilence, that was marked only by the splash of sheaves, and\nsilence, and a splash of sheaves. And ever the splash of his\nsheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers, and ever the splash\nof her sheaves recurred monotonously, unchanging, and ever the\nsplash of his sheaves beat nearer.\n\nTill at last, they met at the shock, facing each other,\nsheaves in hand. And he was silvery with moonlight, with a\nmoonlit, shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for\nhim.\n\n\"Put yours down,\" she said.\n\n\"No, it's your turn.\" His voice was twanging and\ninsistent.\n\nShe set her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands\nglisten among the spray of grain. And he dropped his sheaves and\nhe trembled as he took her in his arms. He had over-taken her,\nand it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh\nwith the night air, and sweet with the scent of grain. And the\nwhole rhythm of him beat into his kisses, and still he pursued\nher, in his kisses, and still she was not quite overcome. He\nwondered over the moonlight on her nose! All the moonlight upon\nher, all the darkness within her! All the night in his arms,\ndarkness and shine, he possessed of it all! All the night for\nhim now, to unfold, to venture within, all the mystery to be\nentered, all the discovery to be made.\n\nTrembling with keen triumph, his heart was white as a star as\nhe drove his kisses nearer.\n\n\"My love!\" she called, in a low voice, from afar. The low\nsound seemed to call to him from far off, under the moon, to him\nwho was unaware. He stopped, quivered, and listened.\n\n\"My love,\" came again the low, plaintive call, like a bird\nunseen in the night.\n\nHe was afraid. His heart quivered and broke. He was\nstopped.\n\n\"Anna,\" he said, as if he answered her from a distance,\nunsure.\n\n\"My love.\"\n\nAnd he drew near, and she drew near.\n\n\"Anna,\" he said, in wonder and the birthpain of love.\n\n\"My love,\" she said, her voice growing rapturous. And they\nkissed on the mouth, in rapture and surprise, long, real kisses.\nThe kiss lasted, there among the moonlight. He kissed her again,\nand she kissed him. And again they were kissing together. Till\nsomething happened in him, he was strange. He wanted her. He\nwanted her exceedingly. She was something new. They stood there\nfolded, suspended in the night. And his whole being quivered\nwith surprise, as from a blow. He wanted her, and he wanted to\ntell her so. But the shock was too great to him. He had never\nrealized before. He trembled with irritation and unusedness, he\ndid not know what to do. He held her more gently, gently, much\nmore gently. The conflict was gone by. And he was glad, and\nbreathless, and almost in tears. But he knew he wanted her.\nSomething fixed in him for ever. He was hers. And he was very\nglad and afraid. He did not know what to do, as they stood there\nin the open, moonlit field. He looked through her hair at the\nmoon, which seemed to swim liquid-bright.\n\nShe sighed, and seemed to wake up, then she kissed him again.\nThen she loosened herself away from him and took his hand. It\nhurt him when she drew away from his breast. It hurt him with a\nchagrin. Why did she draw away from him? But she held his\nhand.\n\n\"I want to go home,\" she said, looking at him in a way he\ncould not understand.\n\nHe held close to her hand. He was dazed and he could not\nmove, he did not know how to move. She drew him away.\n\nHe walked helplessly beside her, holding her hand. She went\nwith bent head. Suddenly he said, as the simple solution stated\nitself to him:\n\n\"We'll get married, Anna.\"\n\nShe was silent.\n\n\"We'll get married, Anna, shall we?\"\n\nShe stopped in the field again and kissed him, clinging to\nhim passionately, in a way he could not understand. He could not\nunderstand. But he left it all now, to marriage. That was the\nsolution now, fixed ahead. He wanted her, he wanted to be\nmarried to her, he wanted to have her altogether, as his own for\never. And he waited, intent, for the accomplishment. But there\nwas all the while a slight tension of irritation.\n\nHe spoke to his uncle and aunt that night.\n\n\"Uncle,\" he said, \"Anna and me think of getting married.\"\n\n\"Oh ay!\" said Brangwen.\n\n\"But how, you have no money?\" said the mother.\n\nThe youth went pale. He hated these words. But he was like a\ngleaming, bright pebble, something bright and inalterable. He\ndid not think. He sat there in his hard brightness, and did not\nspeak.\n\n\"Have you mentioned it to your own mother?\" asked\nBrangwen.\n\n\"No--I'll tell her on Saturday.\"\n\n\"You'll go and see her?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nThere was a long pause.\n\n\"And what are you going to marry on--your pound a\nweek?\"\n\nAgain the youth went pale, as if the spirit were being\ninjured in him.\n\n\"I don't know,\" he said, looking at his uncle with his bright\ninhuman eyes, like a hawk's.\n\nBrangwen stirred in hatred.\n\n\"It needs knowing,\" he said.\n\n\"I shall have the money later on,\" said the nephew. \"I will\nraise some now, and pay it back then.\"\n\n\"Oh ay!--And why this desperate hurry? She's a child of\neighteen, and you're a boy of twenty. You're neither of you of\nage to do as you like yet.\"\n\nWill Brangwen ducked his head and looked at his uncle with\nswift, mistrustful eyes, like a caged hawk.\n\n\"What does it matter how old she is, and how old I am?\" he\nsaid. \"What's the difference between me now and when I'm\nthirty?\"\n\n\"A big difference, let us hope.\"\n\n\"But you have no experience--you have no experience, and\nno money. Why do you want to marry, without experience or\nmoney?\" asked the aunt.\n\n\"What experience do I want, Aunt?\" asked the boy.\n\nAnd if Brangwen's heart had not been hard and intact with\nanger, like a precious stone, he would have agreed.\n\nWill Brangwen went home strange and untouched. He felt he\ncould not alter from what he was fixed upon, his will was set.\nTo alter it he must be destroyed. And he would not be destroyed.\nHe had no money. But he would get some from somewhere, it did\nnot matter. He lay awake for many hours, hard and clear and\nunthinking, his soul crystallizing more inalterably. Then he\nwent fast asleep.\n\nIt was as if his soul had turned into a hard crystal. He\nmight tremble and quiver and suffer, it did not alter.\n\nThe next morning Tom Brangwen, inhuman with anger spoke to\nAnna.\n\n\"What's this about wanting to get married?\" he said.\n\nShe stood, paling a little, her dark eyes springing to the\nhostile, startled look of a savage thing that will defend\nitself, but trembles with sensitiveness.\n\n\"I do,\" she said, out of her unconsciousness.\n\nHis anger rose, and he would have liked to break her.\n\n\"You do-you do-and what for?\" he sneered with contempt. The\nold, childish agony, the blindness that could recognize nobody,\nthe palpitating antagonism as of a raw, helpless, undefended\nthing came back on her.\n\n\"I do because I do,\" she cried, in the shrill, hysterical way\nof her childhood. \"You are not my father--my father\nis dead--you are not my father.\"\n\nShe was still a stranger. She did not recognize him. The cold\nblade cut down, deep into Brangwen's soul. It cut him off from\nher.\n\n\"And what if I'm not?\" he said.\n\nBut he could not bear it. It had been so passionately dear to\nhim, her \"Father--Daddie.\"\n\nHe went about for some days as if stunned. His wife was\nbemused. She did not understand. She only thought the marriage\nwas impeded for want of money and position.\n\nThere was a horrible silence in the house. Anna kept out of\nsight as much as possible. She could be for hours alone.\n\nWill Brangwen came back, after stupid scenes at Nottingham.\nHe too was pale and blank, but unchanging. His uncle hated him.\nHe hated this youth, who was so inhuman and obstinate.\nNevertheless, it was to Will Brangwen that the uncle, one\nevening, handed over the shares which he had transferred to Anna\nLensky. They were for two thousand five hundred pounds. Will\nBrangwen looked at his uncle. It was a great deal of the Marsh\ncapital here given away. The youth, however, was only colder and\nmore fixed. He was abstract, purely a fixed will. He gave the\nshares to Anna.\n\nAfter which she cried for a whole day, sobbing her eyes out.\nAnd at night, when she had heard her mother go to bed, she\nslipped down and hung in the doorway. Her father sat in his\nheavy silence, like a monument. He turned his head slowly.\n\n\"Daddy,\" she cried from the doorway, and she ran to him\nsobbing as if her heart would break.\n\"Daddy--daddy--daddy.\"\n\nShe crouched on the hearthrug with her arms round him and her\nface against him. His body was so big and comfortable. But\nsomething hurt her head intolerably. She sobbed almost with\nhysteria.\n\nHe was silent, with his hand on her shoulder. His heart was\nbleak. He was not her father. That beloved image she had broken.\nWho was he then? A man put apart with those whose life has no\nmore developments. He was isolated from her. There was a\ngeneration between them, he was old, he had died out from hot\nlife. A great deal of ash was in his fire, cold ash. He felt the\ninevitable coldness, and in bitterness forgot the fire. He sat\nin his coldness of age and isolation. He had his own wife. And\nhe blamed himself, he sneered at himself, for this clinging to\nthe young, wanting the young to belong to him.\n\nThe child who clung to him wanted her child-husband. As was\nnatural. And from him, Brangwen, she wanted help, so that her\nlife might be properly fitted out. But love she did not want.\nWhy should there be love between them, between the stout,\nmiddle-aged man and this child? How could there be anything\nbetween them, but mere human willingness to help each other? He\nwas her guardian, no more. His heart was like ice, his face cold\nand expressionless. She could not move him any more than a\nstatue.\n\nShe crept to bed, and cried. But she was going to be married\nto Will Brangwen, and then she need not bother any more.\nBrangwen went to bed with a hard, cold heart, and cursed\nhimself. He looked at his wife. She was still his wife. Her dark\nhair was threaded with grey, her face was beautiful in its\ngathering age. She was just fifty. How poignantly he saw her!\nAnd he wanted to cut out some of his own heart, which was\nincontinent, and demanded still to share the rapid life of\nyouth. How he hated himself.\n\nHis wife was so poignant and timely. She was still young and\nnaive, with some girl's freshness. But she did not want any more\nthe fight, the battle, the control, as he, in his incontinence,\nstill did. She was so natural, and he was ugly, unnatural, in\nhis inability to yield place. How hideous, this greedy\nmiddle-age, which must stand in the way of life, like a large\ndemon.\n\nWhat was missing in his life, that, in his ravening soul, he\nwas not satisfied? He had had that friend at school, his mother,\nhis wife, and Anna? What had he done? He had failed with his\nfriend, he had been a poor son; but he had known satisfaction\nwith his wife, let it be enough; he loathed himself for the\nstate he was in over Anna. Yet he was not satisfied. It was\nagony to know it.\n\nWas his life nothing? Had he nothing to show, no work? He did\nnot count his work, anybody could have done it. What had he\nknown, but the long, marital embrace with his wife! Curious,\nthat this was what his life amounted to! At any rate, it was\nsomething, it was eternal. He would say so to anybody, and be\nproud of it. He lay with his wife in his arms, and she was still\nhis fulfilment, just the same as ever. And that was the be-all\nand the end-all. Yes, and he was proud of it.\n\nBut the bitterness, underneath, that there still remained an\nunsatisfied Tom Brangwen, who suffered agony because a girl\ncared nothing for him. He loved his sons--he had them also.\nBut it was the further, the creative life with the girl, he\nwanted as well. Oh, and he was ashamed. He trampled himself to\nextinguish himself.\n\nWhat weariness! There was no peace, however old one grew! One\nwas never right, never decent, never master of oneself. It was\nas if his hope had been in the girl.\n\nAnna quickly lapsed again into her love for the youth. Will\nBrangwen had fixed his marriage for the Saturday before\nChristmas. And he waited for her, in his bright, unquestioning\nfashion, until then. He wanted her, she was his, he suspended\nhis being till the day should come. The wedding day, December\nthe twenty-third, had come into being for him as an absolute\nthing. He lived in it.\n\nHe did not count the days. But like a man who journeys in a\nship, he was suspended till the coming to port.\n\nHe worked at his carving, he worked in his office, he came to\nsee her; all was but a form of waiting, without thought or\nquestion.\n\nShe was much more alive. She wanted to enjoy courtship. He\nseemed to come and go like the wind, without asking why or\nwhither. But she wanted to enjoy his presence. For her, he was\nthe kernel of life, to touch him alone was bliss. But for him,\nshe was the essence of life. She existed as much when he was at\nhis carving in his lodging in Ilkeston, as when she sat looking\nat him in the Marsh kitchen. In himself, he knew her. But his\noutward faculties seemed suspended. He did not see her with his\neyes, nor hear her with his voice.\n\nAnd yet he trembled, sometimes into a kind of swoon, holding\nher in his arms. They would stand sometimes folded together in\nthe barn, in silence. Then to her, as she felt his young, tense\nfigure with her hands, the bliss was intolerable, intolerable\nthe sense that she possessed him. For his body was so keen and\nwonderful, it was the only reality in her world. In her world,\nthere was this one tense, vivid body of a man, and then many\nother shadowy men, all unreal. In him, she touched the centre of\nreality. And they were together, he and she, at the heart of the\nsecret. How she clutched him to her, his body the central body\nof all life. Out of the rock of his form the very fountain of\nlife flowed.\n\nBut to him, she was a flame that consumed him. The flame\nflowed up his limbs, flowed through him, till he was consumed,\ntill he existed only as an unconscious, dark transit of flame,\nderiving from her.\n\nSometimes, in the darkness, a cow coughed. There was, in the\ndarkness, a slow sound of cud chewing. And it all seemed to flow\nround them and upon them as the hot blood flows through the\nwomb, laving the unborn young.\n\nSometimes, when it was cold, they stood to be lovers in the\nstables, where the air was warm and sharp with ammonia. And\nduring these dark vigils, he learned to know her, her body\nagainst his, they drew nearer and nearer together, the kisses\ncame more subtly close and fitting. So when in the thick\ndarkness a horse suddenly scrambled to its feet, with a dull,\nthunderous sound, they listened as one person listening, they\nknew as one person, they were conscious of the horse.\n\nTom Brangwen had taken them a cottage at Cossethay, on a\ntwenty-one years' lease. Will Brangwen's eyes lit up as he saw\nit. It was the cottage next the church, with dark yew-trees,\nvery black old trees, along the side of the house and the grassy\nfront garden; a red, squarish cottage with a low slate roof, and\nlow windows. It had a long dairy-scullery, a big flagged\nkitchen, and a low parlour, that went up one step from the\nkitchen. There were whitewashed beams across the ceilings, and\nodd corners with cupboards. Looking out through the windows,\nthere was the grassy garden, the procession of black yew trees\ndown one side, and along the other sides, a red wall with ivy\nseparating the place from the high-road and the churchyard. The\nold, little church, with its small spire on a square tower,\nseemed to be looking back at the cottage windows.\n\n\"There'll be no need to have a clock,\" said Will Brangwen,\npeeping out at the white clock-face on the tower, his\nneighbour.\n\nAt the back of the house was a garden adjoining the paddock,\na cowshed with standing for two cows, pig-cotes and fowl-houses.\nWill Brangwen was very happy. Anna was glad to think of being\nmistress of her own place.\n\nTom Brangwen was now the fairy godfather. He was never happy\nunless he was buying something. Will Brangwen, with his interest\nin all wood-work, was getting the furniture. He was left to buy\ntables and round-staved chairs and the dressers, quite ordinary\nstuff, but such as was identified with his cottage.\n\nTom Brangwen, with more particular thought, spied out what he\ncalled handy little things for her. He appeared with a set of\nnew-fangled cooking-pans, with a special sort of hanging lamp,\nthough the rooms were so low, with canny little machines for\ngrinding meat or mashing potatoes or whisking eggs.\n\nAnna took a sharp interest in what he bought, though she was\nnot always pleased. Some of the little contrivances, which he\nthought so canny, left her doubtful. Nevertheless she was always\nexpectant, on market days there was always a long thrill of\nanticipation. He arrived with the first darkness, the copper\nlamps of his cart glowing. And she ran to the gate, as he, a\ndark, burly figure up in the cart, was bending over his\nparcels.\n\n\"It's cupboard love as brings you out so sharp,\" he said, his\nvoice resounding in the cold darkness. Nevertheless he was\nexcited. And she, taking one of the cart lamps, poked and peered\namong the jumble of things he had brought, pushing aside the oil\nor implements he had got for himself.\n\nShe dragged out a pair of small, strong bellows, registered\nthem in her mind, and then pulled uncertainly at something else.\nIt had a long handle, and a piece of brown paper round the\nmiddle of it, like a waistcoat.\n\n\"What's this?\" she said, poking.\n\nHe stopped to look at her. She went to the lamp-light by the\nhorse, and stood there bent over the new thing, while her hair\nwas like bronze, her apron white and cheerful. Her fingers\nplucked busily at the paper. She dragged forth a little wringer,\nwith clean indiarubber rollers. She examined it critically, not\nknowing quite how it worked.\n\nShe looked up at him. He stood a shadowy presence beyond the\nlight.\n\n\"How does it go?\" she asked.\n\n\"Why, it's for pulpin' turnips,\" he replied.\n\nShe looked at him. His voice disturbed her.\n\n\"Don't be silly. It's a little mangle,\" she said. \"How do you\nstand it, though?\"\n\n\"You screw it on th' side o' your wash-tub.\" He came and held\nit out to her.\n\n\"Oh, yes!\" she cried, with one of her little skipping\nmovements, which still came when she was suddenly glad.\n\nAnd without another thought she ran off into the house,\nleaving him to untackle the horse. And when he came into the\nscullery, he found her there, with the little wringer fixed on\nthe dolly-tub, turning blissfully at the handle, and Tilly\nbeside her, exclaiming:\n\n\"My word, that's a natty little thing! That'll save you\nluggin' your inside out. That's the latest contraption, that\nis.\"\n\nAnd Anna turned away at the handle, with great gusto of\npossession. Then she let Tilly have a turn.\n\n\"It fair runs by itself,\" said Tilly, turning on and on.\n\"Your clothes'll nip out on to th' line.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nWEDDING AT THE MARSH\n\nIt was a beautiful sunny day for the wedding, a muddy earth\nbut a bright sky. They had three cabs and two big closed-in\nvehicles. Everybody crowded in the parlour in excitement. Anna\nwas still upstairs. Her father kept taking a nip of brandy. He\nwas handsome in his black coat and grey trousers. His voice was\nhearty but troubled. His wife came down in dark grey silk with\nlace, and a touch of peacock-blue in her bonnet. Her little body\nwas very sure and definite. Brangwen was thankful she was there,\nto sustain him among all these people.\n\nThe carriages! The Nottingham Mrs. Brangwen, in silk brocade,\nstands in the doorway saying who must go with whom. There is a\ngreat bustle. The front door is opened, and the wedding guests\nare walking down the garden path, whilst those still waiting\npeer through the window, and the little crowd at the gate gorps\nand stretches. How funny such dressed-up people look in the\nwinter sunshine!\n\nThey are gone--another lot! There begins to be more\nroom. Anna comes down blushing and very shy, to be viewed in her\nwhite silk and her veil. Her mother-in-law surveys her\nobjectively, twitches the white train, arranges the folds of the\nveil and asserts herself.\n\nLoud exclamations from the window that the bridegroom's\ncarriage has just passed.\n\n\"Where's your hat, father, and your gloves?\" cries the bride,\nstamping her white slipper, her eyes flashing through her veil.\nHe hunts round--his hair is ruffled. Everybody has gone but\nthe bride and her father. He is ready--his face very red\nand daunted. Tilly dithers in the little porch, waiting to open\nthe door. A waiting woman walks round Anna, who asks:\n\n\"Am I all right?\"\n\nShe is ready. She bridles herself and looks queenly. She\nwaves her hand sharply to her father:\n\n\"Come here!\"\n\nHe goes. She puts her hand very lightly on his arm, and\nholding her bouquet like a shower, stepping, oh, very\ngraciously, just a little impatient with her father for being so\nred in the face, she sweeps slowly past the fluttering Tilly,\nand down the path. There are hoarse shouts at the gate, and all\nher floating foamy whiteness passes slowly into the cab.\n\nHer father notices her slim ankle and foot as she steps up: a\nchild's foot. His heart is hard with tenderness. But she is in\necstasies with herself for making such a lovely spectacle. All\nthe way she sat flamboyant with bliss because it was all so\nlovely. She looked down solicitously at her bouquet: white roses\nand lilies-of-the-valley and tube-roses and maidenhair\nfern--very rich and cascade-like.\n\nHer father sat bewildered with all this strangeness, his\nheart was so full it felt hard, and he couldn't think of\nanything.\n\nThe church was decorated for Christmas, dark with evergreens,\ncold and snowy with white flowers. He went vaguely down to the\naltar. How long was it since he had gone to be married himself?\nHe was not sure whether he was going to be married now, or what\nhe had come for. He had a troubled notion that he had to do\nsomething or other. He saw his wife's bonnet, and wondered why\nshe wasn't there with him.\n\nThey stood before the altar. He was staring up at the east\nwindow, that glowed intensely, a sort of blue purple: it was\ndeep blue glowing, and some crimson, and little yellow flowers\nheld fast in veins of shadow, in a heavy web of darkness. How it\nburned alive in radiance among its black web.\n\n\"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?\" He felt\nsomebody touch him. He started. The words still re-echoed in his\nmemory, but were drawing off.\n\n\"Me,\" he said hastily.\n\nAnn bent her head and smiled in her veil. How absurd he\nwas.\n\nBrangwen was staring away at the burning blue window at the\nback of the altar, and wondering vaguely, with pain, if he ever\nshould get old, if he ever should feel arrived and established.\nHe was here at Anna's wedding. Well, what right had he to feel\nresponsible, like a father? He was still as unsure and unfixed\nas when he had married himself. His wife and he! With a pang of\nanguish he realized what uncertainties they both were. He was a\nman of forty-five. Forty-five! In five more years fifty. Then\nsixty--then seventy--then it was finished. My\nGod--and one still was so unestablished!\n\nHow did one grow old-how could one become confident? He\nwished he felt older. Why, what difference was there, as far as\nhe felt matured or completed, between him now and him at his own\nwedding? He might be getting married over again--he and his\nwife. He felt himself tiny, a little, upright figure on a plain\ncircled round with the immense, roaring sky: he and his wife,\ntwo little, upright figures walking across this plain, whilst\nthe heavens shimmered and roared about them. When did one come\nto an end? In which direction was it finished? There was no end,\nno finish, only this roaring vast space. Did one never get old,\nnever die? That was the clue. He exulted strangely, with\ntorture. He would go on with his wife, he and she like two\nchildren camping in the plains. What was sure but the endless\nsky? But that was so sure, so boundless.\n\nStill the royal blue colour burned and blazed and sported\nitself in the web of darkness before him, unwearyingly rich and\nsplendid. How rich and splendid his own life was, red and\nburning and blazing and sporting itself in the dark meshes of\nhis body: and his wife, how she glowed and burned dark within\nher meshes! Always it was so unfinished and unformed!\n\nThere was a loud noise of the organ. The whole party was\ntrooping to the vestry. There was a blotted, scrawled\nbook--and that young girl putting back her veil in her\nvanity, and laying her hand with the wedding-ring\nself-consciously conspicuous, and signing her name proudly\nbecause of the vain spectacle she made:\n\n\"Anna Theresa Lensky.\"\n\n\"Anna Theresa Lensky\"--what a vain, independent minx she\nwas! The bridegroom, slender in his black swallow-tail and grey\ntrousers, solemn as a young solemn cat, was writing\nseriously:\n\n\"William Brangwen.\"\n\nThat looked more like it.\n\n\"Come and sign, father,\" cried the imperious young hussy.\n\n\"Thomas Brangwen--clumsy-fist,\" he said to himself as he\nsigned.\n\nThen his brother, a big, sallow fellow with black\nside-whiskers wrote:\n\n\"Alfred Brangwen.\"\n\n\"How many more Brangwens?\" said Tom Brangwen, ashamed of the\ntoo-frequent recurrence of his family name.\n\nWhen they were out again in the sunshine, and he saw the\nfrost hoary and blue among the long grass under the tomb-stones,\nthe holly-berries overhead twinkling scarlet as the bells rang,\nthe yew trees hanging their black, motionless, ragged boughs,\neverything seemed like a vision.\n\nThe marriage party went across the graveyard to the wall,\nmounted it by the little steps, and descended. Oh, a vain white\npeacock of a bride perching herself on the top of the wall and\ngiving her hand to the bridegroom on the other side, to be\nhelped down! The vanity of her white, slim, daintily-stepping\nfeet, and her arched neck. And the regal impudence with which\nshe seemed to dismiss them all, the others, parents and wedding\nguests, as she went with her young husband.\n\nIn the cottage big fires were burning, there were dozens of\nglasses on the table, and holly and mistletoe hanging up. The\nwedding party crowded in, and Tom Brangwen, becoming roisterous,\npoured out drinks. Everybody must drink. The bells were ringing\naway against the windows.\n\n\"Lift your glasses up,\" shouted Tom Brangwen from the\nparlour, \"lift your glasses up, an' drink to the hearth an'\nhome--hearth an' home, an' may they enjoy it.\"\n\n\"Night an' day, an' may they enjoy it,\" shouted Frank\nBrangwen, in addition.\n\n\"Hammer an' tongs, and may they enjoy it,\" shouted Alfred\nBrangwen, the saturnine.\n\n\"Fill your glasses up, an' let's have it all over again,\"\nshouted Tom Brangwen.\n\n\"Hearth an' home, an' may ye enjoy it.\"\n\nThere was a ragged shout of the company in response.\n\n\"Bed an' blessin', an' may ye enjoy it,\" shouted Frank\nBrangwen.\n\nThere was a swelling chorus in answer.\n\n\"Comin' and goin', an' may ye enjoy it,\" shouted the\nsaturnine Alfred Brangwen, and the men roared by now boldly, and\nthe women said, \"Just hark, now!\"\n\nThere was a touch of scandal in the air.\n\nThen the party rolled off in the carriages, full speed back\nto the Marsh, to a large meal of the high-tea order, which\nlasted for an hour and a half. The bride and bridegroom sat at\nthe head of the table, very prim and shining both of them,\nwordless, whilst the company raged down the table.\n\nThe Brangwen men had brandy in their tea, and were becoming\nunmanageable. The saturnine Alfred had glittering, unseeing\neyes, and a strange, fierce way of laughing that showed his\nteeth. His wife glowered at him and jerked her head at him like\na snake. He was oblivious. Frank Brangwen, the butcher, flushed\nand florid and handsome, roared echoes to his two brothers. Tom\nBrangwen, in his solid fashion, was letting himself go at\nlast.\n\nThese three brothers dominated the whole company. Tom\nBrangwen wanted to make a speech. For the first time in his\nlife, he must spread himself wordily.\n\n\"Marriage,\" he began, his eyes twinkling and yet quite\nprofound, for he was deeply serious and hugely amused at the\nsame time, \"Marriage,\" he said, speaking in the slow,\nfull-mouthed way of the Brangwens, \"is what we're made\nfor----\"\n\n\"Let him talk,\" said Alfred Brangwen, slowly and inscrutably,\n\"let him talk.\" Mrs. Alfred darted indignant eyes at her\nhusband.\n\n\"A man,\" continued Tom Brangwen, \"enjoys being a man: for\nwhat purpose was he made a man, if not to enjoy it?\"\n\n\"That a true word,\" said Frank, floridly.\n\n\"And likewise,\" continued Tom Brangwen, \"a woman enjoys being\na woman: at least we surmise she does----\"\n\n\"Oh, don't you bother----\" called a farmer's\nwife.\n\n\"You may back your life they'd be summisin'.\" said Frank's\nwife.\n\n\"Now,\" continued Tom Brangwen, \"for a man to be a man, it\ntakes a woman----\"\n\n\"It does that,\" said a woman grimly.\n\n\"And for a woman to be a woman, it takes a man----\"\ncontinued Tom Brangwen.\n\n\"All speak up, men,\" chimed in a feminine voice.\n\n\"Therefore we have marriage,\" continued Tom Brangwen.\n\n\"Hold, hold,\" said Alfred Brangwen. \"Don't run us off our\nlegs.\"\n\nAnd in dead silence the glasses were filled. The bride and\nbridegroom, two children, sat with intent, shining faces at the\nhead of the table, abstracted.\n\n\"There's no marriage in heaven,\" went on Tom Brangwen; \"but\non earth there is marriage.\"\n\n\"That's the difference between 'em,\" said Alfred Brangwen,\nmocking.\n\n\"Alfred,\" said Tom Brangwen, \"keep your remarks till\nafterwards, and then we'll thank you for them.-=--There's\nvery little else, on earth, but marriage. You can talk about\nmaking money, or saving souls. You can save your own soul seven\ntimes over, and you may have a mint of money, but your soul goes\ngnawin', gnawin', gnawin', and it says there's something it must\nhave. In heaven there is no marriage. But on earth there is\nmarriage, else heaven drops out, and there's no bottom to\nit.\"\n\n\"Just hark you now,\" said Frank's wife.\n\n\"Go on, Thomas,\" said Alfred sardonically.\n\n\"If we've got to be Angels,\" went on Tom Brangwen,\nharanguing the company at large, \"and if there is no such thing\nas a man nor a woman amongst them, then it seems to me as a\nmarried couple makes one Angel.\"\n\n\"It's the brandy,\" said Alfred Brangwen wearily.\n\n\"For,\" said Tom Brangwen, and the company was listening to\nthe conundrum, \"an Angel can't be less than a human being. And\nif it was only the soul of a man minus the man, then it would be\nless than a human being.\"\n\n\"Decidedly,\" said Alfred.\n\nAnd a laugh went round the table. But Tom Brangwen was\ninspired.\n\n\"An Angel's got to be more than a human being,\" he continued.\n\"So I say, an Angel is the soul of man and woman in one: they\nrise united at the Judgment Day, as one Angel----\"\n\n\"Praising the Lord,\" said Frank.\n\n\"Praising the Lord,\" repeated Tom.\n\n\"And what about the women left over?\" asked Alfred, jeering.\nThe company was getting uneasy.\n\n\"That I can't tell. How do I know as there is anybody left\nover at the Judgment Day? Let that be. What I say is, that when\na man's soul and a woman's soul unites together--that makes\nan Angel----\"\n\n\"I dunno about souls. I know as one plus one makes three,\nsometimes,\" said Frank. But he had the laugh to himself.\n\n\"Bodies and souls, it's the same,\" said Tom.\n\n\"And what about your missis, who was married afore you knew\nher?\" asked Alfred, set on edge by this discourse.\n\n\"That I can't tell you. If I am to become an Angel, it'll be\nmy married soul, and not my single soul. It'll not be the soul\nof me when I was a lad: for I hadn't a soul as would make\nan Angel then.\"\n\n\"I can always remember,\" said Frank's wife, \"when our Harold\nwas bad, he did nothink but see an angel at th' back o' th'\nlookin'-glass. 'Look, mother,' 'e said, 'at that angel!' 'Theer\nisn't no angel, my duck,' I said, but he wouldn't have it. I\ntook th' lookin'-glass off'n th' dressin'-table, but it made no\ndifference. He kep' on sayin' it was there. My word, it did give\nme a turn. I thought for sure as I'd lost him.\"\n\n\"I can remember,\" said another man, Tom's sister's husband,\n\"my mother gave me a good hidin' once, for sayin' I'd got an\nangel up my nose. She seed me pokin', an' she said: 'What are\nyou pokin' at your nose for-give over.' 'There's an angel up\nit,' I said, an' she fetched me such a wipe. But there was. We\nused to call them thistle things 'angels' as wafts about. An'\nI'd pushed one o' these up my nose, for some reason or\nother.\"\n\n\"It's wonderful what children will get up their noses,\" said\nFrank's wife. \"I c'n remember our Hemmie, she shoved one o' them\nbluebell things out o' th' middle of a bluebell, what they call\n'candles', up her nose, and oh, we had some work! I'd seen her\nstickin' 'em on the end of her nose, like, but I never thought\nshe'd be so soft as to shove it right up. She was a gel of eight\nor more. Oh, my word, we got a crochet-hook an' I don't know\nwhat ...\"\n\nTom Brangwen's mood of inspiration began to pass away. He\nforgot all about it, and was soon roaring and shouting with the\nrest. Outside the wake came, singing the carols. They were\ninvited into the bursting house. They had two fiddles and a\npiccolo. There in the parlour they played carols, and the whole\ncompany sang them at the top of its voice. Only the bride and\nbridegroom sat with shining eyes and strange, bright faces, and\nscarcely sang, or only with just moving lips.\n\nThe wake departed, and the guysers came. There was loud\napplause, and shouting and excitement as the old mystery play of\nSt. George, in which every man present had acted as a boy,\nproceeded, with banging and thumping of club and dripping\npan.\n\n\"By Jove, I got a crack once, when I was playin' Beelzebub,\"\nsaid Tom Brangwen, his eyes full of water with laughing. \"It\nknocked all th' sense out of me as you'd crack an egg. But I\ntell you, when I come to, I played Old Johnny Roger with St.\nGeorge, I did that.\"\n\nHe was shaking with laughter. Another knock came at the door.\nThere was a hush.\n\n\"It's th' cab,\" said somebody from the door.\n\n\"Walk in,\" shouted Tom Brangwen, and a red-faced grinning man\nentered.\n\n\"Now, you two, get yourselves ready an' off to blanket fair,\"\nshouted Tom Brangwen. \"Strike a daisy, but if you're not off\nlike a blink o' lightnin', you shanna go, you s'll sleep\nseparate.\"\n\nAnna rose silently and went to change her dress. Will\nBrangwen would have gone out, but Tilly came with his hat and\ncoat. The youth was helped on.\n\n\"Well, here's luck, my boy,\" shouted his father.\n\n\"When th' fat's in th' fire, let it frizzle,\" admonished his\nuncle Frank.\n\n\"Fair and softly does it, fair an' softly does\nit,\" cried his aunt, Frank's wife, contrary.\n\n\"You don't want to fall over yourself,\" said his uncle by\nmarriage. \"You're not a bull at a gate.\"\n\n\"Let a man have his own road,\" said Tom Brangwen testily.\n\"Don't be so free of your advice--it's his wedding this\ntime, not yours.\"\n\n\"'E don't want many sign-posts,\" said his father. \"There's\nsome roads a man has to be led, an' there's some roads a\nboss-eyed man can only follow wi' one eye shut. But this road\ncan't be lost by a blind man nor a boss-eyed man nor a\ncripple--and he's neither, thank God.\"\n\n\"Don't you be so sure o' your walkin' powers,\" cried Frank's\nwife. \"There's many a man gets no further than half-way, nor\ncan't to save his life, let him live for ever.\"\n\n\"Why, how do you know?\" said Alfred.\n\n\"It's plain enough in th' looks o' some,\" retorted Lizzie,\nhis sister-in-law.\n\nThe youth stood with a faint, half-hearing smile on his face.\nHe was tense and abstracted. These things, or anything, scarcely\ntouched him.\n\nAnna came down, in her day dress, very elusive. She kissed\neverybody, men and women, Will Brangwen shook hands with\neverybody, kissed his mother, who began to cry, and the whole\nparty went surging out to the cab.\n\nThe young couple were shut up, last injunctions shouted at\nthem.\n\n\"Drive on,\" shouted Tom Brangwen.\n\nThe cab rolled off. They saw the light diminish under the ash\ntrees. Then the whole party, quietened, went indoors.\n\n\"They'll have three good fires burning,\" said Tom Brangwen,\nlooking at his watch. \"I told Emma to make 'em up at nine, an'\nthen leave the door on th' latch. It's only half-past. They'll\nhave three fires burning, an' lamps lighted, an' Emma will ha'\nwarmed th' bed wi' th' warmin' pan. So I s'd think they'll be\nall right.\"\n\nThe party was much quieter. They talked of the young\ncouple.\n\n\"She said she didn't want a servant in,\" said Tom Brangwen.\n\"The house isn't big enough, she'd always have the creature\nunder her nose. Emma'll do what is wanted of her, an' they'll be\nto themselves.\"\n\n\"It's best,\" said Lizzie, \"you're more free.\"\n\nThe party talked on slowly. Brangwen looked at his watch.\n\n\"Let's go an' give 'em a carol,\" he said. \"We s'll find th'\nfiddles at the 'Cock an' Robin'.\"\n\n\"Ay, come on,\" said Frank.\n\nAlfred rose in silence. The brother-in-law and one of Will's\nbrothers rose also.\n\nThe five men went out. The night was flashing with stars.\nSirius blazed like a signal at the side of the hill, Orion,\nstately and magnificent, was sloping along.\n\nTom walked with his brother, Alfred. The men's heels rang on\nthe ground.\n\n\"It's a fine night,\" said Tom.\n\n\"Ay,\" said Alfred.\n\n\"Nice to get out.\"\n\n\"Ay.\"\n\nThe brothers walked close together, the bond of blood strong\nbetween them. Tom always felt very much the junior to\nAlfred.\n\n\"It's a long while since you left home,\" he said.\n\n\"Ay,\" said Alfred. \"I thought I was getting a bit\noldish--but I'm not. It's the things you've got as gets\nworn out, it's not you yourself.\"\n\n\"Why, what's worn out?\"\n\n\"Most folks as I've anything to do with--as has anything\nto do with me. They all break down. You've got to go on by\nyourself, if it's only to perdition. There's nobody going\nalongside even there.\"\n\nTom Brangwen meditated this.\n\n\"Maybe you was never broken in,\" he said.\n\n\"No, I never was,\" said Alfred proudly.\n\nAnd Tom felt his elder brother despised him a little. He\nwinced under it.\n\n\"Everybody's got a way of their own,\" he said, stubbornly.\n\"It's only a dog as hasn't. An' them as can't take what they\ngive an' give what they take, they must go by themselves, or get\na dog as'll follow 'em.\"\n\n\"They can do without the dog,\" said his brother. And again\nTom Brangwen was humble, thinking his brother was bigger than\nhimself. But if he was, he was. And if it were finer to go\nalone, it was: he did not want to go for all that.\n\nThey went over the field, where a thin, keen wind blew round\nthe ball of the hill, in the starlight. They came to the stile,\nand to the side of Anna's house. The lights were out, only on\nthe blinds of the rooms downstairs, and of a bedroom upstairs,\nfirelight flickered.\n\n\"We'd better leave 'em alone,\" said Alfred Brangwen.\n\n\"Nay, nay,\" said Tom. \"We'll carol 'em, for th' last\ntime.\"\n\nAnd in a quarter of an hour's time, eleven silent, rather\ntipsy men scrambled over the wall, and into the garden by the\nyew trees, outside the windows where faint firelight glowered on\nthe blinds. There came a shrill sound, two violins and a piccolo\nshrilling on the frosty air.\n\n\"In the fields with their flocks abiding.\" A commotion of\nmen's voices broke out singing in ragged unison.\n\nAnna Brangwen had started up, listening, when the music\nbegan. She was afraid.\n\n\"It's the wake,\" he whispered.\n\nShe remained tense, her heart beating heavily, possessed with\nstrange, strong fear. Then there came the burst of men's\nsinging, rather uneven. She strained still, listening.\n\n\"It's Dad,\" she said, in a low voice. They were silent,\nlistening.\n\n\"And my father,\" he said.\n\nShe listened still. But she was sure. She sank down again\ninto bed, into his arms. He held her very close, kissing her.\nThe hymn rambled on outside, all the men singing their best,\nhaving forgotten everything else under the spell of the fiddles\nand the tune. The firelight glowed against the darkness in the\nroom. Anna could hear her father singing with gusto.\n\n\"Aren't they silly,\" she whispered.\n\nAnd they crept closer, closer together, hearts beating to one\nanother. And even as the hymn rolled on, they ceased to hear\nit.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nANNA VICTRIX\n\nWill Brangwen had some weeks of holiday after his marriage,\nso the two took their honeymoon in full hands, alone in their\ncottage together.\n\nAnd to him, as the days went by, it was as if the heavens had\nfallen, and he were sitting with her among the ruins, in a new\nworld, everybody else buried, themselves two blissful survivors,\nwith everything to squander as they would. At first, he could\nnot get rid of a culpable sense of licence on his part. Wasn't\nthere some duty outside, calling him and he did not come?\n\nIt was all very well at night, when the doors were locked and\nthe darkness drawn round the two of them. Then they were the\nonly inhabitants of the visible earth, the rest were under the\nflood. And being alone in the world, they were a law unto\nthemselves, they could enjoy and squander and waste like\nconscienceless gods.\n\nBut in the morning, as the carts clanked by, and children\nshouted down the lane; as the hucksters came calling their\nwares, and the church clock struck eleven, and he and she had\nnot got up yet, even to breakfast, he could not help feeling\nguilty, as if he were committing a breach of the\nlaw--ashamed that he was not up and doing.\n\n\"Doing what?\" she asked. \"What is there to do? You will only\nlounge about.\"\n\nStill, even lounging about was respectable. One was at least\nin connection with the world, then. Whereas now, lying so still\nand peacefully, while the daylight came obscurely through the\ndrawn blind, one was severed from the world, one shut oneself\noff in tacit denial of the world. And he was troubled.\n\nBut it was so sweet and satisfying lying there talking\ndesultorily with her. It was sweeter than sunshine, and not so\nevanescent. It was even irritating the way the church-clock kept\non chiming: there seemed no space between the hours, just a\nmoment, golden and still, whilst she traced his features with\nher finger-tips, utterly careless and happy, and he loved her to\ndo it.\n\nBut he was strange and unused. So suddenly, everything that\nhad been before was shed away and gone. One day, he was a\nbachelor, living with the world. The next day, he was with her,\nas remote from the world as if the two of them were buried like\na seed in darkness. Suddenly, like a chestnut falling out of a\nburr, he was shed naked and glistening on to a soft, fecund\nearth, leaving behind him the hard rind of worldly knowledge and\nexperience. He heard it in the huckster's cries, the noise of\ncarts, the calling of children. And it was all like the hard,\nshed rind, discarded. Inside, in the softness and stillness of\nthe room, was the naked kernel, that palpitated in silent\nactivity, absorbed in reality.\n\nInside the room was a great steadiness, a core of living\neternity. Only far outside, at the rim, went on the noise and\nthe destruction. Here at the centre the great wheel was\nmotionless, centred upon itself. Here was a poised, unflawed\nstillness that was beyond time, because it remained the same,\ninexhaustible, unchanging, unexhausted.\n\nAs they lay close together, complete and beyond the touch of\ntime or change, it was as if they were at the very centre of all\nthe slow wheeling of space and the rapid agitation of life,\ndeep, deep inside them all, at the centre where there is utter\nradiance, and eternal being, and the silence absorbed in praise:\nthe steady core of all movements, the unawakened sleep of all\nwakefulness. They found themselves there, and they lay still, in\neach other's arms; for their moment they were at the heart of\neternity, whilst time roared far off, for ever far off, towards\nthe rim.\n\nThen gradually they were passed away from the supreme centre,\ndown the circles of praise and joy and gladness, further and\nfurther out, towards the noise and the friction. But their\nhearts had burned and were tempered by the inner reality, they\nwere unalterably glad.\n\nGradually they began to wake up, the noises outside became\nmore real. They understood and answered the call outside. They\ncounted the strokes of the bell. And when they counted midday,\nthey understood that it was midday, in the world, and for\nthemselves also.\n\nIt dawned upon her that she was hungry. She had been getting\nhungrier for a lifetime. But even yet it was not sufficiently\nreal to rouse her. A long way off she could hear the words, \"I\nam dying of hunger.\" Yet she lay still, separate, at peace, and\nthe words were unuttered. There was still another lapse.\n\nAnd then, quite calmly, even a little surprised, she was in\nthe present, and was saying:\n\n\"I am dying with hunger.\"\n\n\"So am I,\" he said calmly, as if it were of not the slightest\nsignificance. And they relapsed into the warm, golden stillness.\nAnd the minutes flowed unheeded past the window outside.\n\nThen suddenly she stirred against him.\n\n\"My dear, I am dying of hunger,\" she said.\n\nIt was a slight pain to him to be brought to.\n\n\"We'll get up,\" he said, unmoving.\n\nAnd she sank her head on to him again, and they lay still,\nlapsing. Half consciously, he heard the clock chime the hour.\nShe did not hear.\n\n\"Do get up,\" she murmured at length, \"and give me something\nto eat.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, and he put his arms round her, and she lay\nwith her face on him. They were faintly astonished that they did\nnot move. The minutes rustled louder at the window.\n\n\"Let me go then,\" he said.\n\nShe lifted her head from him, relinquishingly. With a little\nbreaking away, he moved out of bed, and was taking his clothes.\nShe stretched out her hand to him.\n\n\"You are so nice,\" she said, and he went back for a moment or\ntwo.\n\nThen actually he did slip into some clothes, and, looking\nround quickly at her, was gone out of the room. She lay\ntranslated again into a pale, clearer peace. As if she were a\nspirit, she listened to the noise of him downstairs, as if she\nwere no longer of the material world.\n\nIt was half-past one. He looked at the silent kitchen,\nuntouched from last night, dim with the drawn blind. And he\nhastened to draw up the blind, so people should know they were\nnot in bed any later. Well, it was his own house, it did not\nmatter. Hastily he put wood in the grate and made a fire. He\nexulted in himself, like an adventurer on an undiscovered\nisland. The fire blazed up, he put on the kettle. How happy he\nfelt! How still and secluded the house was! There were only he\nand she in the world.\n\nBut when he unbolted the door, and, half-dressed, looked out,\nhe felt furtive and guilty. The world was there, after all. And\nhe had felt so secure, as though this house were the Ark in the\nflood, and all the rest was drowned. The world was there: and it\nwas afternoon. The morning had vanished and gone by, the day was\ngrowing old. Where was the bright, fresh morning? He was\naccused. Was the morning gone, and he had lain with blinds\ndrawn, let it pass by unnoticed?\n\nHe looked again round the chill, grey afternoon. And he\nhimself so soft and warm and glowing! There were two sprigs of\nyellow jasmine in the saucer that covered the milk-jug. He\nwondered who had been and left the sign. Taking the jug, he\nhastily shut the door. Let the day and the daylight drop out,\nlet it go by unseen. He did not care. What did one day more or\nless matter to him. It could fall into oblivion unspent if it\nliked, this one course of daylight.\n\n\"Somebody has been and found the door locked,\" he said when\nhe went upstairs with the tray. He gave her the two sprigs of\njasmine. She laughed as she sat up in bed, childishly threading\nthe flowers in the breast of her nightdress. Her brown hair\nstuck out like a nimbus, all fierce, round her softly glowing\nface. Her dark eyes watched the tray eagerly.\n\n\"How good!\" she cried, sniffing the cold air. \"I'm glad you\ndid a lot.\" And she stretched out her hands eagerly for her\nplate--\"Come back to bed, quick--it's cold.\" She\nrubbed her hands together sharply.\n\nHe [put off what little clothing he had on, and] sat beside her\nin the bed.\n\n\"You look like a lion, with your mane sticking out, and your\nnose pushed over your food,\" he said.\n\nShe tinkled with laughter, and gladly ate her breakfast.\n\nThe morning was sunk away unseen, the afternoon was steadily\ngoing too, and he was letting it go. One bright transit of\ndaylight gone by unacknowledged! There was something unmanly,\nrecusant in it. He could not quite reconcile himself to the\nfact. He felt he ought to get up, go out quickly into the\ndaylight, and work or spend himself energetically in the open\nair of the afternoon, retrieving what was left to him of the\nday.\n\nBut he did not go. Well, one might as well be hung for a\nsheep as for a lamb. If he had lost this day of his life, he had\nlost it. He gave it up. He was not going to count his losses.\nShe didn't care. She didn't care in the least.\nThen why should he? Should he be behind her in recklessness and\nindependence? She was superb in her indifference. He wanted to\nbe like her.\n\nShe took her responsibilities lightly. When she spilled her\ntea on the pillow, she rubbed it carelessly with a handkerchief,\nand turned over the pillow. He would have felt guilty. She did\nnot. And it pleased him. It pleased him very much to see how\nthese things did not matter to her.\n\nWhen the meal was over, she wiped her mouth on her\nhandkerchief quickly, satisfied and happy, and settled down on\nthe pillow again, with her fingers in his close, strange,\nfur-like hair.\n\nThe evening began to fall, the light was half alive, livid.\nHe hid his face against her.\n\n\"I don't like the twilight,\" he said.\n\n\"I love it,\" she answered.\n\nHe hid his face against her, who was warm and like sunlight.\nShe seemed to have sunlight inside her. Her heart beating seemed\nlike sunlight upon him. In her was a more real day than the day\ncould give: so warm and steady and restoring. He hid his face\nagainst her whilst the twilight fell, whilst she lay staring out\nwith her unseeing dark eyes, as if she wandered forth\nuntrammelled in the vagueness. The vagueness gave her scope and\nset her free.\n\nTo him, turned towards her heart-pulse, all was very still\nand very warm and very close, like noon-tide. He was glad to\nknow this warm, full noon. It ripened him and took away his\nresponsibility, some of his conscience.\n\nThey got up when it was quite dark. She hastily twisted her\nhair into a knot, and was dressed in a twinkling. Then they went\ndownstairs, drew to the fire, and sat in silence, saying a few\nwords now and then.\n\nHer father was coming. She bundled the dishes away, flew\nround and tidied the room, assumed another character, and again\nseated herself. He sat thinking of his carving of Eve. He loved\nto go over his carving in his mind, dwelling on every stroke,\nevery line. How he loved it now! When he went back to his\nCreation-panel again, he would finish his Eve, tender and\nsparkling. It did not satisfy him yet. The Lord should labour\nover her in a silent passion of Creation, and Adam should be\ntense as if in a dream of immortality, and Eve should take form\nglimmeringly, shadowily, as if the Lord must wrestle with His\nown soul for her, yet she was a radiance.\n\n\"What are you thinking about?\" she asked.\n\nHe found it difficult to say. His soul became shy when he\ntried to communicate it.\n\n\"I was thinking my Eve was too hard and lively.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"I don't know. She should be more----,\" he made a\ngesture of infinite tenderness.\n\nThere was a stillness with a little joy. He could not tell\nher any more. Why could he not tell her any more? She felt a\npang of disconsolate sadness. But it was nothing. She went to\nhim.\n\nHer father came, and found them both very glowing, like an\nopen flower. He loved to sit with them. Where there was a\nperfume of love, anyone who came must breathe it. They were both\nvery quick and alive, lit up from the other-world, so that it\nwas quite an experience for them, that anyone else could\nexist.\n\nBut still it troubled Will Brangwen a little, in his orderly,\nconventional mind, that the established rule of things had gone\nso utterly. One ought to get up in the morning and wash oneself\nand be a decent social being. Instead, the two of them stayed in\nbed till nightfall, and then got up, she never washed her face,\nbut sat there talking to her father as bright and shameless as a\ndaisy opened out of the dew. Or she got up at ten o'clock, and\nquite blithely went to bed again at three, or at half-past four,\nstripping him naked in the daylight, and all so gladly and\nperfectly, oblivious quite of his qualms. He let her do as she\nliked with him, and shone with strange pleasure. She was to\ndispose of him as she would. He was translated with gladness to\nbe in her hands. And down went his qualms, his maxims, his\nrules, his smaller beliefs, she scattered them like an expert\nskittle-player. He was very much astonished and delighted to see\nthem scatter.\n\nHe stood and gazed and grinned with wonder whilst his Tablets\nof Stone went bounding and bumping and splintering down the\nhill, dislodged for ever. Indeed, it was true as they said, that\na man wasn't born before he was married. What a change\nindeed!\n\nHe surveyed the rind of the world: houses, factories, trams,\nthe discarded rind; people scurrying about, work going on, all\non the discarded surface. An earthquake had burst it all from\ninside. It was as if the surface of the world had been broken\naway entire: Ilkeston, streets, church, people, work,\nrule-of-the-day, all intact; and yet peeled away into unreality,\nleaving here exposed the inside, the reality: one's own being,\nstrange feelings and passions and yearnings and beliefs and\naspirations, suddenly become present, revealed, the permanent\nbedrock, knitted one rock with the woman one loved. It was\nconfounding. Things are not what they seem! When he was a child,\nhe had thought a woman was a woman merely by virtue of her\nskirts and petticoats. And now, lo, the whole world could be\ndivested of its garment, the garment could lie there shed away\nintact, and one could stand in a new world, a new earth, naked\nin a new, naked universe. It was too astounding and\nmiraculous.\n\nThis then was marriage! The old things didn't matter any\nmore. One got up at four o'clock, and had broth at tea-time and\nmade toffee in the middle of the night. One didn't put on one's\nclothes or one did put on one's clothes. He still was not quite\nsure it was not criminal. But it was a discovery to find one\nmight be so supremely absolved. All that mattered was that he\nshould love her and she should love him and they should live\nkindled to one another, like the Lord in two burning bushes that\nwere not consumed. And so they lived for the time.\n\nShe was less hampered than he, so she came more quickly to\nher fulness, and was sooner ready to enjoy again a return to the\noutside world. She was going to give a tea-party. His heart\nsank. He wanted to go on, to go on as they were. He wanted to\nhave done with the outside world, to declare it finished for\never. He was anxious with a deep desire and anxiety that she\nshould stay with him where they were in the timeless universe of\nfree, perfect limbs and immortal breast, affirming that the old\noutward order was finished. The new order was begun to last for\never, the living life, palpitating from the gleaming core, to\naction, without crust or cover or outward lie. But no, he could\nnot keep her. She wanted the dead world again-she wanted to walk\non the outside once more. She was going to give a tea-party. It\nmade him frightened and furious and miserable. He was afraid all\nwould be lost that he had so newly come into: like the youth in\nthe fairy tale, who was king for one day in the year, and for\nthe rest a beaten herd: like Cinderella also, at the feast. He\nwas sullen. But she blithely began to make preparations for her\ntea-party. His fear was too strong, he was troubled, he hated\nher shallow anticipation and joy. Was she not forfeiting the\nreality, the one reality, for all that was shallow and\nworthless? Wasn't she carelessly taking off her crown to be an\nartificial figure having other artificial women to tea: when she\nmight have been perfect with him, and kept him perfect, in the\nland of intimate connection? Now he must be deposed, his joy\nmust be destroyed, he must put on the vulgar, shallow death of\nan outward existence.\n\nHe ground his soul in uneasiness and fear. But she rose to a\nreal outburst of house-work, turning him away as she shoved the\nfurniture aside to her broom. He stood hanging miserable near.\nHe wanted her back. Dread, and desire for her to stay with him,\nand shame at his own dependence on her drove him to anger. He\nbegan to lose his head. The wonder was going to pass away again.\nAll the love, the magnificent new order was going to be lost,\nshe would forfeit it all for the outside things. She would admit\nthe outside world again, she would throw away the living fruit\nfor the ostensible rind. He began to hate this in her. Driven by\nfear of her departure into a state of helplessness, almost of\nimbecility, he wandered about the house.\n\nAnd she, with her skirts kilted up, flew round at her work,\nabsorbed.\n\n\"Shake the rug then, if you must hang round,\" she said.\n\nAnd fretting with resentment, he went to shake the rug. She\nwas blithely unconscious of him. He came back, hanging near to\nher.\n\n\"Can't you do anything?\" she said, as if to a child,\nimpatiently. \"Can't you do your wood-work?\"\n\n\"Where shall I do it?\" he asked, harsh with pain.\n\n\"Anywhere.\"\n\nHow furious that made him.\n\n\"Or go for a walk,\" she continued. \"Go down to the Marsh.\nDon't hang about as if you were only half there.\"\n\nHe winced and hated it. He went away to read. Never had his\nsoul felt so flayed and uncreated.\n\nAnd soon he must come down again to her. His hovering near\nher, wanting her to be with him, the futility of him, the way\nhis hands hung, irritated her beyond bearing. She turned on him\nblindly and destructively, he became a mad creature, black and\nelectric with fury. The dark storms rose in him, his eyes glowed\nblack and evil, he was fiendish in his thwarted soul.\n\nThere followed two black and ghastly days, when she was set\nin anguish against him, and he felt as if he were in a black,\nviolent underworld, and his wrists quivered murderously. And she\nresisted him. He seemed a dark, almost evil thing, pursuing her,\nhanging on to her, burdening her. She would give anything to\nhave him removed.\n\n\"You need some work to do,\" she said. \"You ought to be at\nwork. Can't you do something?\"\n\nHis soul only grew the blacker. His condition now became\ncomplete, the darkness of his soul was thorough. Everything had\ngone: he remained complete in his own tense, black will. He was\nnow unaware of her. She did not exist. His dark, passionate soul\nhad recoiled upon itself, and now, clinched and coiled round a\ncentre of hatred, existed in its own power. There was a\ncuriously ugly pallor, an expressionlessness in his face. She\nshuddered from him. She was afraid of him. His will seemed\ngrappled upon her.\n\nShe retreated before him. She went down to the Marsh, she\nentered again the immunity of her parents' love for her. He\nremained at Yew Cottage, black and clinched, his mind dead. He\nwas unable to work at his wood-carving. He went on working\nmonotonously at the garden, blindly, like a mole.\n\nAs she came home, up the hill, looking away at the town dim\nand blue on the hill, her heart relaxed and became yearning. She\ndid not want to fight him any more. She wanted love--oh,\nlove. Her feet began to hurry. She wanted to get back to him.\nHer heart became tight with yearning for him.\n\nHe had been making the garden in order, cutting the edges of\nthe turf, laying the path with stones. He was a good, capable\nworkman.\n\n\"How nice you've made it,\" she said, approaching tentatively\ndown the path.\n\nBut he did not heed, he did not hear. His brain was solid and\ndead.\n\n\"Haven't you made it nice?\" she repeated, rather\nplaintively.\n\nHe looked up at her, with that fixed, expressionless face and\nunseeing eyes which shocked her, made her go dazed and blind.\nThen he turned away. She saw his slender, stooping figure\ngroping. A revulsion came over her. She went indoors.\n\nAs she took off her hat in the bedroom, she found herself\nweeping bitterly, with some of the old, anguished, childish\ndesolation. She sat still and cried on. She did not want him to\nknow. She was afraid of his hard, evil moments, the head dropped\na little, rigidly, in a crouching, cruel way. She was afraid of\nhim. He seemed to lacerate her sensitive femaleness. He seemed\nto hurt her womb, to take pleasure in torturing her.\n\nHe came into the house. The sound of his footsteps in his\nheavy boots filled her with horror: a hard, cruel, malignant\nsound. She was afraid he would come upstairs. But he did not.\nShe waited apprehensively. He went out.\n\nWhere she was most vulnerable, he hurt her. Oh, where she was\ndelivered over to him, in her very soft femaleness, he seemed to\nlacerate her and desecrate her. She pressed her hands over her\nwomb in anguish, whilst the tears ran down her face. And why,\nand why? Why was he like this?\n\nSuddenly she dried her tears. She must get the tea ready. She\nwent downstairs and set the table. When the meal was ready, she\ncalled to him.\n\n\"I've mashed the tea, Will, are you coming?\"\n\nShe herself could hear the sound of tears in her own voice,\nand she began to cry again. He did not answer, but went on with\nhis work. She waited a few minutes, in anguish. Fear came over\nher, she was panic-stricken with terror, like a child; and she\ncould not go home again to her father; she was held by the power\nin this man who had taken her.\n\nShe turned indoors so that he should not see her tears. She\nsat down to table. Presently he came into the scullery. His\nmovements jarred on her, as she heard them. How horrible was the\nway he pumped, exacerbating, so cruel! How she hated to hear\nhim! How he hated her! How his hatred was like blows upon her!\nThe tears were coming again.\n\nHe came in, his face wooden and lifeless, fixed, persistent.\nHe sat down to tea, his head dropped over his cup, uglily. His\nhands were red from the cold water, and there were rims of earth\nin his nails. He went on with his tea.\n\nIt was his negative insensitiveness to her that she could not\nbear, something clayey and ugly. His intelligence was\nself-absorbed. How unnatural it was to sit with a self-absorbed\ncreature, like something negative ensconced opposite one.\nNothing could touch him--he could only absorb things into\nhis own self.\n\nThe tears were running down her face. Something startled him,\nand he was looking up at her with his hateful, hard, bright\neyes, hard and unchanging as a bird of prey.\n\n\"What are you crying for?\" came the grating voice.\n\nShe winced through her womb. She could not stop crying.\n\n\"What are you crying for?\" came the question again, in just\nthe same tone. And still there was silence, with only the sniff\nof her tears.\n\nHis eyes glittered, and as if with malignant desire. She\nshrank and became blind. She was like a bird being beaten down.\nA sort of swoon of helplessness came over her. She was of\nanother order than he, she had no defence against him. Against\nsuch an influence, she was only vulnerable, she was given\nup.\n\nHe rose and went out of the house, possessed by the evil\nspirit. It tortured him and wracked him, and fought in him. And\nwhilst he worked, in the deepening twilight, it left him.\nSuddenly he saw that she was hurt. He had only seen her\ntriumphant before. Suddenly his heart was torn with compassion\nfor her. He became alive again, in an anguish of compassion. He\ncould not bear to think of her tears--he could not bear it.\nHe wanted to go to her and pour out his heart's blood to her. He\nwanted to give everything to her, all his blood, his life, to\nthe last dregs, pour everything away to her. He yearned with\npassionate desire to offer himself to her, utterly.\n\nThe evening star came, and the night. She had not lighted the\nlamp. His heart burned with pain and with grief. He trembled to\ngo to her.\n\nAnd at last he went, hesitating, burdened with a great\noffering. The hardness had gone out of him, his body was\nsensitive, slightly trembling. His hand was curiously sensitive,\nshrinking, as he shut the door. He fixed the latch almost\ntenderly.\n\nIn the kitchen was only the fireglow, he could not see her.\nHe quivered with dread lest she had gone--he knew not\nwhere. In shrinking dread, he went through to the parlour, to\nthe foot of the stairs.\n\n\"Anna,\" he called.\n\nThere was no answer. He went up the stairs, in dread of the\nempty house--the horrible emptiness that made his heart\nring with insanity. He opened the bedroom door, and his heart\nflashed with certainty that she had gone, that he was alone.\n\nBut he saw her on the bed, lying very still and scarcely\nnoticeable, with her back to him. He went and put his hand on\nher shoulder, very gently, hesitating, in a great fear and\nself-offering. She did not move.\n\nHe waited. The hand that touched her shoulder hurt him, as if\nshe were sending it away. He stood dim with pain.\n\n\"Anna,\" he said.\n\nBut still she was motionless, like a curled up, oblivious\ncreature. His heart beat with strange throes of pain. Then, by a\nmotion under his hand, he knew she was crying, holding herself\nhard so that her tears should not be known. He waited. The\ntension continued--perhaps she was not crying--then\nsuddenly relapsed with a sharp catch of a sob. His heart flamed\nwith love and suffering for her. Kneeling carefully on the bed,\nso that his earthy boots should not touch it, he took her in his\narms to comfort her. The sobs gathered in her, she was sobbing\nbitterly. But not to him. She was still away from him.\n\nHe held her against his breast, whilst she sobbed, withheld\nfrom him, and all his body vibrated against her.\n\n\"Don't cry--don't cry,\" he said, with an odd simplicity.\nHis heart was calm and numb with a sort of innocence of love,\nnow.\n\nShe still sobbed, ignoring him, ignoring that he held her.\nHis lips were dry.\n\n\"Don't cry, my love,\" he said, in the same abstract way. In\nhis breast his heart burned like a torch, with suffering. He\ncould not bear the desolateness of her crying. He would have\nsoothed her with his blood. He heard the church clock chime, as\nif it touched him, and he waited in suspense for it to have gone\nby. It was quiet again.\n\n\"My love,\" he said to her, bending to touch her wet face with\nhis mouth. He was afraid to touch her. How wet her face was! His\nbody trembled as he held her. He loved her till he felt his\nheart and all his veins would burst and flood her with his hot,\nhealing blood. He knew his blood would heal and restore her.\n\nShe was becoming quieter. He thanked the God of mercy that at\nlast she was becoming quieter. His head felt so strange and\nblazed. Still he held her close, with trembling arms. His blood\nseemed very strong, enveloping her.\n\nAnd at last she began to draw near to him, she nestled to\nhim. His limbs, his body, took fire and beat up in flames. She\nclung to him, she cleaved to his body. The flames swept him, he\nheld her in sinews of fire. If she would kiss him! He bent his\nmouth down. And her mouth, soft and moist, received him. He felt\nhis veins would burst with anguish of thankfulness, his heart\nwas mad with gratefulness, he could pour himself out upon her\nfor ever.\n\nWhen they came to themselves, the night was very dark. Two\nhours had gone by. They lay still and warm and weak, like the\nnew-born, together. And there was a silence almost of the\nunborn. Only his heart was weeping happily, after the pain. He\ndid not understand, he had yielded, given way. There was\nno understanding. There could be only acquiescence and\nsubmission, and tremulous wonder of consummation.\n\nThe next morning, when they woke up, it had snowed. He\nwondered what was the strange pallor in the air, and the unusual\ntang. Snow was on the grass and the window-sill, it weighed down\nthe black, ragged branches of the yews, and smoothed the graves\nin the churchyard.\n\nSoon, it began to snow again, and they were shut in. He was\nglad, for then they were immune in a shadowy silence, there was\nno world, no time.\n\nThe snow lasted for some days. On the Sunday they went to\nchurch. They made a line of footprints across the garden, he\nleft a flat snowprint of his hand on the wall as he vaulted\nover, they traced the snow across the churchyard. For three days\nthey had been immune in a perfect love.\n\nThere were very few people in church, and she was glad. She\ndid not care much for church. She had never questioned any\nbeliefs, and she was, from habit and custom, a regular attendant\nat morning service. But she had ceased to come with any\nanticipation. To-day, however, in the strangeness of snow, after\nsuch consummation of love, she felt expectant again, and\ndelighted. She was still in the eternal world.\n\nShe used, after she went to the High School, and wanted to be\na lady, wanted to fulfil some mysterious ideal, always to listen\nto the sermon and to try to gather suggestions. That was all\nvery well for a while. The vicar told her to be good in this way\nand in that. She went away feeling it was her highest aim to\nfulfil these injunctions.\n\nBut quickly this palled. After a short time, she was not very\nmuch interested in being good. Her soul was in quest of\nsomething, which was not just being good, and doing one's best.\nNo, she wanted something else: something that was not her\nready-made duty. Everything seemed to be merely a matter of\nsocial duty, and never of her self. They talked about her soul,\nbut somehow never managed to rouse or to implicate her soul. As\nyet her soul was not brought in at all.\n\nSo that whilst she had an affection for Mr. Loverseed, the\nvicar, and a protective sort of feeling for Cossethay church,\nwanting always to help it and defend it, it counted very small\nin her life.\n\nNot but that she was conscious of some unsatisfaction. When\nher husband was roused by the thought of the churches, then she\nbecame hostile to the ostensible church, she hated it for not\nfulfilling anything in her. The Church told her to be good: very\nwell, she had no idea of contradicting what it said. The Church\ntalked about her soul, about the welfare of mankind, as if the\nsaving of her soul lay in her performing certain acts conducive\nto the welfare of mankind. Well and good-it was so, then.\n\nNevertheless, as she sat in church her face had a pathos and\npoignancy. Was this what she had come to hear: how by doing this\nthing and by not doing that, she could save her soul? She did\nnot contradict it. But the pathos of her face gave the lie.\nThere was something else she wanted to hear, it was something\nelse she asked for from the Church.\n\nBut who was she to affirm it? And what was she doing\nwith unsatisfied desires? She was ashamed. She ignored them and\nleft them out of count as much as possible, her underneath\nyearnings. They angered her. She wanted to be like other people,\ndecently satisfied.\n\nHe angered her more than ever. Church had an irresistible\nattraction for him. And he paid no more attention to that part\nof the service which was Church to her, than if he had been an\nangel or a fabulous beast sitting there. He simply paid no heed\nto the sermon or to the meaning of the service. There was\nsomething thick, dark, dense, powerful about him that irritated\nher too deeply for her to speak of it. The Church teaching in\nitself meant nothing to him. \"And forgive us our trespasses as\nwe forgive them that trespass against us\"--it simply did\nnot touch him. It might have been more sounds, and it would have\nacted upon him in the same way. He did not want things to be\nintelligible. And he did not care about his trespasses, neither\nabout the trespasses of his neighbour, when he was in church.\nLeave that care for weekdays. When he was in church, he took no\nmore notice of his daily life. It was weekday stuff. As for the\nwelfare of mankind--he merely did not realize that there\nwas any such thing: except on weekdays, when he was good-natured\nenough. In church, he wanted a dark, nameless emotion, the\nemotion of all the great mysteries of passion.\n\nHe was not interested in the thought of himself or of\nher: oh, and how that irritated her! He ignored the sermon, he\nignored the greatness of mankind, he did not admit the immediate\nimportance of mankind. He did not care about himself as a human\nbeing. He did not attach any vital importance to his life in the\ndrafting office, or his life among men. That was just merely the\nmargin to the text. The verity was his connection with Anna and\nhis connection with the Church, his real being lay in his dark\nemotional experience of the Infinite, of the Absolute. And the\ngreat mysterious, illuminated capitals to the text, were his\nfeelings with the Church.\n\nIt exasperated her beyond measure. She could not get out of\nthe Church the satisfaction he got. The thought of her soul was\nintimately mixed up with the thought of her own self. Indeed,\nher soul and her own self were one and the same in her. Whereas\nhe seemed simply to ignore the fact of his own self, almost to\nrefute it. He had a soul--a dark, inhuman thing caring\nnothing for humanity. So she conceived it. And in the gloom and\nthe mystery of the Church his soul lived and ran free, like some\nstrange, underground thing, abstract.\n\nHe was very strange to her, and, in this church spirit, in\nconceiving himself as a soul, he seemed to escape and run free\nof her. In a way, she envied it him, this dark freedom and\njubilation of the soul, some strange entity in him. It\nfascinated her. Again she hated it. And again, she despised him,\nwanted to destroy it in him.\n\nThis snowy morning, he sat with a dark-bright face beside\nher, not aware of her, and somehow, she felt he was conveying to\nstrange, secret places the love that sprang in him for her. He\nsat with a dark-rapt, half-delighted face, looking at a little\nstained window. She saw the ruby-coloured glass, with the shadow\nheaped along the bottom from the snow outside, and the familiar\nyellow figure of the lamb holding the banner, a little darkened\nnow, but in the murky interior strangely luminous, pregnant.\n\nShe had always liked the little red and yellow window. The\nlamb, looking very silly and self-conscious, was holding up a\nforepaw, in the cleft of which was dangerously perched a little\nflag with a red cross. Very pale yellow, the lamb, with greenish\nshadows. Since she was a child she had liked this creature, with\nthe same feeling she felt for the little woolly lambs on green\nlegs that children carried home from the fair every year. She\nhad always liked these toys, and she had the same amused,\nchildish liking for this church lamb. Yet she had always been\nuneasy about it. She was never sure that this lamb with a flag\ndid not want to be more than it appeared. So she half mistrusted\nit, there was a mixture of dislike in her attitude to it.\n\nNow, by a curious gathering, knitting of his eyes, the\nfaintest tension of ecstasy on his face, he gave her the\nuncomfortable feeling that he was in correspondence with the\ncreature, the lamb in the window. A cold wonder came over\nher--her soul was perplexed. There he sat, motionless,\ntimeless, with the faint, bright tension on his face. What was\nhe doing? What connection was there between him and the lamb in\nthe glass?\n\nSuddenly it gleamed to her dominant, this lamb with the flag.\nSuddenly she had a powerful mystic experience, the power of the\ntradition seized on her, she was transported to another world.\nAnd she hated it, resisted it.\n\nInstantly, it was only a silly lamb in the glass again. And\ndark, violent hatred of her husband swept up in her. What was he\ndoing, sitting there gleaming, carried away, soulful?\n\nShe shifted sharply, she knocked him as she pretended to pick\nup her glove, she groped among his feet.\n\nHe came to, rather bewildered, exposed. Anybody but her would\nhave pitied him. She wanted to rend him. He did not know what\nwas amiss, what he had been doing.\n\nAs they sat at dinner, in their cottage, he was dazed by the\nchill of antagonism from her. She did not know why she was so\nangry. But she was incensed.\n\n\"Why do you never listen to the sermon?\" she asked, seething\nwith hostility and violation.\n\n\"I do,\" he said.\n\n\"You don't--you don't hear a single word.\"\n\nHe retired into himself, to enjoy his own sensation. There\nwas something subterranean about him, as if he had an underworld\nrefuge. The young girl hated to be in the house with him when he\nwas like this.\n\nAfter dinner, he retired into the parlour, continuing in the\nsame state of abstraction, which was a burden intolerable to\nher. Then he went to the book-shelf and took down books to look\nat, that she had scarcely glanced over.\n\nHe sat absorbed over a book on the illuminations in old\nmissals, and then over a book on paintings in churches: Italian,\nEnglish, French and German. He had, when he was sixteen,\ndiscovered a Roman Catholic bookshop where he could find such\nthings.\n\nHe turned the leaves in absorption, absorbed in looking, not\nthinking. He was like a man whose eyes were in his chest, she\nsaid of him later.\n\nShe came to look at the things with him. Half they fascinated\nher. She was puzzled, interested, and antagonistic.\n\nIt was when she came to pictures of the Pieta that she burst\nout.\n\n\"I do think they're loathsome,\" she cried.\n\n\"What?\" he said, surprised, abstracted.\n\n\"Those bodies with slits in them, posing to be\nworshipped.\"\n\n\"You see, it means the Sacraments, the Bread,\" he said\nslowly.\n\n\"Does it,\" she cried. \"Then it's worse. I don't want to see\nyour chest slit, nor to eat your dead body, even if you offer it\nto me. Can't you see it's horrible?\"\n\n\"It isn't me, it's Christ.\"\n\n\"What if it is, it's you! And it's horrible, you wallowing in\nyour own dead body, and thinking of eating it in the\nSacrament.\"\n\n\"You've to take it for what it means.\"\n\n\"It means your human body put up to be slit and killed and\nthen worshipped--what else?\"\n\nThey lapsed into silence. His soul grew angry and aloof.\n\n\"And I think that lamb in Church,\" she said, \"is the biggest\njoke in the parish----\"\n\nShe burst into a \"Pouf\" of ridiculing laughter.\n\n\"It might be, to those that see nothing in it,\" he said. \"You\nknow it's the symbol of Christ, of His innocence and\nsacrifice.\"\n\n\"Whatever it means, it's a lamb,\" she said. \"And I\nlike lambs too much to treat them as if they had to mean\nsomething. As for the Christmas-tree\nflag--no----\"\n\nAnd again she poufed with mockery.\n\n\"It's because you don't know anything,\" he said violently,\nharshly. \"Laugh at what you know, not at what you don't\nknow.\"\n\n\"What don't I know?\"\n\n\"What things mean.\"\n\n\"And what does it mean?\"\n\nHe was reluctant to answer her. He found it difficult.\n\n\"What does it mean?\" she insisted.\n\n\"It means the triumph of the Resurrection.\"\n\nShe hesitated, baffled, a fear came upon her. What were these\nthings? Something dark and powerful seemed to extend before her.\nWas it wonderful after all?\n\nBut no--she refused it.\n\n\"Whatever it may pretend to mean, what it is is a silly\nabsurd toy-lamb with a Christmas-tree flag ledged on its\npaw--and if it wants to mean anything else, it must look\ndifferent from that.\"\n\nHe was in a state of violent irritation against her. Partly\nhe was ashamed of his love for these things; he hid his passion\nfor them. He was ashamed of the ecstasy into which he could\nthrow himself with these symbols. And for a few moments he hated\nthe lamb and the mystic pictures of the Eucharist, with a\nviolent, ashy hatred. His fire was put out, she had thrown cold\nwater on it. The whole thing was distasteful to him, his mouth\nwas full of ashes. He went out cold with corpse-like anger,\nleaving her alone. He hated her. He walked through the white\nsnow, under a sky of lead.\n\nAnd she wept again, in bitter recurrence of the previous\ngloom. But her heart was easy--oh, much more easy.\n\nShe was quite willing to make it up with him when he came\nhome again. He was black and surly, but abated. She had broken a\nlittle of something in him. And at length he was glad to forfeit\nfrom his soul all his symbols, to have her making love to him.\nHe loved it when she put her head on his knee, and he had not\nasked her to or wanted her to, he loved her when she put her\narms round him and made bold love to him, and he did not make\nlove to her. He felt a strong blood in his limbs again.\n\nAnd she loved the intent, far look of his eyes when they\nrested on her: intent, yet far, not near, not with her. And she\nwanted to bring them near. She wanted his eyes to come to hers,\nto know her. And they would not. They remained intent, and far,\nand proud, like a hawk's naive and inhuman as a hawk's. So she\nloved him and caressed him and roused him like a hawk, till he\nwas keen and instant, but without tenderness. He came to her\nfierce and hard, like a hawk striking and taking her. He was no\nmystic any more, she was his aim and object, his prey. And she\nwas carried off, and he was satisfied, or satiated at last.\n\nThen immediately she began to retaliate on him. She too was a\nhawk. If she imitated the pathetic plover running plaintive to\nhim, that was part of the game. When he, satisfied, moved with a\nproud, insolent slouch of the body and a half-contemptuous drop\nof the head, unaware of her, ignoring her very existence, after\ntaking his fill of her and getting his satisfaction of her, her\nsoul roused, its pinions became like steel, and she struck at\nhim. When he sat on his perch glancing sharply round with\nsolitary pride, pride eminent and fierce, she dashed at him and\nthrew him from his station savagely, she goaded him from his\nkeen dignity of a male, she harassed him from his unperturbed\npride, till he was mad with rage, his light brown eyes burned\nwith fury, they saw her now, like flames of anger they flared at\nher and recognized her as the enemy.\n\nVery good, she was the enemy, very good. As he prowled round\nher, she watched him. As he struck at her, she struck back.\n\nHe was angry because she had carelessly pushed away his tools\nso that they got rusty.\n\n\"Don't leave them littering in my way, then,\" she said.\n\n\"I shall leave them where I like,\" he cried.\n\n\"Then I shall throw them where I like.\"\n\nThey glowered at each other, he with rage in his hands, she\nwith her soul fierce with victory. They were very well matched.\nThey would fight it out.\n\nShe turned to her sewing. Immediately the tea-things were\ncleared away, she fetched out the stuff, and his soul rose in\nrage. He hated beyond measure to hear the shriek of calico as\nshe tore the web sharply, as if with pleasure. And the run of\nthe sewing-machine gathered a frenzy in him at last.\n\n\"Aren't you going to stop that row?\" he shouted. \"Can't you\ndo it in the daytime?\"\n\nShe looked up sharply, hostile from her work.\n\n\"No, I can't do it in the daytime. I have other things to do.\nBesides, I like sewing, and you're not going to stop me doing\nit.\"\n\nWhereupon she turned back to her arranging, fixing,\nstitching, his nerves jumped with anger as the sewing-machine\nstarted and stuttered and buzzed.\n\nBut she was enjoying herself, she was triumphant and happy as\nthe darting needle danced ecstatically down a hem, drawing the\nstuff along under its vivid stabbing, irresistibly. She made the\nmachine hum. She stopped it imperiously, her fingers were deft\nand swift and mistress.\n\nIf he sat behind her stiff with impotent rage it only made a\ntrembling vividness come into her energy. On she worked. At last\nhe went to bed in a rage, and lay stiff, away from her. And she\nturned her back on him. And in the morning they did not speak,\nexcept in mere cold civilities.\n\nAnd when he came home at night, his heart relenting and\ngrowing hot for love of her, when he was just ready to feel he\nhad been wrong, and when he was expecting her to feel the same,\nthere she sat at the sewing-machine, the whole house was covered\nwith clipped calico, the kettle was not even on the fire.\n\nShe started up, affecting concern.\n\n\"Is it so late?\" she cried.\n\nBut his face had gone stiff with rage. He walked through to\nthe parlour, then he walked back and out of the house again. Her\nheart sank. Very swiftly she began to make his tea.\n\nHe went black-hearted down the road to Ilkeston. When he was\nin this state he never thought. A bolt shot across the doors of\nhis mind and shut him in, a prisoner. He went back to Ilkeston,\nand drank a glass of beer. What was he going to do? He did not\nwant to see anybody.\n\nHe would go to Nottingham, to his own town. He went to the\nstation and took a train. When he got to Nottingham, still he\nhad nowhere to go. However, it was more agreeable to walk\nfamiliar streets. He paced them with a mad restlessness, as if\nhe were running amok. Then he turned to a book-shop and found a\nbook on Bamberg Cathedral. Here was a discovery! here was\nsomething for him! He went into a quiet restaurant to look at\nhis treasure. He lit up with thrills of bliss as he turned from\npicture to picture. He had found something at last, in these\ncarvings. His soul had great satisfaction. Had he not come out\nto seek, and had he not found! He was in a passion of\nfulfilment. These were the finest carvings, statues, he had ever\nseen. The book lay in his hands like a doorway. The world around\nwas only an enclosure, a room. But he was going away. He\nlingered over the lovely statues of women. A marvellous,\nfinely-wrought universe crystallized out around him as he looked\nagain, at the crowns, the twining hair, the woman-faces. He\nliked all the better the unintelligible text of the German. He\npreferred things he could not understand with the mind. He loved\nthe undiscovered and the undiscoverable. He pored over the\npictures intensely. And these were wooden statues,\n\"Holz\"--he believed that meant wood. Wooden statues so\nshapen to his soul! He was a million times gladdened. How\nundiscovered the world was, how it revealed itself to his soul!\nWhat a fine, exciting thing his life was, at his hand! Did not\nBamberg Cathedral make the world his own? He celebrated his\ntriumphant strength and life and verity, and embraced the vast\nriches he was inheriting.\n\nBut it was about time to go home. He had better catch a\ntrain. All the time there was a steady bruise at the bottom of\nhis soul, but so steady as to be forgettable. He caught a train\nfor Ilkeston.\n\nIt was ten o'clock as he was mounting the hill to Cossethay,\ncarrying his limp book on Bamberg Cathedral. He had not yet\nthought of Anna, not definitely. The dark finger pressing a\nbruise controlled him thoughtlessly.\n\nAnna had started guiltily when he left the house. She had\nhastened preparing the tea, hoping he would come back. She had\nmade some toast, and got all ready. Then he didn't come. She\ncried with vexation and disappointment. Why had he gone? Why\ncouldn't he come back now? Why was it such a battle between\nthem? She loved him--she did love him--why couldn't he\nbe kinder to her, nicer to her?\n\nShe waited in distress--then her mood grew harder. He\npassed out of her thoughts. She had considered indignantly, what\nright he had to interfere with her sewing? She had indignantly\nrefuted his right to interfere with her at all. She was not to\nbe interfered with. Was she not herself, and he the\noutsider.\n\nYet a quiver of fear went through her. If he should leave\nher? She sat conjuring fears and sufferings, till she wept with\nvery self-pity. She did not know what she would do if he left\nher, or if he turned against her. The thought of it chilled her,\nmade her desolate and hard. And against him, the stranger, the\noutsider, the being who wanted to arrogate authority, she\nremained steadily fortified. Was she not herself? How could one\nwho was not of her own kind presume with authority? She knew she\nwas immutable, unchangeable, she was not afraid for her own\nbeing. She was only afraid of all that was not herself. It\npressed round her, it came to her and took part in her, in form\nof her man, this vast, resounding, alien world which was not\nherself. And he had so many weapons, he might strike from so\nmany sides.\n\nWhen he came in at the door, his heart was blazed with pity\nand tenderness, she looked so lost and forlorn and young. She\nglanced up, afraid. And she was surprised to see him,\nshining-faced, clear and beautiful in his movements, as if he\nwere clarified. And a startled pang of fear, and shame of\nherself went through her.\n\nThey waited for each other to speak.\n\n\"Do you want to eat anything?\" she said.\n\n\"I'll get it myself,\" he answered, not wanting her to serve\nhim. But she brought out food. And it pleased him she did it for\nhim. He was again a bright lord.\n\n\"I went to Nottingham,\" he said mildly.\n\n\"To your mother?\" she asked, in a flash of contempt.\n\n\"No--I didn't go home.\"\n\n\"Who did you go to see?\"\n\n\"I went to see nobody.\"\n\n\"Then why did you go to Nottingham?\"\n\n\"I went because I wanted to go.\"\n\nHe was getting angry that she again rebuffed him when he was\nso clear and shining.\n\n\"And who did you see?\"\n\n\"I saw nobody.\"\n\n\"Nobody?\"\n\n\"No--who should I see?\"\n\n\"You saw nobody you knew?\"\n\n\"No, I didn't,\" he replied irritably.\n\nShe believed him, and her mood became cold.\n\n\"I bought a book,\" he said, handing her the propitiatory\nvolume.\n\nShe idly looked at the pictures. Beautiful, the pure women,\nwith their clear-dropping gowns. Her heart became colder. What\ndid they mean to him?\n\nHe sat and waited for her. She bent over the book.\n\n\"Aren't they nice?\" he said, his voice roused and glad. Her\nblood flushed, but she did not lift her head.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said. In spite of herself, she was compelled by\nhim. He was strange, attractive, exerting some power over\nher.\n\nHe came over to her, and touched her delicately. Her heart\nbeat with wild passion, wild raging passion. But she resisted as\nyet. It was always the unknown, always the unknown, and she\nclung fiercely to her known self. But the rising flood carried\nher away.\n\nThey loved each other to transport again, passionately and\nfully.\n\n\"Isn't it more wonderful than ever?\" she asked him, radiant\nlike a newly opened flower, with tears like dew.\n\nHe held her closer. He was strange and abstracted.\n\n\"It is always more wonderful,\" she asseverated, in a glad,\nchild's voice, remembering her fear, and not quite cleared of it\nyet.\n\nSo it went on continually, the recurrence of love and\nconflict between them. One day it seemed as if everything was\nshattered, all life spoiled, ruined, desolate and laid waste.\nThe next day it was all marvellous again, just marvellous. One\nday she thought she would go mad from his very presence, the\nsound of his drinking was detestable to her. The next day she\nloved and rejoiced in the way he crossed the floor, he was sun,\nmoon and stars in one.\n\nShe fretted, however, at last, over the lack of stability.\nWhen the perfect hours came back, her heart did not forget that\nthey would pass away again. She was uneasy. The surety, the\nsurety, the inner surety, the confidence in the abidingness of\nlove: that was what she wanted. And that she did not get. She\nknew also that he had not got it.\n\nNevertheless it was a marvellous world, she was for the most\npart lost in the marvellousness of it. Even her great woes were\nmarvellous to her.\n\nShe could be very happy. And she wanted to be happy. She\nresented it when he made her unhappy. Then she could kill him,\ncast him out. Many days, she waited for the hour when he would\nbe gone to work. Then the flow of her life, which he seemed to\ndamn up, was let loose, and she was free. She was free, she was\nfull of delight. Everything delighted her. She took up the rug\nand went to shake it in the garden. Patches of snow were on the\nfields, the air was light. She heard the ducks shouting on the\npond, she saw them charge and sail across the water as if they\nwere setting off on an invasion of the world. She watched the\nrough horses, one of which was clipped smooth on the belly, so\nthat he wore a jacket and long stockings of brown fur, stand\nkissing each other in the wintry morning by the church-yard\nwall. Everything delighted her, now he was gone, the insulator,\nthe obstruction removed, the world was all hers, in connection\nwith her.\n\nShe was joyfully active. Nothing pleased her more than to\nhang out the washing in a high wind that came full-butt over the\nround of the hill, tearing the wet garments out of her hands,\nmaking flap-flap-flap of the waving stuff. She laughed and\nstruggled and grew angry. But she loved her solitary days.\n\nThen he came home at night, and she knitted her brows because\nof some endless contest between them. As he stood in the doorway\nher heart changed. It steeled itself. The laughter and zest of\nthe day disappeared from her. She was stiffened.\n\nThey fought an unknown battle, unconsciously. Still they were\nin love with each other, the passion was there. But the passion\nwas consumed in a battle. And the deep, fierce unnamed battle\nwent on. Everything glowed intensely about them, the world had\nput off its clothes and was awful, with new, primal\nnakedness.\n\nSunday came when the strange spell was cast over her by him.\nHalf she loved it. She was becoming more like him. All the\nweek-days, there was a glint of sky and fields, the little\nchurch seemed to babble away to the cottages the morning\nthrough. But on Sundays, when he stayed at home, a\ndeeply-coloured, intense gloom seemed to gather on the face of\nthe earth, the church seemed to fill itself with shadow, to\nbecome big, a universe to her, there was a burning of blue and\nruby, a sound of worship about her. And when the doors were\nopened, and she came out into the world, it was a world\nnew--created, she stepped into the resurrection of the\nworld, her heart beating to the memory of the darkness and the\nPassion.\n\nIf, as very often, they went to the Marsh for tea on Sundays,\nthen she regained another, lighter world, that had never known\nthe gloom and the stained glass and the ecstasy of chanting. Her\nhusband was obliterated, she was with her father again, who was\nso fresh and free and all daylight. Her husband, with his\nintensity and his darkness, was obliterated. She left him, she\nforgot him, she accepted her father.\n\nYet, as she went home again with the young man, she put her\nhand on his arm tentatively, a little bit ashamed, her hand\npleaded that he would not hold it against her, her recusancy.\nBut he was obscured. He seemed to become blind, as if he were\nnot there with her.\n\nThen she was afraid. She wanted him. When he was oblivious of\nher, she almost went mad with fear. For she had become so\nvulnerable, so exposed. She was in touch so intimately. All\nthings about her had become intimate, she had known them near\nand lovely, like presences hovering upon her. What if they\nshould all go hard and separate again, standing back from her\nterrible and distinct, and she, having known them, should be at\ntheir mercy?\n\nThis frightened her. Always, her husband was to her the\nunknown to which she was delivered up. She was a flower that has\nbeen tempted forth into blossom, and has no retreat. He had her\nnakedness in his power. And who was he, what was he? A blind\nthing, a dark force, without knowledge. She wanted to preserve\nherself.\n\nThen she gathered him to herself again and was satisfied for\na moment. But as time went on, she began to realize more and\nmore that he did not alter, that he was something dark, alien to\nherself. She had thought him just the bright reflex of herself.\nAs the weeks and months went by she realized that he was a dark\nopposite to her, that they were opposites, not complements.\n\nHe did not alter, he remained separately himself, and he\nseemed to expect her to be part of himself, the extension of his\nwill. She felt him trying to gain power over her, without\nknowing her. What did he want? Was he going to bully her?\n\nWhat did she want herself? She answered herself, that she\nwanted to be happy, to be natural, like the sunlight and the\nbusy daytime. And, at the bottom of her soul, she felt he wanted\nher to be dark, unnatural. Sometimes, when he seemed like the\ndarkness covering and smothering her, she revolted almost in\nhorror, and struck at him. She struck at him, and made him\nbleed, and he became wicked. Because she dreaded him and held\nhim in horror, he became wicked, he wanted to destroy. And then\nthe fight between them was cruel.\n\nShe began to tremble. He wanted to impose himself on her. And\nhe began to shudder. She wanted to desert him, to leave him a\nprey to the open, with the unclean dogs of the darkness setting\non to devour him. He must beat her, and make her stay with him.\nWhereas she fought to keep herself free of him.\n\nThey went their ways now shadowed and stained with blood,\nfeeling the world far off, unable to give help. Till she began\nto get tired. After a certain point, she became impassive,\ndetached utterly from him. He was always ready to burst out\nmurderously against her. Her soul got up and left him, she went\nher way. Nevertheless in her apparent blitheness, that made his\nsoul black with opposition, she trembled as if she bled.\n\nAnd ever and again, the pure love came in sunbeams between\nthem, when she was like a flower in the sun to him, so\nbeautiful, so shining, so intensely dear that he could scarcely\nbear it. Then as if his soul had six wings of bliss he stood\nabsorbed in praise, feeling the radiance from the Almighty beat\nthrough him like a pulse, as he stood in the upright flame of\npraise, transmitting the pulse of Creation.\n\nAnd ever and again he appeared to her as the dread flame of\npower. Sometimes, when he stood in the doorway, his face lit up,\nhe seemed like an Annunciation to her, her heart beat fast. And\nshe watched him, suspended. He had a dark, burning being that\nshe dreaded and resisted. She was subject to him as to the Angel\nof the Presence. She waited upon him and heard his will, and she\ntrembled in his service.\n\nThen all this passed away. Then he loved her for her\nchildishness and for her strangeness to him, for the wonder of\nher soul which was different from his soul, and which made him\ngenuine when he would be false. And she loved him for the way he\nsat loosely in a chair, or for the way he came through a door\nwith his face open and eager. She loved his ringing, eager\nvoice, and the touch of the unknown about him, his absolute\nsimplicity.\n\nYet neither of them was quite satisfied. He felt, somewhere,\nthat she did not respect him. She only respected him as far as\nhe was related to herself. For what he was, beyond her, she had\nno care. She did not care for what he represented in himself. It\nis true, he did not know himself what he represented. But\nwhatever it was she did not really honour it. She did no service\nto his work as a lace-designer, nor to himself as bread-winner.\nBecause he went down to the office and worked every\nday--that entitled him to no respect or regard from her, he\nknew. Rather she despised him for it. And he almost loved her\nfor this, though at first it maddened him like an insult.\n\nWhat was much deeper, she soon came to combat his deepest\nfeelings. What he thought about life and about society and\nmankind did not matter very much to her: he was right enough to\nbe insignificant. This was again galling to him. She would judge\nbeyond him on these things. But at length he came to accept her\njudgments, discovering them as if they were his own. It was not\nhere the deep trouble lay. The deep root of his enmity lay in\nthe fact that she jeered at his soul. He was inarticulate and\nstupid in thought. But to some things he clung passionately. He\nloved the Church. If she tried to get out of him, what he\nbelieved, then they were both soon in a white rage.\n\nDid he believe the water turned to wine at Cana? She would\ndrive him to the thing as a historical fact: so much\nrain-water-look at it--can it become grape-juice, wine? For\nan instant, he saw with the clear eyes of the mind and said no,\nhis clear mind, answering her for a moment, rejected the idea.\nAnd immediately his whole soul was crying in a mad, inchoate\nhatred against this violation of himself. It was true for him.\nHis mind was extinguished again at once, his blood was up. In\nhis blood and bones, he wanted the scene, the wedding, the water\nbrought forward from the firkins as red wine: and Christ saying\nto His mother: \"Woman, what have I to do with thee?--mine\nhour is not yet come.\"\n\nAnd then:\n\n\"His mother saith unto the servants, 'Whatsoever he saith\nunto you, do it.'\"\n\nBrangwen loved it, with his bones and blood he loved it, he\ncould not let it go. Yet she forced him to let it go. She hated\nhis blind attachments.\n\nWater, natural water, could it suddenly and unnaturally turn\ninto wine, depart from its being and at haphazard take on\nanother being? Ah no, he knew it was wrong.\n\nShe became again the palpitating, hostile child, hateful,\nputting things to destruction. He became mute and dead. His own\nbeing gave him the lie. He knew it was so: wine was wine, water\nwas water, for ever: the water had not become wine. The miracle\nwas not a real fact. She seemed to be destroying him. He went\nout, dark and destroyed, his soul running its blood. And he\ntasted of death. Because his life was formed in these\nunquestioned concepts.\n\nShe, desolate again as she had been when she was a child,\nwent away and sobbed. She did not care, she did not care whether\nthe water had turned to wine or not. Let him believe it if he\nwanted to. But she knew she had won. And an ashy desolation came\nover her.\n\nThey were ashenly miserable for some time. Then the life\nbegan to come back. He was nothing if not dogged. He thought\nagain of the chapter of St. John. There was a great biting pang.\n\"But thou hast kept the good wine until now.\" \"The best wine!\"\nThe young man's heart responded in a craving, in a triumph,\nalthough the knowledge that it was not true in fact bit at him\nlike a weasel in his heart. Which was stronger, the pain of the\ndenial, or the desire for affirmation? He was stubborn in\nspirit, and abode by his desire. But he would not any more\naffirm the miracles as true.\n\nVery well, it was not true, the water had not turned into\nwine. The water had not turned into wine. But for all that he\nwould live in his soul as if the water had turned into\nwine. For truth of fact, it had not. But for his soul, it\nhad.\n\n\"Whether it turned into wine or whether it didn't,\" he said,\n\"it doesn't bother me. I take it for what it is.\"\n\n\"And what is it?\" she asked, quickly, hopefully.\n\n\"It's the Bible,\" he said.\n\nThat answer enraged her, and she despised him. She did not\nactively question the Bible herself. But he drove her to\ncontempt.\n\nAnd yet he did not care about the Bible, the written letter.\nAlthough he could not satisfy her, yet she knew of herself that\nhe had something real. He was not a dogmatist. He did not\nbelieve in fact that the water turned into wine. He did\nnot want to make a fact out of it. Indeed, his attitude was\nwithout criticism. It was purely individual. He took that which\nwas of value to him from the Written Word, he added to his\nspirit. His mind he let sleep.\n\nAnd she was bitter against him, that he let his mind sleep.\nThat which was human, belonged to mankind, he would not exert.\nHe cared only for himself. He was no Christian. Above all,\nChrist had asserted the brotherhood of man.\n\nShe, almost against herself, clung to the worship of the\nhuman knowledge. Man must die in the body, but in his knowledge\nhe was immortal. Such, somewhere, was her belief, quite obscure\nand unformulated. She believed in the omnipotence of the human\nmind.\n\nHe, on the other hand, blind as a subterranean thing, just\nignored the human mind and ran after his own dark-souled\ndesires, following his own tunnelling nose. She felt often she\nmust suffocate. And she fought him off.\n\nThen he, knowing he was blind, fought madly back again,\nfrantic in sensual fear. He did foolish things. He asserted\nhimself on his rights, he arrogated the old position of master\nof the house.\n\n\"You've a right to do as I want,\" he cried.\n\n\"Fool!\" she answered. \"Fool!\"\n\n\"I'll let you know who's master,\" he cried.\n\n\"Fool!\" she answered. \"Fool! I've known my own father, who\ncould put a dozen of you in his pipe and push them down with his\nfinger-end. Don't I know what a fool you are!\"\n\nHe knew himself what a fool he was, and was flayed by the\nknowledge. Yet he went on trying to steer the ship of their dual\nlife. He asserted his position as the captain of the ship. And\ncaptain and ship bored her. He wanted to loom important as\nmaster of one of the innumerable domestic craft that make up the\ngreat fleet of society. It seemed to her a ridiculous armada of\ntubs jostling in futility. She felt no belief in it. She jeered\nat him as master of the house, master of their dual life. And he\nwas black with shame and rage. He knew, with shame, how her\nfather had been a man without arrogating any authority.\n\nHe had gone on the wrong tack, and he felt it hard to give up\nthe expedition. There was great surging and shame. Then he\nyielded. He had given up the master-of-the-house idea.\n\nThere was something he wanted, nevertheless, some form of\nmastery. Ever and anon, after his collapses into the petty and\nthe shameful, he rose up again, and, stubborn in spirit, strong\nin his power to start afresh, set out once more in his male\npride of being to fulfil the hidden passion of his spirit.\n\nIt began well, but it ended always in war between them, till\nthey were both driven almost to madness. He said, she did not\nrespect him. She laughed in hollow scorn of this. For her it was\nenough that she loved him.\n\n\"Respect what?\" she asked.\n\nBut he always answered the wrong thing. And though she\ncudgelled her brains, she could not come at it.\n\n\"Why don't you go on with your wood-carving?\" she said. \"Why\ndon't you finish your Adam and Eve?\"\n\nBut she did not care for the Adam and Eve, and he never put\nanother stroke to it. She jeered at the Eve, saying, \"She is\nlike a little marionette. Why is she so small? You've made Adam\nas big as God, and Eve like a doll.\"\n\n\"It is impudence to say that Woman was made out of Man's\nbody,\" she continued, \"when every man is born of woman. What\nimpudence men have, what arrogance!\"\n\nIn a rage one day, after trying to work on the board, and\nfailing, so that his belly was a flame of nausea, he chopped up\nthe whole panel and put it on the fire. She did not know. He\nwent about for some days very quiet and subdued after it.\n\n\"Where is the Adam and Eve board?\" she asked him.\n\n\"Burnt.\"\n\nShe looked at him.\n\n\"But your carving?\"\n\n\"I burned it.\"\n\n\"When?\"\n\nShe did not believe him.\n\n\"On Friday night.\"\n\n\"When I was at the Marsh?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nShe said no more.\n\nThen, when he had gone to work, she wept for a whole day, and\nwas much chastened in spirit. So that a new, fragile flame of\nlove came out of the ashes of this last pain.\n\nDirectly, it occurred to her that she was with child. There\nwas a great trembling of wonder and anticipation through her\nsoul. She wanted a child. Not that she loved babies so much,\nthough she was touched by all young things. But she wanted to\nbear children. And a certain hunger in her heart wanted to unite\nher husband with herself, in a child.\n\nShe wanted a son. She felt, a son would be everything. She\nwanted to tell her husband. But it was such a trembling,\nintimate thing to tell him, and he was at this time hard and\nunresponsive. So that she went away and wept. It was such a\nwaste of a beautiful opportunity, such a frost that nipped in\nthe bud one of the beautiful moments of her life. She went about\nheavy and tremulous with her secret, wanting to touch him, oh,\nmost delicately, and see his face, dark and sensitive, attend to\nher news. She waited and waited for him to become gentle and\nstill towards her. But he was always harsh and he bullied\nher.\n\nSo that the buds shrivelled from her confidence, she was\nchilled. She went down to the Marsh.\n\n\"Well,\" said her father, looking at her and seeing her at the\nfirst glance, \"what's amiss wi' you now?\"\n\nThe tears came at the touch of his careful love.\n\n\"Nothing,\" she said.\n\n\"Can't you hit it off, you two?\" he said.\n\n\"He's so obstinate,\" she quivered; but her soul was obdurate\nitself.\n\n\"Ay, an' I know another who's all that,\" said her father.\n\nShe was silent.\n\n\"You don't want to make yourselves miserable,\" said her\nfather; \"all about nowt.\"\n\n\"He isn't miserable,\" she said.\n\n\"I'll back my life, if you can do nowt else, you can make him\nas miserable as a dog. You'd be a dab hand at that, my\nlass.\"\n\n\"I do nothing to make him miserable,\" she retorted.\n\n\"Oh no--oh no! A packet o' butterscotch, you are.\"\n\nShe laughed a little.\n\n\"You mustn't think I want him to be miserable,\" she\ncried. \"I don't.\"\n\n\"We quite readily believe it,\" retorted Brangwen. \"Neither do\nyou intend him to be hopping for joy like a fish in a pond.\"\n\nThis made her think. She was rather surprised to find that\nshe did not intend her husband to be hopping for joy like\na fish in a pond.\n\nHer mother came, and they all sat down to tea, talking\ncasually.\n\n\"Remember, child,\" said her mother, \"that everything is not\nwaiting for your hand just to take or leave. You mustn't\nexpect it. Between two people, the love itself is the important\nthing, and that is neither you nor him. It is a third thing you\nmust create. You mustn't expect it to be just your way.\"\n\n\"Ha-nor do I. If I did I should soon find my mistake out. If\nI put my hand out to take anything, my hand is very soon\nbitten, I can tell you.\"\n\n\"Then you must mind where you put your hand,\" said her\nfather.\n\nAnna was rather indignant that they took the tragedy of her\nyoung married life with such equanimity.\n\n\"You love the man right enough,\" said her father, wrinkling\nhis forehead in distress. \"That's all as counts.\"\n\n\"I do love him, more shame to him,\" she cried. \"I want\nto tell him--I've been waiting for four days now to tell\nhim----\" her face began to quiver, the tears came. Her\nparents watched her in silence. She did not go on.\n\n\"Tell him what?\" said her father.\n\n\"That we're going to have an infant,\" she sobbed, \"and he's\nnever, never let me, not once, every time I've come to him, he's\nbeen horrid to me, and I wanted to tell him, I did. And he won't\nlet me--he's cruel to me.\"\n\nShe sobbed as if her heart would break. Her mother went and\ncomforted her, put her arms round her, and held her close. Her\nfather sat with a queer, wrinkled brow, and was rather paler\nthan usual. His heart went tense with hatred of his\nson-in-law.\n\nSo that, when the tale was sobbed out, and comfort\nadministered and tea sipped, and something like calm restored to\nthe little circle, the thought of Will Brangwen's entry was not\npleasantly entertained.\n\nTilly was set to watch out for him as he passed by on his way\nhome. The little party at table heard the woman's servant's\nshrill call:\n\n\"You've got to come in, Will. Anna's here.\"\n\nAfter a few moments, the youth entered.\n\n\"Are you stopping?\" he asked in his hard, harsh voice.\n\nHe seemed like a blade of destruction standing there. She\nquivered to tears.\n\n\"Sit you down,\" said Tom Brangwen, \"an' take a bit off your\nlength.\"\n\nWill Brangwen sat down. He felt something strange in the\natmosphere. He was dark browed, but his eyes had the keen,\nintent, sharp look, as if he could only see in the distance;\nwhich was a beauty in him, and which made Anna so angry.\n\n\"Why does he always deny me?\" she said to herself. \"Why is it\nnothing to him, what I am?\"\n\nAnd Tom Brangwen, blue-eyed and warm, sat in opposition to\nthe youth.\n\n\"How long are you stopping?\" the young husband asked his\nwife.\n\n\"Not very long,\" she said.\n\n\"Get your tea, lad,\" said Tom Brangwen. \"Are you itchin' to\nbe off the moment you enter?\"\n\nThey talked of trivial things. Through the open door the\nlevel rays of sunset poured in, shining on the floor. A grey hen\nappeared stepping swiftly in the doorway, pecking, and the light\nthrough her comb and her wattles made an oriflamme tossed here\nand there, as she went, her grey body was like a ghost.\n\nAnna, watching, threw scraps of bread, and she felt the child\nflame within her. She seemed to remember again forgotten,\nburning, far-off things.\n\n\"Where was I born, mother?\" she asked.\n\n\"In London.\"\n\n\"And was my father\"--she spoke of him as if he were\nmerely a strange name: she could never connect herself with\nhim--\"was he dark?\"\n\n\"He had dark-brown hair and dark eyes and a fresh colouring.\nHe went bald, rather bald, when he was quite young,\" replied her\nmother, also as if telling a tale which was just old\nimagination.\n\n\"Was he good-looking?\"\n\n\"Yes--he was very good-looking--rather small. I\nhave never seen an Englishman who looked like him.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"He was\"--the mother made a quick, running movement with\nher hands--\"his figure was alive and changing--it was\nnever fixed. He was not in the least steady--like a running\nstream.\"\n\nIt flashed over the youth--Anna too was like a running\nstream. Instantly he was in love with her again.\n\nTom Brangwen was frightened. His heart always filled with\nfear, fear of the unknown, when he heard his women speak of\ntheir bygone men as of strangers they had known in passing and\nhad taken leave of again.\n\nIn the room, there came a silence and a singleness over all\ntheir hearts. They were separate people with separate destinies.\nWhy should they seek each to lay violent hands of claim on the\nother?\n\nThe young people went home as a sharp little moon was setting\nin the dusk of spring. Tufts of trees hovered in the upper air,\nthe little church pricked up shadowily at the top of the hill,\nthe earth was a dark blue shadow.\n\nShe put her hand lightly on his arm, out of her far distance.\nAnd out of the distance, he felt her touch him. They walked on,\nhand in hand, along opposite horizons, touching across the dusk.\nThere was a sound of thrushes calling in the dark blue\ntwilight.\n\n\"I think we are going to have an infant, Bill,\" she said,\nfrom far off.\n\nHe trembled, and his fingers tightened on hers.\n\n\"Why?\" he asked, his heart beating. \"You don't know?\"\n\n\"I do,\" she said.\n\nThey continued without saying any more, walking along\nopposite horizons, hand in hand across the intervening space,\ntwo separate people. And he trembled as if a wind blew on to him\nin strong gusts, out of the unseen. He was afraid. He was afraid\nto know he was alone. For she seemed fulfilled and separate and\nsufficient in her half of the world. He could not bear to know\nthat he was cut off. Why could he not be always one with her? It\nwas he who had given her the child. Why could she not be with\nhim, one with him? Why must he be set in this separateness, why\ncould she not be with him, close, close, as one with him? She\nmust be one with him.\n\nHe held her fingers tightly in his own. She did not know what\nhe was thinking. The blaze of light on her heart was too\nbeautiful and dazzling, from the conception in her womb. She\nwalked glorified, and the sound of the thrushes, of the trains\nin the valley, of the far-off, faint noises of the town, were\nher \"Magnificat\".\n\nBut he was struggling in silence. It seemed as though there\nwere before him a solid wall of darkness that impeded him and\nsuffocated him and made him mad. He wanted her to come to him,\nto complete him, to stand before him so that his eyes did not,\nshould not meet the naked darkness. Nothing mattered to him but\nthat she should come and complete him. For he was ridden by the\nawful sense of his own limitation. It was as if he ended\nuncompleted, as yet uncreated on the darkness, and he wanted her\nto come and liberate him into the whole.\n\nBut she was complete in herself, and he was ashamed of his\nneed, his helpless need of her. His need, and his shame of need,\nweighed on him like a madness. Yet still he was quiet and\ngentle, in reverence of her conception, and because she was with\nchild by him.\n\nAnd she was happy in showers of sunshine. She loved her\nhusband, as a presence, as a grateful condition. But for the\nmoment her need was fulfilled, and now she wanted only to hold\nher husband by the hand in sheer happiness, without taking\nthought, only being glad.\n\nHe had various folios of reproductions, and among them a\ncheap print from Fra Angelico's \"Entry of the Blessed into\nParadise\". This filled Anna with bliss. The beautiful, innocent\nway in which the Blessed held each other by the hand as they\nmoved towards the radiance, the real, real, angelic melody, made\nher weep with happiness. The floweriness, the beams of light,\nthe linking of hands, was almost too much for her, too\ninnocent.\n\nDay after day came shining through the door of Paradise, day\nafter day she entered into the brightness. The child in her\nshone till she herself was a beam of sunshine; and how lovely\nwas the sunshine that loitered and wandered out of doors, where\nthe catkins on the big hazel bushes at the end of the garden\nhung in their shaken, floating aureole, where little fumes like\nfire burst out from the black yew trees as a bird settled\nclinging to the branches. One day bluebells were along the\nhedge-bottoms, then cowslips twinkled like manna, golden and\nevanescent on the meadows. She was full of a rich drowsiness and\nloneliness. How happy she was, how gorgeous it was to live: to\nhave known herself, her husband, the passion of love and\nbegetting; and to know that all this lived and waited and burned\non around her, a terrible purifying fire, through which she had\npassed for once to come to this peace of golden radiance, when\nshe was with child, and innocent, and in love with her husband\nand with all the many angels hand in hand. She lifted her throat\nto the breeze that came across the fields, and she felt it\nhandling her like sisters fondling her, she drank it in perfume\nof cowslips and of apple-blossoms.\n\nAnd in all the happiness a black shadow, shy, wild, a beast\nof prey, roamed and vanished from sight, and like strands of\ngossamer blown across her eyes, there was a dread for her.\n\nShe was afraid when he came home at night. As yet, her fear\nnever spoke, the shadow never rushed upon her. He was gentle,\nhumble, he kept himself withheld. His hands were delicate upon\nher, and she loved them. But there ran through her the thrill,\ncrisp as pain, for she felt the darkness and other-world still\nin his soft, sheathed hands.\n\nBut the summer drifted in with the silence of a miracle, she\nwas almost always alone. All the while, went on the long, lovely\ndrowsiness, the maidenblush roses in the garden were all shed,\nwashed away in a pouring rain, summer drifted into autumn, and\nthe long, vague, golden days began to close. Crimson clouds\nfumed about the west, and as night came on, all the sky was\nfuming and steaming, and the moon, far above the swiftness of\nvapours, was white, bleared, the night was uneasy. Suddenly the\nmoon would appear at a clear window in the sky, looking down\nfrom far above, like a captive. And Anna did not sleep. There\nwas a strange, dark tension about her husband.\n\nShe became aware that he was trying to force his will upon\nher, something, there was something he wanted, as he lay there\ndark and tense. And her soul sighed in weariness.\n\nEverything was so vague and lovely, and he wanted to wake her\nup to the hard, hostile reality. She drew back in resistance.\nStill he said nothing. But she felt his power persisting on her,\ntill she became aware of the strain, she cried out against the\nexhaustion. He was forcing her, he was forcing her. And she\nwanted so much the joy and the vagueness and the innocence of\nher pregnancy. She did not want his bitter-corrosive love, she\ndid not want it poured into her, to burn her. Why must she have\nit? Why, oh, why was he not content, contained?\n\nShe sat many hours by the window, in those days when he drove\nher most with the black constraint of his will, and she watched\nthe rain falling on the yew trees. She was not sad, only\nwistful, blanched. The child under her heart was a perpetual\nwarmth. And she was sure. The pressure was only upon her from\nthe outside, her soul had no stripes.\n\nYet in her heart itself was always this same strain, tense,\nanxious. She was not safe, she was always exposed, she was\nalways attacked. There was a yearning in her for a fulness of\npeace and blessedness. What a heavy yearning it was--so\nheavy.\n\nShe knew, vaguely, that all the time he was not satisfied,\nall the time he was trying to force something from her. Ah, how\nshe wished she could succeed with him, in her own way! He was\nthere, so inevitable. She lived in him also. And how she wanted\nto be at peace with him, at peace. She loved him. She would give\nhim love, pure love. With a strange, rapt look in her face, she\nawaited his homecoming that night.\n\nThen, when he came, she rose with her hands full of love, as\nof flowers, radiant, innocent. A dark spasm crossed his face. As\nshe watched, her face shining and flower-like with innocent\nlove, his face grew dark and tense, the cruelty gathered in his\nbrows, his eyes turned aside, she saw the whites of his eyes as\nhe looked aside from her. She waited, touching him with her\nhands. But from his body through her hands came the\nbitter-corrosive shock of his passion upon her, destroying her\nin blossom. She shrank. She rose from her knees and went away\nfrom him, to preserve herself. And it was great pain to her.\n\nTo him also it was agony. He saw the glistening, flower-like\nlove in her face, and his heart was black because he did not\nwant it. Not this--not this. He did not want flowery\ninnocence. He was unsatisfied. The rage and storm of\nunsatisfaction tormented him ceaselessly. Why had she not\nsatisfied him? He had satisfied her. She was satisfied, at\npeace, innocent round the doors of her own paradise.\n\nAnd he was unsatisfied, unfulfilled, he raged in torment,\nwanting, wanting. It was for her to satisfy him: then let her do\nit. Let her not come with flowery handfuls of innocent love. He\nwould throw these aside and trample the flowers to nothing. He\nwould destroy her flowery, innocent bliss. Was he not entitled\nto satisfaction from her, and was not his heart all raging\ndesire, his soul a black torment of unfulfilment. Let it be\nfulfilled in him, then, as it was fulfilled in her. He had given\nher her fulfilment. Let her rise up and do her part.\n\nHe was cruel to her. But all the time he was ashamed. And\nbeing ashamed, he was more cruel. For he was ashamed that he\ncould not come to fulfilment without her. And he could not. And\nshe would not heed him. He was shackled and in darkness of\ntorment.\n\nShe beseeched him to work again, to do his wood-carving. But\nhis soul was too black. He had destroyed his panel of Adam and\nEve. He could not begin again, least of all now, whilst he was\nin this condition.\n\nFor her there was no final release, since he could not be\nliberated from himself. Strange and amorphous, she must go\nyearning on through the trouble, like a warm, glowing cloud\nblown in the middle of a storm. She felt so rich, in her warm\nvagueness, that her soul cried out on him, because he harried\nher and wanted to destroy her.\n\nShe had her moments of exaltation still, re-births of old\nexaltations. As she sat by her bedroom window, watching the\nsteady rain, her spirit was somewhere far off.\n\nShe sat in pride and curious pleasure. When there was no one\nto exult with, and the unsatisfied soul must dance and play,\nthen one danced before the Unknown.\n\nSuddenly she realized that this was what she wanted to do.\nBig with child as she was, she danced there in the bedroom by\nherself, lifting her hands and her body to the Unseen, to the\nunseen Creator who had chosen her, to Whom she belonged.\n\nShe would not have had anyone know. She danced in secret, and\nher soul rose in bliss. She danced in secret before the Creator,\nshe took off her clothes and danced in the pride of her\nbigness.\n\nIt surprised her, when it was over. She was shrinking and\nafraid. To what was she now exposed? She half wanted to tell her\nhusband. Yet she shrank from him.\n\nAll the time she ran on by herself. She liked the story of\nDavid, who danced before the Lord, and uncovered himself\nexultingly. Why should he uncover himself to Michal, a common\nwoman? He uncovered himself to the Lord.\n\n\"Thou comest to me with a sword and a spear and a shield, but\nI come to thee in the name of the Lord:--for the battle is\nthe Lord's, and he will give you into our hands.\"\n\nHer heart rang to the words. She walked in her pride. And her\nbattle was her own Lord's, her husband was delivered over.\n\nIn these days she was oblivious of him. Who was he, to come\nagainst her? No, he was not even the Philistine, the Giant. He\nwas like Saul proclaiming his own kingship. She laughed in her\nheart. Who was he, proclaiming his kingship? She laughed in her\nheart with pride.\n\nAnd she had to dance in exultation beyond him. Because he was\nin the house, she had to dance before her Creator in exemption\nfrom the man. On a Saturday afternoon, when she had a fire in\nthe bedroom, again she took off her things and danced, lifting\nher knees and her hands in a slow, rhythmic exulting. He was in\nthe house, so her pride was fiercer. She would dance his\nnullification, she would dance to her unseen Lord. She was\nexalted over him, before the Lord.\n\nShe heard him coming up the stairs, and she flinched. She\nstood with the firelight on her ankles and feet, naked in the\nshadowy, late afternoon, fastening up her hair. He was startled.\nHe stood in the doorway, his brows black and lowering.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" he said, gratingly. \"You'll catch a\ncold.\"\n\nAnd she lifted her hands and danced again, to annul him, the\nlight glanced on her knees as she made her slow, fine movements\ndown the far side of the room, across the firelight. He stood\naway near the door in blackness of shadow, watching, transfixed.\nAnd with slow, heavy movements she swayed backwards and\nforwards, like a full ear of corn, pale in the dusky afternoon,\nthreading before the firelight, dancing his non-existence,\ndancing herself to the Lord, to exultation.\n\nHe watched, and his soul burned in him. He turned aside, he\ncould not look, it hurt his eyes. Her fine limbs lifted and\nlifted, her hair was sticking out all fierce, and her belly,\nbig, strange, terrifying, uplifted to the Lord. Her face was\nrapt and beautiful, she danced exulting before her Lord, and\nknew no man.\n\nIt hurt him as he watched as if he were at the stake. He felt\nhe was being burned alive. The strangeness, the power of her in\nher dancing consumed him, he was burned, he could not grasp, he\ncould not understand. He waited obliterated. Then his eyes\nbecame blind to her, he saw her no more. And through the\nunseeing veil between them he called to her, in his jarring\nvoice:\n\n\"What are you doing that for?\"\n\n\"Go away,\" she said. \"Let me dance by myself.\"\n\n\"That isn't dancing,\" he said harshly. \"What do you want to\ndo that for?\"\n\n\"I don't do it for you,\" she said. \"You go away.\"\n\nHer strange, lifted belly, big with his child! Had he no\nright to be there? He felt his presence a violation. Yet he had\nhis right to be there. He went and sat on the bed.\n\nShe stopped dancing, and confronted him, again lifting her\nslim arms and twisting at her hair. Her nakedness hurt her,\nopposed to him.\n\n\"I can do as I like in my bedroom,\" she cried. \"Why do you\ninterfere with me?\"\n\nAnd she slipped on a dressing-gown and crouched before the\nfire. He was more at ease now she was covered up. The vision of\nher tormented him all the days of his life, as she had been\nthen, a strange, exalted thing having no relation to\nhimself.\n\nAfter this day, the door seemed to shut on his mind. His brow\nshut and became impervious. His eyes ceased to see, his hands\nwere suspended. Within himself his will was coiled like a beast,\nhidden under the darkness, but always potent, working.\n\nAt first she went on blithely enough with him shut down\nbeside her. But then his spell began to take hold of her. The\ndark, seething potency of him, the power of a creature that lies\nhidden and exerts its will to the destruction of the\nfree-running creature, as the tiger lying in the darkness of the\nleaves steadily enforces the fall and death of the light\ncreatures that drink by the waterside in the morning, gradually\nbegan to take effect on her. Though he lay there in his darkness\nand did not move, yet she knew he lay waiting for her. She felt\nhis will fastening on her and pulling her down, even whilst he\nwas silent and obscure.\n\nShe found that, in all her outgoings and her incomings, he\nprevented her. Gradually she realized that she was being borne\ndown by him, borne down by the clinging, heavy weight of him,\nthat he was pulling her down as a leopard clings to a wild cow\nand exhausts her and pulls her down.\n\nGradually she realized that her life, her freedom, was\nsinking under the silent grip of his physical will. He wanted\nher in his power. He wanted to devour her at leisure, to have\nher. At length she realized that her sleep was a long ache and a\nweariness and exhaustion, because of his will fastened upon her,\nas he lay there beside her, during the night.\n\nShe realized it all, and there came a momentous pause, a\npause in her swift running, a moment's suspension in her life,\nwhen she was lost.\n\nThen she turned fiercely on him, and fought him. He was not\nto do this to her, it was monstrous. What horrible hold did he\nwant to have over her body? Why did he want to drag her down,\nand kill her spirit? Why did he want to deny her spirit? Why did\nhe deny her spirituality, hold her for a body only? And was he\nto claim her carcase?\n\nSome vast, hideous darkness he seemed to represent to\nher.\n\n\"What do you do to me?\" she cried. \"What beastly thing do you\ndo to me? You put a horrible pressure on my head, you don't let\nme sleep, you don't let me live. Every moment of your life you\nare doing something to me, something horrible, that destroys me.\nThere is something horrible in you, something dark and beastly\nin your will. What do you want of me? What do you want to do to\nme?\"\n\nAll the blood in his body went black and powerful and\ncorrosive as he heard her. Black and blind with hatred of her he\nwas. He was in a very black hell, and could not escape.\n\nHe hated her for what she said. Did he not give her\neverything, was she not everything to him? And the shame was a\nbitter fire in him, that she was everything to him, that he had\nnothing but her. And then that she should taunt him with it,\nthat he could not escape! The fire went black in his veins. For\ntry as he might, he could not escape. She was everything to him,\nshe was his life and his derivation. He depended on her. If she\nwere taken away, he would collapse as a house from which the\ncentral pillar is removed.\n\nAnd she hated him, because he depended on her so utterly. He\nwas horrible to her. She wanted to thrust him off, to set him\napart. It was horrible that he should cleave to her, so close,\nso close, like leopard that had leapt on her, and fastened.\n\nHe went on from day to day in a blackness of rage and shame\nand frustration. How he tortured himself, to be able to get away\nfrom her. But he could not. She was as the rock on which he\nstood, with deep, heaving water all round, and he was unable to\nswim. He must take his stand on her, he must depend on\nher.\n\nWhat had he in life, save her? Nothing. The rest was a great\nheaving flood. The terror of the night of heaving, overwhelming\nflood, which was his vision of life without her, was too much\nfor him. He clung to her fiercely and abjectly.\n\nAnd she beat him off, she beat him off. Where could he turn,\nlike a swimmer in a dark sea, beaten off from his hold, whither\ncould he turn? He wanted to leave her, he wanted to be able to\nleave her. For his soul's sake, for his manhood's sake, he must\nbe able to leave her.\n\nBut for what? She was the ark, and the rest of the world was\nflood. The only tangible, secure thing was the woman. He could\nleave her only for another woman. And where was the other woman,\nand who was the other woman? Besides, he would be just in the\nsame state. Another woman would be woman, the case would be the\nsame.\n\nWhy was she the all, the everything, why must he live only\nthrough her, why must he sink if he were detached from her? Why\nmust he cleave to her in a frenzy as for his very life?\n\nThe only other way to leave her was to die. The only straight\nway to leave her was to die. His dark, raging soul knew that.\nBut he had no desire for death.\n\nWhy could he not leave her? Why could he not throw himself\ninto the hidden water to live or die, as might be? He could not,\nhe could not. But supposing he went away, right away, and found\nwork, and had a lodging again. He could be again as he had been\nbefore.\n\nBut he knew he could not. A woman, he must have a woman. And\nhaving a woman, he must be free of her. It would be the same\nposition. For he could not be free of her.\n\nFor how can a man stand, unless he have something sure under\nhis feet. Can a man tread the unstable water all his life, and\ncall that standing? Better give in and drown at once.\n\nAnd upon what could he stand, save upon a woman? Was he then\nlike the old man of the seas, impotent to move save upon the\nback of another life? Was he impotent, or a cripple, or a\ndefective, or a fragment?\n\nIt was black, mad, shameful torture, the frenzy of fear, the\nfrenzy of desire, and the horrible, grasping back-wash of\nshame.\n\nWhat was he afraid of? Why did life, without Anna, seem to\nhim just a horrible welter, everything jostling in a\nmeaningless, dark, fathomless flood? Why, if Anna left him even\nfor a week, did he seem to be clinging like a madman to the edge\nof reality, and slipping surely, surely into the flood of\nunreality that would drown him. This horrible slipping into\nunreality drove him mad, his soul screamed with fear and\nagony.\n\nYet she was pushing him off from her, pushing him away,\nbreaking his fingers from their hold on her, persistently,\nruthlessly. He wanted her to have pity. And sometimes for a\nmoment she had pity. But she always began again, thrusting him\noff, into the deep water, into the frenzy and agony of\nuncertainty.\n\nShe became like a fury to him, without any sense of him. Her\neyes were bright with a cold, unmoving hatred. Then his heart\nseemed to die in its last fear. She might push him off into the\ndeeps.\n\nShe would not sleep with him any more. She said he destroyed\nher sleep. Up started all his frenzy and madness of fear and\nsuffering. She drove him away. Like a cowed, lurking devil he\nwas driven off, his mind working cunningly against her, devising\nevil for her. But she drove him off. In his moments of intense\nsuffering, she seemed to him inconceivable, a monster, the\nprinciple of cruelty.\n\nHowever her pity might give way for moments, she was hard and\ncold as a jewel. He must be put off from her, she must sleep\nalone. She made him a bed in the small room.\n\nAnd he lay there whipped, his soul whipped almost to death,\nyet unchanged. He lay in agony of suffering, thrown back into\nunreality, like a man thrown overboard into a sea, to swim till\nhe sinks, because there is no hold, only a wide, weltering\nsea.\n\nHe did not sleep, save for the white sleep when a thin veil\nis drawn over the mind. It was not sleep. He was awake, and he\nwas not awake. He could not be alone. He needed to be able to\nput his arms round her. He could not bear the empty space\nagainst his breast, where she used to be. He could not bear it.\nHe felt as if he were suspended in space, held there by the grip\nof his will. If he relaxed his will would fall, fall through\nendless space, into the bottomless pit, always falling,\nwill-less, helpless, non-existent, just dropping to extinction,\nfalling till the fire of friction had burned out, like a falling\nstar, then nothing, nothing, complete nothing.\n\nHe rose in the morning grey and unreal. And she seemed fond\nof him again, she seemed to make up to him a little.\n\n\"I slept well,\" she said, with her slightly false brightness.\n\"Did you?\"\n\n\"All right,\" he answered.\n\nHe would never tell her.\n\nFor three or four nights he lay alone through the white\nsleep, his will unchanged, unchanged, still tense, fixed in its\ngrip. Then, as if she were revived and free to be fond of him\nagain, deluded by his silence and seeming acquiescence, moved\nalso by pity, she took him back again.\n\nEach night, in spite of all the shame, he had waited with\nagony for bedtime, to see if she would shut him out. And each\nnight, as, in her false brightness, she said Good night, he felt\nhe must kill her or himself. But she asked for her kiss, so\npathetically, so prettily. So he kissed her, whilst his heart\nwas ice.\n\nAnd sometimes he went out. Once he sat for a long time in the\nchurch porch, before going in to bed. It was dark with a wind\nblowing. He sat in the church porch and felt some shelter, some\nsecurity. But it grew cold, and he must go in to bed.\n\nThen came the night when she said, putting her arms round him\nand kissing him fondly:\n\n\"Stay with me to-night, will you?\"\n\nAnd he had stayed without demur. But his will had not\naltered. He would have her fixed to him.\n\nSo that soon she told him again she must be alone.\n\n\"I don't want to send you away. I want to sleep\nwith you. But I can't sleep, you don't let me sleep.\"\n\nHis blood turned black in his veins.\n\n\"What do you mean by such a thing? It's an arrant lie. I\ndon't let you sleep----\"\n\n\"But you don't. I sleep so well when I'm alone. And I can't\nsleep when you're there. You do something to me, you put a\npressure on my head. And I must sleep, now the child is\ncoming.\"\n\n\"It's something in yourself,\" he replied, \"something wrong in\nyou.\"\n\nHorrible in the extreme were these nocturnal combats, when\nall the world was asleep, and they two were alone, alone in the\nworld, and repelling each other. It was hardly to be borne.\n\nHe went and lay down alone. And at length, after a grey and\nlivid and ghastly period, he relaxed, something gave way in him.\nHe let go, he did not care what became of him. Strange and dim\nhe became to himself, to her, to everybody. A vagueness had come\nover everything, like a drowning. And it was an infinite relief\nto drown, a relief, a great, great relief.\n\nHe would insist no more, he would force her no more. He would\nforce himself upon her no more. He would let go, relax, lapse,\nand what would be, should be.\n\nYet he wanted her still, he always, always wanted her. In his\nsoul, he was desolate as a child, he was so helpless. Like a\nchild on its mother, he depended on her for his living. He knew\nit, and he knew he could hardly help it.\n\nYet he must be able to be alone. He must be able to lie down\nalongside the empty space, and let be. He must be able to leave\nhimself to the flood, to sink or live as might be. For he\nrecognized at length his own limitation, and the limitation of\nhis power. He had to give in.\n\nThere was a stillness, a wanness between them. Half at least\nof the battle was over. Sometimes she wept as she went about,\nher heart was very heavy. But the child was always warm in her\nwomb.\n\nThey were friends again, new, subdued friends. But there was\na wanness between them. They slept together once more, very\nquietly, and distinct, not one together as before. And she was\nintimate with him as at first. But he was very quiet, and not\nintimate. He was glad in his soul, but for the time being he was\nnot alive.\n\nHe could sleep with her, and let her be. He could be alone\nnow. He had just learned what it was to be able to be alone. It\nwas right and peaceful. She had given him a new, deeper freedom.\nThe world might be a welter of uncertainty, but he was himself\nnow. He had come into his own existence. He was born for a\nsecond time, born at last unto himself, out of the vast body of\nhumanity. Now at last he had a separate identity, he existed\nalone, even if he were not quite alone. Before he had only\nexisted in so far as he had relations with another being. Now he\nhad an absolute self--as well as a relative self.\n\nBut it was a very dumb, weak, helpless self, a crawling\nnursling. He went about very quiet, and in a way, submissive. He\nhad an unalterable self at last, free, separate,\nindependent.\n\nShe was relieved, she was free of him. She had given him to\nhimself. She wept sometimes with tiredness and helplessness. But\nhe was a husband. And she seemed, in the child that was coming,\nto forget. It seemed to make her warm and drowsy. She lapsed\ninto a long muse, indistinct, warm, vague, unwilling to be taken\nout of her vagueness. And she rested on him also.\n\nSometimes she came to him with a strange light in her eyes,\npoignant, pathetic, as if she were asking for something. He\nlooked and he could not understand. She was so beautiful, so\nvisionary, the rays seemed to go out of his breast to her, like\na shining. He was there for her, all for her. And she would hold\nhis breast, and kiss it, and kiss it, kneeling beside him, she\nwho was waiting for the hour of her delivery. And he would lie\nlooking down at his breast, till it seemed that his breast was\nnot himself, that he had left it lying there. Yet it was himself\nalso, and beautiful and bright with her kisses. He was glad with\na strange, radiant pain. Whilst she kneeled beside him, and\nkissed his breast with a slow, rapt, half-devotional\nmovement.\n\nHe knew she wanted something, his heart yearned to give it\nher. His heart yearned over her. And as she lifted her face,\nthat was radiant and rosy as a little cloud, his heart still\nyearned over her, and, now from the distance, adored her. She\nhad a flower-like presence which he adored as he stood far off,\na stranger.\n\nThe weeks passed on, the time drew near, they were very\ngentle, and delicately happy. The insistent, passionate, dark\nsoul, the powerful unsatisfaction in him seemed stilled and\ntamed, the lion lay down with the lamb in him.\n\nShe loved him very much indeed, and he waited near her. She\nwas a precious, remote thing to him at this time, as she waited\nfor her child. Her soul was glad with an ecstasy because of the\ncoming infant. She wanted a boy: oh, very much she wanted a\nboy.\n\nBut she seemed so young and so frail. She was indeed only a\ngirl. As she stood by the fire washing herself--she was\nproud to wash herself at this time--and he looked at her,\nhis heart was full of extreme tenderness for her. Such fine,\nfine limbs, her slim, round arms like chasing lights, and her\nlegs so simple and childish, yet so very proud. Oh, she stood on\nproud legs, with a lovely reckless balance of her full belly,\nand the adorable little roundnesses, and the breasts becoming\nimportant. Above it all, her face was like a rosy cloud\nshining.\n\nHow proud she was, what a lovely proud thing her young body!\nAnd she loved him to put his hand on her ripe fullness, so that\nhe should thrill also with the stir and the quickening there. He\nwas afraid and silent, but she flung her arms round his neck\nwith proud, impudent joy.\n\nThe pains came on, and Oh--how she cried! She would have\nhim stay with her. And after her long cries she would look at\nhim, with tears in her eyes and a sobbing laugh on her face,\nsaying:\n\n\"I don't mind it really.\"\n\nIt was bad enough. But to her it was never deathly. Even the\nfierce, tearing pain was exhilarating. She screamed and\nsuffered, but was all the time curiously alive and vital. She\nfelt so powerfully alive and in the hands of such a masterly\nforce of life, that her bottom-most feeling was one of\nexhilaration. She knew she was winning, winning, she was always\nwinning, with each onset of pain she was nearer to victory.\n\nProbably he suffered more than she did. He was not shocked or\nhorrified. But he was screwed very tight in the vise of\nsuffering.\n\nIt was a girl. The second of silence on her face when they\nsaid so showed him she was disappointed. And a great blazing\npassion of resentment and protest sprang up in his heart. In\nthat moment he claimed the child.\n\nBut when the milk came, and the infant sucked her breast, she\nseemed to be leaping with extravagant bliss.\n\n\"It sucks me, it sucks me, it likes me--oh, it loves\nit!\" she cried, holding the child to her breast with her two\nhands covering it, passionately.\n\nAnd in a few moments, as she became used to her bliss, she\nlooked at the youth with glowing, unseeing eyes, and said:\n\n\"Anna Victrix.\"\n\nHe went away, trembling, and slept. To her, her pains were\nthe wound-smart of a victor, she was the prouder.\n\nWhen she was well again she was very happy. She called the\nbaby Ursula. Both Anna and her husband felt they must have a\nname that gave them private satisfaction. The baby was tawny\nskinned, it had a curious downy skin, and wisps of bronze hair,\nand the yellow grey eyes that wavered, and then became\ngolden-brown like the father's. So they called her Ursula\nbecause of the picture of the saint.\n\nIt was a rather delicate baby at first, but soon it became\nstronger, and was restless as a young eel. Anna was worn out\nwith the day-long wrestling with its young vigour.\n\nAs a little animal, she loved and adored it and was happy.\nShe loved her husband, she kissed his eyes and nose and mouth,\nand made much of him, she said his limbs were beautiful, she was\nfascinated by the physical form of him.\n\nAnd she was indeed Anna Victrix. He could not combat her any\nmore. He was out in the wilderness, alone with her. Having\noccasion to go to London, he marvelled, as he returned, thinking\nof naked, lurking savages on an island, how these had built up\nand created the great mass of Oxford Street or Piccadilly. How\nhad helpless savages, running with their spears on the\nriverside, after fish, how had they come to rear up this great\nLondon, the ponderous, massive, ugly superstructure of a world\nof man upon a world of nature! It frightened and awed him. Man\nwas terrible, awful in his works. The works of man were more\nterrible than man himself, almost monstrous.\n\nAnd yet, for his own part, for his private being, Brangwen\nfelt that the whole of the man's world was exterior and\nextraneous to his own real life with Anna. Sweep away the whole\nmonstrous superstructure of the world of to-day, cities and\nindustries and civilization, leave only the bare earth with\nplants growing and waters running, and he would not mind, so\nlong as he were whole, had Anna and the child and the new,\nstrange certainty in his soul. Then, if he were naked, he would\nfind clothing somewhere, he would make a shelter and bring food\nto his wife.\n\nAnd what more? What more would be necessary? The great mass\nof activity in which mankind was engaged meant nothing to him.\nBy nature, he had no part in it. What did he live for, then? For\nAnna only, and for the sake of living? What did he want on this\nearth? Anna only, and his children, and his life with his\nchildren and her? Was there no more?\n\nHe was attended by a sense of something more, something\nfurther, which gave him absolute being. It was as if now he\nexisted in Eternity, let Time be what it might. What was there\noutside? The fabricated world, that he did not believe in? What\nshould he bring to her, from outside? Nothing? Was it enough, as\nit was? He was troubled in his acquiescence. She was not with\nhim. Yet he scarcely believed in himself, apart from her, though\nthe whole Infinite was with him. Let the whole world slide down\nand over the edge of oblivion, he would stand alone. But he was\nunsure of her. And he existed also in her. So he was unsure.\n\nHe hovered near to her, never quite able to forget the vague,\nhaunting uncertainty, that seemed to challenge him, and which he\nwould not hear. A pang of dread, almost guilt, as of\ninsufficiency, would go over him as he heard her talking to the\nbaby. She stood before the window, with the month-old child in\nher arms, talking in a musical, young sing-song that he had not\nheard before, and which rang on his heart like a claim from the\ndistance, or the voice of another world sounding its claim on\nhim. He stood near, listening, and his heart surged, surged to\nrise and submit. Then it shrank back and stayed aloof. He could\nnot move, a denial was upon him, as if he could not deny\nhimself. He must, he must be himself.\n\n\"Look at the silly blue-caps, my beauty,\" she crooned,\nholding up the infant to the window, where shone the white\ngarden, and the blue-tits scuffling in the snow: \"Look at the\nsilly blue-caps, my darling, having a fight in the snow! Look at\nthem, my bird--beating the snow about with their wings, and\nshaking their heads. Oh, aren't they wicked things, wicked\nthings! Look at their yellow feathers on the snow there! They'll\nmiss them, won't they, when they're cold later on.\n\n\"Must we tell them to stop, must we say 'stop it' to them, my\nbird? But they are naughty, naughty! Look at them!\" Suddenly her\nvoice broke loud and fierce, she rapped the pane sharply.\n\n\"Stop it,\" she cried, \"stop it, you little nuisances. Stop\nit!\" She called louder, and rapped the pane more sharply. Her\nvoice was fierce and imperative.\n\n\"Have more sense,\" she cried.\n\n\"There, now they're gone. Where have they gone, the silly\nthings? What will they say to each other? What will they say, my\nlambkin? They'll forget, won't they, they'll forget all about\nit, out of their silly little heads, and their blue caps.\"\n\nAfter a moment, she turned her bright face to her\nhusband.\n\n\"They were really fighting, they were really fierce\nwith each other!\" she said, her voice keen with excitement and\nwonder, as if she belonged to the birds' world, were identified\nwith the race of birds.\n\n\"Ay, they'll fight, will blue-caps,\" he said, glad when she\nturned to him with her glow from elsewhere. He came and stood\nbeside her and looked out at the marks on the snow where the\nbirds had scuffled, and at the yew trees' burdened, white and\nblack branches. What was the appeal it made to him, what was the\nquestion of her bright face, what was the challenge he was\ncalled to answer? He did not know. But as he stood there he felt\nsome responsibility which made him glad, but uneasy, as if he\nmust put out his own light. And he could not move as yet.\n\nAnna loved the child very much, oh, very much. Yet still she\nwas not quite fulfilled. She had a slight expectant feeling, as\nof a door half opened. Here she was, safe and still in\nCossethay. But she felt as if she were not in Cossethay at all.\nShe was straining her eyes to something beyond. And from her\nPisgah mount, which she had attained, what could she see? A\nfaint, gleaming horizon, a long way off, and a rainbow like an\narchway, a shadow-door with faintly coloured coping above it.\nMust she be moving thither?\n\nSomething she had not, something she did not grasp, could not\narrive at. There was something beyond her. But why must she\nstart on the journey? She stood so safely on the Pisgah\nmountain.\n\nIn the winter, when she rose with the sunrise, and out of the\nback windows saw the east flaming yellow and orange above the\ngreen, glowing grass, while the great pear tree in between stood\ndark and magnificent as an idol, and under the dark pear tree,\nthe little sheet of water spread smooth in burnished, yellow\nlight, she said, \"It is here\". And when, at evening, the sunset\ncame in a red glare through the big opening in the clouds, she\nsaid again, \"It is beyond\".\n\nDawn and sunset were the feet of the rainbow that spanned the\nday, and she saw the hope, the promise. Why should she travel\nany further?\n\nYet she always asked the question. As the sun went down in\nhis fiery winter haste, she faced the blazing close of the\naffair, in which she had not played her fullest part, and she\nmade her demand still: \"What are you doing, making this big\nshining commotion? What is it that you keep so busy about, that\nyou will not let us alone?\"\n\nShe did not turn to her husband, for him to lead her. He was\napart from her, with her, according to her different conceptions\nof him. The child she might hold up, she might toss the child\nforward into the furnace, the child might walk there, amid the\nburning coals and the incandescent roar of heat, as the three\nwitnesses walked with the angel in the fire.\n\nSoon, she felt sure of her husband. She knew his dark face\nand the extent of its passion. She knew his slim, vigorous body,\nshe said it was hers. Then there was no denying her. She was a\nrich woman enjoying her riches.\n\nAnd soon again she was with child. Which made her satisfied\nand took away her discontent. She forgot that she had watched\nthe sun climb up and pass his way, a magnificent traveller\nsurging forward. She forgot that the moon had looked through a\nwindow of the high, dark night, and nodded like a magic\nrecognition, signalled to her to follow. Sun and moon travelled\non, and left her, passed her by, a rich woman enjoying her\nriches. She should go also. But she could not go, when they\ncalled, because she must stay at home now. With satisfaction she\nrelinquished the adventure to the unknown. She was bearing her\nchildren.\n\nThere was another child coming, and Anna lapsed into vague\ncontent. If she were not the wayfarer to the unknown, if she\nwere arrived now, settled in her builded house, a rich woman,\nstill her doors opened under the arch of the rainbow, her\nthreshold reflected the passing of the sun and moon, the great\ntravellers, her house was full of the echo of journeying.\n\nShe was a door and a threshold, she herself. Through her\nanother soul was coming, to stand upon her as upon the\nthreshold, looking out, shading its eyes for the direction to\ntake.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE CATHEDRAL\n\nDuring the first year of her marriage, before Ursula was\nborn, Anna Brangwen and her husband went to visit her mother's\nfriend, the Baron Skrebensky. The latter had kept a slight\nconnection with Anna's mother, and had always preserved some\nofficious interest in the young girl, because she was a pure\nPole.\n\nWhen Baron Skrebensky was about forty years old, his wife\ndied, and left him raving, disconsolate. Lydia had visited him\nthen, taking Anna with her. It was when the girl was fourteen\nyears old. Since then she had not seen him. She remembered him\nas a small sharp clergyman who cried and talked and terrified\nher, whilst her mother was most strangely consoling, in a\nforeign language.\n\nThe little Baron never quite approved of Anna, because she\nspoke no Polish. Still, he considered himself in some way her\nguardian, on Lensky's behalf, and he presented her with some\nold, heavy Russian jewellery, the least valuable of his wife's\nrelics. Then he lapsed out of the Brangwen's life again, though\nhe lived only about thirty miles away.\n\nThree years later came the startling news that he had married\na young English girl of good family. Everybody marvelled. Then\ncame a copy of \"The History of the Parish of Briswell, by\nRudolph, Baron Skrebensky, Vicar of Briswell.\" It was a curious\nbook, incoherent, full of interesting exhumations. It was\ndedicated: \"To my wife, Millicent Maud Pearse, in whom I embrace\nthe generous spirit of England.\"\n\n\"If he embraces no more than the spirit of England,\" said Tom\nBrangwen, \"it's a bad look-out for him.\"\n\nBut paying a formal visit with his wife, he found the new\nBaroness a little, creamy-skinned, insidious thing with\nred-brown hair and a mouth that one must always watch, because\nit curved back continually in an incomprehensible, strange laugh\nthat exposed her rather prominent teeth. She was not beautiful,\nyet Tom Brangwen was immediately under her spell. She seemed to\nsnuggle like a kitten within his warmth, whilst she was at the\nsame time elusive and ironical, suggesting the fine steel of her\nclaws.\n\nThe Baron was almost dotingly courteous and attentive to her.\nShe, almost mockingly, yet quite happy, let him dote. Curious\nlittle thing she was, she had the soft, creamy, elusive beauty\nof a ferret. Tom Brangwen was quite at a loss, at her mercy, and\nshe laughed, a little breathlessly, as if tempted to cruelty.\nShe did put fine torments on the elderly Baron.\n\nWhen some months later she bore a son, the Baron Skrebensky\nwas loud with delight.\n\nGradually she gathered a circle of acquaintances in the\ncounty. For she was of good family, half Venetian, educated in\nDresden. The little foreign vicar attained to a social status\nwhich almost satisfied his maddened pride.\n\nTherefore the Brangwens were surprised when the invitation\ncame for Anna and her young husband to pay a visit to Briswell\nvicarage. For the Skrebenskys were now moderately well off,\nMillicent Skrebensky having some fortune of her own.\n\nAnna took her best clothes, recovered her best high-school\nmanner, and arrived with her husband. Will Brangwen, ruddy,\nbright, with long limbs and a small head, like some uncouth\nbird, was not changed in the least. The little Baroness was\nsmiling, showing her teeth. She had a real charm, a kind of\njoyous coldness, laughing, delighted, like some weasel. Anna at\nonce respected her, and was on her guard before her,\ninstinctively attracted by the strange, childlike surety of the\nBaroness, yet mistrusting it, fascinated. The little baron was\nnow quite white-haired, very brittle. He was wizened and\nwrinkled, yet fiery, unsubdued. Anna looked at his lean body, at\nhis small, fine lean legs and lean hands as he sat talking, and\nshe flushed. She recognized the quality of the male in him, his\nlean, concentrated age, his informed fire, his faculty for\nsharp, deliberate response. He was so detached, so purely\nobjective. A woman was thoroughly outside him. There was no\nconfusion. So he could give that fine, deliberate response.\n\nHe was something separate and interesting; his hard,\nintrinsic being, whittled down by age to an essentiality and a\ndirectness almost death-like, cruel, was yet so unswervingly\nsure in its action, so distinct in its surety, that she was\nattracted to him. She watched his cool, hard, separate fire,\nfascinated by it. Would she rather have it than her husband's\ndiffuse heat, than his blind, hot youth?\n\nShe seemed to be breathing high, sharp air, as if she had\njust come out of a hot room. These strange Skrebenskys made her\naware of another, freer element, in which each person was\ndetached and isolated. Was not this her natural element? Was not\nthe close Brangwen life stifling her?\n\nMeanwhile the little baroness, with always a subtle light\nstirring of her full, lustrous, hazel eyes, was playing with\nWill Brangwen. He was not quick enough to see all her movements.\nYet he watched her steadily, with unchanging, lit-up eyes. She\nwas a strange creature to him. But she had no power over him.\nShe flushed, and was irritated. Yet she glanced again and again\nat his dark, living face, curiously, as if she despised him. She\ndespised his uncritical, unironical nature, it had nothing for\nher. Yet it angered her as if she were jealous. He watched her\nwith deferential interest as he would watch a stoat playing. But\nhe himself was not implicated. He was different in kind. She was\nall lambent, biting flames, he was a red fire glowing steadily.\nShe could get nothing out of him. So she made him flush darkly\nby assuming a biting, subtle class-superiority. He flushed, but\nstill he did not object. He was too different.\n\nHer little boy came in with the nurse. He was a quick, slight\nchild, with fine perceptiveness, and a cool transitoriness in\nhis interest. At once he treated Will Brangwen as an outsider.\nHe stayed by Anna for a moment, acknowledged her, then was gone\nagain, quick, observant, restless, with a glance of interest at\neverything.\n\nThe father adored him, and spoke to him in Polish. It was\nqueer, the stiff, aristocratic manner of the father with the\nchild, the distance in the relationship, the classic fatherhood\non the one hand, the filial subordination on the other. They\nplayed together, in their different degrees very separate, two\ndifferent beings, differing as it were in rank rather than in\nrelationship. And the baroness smiled, smiled, smiled, always\nsmiled, showing her rather protruding teeth, having always a\nmysterious attraction and charm.\n\nAnna realized how different her own life might have been, how\ndifferent her own living. Her soul stirred, she became as\nanother person. Her intimacy with her husband passed away, the\ncurious enveloping Brangwen intimacy, so warm, so close, so\nstifling, when one seemed always to be in contact with the other\nperson, like a blood-relation, was annulled. She denied it, this\nclose relationship with her young husband. He and she were not\none. His heat was not always to suffuse her, suffuse her,\nthrough her mind and her individuality, till she was of one heat\nwith him, till she had not her own self apart. She wanted her\nown life. He seemed to lap her and suffuse her with his being,\nhis hot life, till she did not know whether she were herself, or\nwhether she were another creature, united with him in a world of\nclose blood-intimacy that closed over her and excluded her from\nall the cool outside.\n\nShe wanted her own, old, sharp self, detached, detached,\nactive but not absorbed, active for her own part, taking and\ngiving, but never absorbed. Whereas he wanted this strange\nabsorption with her, which still she resisted. But she was\npartly helpless against it. She had lived so long in Tom\nBrangwen's love, beforehand.\n\nFrom the Skrebensky's, they went to Will Brangwen's beloved\nLincoln Cathedral, because it was not far off. He had promised\nher, that one by one, they should visit all the cathedrals of\nEngland. They began with Lincoln, which he knew well.\n\nHe began to get excited as the time drew near to set off.\nWhat was it that changed him so much? She was almost angry,\ncoming as she did from the Skrebensky's. But now he ran on\nalone. His very breast seemed to open its doors to watch for the\ngreat church brooding over the town. His soul ran ahead.\n\nWhen he saw the cathedral in the distance, dark blue lifted\nwatchful in the sky, his heart leapt. It was the sign in heaven,\nit was the Spirit hovering like a dove, like an eagle over the\nearth. He turned his glowing, ecstatic face to her, his mouth\nopened with a strange, ecstatic grin.\n\n\"There she is,\" he said.\n\nThe \"she\" irritated her. Why \"she\"? It was \"it\". What was the\ncathedral, a big building, a thing of the past, obsolete, to\nexcite him to such a pitch? She began to stir herself to\nreadiness.\n\nThey passed up the steep hill, he eager as a pilgrim arriving\nat the shrine. As they came near the precincts, with castle on\none side and cathedral on the other, his veins seemed to break\ninto fiery blossom, he was transported.\n\nThey had passed through the gate, and the great west front\nwas before them, with all its breadth and ornament.\n\n\"It is a false front,\" he said, looking at the golden stone\nand the twin towers, and loving them just the same. In a little\necstasy he found himself in the porch, on the brink of the\nunrevealed. He looked up to the lovely unfolding of the stone.\nHe was to pass within to the perfect womb.\n\nThen he pushed open the door, and the great, pillared gloom\nwas before him, in which his soul shuddered and rose from her\nnest. His soul leapt, soared up into the great church. His body\nstood still, absorbed by the height. His soul leapt up into the\ngloom, into possession, it reeled, it swooned with a great\nescape, it quivered in the womb, in the hush and the gloom of\nfecundity, like seed of procreation in ecstasy.\n\nShe too was overcome with wonder and awe. She followed him in\nhis progress. Here, the twilight was the very essence of life,\nthe coloured darkness was the embryo of all light, and the day.\nHere, the very first dawn was breaking, the very last sunset\nsinking, and the immemorial darkness, whereof life's day would\nblossom and fall away again, re-echoed peace and profound\nimmemorial silence.\n\nAway from time, always outside of time! Between east and\nwest, between dawn and sunset, the church lay like a seed in\nsilence, dark before germination, silenced after death.\nContaining birth and death, potential with all the noise and\ntransition of life, the cathedral remained hushed, a great,\ninvolved seed, whereof the flower would be radiant life\ninconceivable, but whose beginning and whose end were the circle\nof silence. Spanned round with the rainbow, the jewelled gloom\nfolded music upon silence, light upon darkness, fecundity upon\ndeath, as a seed folds leaf upon leaf and silence upon the root\nand the flower, hushing up the secret of all between its parts,\nthe death out of which it fell, the life into which it has\ndropped, the immortality it involves, and the death it will\nembrace again.\n\nHere in the church, \"before\" and \"after\" were folded\ntogether, all was contained in oneness. Brangwen came to his\nconsummation. Out of the doors of the womb he had come, putting\naside the wings of the womb, and proceeding into the light.\nThrough daylight and day-after-day he had come, knowledge after\nknowledge, and experience after experience, remembering the\ndarkness of the womb, having prescience of the darkness after\ndeath. Then between--while he had pushed open the doors of\nthe cathedral, and entered the twilight of both darkness, the\nhush of the two-fold silence where dawn was sunset, and the\nbeginning and the end were one.\n\nHere the stone leapt up from the plain of earth, leapt up in\na manifold, clustered desire each time, up, away from the\nhorizontal earth, through twilight and dusk and the whole range\nof desire, through the swerving, the declination, ah, to the\necstasy, the touch, to the meeting and the consummation, the\nmeeting, the clasp, the close embrace, the neutrality, the\nperfect, swooning consummation, the timeless ecstasy. There his\nsoul remained, at the apex of the arch, clinched in the timeless\necstasy, consummated.\n\nAnd there was no time nor life nor death, but only this, this\ntimeless consummation, where the thrust from earth met the\nthrust from earth and the arch was locked on the keystone of\necstasy. This was all, this was everything. Till he came to\nhimself in the world below. Then again he gathered himself\ntogether, in transit, every jet of him strained and leaped,\nleaped clear into the darkness above, to the fecundity and the\nunique mystery, to the touch, the clasp, the consummation, the\nclimax of eternity, the apex of the arch.\n\nShe too was overcome, but silenced rather than tuned to the\nplace. She loved it as a world not quite her own, she resented\nhis transports and ecstasies. His passion in the cathedral at\nfirst awed her, then made her angry. After all, there was the\nsky outside, and in here, in this mysterious half-night, when\nhis soul leapt with the pillars upwards, it was not to the stars\nand the crystalline dark space, but to meet and clasp with the\nanswering impulse of leaping stone, there in the dusk and\nsecrecy of the roof. The far-off clinching and mating of the\narches, the leap and thrust of the stone, carrying a great roof\noverhead, awed and silenced her.\n\nBut yet--yet she remembered that the open sky was no\nblue vault, no dark dome hung with many twinkling lamps, but a\nspace where stars were wheeling in freedom, with freedom above\nthem always higher.\n\nThe cathedral roused her too. But she would never consent to\nthe knitting of all the leaping stone in a great roof that\nclosed her in, and beyond which was nothing, nothing, it was the\nultimate confine. His soul would have liked it to be so: here,\nhere is all, complete, eternal: motion, meeting, ecstasy, and no\nillusion of time, of night and day passing by, but only\nperfectly proportioned space and movement clinching and\nrenewing, and passion surging its way into great waves to the\naltar, recurrence of ecstasy.\n\nHer soul too was carried forward to the altar, to the\nthreshold of Eternity, in reverence and fear and joy. But ever\nshe hung back in the transit, mistrusting the culmination of the\naltar. She was not to be flung forward on the lift and lift of\npassionate flights, to be cast at last upon the altar steps as\nupon the shore of the unknown. There was a great joy and a\nverity in it. But even in the dazed swoon of the cathedral, she\nclaimed another right. The altar was barren, its lights gone\nout. God burned no more in that bush. It was dead matter lying\nthere. She claimed the right to freedom above her, higher than\nthe roof. She had always a sense of being roofed in.\n\nSo that she caught at little things, which saved her from\nbeing swept forward headlong in the tide of passion that leaps\non into the Infinite in a great mass, triumphant and flinging\nits own course. She wanted to get out of this fixed, leaping,\nforward-travelling movement, to rise from it as a bird rises\nwith wet, limp feet from the sea, to lift herself as a bird\nlifts its breast and thrusts its body from the pulse and heave\nof a sea that bears it forward to an unwilling conclusion, tear\nherself away like a bird on wings, and in open space where there\nis clarity, rise up above the fixed, surcharged motion, a\nseparate speck that hangs suspended, moves this way and that,\nseeing and answering before it sinks again, having chosen or\nfound the direction in which it shall be carried forward.\n\nAnd it was as if she must grasp at something, as if her wings\nwere too weak to lift her straight off the heaving motion. So\nshe caught sight of the wicked, odd little faces carved in\nstone, and she stood before them arrested.\n\nThese sly little faces peeped out of the grand tide of the\ncathedral like something that knew better. They knew quite well,\nthese little imps that retorted on man's own illusion, that the\ncathedral was not absolute. They winked and leered, giving\nsuggestion of the many things that had been left out of the\ngreat concept of the church. \"However much there is inside here,\nthere's a good deal they haven't got in,\" the little faces\nmocked.\n\nApart from the lift and spring of the great impulse towards\nthe altar, these little faces had separate wills, separate\nmotions, separate knowledge, which rippled back in defiance of\nthe tide, and laughed in triumph of their own very\nlittleness.\n\n\"Oh, look!\" cried Anna. \"Oh, look how adorable, the faces!\nLook at her.\"\n\nBrangwen looked unwillingly. This was the voice of the\nserpent in his Eden. She pointed him to a plump, sly, malicious\nlittle face carved in stone.\n\n\"He knew her, the man who carved her,\" said Anna. \"I'm sure\nshe was his wife.\"\n\n\"It isn't a woman at all, it's a man,\" said Brangwen\ncurtly.\n\n\"Do you think so?--No! That isn't a man. That is no\nman's face.\"\n\nHer voice sounded rather jeering. He laughed shortly, and\nwent on. But she would not go forward with him. She loitered\nabout the carvings. And he could not go forward without her. He\nwaited impatient of this counteraction. She was spoiling his\npassionate intercourse with the cathedral. His brows began to\ngather.\n\n\"Oh, this is good!\" she cried again. \"Here is the same\nwoman--look!--only he's made her cross! Isn't it\nlovely! Hasn't he made her hideous to a degree?\" She laughed\nwith pleasure. \"Didn't he hate her? He must have been a nice\nman! Look at her--isn't it awfully good--just like a\nshrewish woman. He must have enjoyed putting her in like that.\nHe got his own back on her, didn't he?\"\n\n\"It's a man's face, no woman's at all--a\nmonk's--clean shaven,\" he said.\n\nShe laughed with a pouf! of laughter.\n\n\"You hate to think he put his wife in your cathedral, don't\nyou?\" she mocked, with a tinkle of profane laughter. And she\nlaughed with malicious triumph.\n\nShe had got free from the cathedral, she had even destroyed\nthe passion he had. She was glad. He was bitterly angry. Strive\nas he would, he could not keep the cathedral wonderful to him.\nHe was disillusioned. That which had been his absolute,\ncontaining all heaven and earth, was become to him as to her, a\nshapely heap of dead matter--but dead, dead.\n\nHis mouth was full of ash, his soul was furious. He hated her\nfor having destroyed another of his vital illusions. Soon he\nwould be stark, stark, without one place wherein to stand,\nwithout one belief in which to rest.\n\nYet somewhere in him he responded more deeply to the sly\nlittle face that knew better, than he had done before to the\nperfect surge of his cathedral.\n\nNevertheless for the time being his soul was wretched and\nhomeless, and he could not bear to think of Anna's ousting him\nfrom his beloved realities. He wanted his cathedral; he wanted\nto satisfy his blind passion. And he could not any more.\nSomething intervened.\n\nThey went home again, both of them altered. She had some new\nreverence for that which he wanted, he felt that his cathedrals\nwould never again be to him as they had been. Before, he had\nthought them absolute. But now he saw them crouching under the\nsky, with still the dark, mysterious world of reality inside,\nbut as a world within a world, a sort of side show, whereas\nbefore they had been as a world to him within a chaos: a\nreality, an order, an absolute, within a meaningless\nconfusion.\n\nHe had felt, before, that could he but go through the great\ndoor and look down the gloom towards the far-off, concluding\nwonder of the altar, that then, with the windows suspended\naround like tablets of jewels, emanating their own glory, then\nhe had arrived. Here the satisfaction he had yearned after came\nnear, towards this, the porch of the great Unknown, all reality\ngathered, and there, the altar was the mystic door, through\nwhich all and everything must move on to eternity.\n\nBut now, somehow, sadly and disillusioned, he realized that\nthe doorway was no doorway. It was too narrow, it was false.\nOutside the cathedral were many flying spirits that could never\nbe sifted through the jewelled gloom. He had lost his\nabsolute.\n\nHe listened to the thrushes in the gardens and heard a note\nwhich the cathedrals did not include: something free and\ncareless and joyous. He crossed a field that was all yellow with\ndandelions, on his way to work, and the bath of yellow glowing\nwas something at once so sumptuous and so fresh, that he was\nglad he was away from his shadowy cathedral.\n\nThere was life outside the Church. There was much that the\nChurch did not include. He thought of God, and of the whole blue\nrotunda of the day. That was something great and free. He\nthought of the ruins of the Grecian worship, and it seemed, a\ntemple was never perfectly a temple, till it was ruined and\nmixed up with the winds and the sky and the herbs.\n\nStill he loved the Church. As a symbol, he loved it. He\ntended it for what it tried to represent, rather than for that\nwhich it did represent. Still he loved it. The little church\nacross his garden-wall drew him, he gave it loving attention.\nBut he went to take charge of it, to preserve it. It was as an\nold, sacred thing to him. He looked after the stone and\nwoodwork, mending the organ and restoring a piece of broken\ncarving, repairing the church furniture. Later, he became\nchoir-master also.\n\nHis life was shifting its centre, becoming more superficial.\nHe had failed to become really articulate, failed to find real\nexpression. He had to continue in the old form. But in spirit,\nhe was uncreated.\n\nAnna was absorbed in the child now, she left her husband to\ntake his own way. She was willing now to postpone all adventure\ninto unknown realities. She had the child, her palpable and\nimmediate future was the child. If her soul had found no\nutterance, her womb had.\n\nThe church that neighboured with his house became very\nintimate and dear to him. He cherished it, he had it entirely in\nhis charge. If he could find no new activity, he would be happy\ncherishing the old, dear form of worship. He knew this little,\nwhitewashed church. In its shadowy atmosphere he sank back into\nbeing. He liked to sink himself in its hush as a stone sinks\ninto water.\n\nHe went across his garden, mounted the wall by the little\nsteps, and entered the hush and peace of the church. As the\nheavy door clanged to behind him, his feet re-echoed in the\naisle, his heart re-echoed with a little passion of tenderness\nand mystic peace. He was also slightly ashamed, like a man who\nhas failed, who lapses back for his fulfilment.\n\nHe loved to light the candles at the organ, and sitting there\nalone in the little glow, practice the hymns and chants for the\nservice. The whitewashed arches retreated into darkness, the\nsound of the organ and the organ-pedals died away upon the\nunalterable stillness of the church, there were faint, ghostly\nnoises in the tower, and then the music swelled out again,\nloudly, triumphantly.\n\nHe ceased to fret about his life. He relaxed his will, and\nlet everything go. What was between him and his wife was a great\nthing, if it was not everything. She had conquered, really. Let\nhim wait, and abide, wait and abide. She and the baby and\nhimself, they were one. The organ rang out his protestation. His\nsoul lay in the darkness as he pressed the keys of the\norgan.\n\nTo Anna, the baby was a complete bliss and fulfilment. Her\ndesires sank into abeyance, her soul was in bliss over the baby.\nIt was rather a delicate child, she had trouble to rear it. She\nnever for a moment thought it would die. It was a delicate\ninfant, therefore it behoved her to make it strong. She threw\nherself into the labour, the child was everything. Her\nimagination was all occupied here. She was a mother. It was\nenough to handle the new little limbs, the new little body, hear\nthe new little voice crying in the stillness. All the future\nrang to her out of the sound of the baby's crying and cooing,\nshe balanced the coming years of life in her hands, as she\nnursed the child. The passionate sense of fulfilment, of the\nfuture germinated in her, made her vivid and powerful. All the\nfuture was in her hands, in the hands of the woman. And before\nthis baby was ten months old, she was again with child. She\nseemed to be in the fecund of storm life, every moment was full\nand busy with productiveness to her. She felt like the earth,\nthe mother of everything.\n\nBrangwen occupied himself with the church, he played the\norgan, he trained the choir-boys, he taught a Sunday-school\nclass of youths. He was happy enough. There was an eager,\nyearning kind of happiness in him as he taught the boys on\nSundays. He was all the time exciting himself with the proximity\nof some secret that he had not yet fathomed.\n\nIn the house, he served his wife and the little matriarchy.\nShe loved him because he was the father of her children. And she\nalways had a physical passion for him. So he gave up trying to\nhave the spiritual superiority and control, or even her respect\nfor his conscious or public life. He lived simply by her\nphysical love for him. And he served the little matriarchy,\nnursing the child and helping with the housework, indifferent\nany more of his own dignity and importance. But his abandoning\nof claims, his living isolated upon his own interest, made him\nseem unreal, unimportant.\n\nAnna was not publicly proud of him. But very soon she learned\nto be indifferent to public life. He was not what is called a\nmanly man: he did not drink or smoke or arrogate importance. But\nhe was her man, and his very indifference to all claims of\nmanliness set her supreme in her own world with him. Physically,\nshe loved him and he satisfied her. He went alone and subsidiary\nalways. At first it had irritated her, the outer world existed\nso little to him. Looking at him with outside eyes, she was\ninclined to sneer at him. But her sneer changed to a sort of\nrespect. She respected him, that he could serve her so simply\nand completely. Above all, she loved to bear his children. She\nloved to be the source of children.\n\nShe could not understand him, his strange, dark rages and his\ndevotion to the church. It was the church building he cared for;\nand yet his soul was passionate for something. He laboured\ncleaning the stonework, repairing the woodwork, restoring the\norgan, and making the singing as perfect as possible. To keep\nthe church fabric and the church-ritual intact was his business;\nto have the intimate sacred building utterly in his own hands,\nand to make the form of service complete. There was a little\nbright anguish and tension on his face, and in his intent\nmovements. He was like a lover who knows he is betrayed, but who\nstill loves, whose love is only the more intense. The church was\nfalse, but he served it the more attentively.\n\nDuring the day, at his work in the office, he kept himself\nsuspended. He did not exist. He worked automatically till it was\ntime to go home.\n\nHe loved with a hot heart the dark-haired little Ursula, and\nhe waited for the child to come to consciousness. Now the mother\nmonopolized the baby. But his heart waited in its darkness. His\nhour would come.\n\nIn the long run, he learned to submit to Anna. She forced him\nto the spirit of her laws, whilst leaving him the letter of his\nown. She combated in him his devils. She suffered very much from\nhis inexplicable and incalculable dark rages, when a blackness\nfilled him, and a black wind seemed to sweep out of existence\neverything that had to do with him. She could feel herself,\neverything, being annihilated by him.\n\nAt first she fought him. At night, in this state, he would\nkneel down to say his prayers. She looked at his crouching\nfigure.\n\n\"Why are you kneeling there, pretending to pray?\" she said,\nharshly. \"Do you think anybody can pray, when they are in the\nvile temper you are in?\"\n\nHe remained crouching by the beside, motionless.\n\n\"It's horrible,\" she continued, \"and such a pretence! What do\nyou pretend you are saying? Who do you pretend you are praying\nto?\"\n\nHe still remained motionless, seething with inchoate rage,\nwhen his whole nature seemed to disintegrate. He seemed to live\nwith a strain upon himself, and occasionally came these dark,\nchaotic rages, the lust for destruction. She then fought with\nhim, and their fights were horrible, murderous. And then the\npassion between them came just as black and awful.\n\nBut little by little, as she learned to love him better, she\nwould put herself aside, and when she felt one of his fits upon\nhim, would ignore him, successfully leave him in his world,\nwhilst she remained in her own. He had a black struggle with\nhimself, to come back to her. For at last he learned that he\nwould be in hell until he came back to her. So he struggled to\nsubmit to her, and she was afraid of the ugly strain in his\neyes. She made love to him, and took him. Then he was grateful\nto her love, humble.\n\nHe made himself a woodwork shed, in which to restore things\nwhich were destroyed in the church. So he had plenty to do: his\nwife, his child, the church, the woodwork, and his wage-earning,\nall occupying him. If only there were not some limit to him,\nsome darkness across his eyes! He had to give in to it at last\nhimself. He must submit to his own inadequacy, aware of some\nlimit to himself, of [something unformed in] his own black,\nviolent temper, and to reckon with it. But as she was more gentle\nwith him, it became quieter.\n\nAs he sat sometimes very still, with a bright, vacant face,\nAnna could see the suffering among the brightness. He was aware\nof some limit to himself, of something unformed in his very\nbeing, of some buds which were not ripe in him, some folded\ncentres of darkness which would never develop and unfold whilst\nhe was alive in the body. He was unready for fulfilment.\nSomething undeveloped in him limited him, there was a darkness\nin him which he could not unfold, which would never\nunfold in him.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE CHILD\n\nFrom the first, the baby stirred in the young father a\ndeep, strong emotion he dared scarcely acknowledge, it was so\nstrong and came out of the dark of him. When he heard the child\ncry, a terror possessed him, because of the answering echo from\nthe unfathomed distances in himself. Must he know in himself\nsuch distances, perilous and imminent?\n\nHe had the infant in his arms, he walked backwards and\nforwards troubled by the crying of his own flesh and blood. This\nwas his own flesh and blood crying! His soul rose against the\nvoice suddenly breaking out from him, from the distances in\nhim.\n\nSometimes in the night, the child cried and cried, when the\nnight was heavy and sleep oppressed him. And half asleep, he\nstretched out his hand to put it over the baby's face to stop\nthe crying. But something arrested his hand: the very\ninhumanness of the intolerable, continuous crying arrested him.\nIt was so impersonal, without cause or object. Yet he echoed to\nit directly, his soul answered its madness. It filled him with\nterror, almost with frenzy.\n\nHe learned to acquiesce to this, to submit to the awful,\nobliterated sources which were the origin of his living tissue.\nHe was not what he conceived himself to be! Then he was what he\nwas, unknown, potent, dark.\n\nHe became accustomed to the child, he knew how to lift and\nbalance the little body. The baby had a beautiful, rounded head\nthat moved him passionately. He would have fought to the last\ndrop to defend that exquisite, perfect round head.\n\nHe learned to know the little hands and feet, the strange,\nunseeing, golden-brown eyes, the mouth that opened only to cry,\nor to suck, or to show a queer, toothless laugh. He could almost\nunderstand even the dangling legs, which at first had created in\nhim a feeling of aversion. They could kick in their queer little\nway, they had their own softness.\n\nOne evening, suddenly, he saw the tiny, living thing rolling\nnaked in the mother's lap, and he was sick, it was so utterly\nhelpless and vulnerable and extraneous; in a world of hard\nsurfaces and varying altitudes, it lay vulnerable and naked at\nevery point. Yet it was quite blithe. And yet, in its blind,\nawful crying, was there not the blind, far-off terror of its own\nvulnerable nakedness, the terror of being so utterly delivered\nover, helpless at every point. He could not bear to hear it\ncrying. His heart strained and stood on guard against the whole\nuniverse.\n\nBut he waited for the dread of these days to pass; he saw the\njoy coming. He saw the lovely, creamy, cool little ear of the\nbaby, a bit of dark hair rubbed to a bronze floss, like\nbronze-dust. And he waited, for the child to become his, to look\nat him and answer him.\n\nIt had a separate being, but it was his own child. His flesh\nand blood vibrated to it. He caught the baby to his breast with\nhis passionate, clapping laugh. And the infant knew him.\n\nAs the newly-opened, newly-dawned eyes looked at him, he\nwanted them to perceive him, to recognize him. Then he was\nverified. The child knew him, a queer contortion of laughter\ncame on its face for him. He caught it to his breast, clapping\nwith a triumphant laugh.\n\nThe golden-brown eyes of the child gradually lit up and\ndilated at the sight of the dark-glowing face of the youth. It\nknew its mother better, it wanted its mother more. But the\nbrightest, sharpest little ecstasy was for the father.\n\nIt began to be strong, to move vigorously and freely, to make\nsounds like words. It was a baby girl now. Already it knew his\nstrong hands, it exulted in his strong clasp, it laughed and\ncrowed when he played with it.\n\nAnd his heart grew red--hot with passionate feeling for\nthe child. She was not much more than a year old when the second\nbaby was born. Then he took Ursula for his own. She his first\nlittle girl. He had set his heart on her.\n\nThe second had dark blue eyes and a fair skin: it was more a\nBrangwen, people said. The hair was fair. But they forgot Anna's\nstiff blonde fleece of childhood. They called the newcomer\nGudrun.\n\nThis time, Anna was stronger, and not so eager. She did not\nmind that the baby was not a boy. It was enough that she had\nmilk and could suckle her child: Oh, oh, the bliss of the little\nlife sucking the milk of her body! Oh, oh, oh the bliss, as the\ninfant grew stronger, of the two tiny hands clutching, catching\nblindly yet passionately at her breast, of the tiny mouth\nseeking her in blind, sure, vital knowledge, of the sudden\nconsummate peace as the little body sank, the mouth and throat\nsucking, sucking, sucking, drinking life from her to make a new\nlife, almost sobbing with passionate joy of receiving its own\nexistence, the tiny hands clutching frantically as the nipple\nwas drawn back, not to be gainsaid. This was enough for Anna.\nShe seemed to pass off into a kind of rapture of motherhood, her\nrapture of motherhood was everything.\n\nSo that the father had the elder baby, the weaned child, the\ngolden-brown, wondering vivid eyes of the little Ursula were for\nhim, who had waited behind the mother till the need was for him.\nThe mother felt a sharp stab of jealousy. But she was still more\nabsorbed in the tiny baby. It was entirely hers, its need was\ndirect upon her.\n\nSo Ursula became the child of her father's heart. She was the\nlittle blossom, he was the sun. He was patient, energetic,\ninventive for her. He taught her all the funny little things, he\nfilled her and roused her to her fullest tiny measure. She\nanswered him with her extravagant infant's laughter and her call\nof delight.\n\nNow there were two babies, a woman came in to do the\nhousework. Anna was wholly nurse. Two babies were not too much\nfor her. But she hated any form of work, now her children had\ncome, except the charge of them.\n\nWhen Ursula toddled about, she was an absorbed, busy child,\nalways amusing herself, needing not much attention from other\npeople. At evening, towards six o'clock, Anna very often went\nacross the lane to the stile, lifted Ursula over into the field,\nwith a: \"Go and meet Daddy.\" Then Brangwen, coming up the steep\nround of the hill, would see before him on the brow of the path\na tiny, tottering, windblown little mite with a dark head, who,\nas soon as she saw him, would come running in tiny, wild,\nwindmill fashion, lifting her arms up and down to him, down the\nsteep hill. His heart leapt up, he ran his fastest to her, to\ncatch her, because he knew she would fall. She came fluttering\non, wildly, with her little limbs flying. And he was glad when\nhe caught her up in his arms. Once she fell as she came flying\nto him, he saw her pitch forward suddenly as she was running\nwith her hands lifted to him; and when he picked her up, her\nmouth was bleeding. He could never bear to think of it, he\nalways wanted to cry, even when he was an old man and she had\nbecome a stranger to him. How he loved that little\nUrsula!--his heart had been sharply seared for her, when he\nwas a youth, first married.\n\nWhen she was a little older, he would see her recklessly\nclimbing over the bars of the stile, in her red pinafore,\nswinging in peril and tumbling over, picking herself up and\nflitting towards him. Sometimes she liked to ride on his\nshoulder, sometimes she preferred to walk with his hand,\nsometimes she would fling her arms round his legs for a moment,\nthen race free again, whilst he went shouting and calling to\nher, a child along with her. He was still only a tall, thin,\nunsettled lad of twenty-two.\n\nIt was he who had made her her cradle, her little chair, her\nlittle stool, her high chair. It was he who would swing her up\nto table or who would make for her a doll out of an old\ntable-leg, whilst she watched him, saying:\n\n\"Make her eyes, Daddy, make her eyes!\"\n\nAnd he made her eyes with his knife.\n\nShe was very fond of adorning herself, so he would tie a\npiece of cotton round her ear, and hang a blue bead on it\nunderneath for an ear-ring. The ear-rings varied with a red\nbead, and a golden bead, and a little pearl bead. And as he came\nhome at night, seeing her bridling and looking very\nself-conscious, he took notice and said:\n\n\"So you're wearing your best golden and pearl ear-rings,\nto-day?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I suppose you've been to see the queen?\"\n\n\"Yes, I have.\"\n\n\"Oh, and what had she to say?\"\n\n\"She said--she said--'You won't dirty your nice\nwhite frock.\"'\n\nHe gave her the nicest bits from his plate, putting them into\nher red, moist mouth. And he would make on a piece of\nbread-and-butter a bird, out of jam: which she ate with\nextraordinary relish.\n\nAfter the tea-things were washed up, the woman went away,\nleaving the family free. Usually Brangwen helped in the bathing\nof the children. He held long discussions with his child as she\nsat on his knee and he unfastened her clothes. And he seemed to\nbe talking really of momentous things, deep moralities. Then\nsuddenly she ceased to hear, having caught sight of a glassie\nrolled into a corner. She slipped away, and was in no hurry to\nreturn.\n\n\"Come back here,\" he said, waiting. She became absorbed,\ntaking no notice.\n\n\"Come on,\" he repeated, with a touch of command.\n\nAn excited little chuckle came from her, but she pretended to\nbe absorbed.\n\n\"Do you hear, Milady?\"\n\nShe turned with a fleeting, exulting laugh. He rushed on her,\nand swept her up.\n\n\"Who was it that didn't come!\" he said, rolling her between\nhis strong hands, tickling her. And she laughed heartily,\nheartily. She loved him that he compelled her with his strength\nand decision. He was all-powerful, the tower of strength which\nrose out of her sight.\n\nWhen the children were in bed, sometimes Anna and he sat and\ntalked, desultorily, both of them idle. He read very little.\nAnything he was drawn to read became a burning reality to him,\nanother scene outside his window. Whereas Anna skimmed through a\nbook to see what happened, then she had enough.\n\nTherefore they would often sit together, talking desultorily.\nWhat was really between them they could not utter. Their words\nwere only accidents in the mutual silence. When they talked,\nthey gossiped. She did not care for sewing.\n\nShe had a beautiful way of sitting musing, gratefully, as if\nher heart were lit up. Sometimes she would turn to him,\nlaughing, to tell him some little thing that had happened during\nthe day. Then he would laugh, they would talk awhile, before the\nvital, physical silence was between them again.\n\nShe was thin but full of colour and life. She was perfectly\nhappy to do just nothing, only to sit with a curious, languid\ndignity, so careless as to be almost regal, so utterly\nindifferent, so confident. The bond between them was\nundefinable, but very strong. It kept everyone else at a\ndistance.\n\nHis face never changed whilst she knew him, it only became\nmore intense. It was ruddy and dark in its abstraction, not very\nhuman, it had a strong, intent brightness. Sometimes, when his\neyes met hers, a yellow flash from them caused a darkness to\nswoon over her consciousness, electric, and a slight strange\nlaugh came on his face. Her eyes would turn languidly, then\nclose, as if hypnotized. And they lapsed into the same potent\ndarkness. He had the quality of a young black cat, intent,\nunnoticeable, and yet his presence gradually made itself felt,\nstealthily and powerfully took hold of her. He called, not to\nher, but to something in her, which responded subtly, out of her\nunconscious darkness.\n\nSo they were together in a darkness, passionate, electric,\nfor ever haunting the back of the common day, never in the\nlight. In the light, he seemed to sleep, unknowing. Only she\nknew him when the darkness set him free, and he could see with\nhis gold-glowing eyes his intention and his desires in the dark.\nThen she was in a spell, then she answered his harsh,\npenetrating call with a soft leap of her soul, the darkness woke\nup, electric, bristling with an unknown, overwhelming\ninsinuation.\n\nBy now they knew each other; she was the daytime, the\ndaylight, he was the shadow, put aside, but in the darkness\npotent with an overwhelming voluptuousness.\n\nShe learned not to dread and to hate him, but to fill herself\nwith him, to give herself to his black, sensual power, that was\nhidden all the daytime. And the curious rolling of the eyes, as\nif she were lapsing in a trance away from her ordinary\nconsciousness became habitual with her, when something\nthreatened and opposed her in life, the conscious life.\n\nSo they remained as separate in the light, and in the thick\ndarkness, married. He supported her daytime authority, kept it\ninviolable at last. And she, in all the darkness, belonged to\nhim, to his close, insinuating, hypnotic familiarity.\n\nAll his daytime activity, all his public life, was a kind of\nsleep. She wanted to be free, to belong to the day. And he ran\navoiding the day in work. After tea, he went to the shed to his\ncarpentry or his woodcarving. He was restoring the patched,\ndegraded pulpit to its original form.\n\nBut he loved to have the child near him, playing by his feet.\nShe was a piece of light that really belonged to him, that\nplayed within his darkness. He left the shed door on the latch.\nAnd when, with his second sense of another presence, he knew she\nwas coming, he was satisfied, he was at rest. When he was alone\nwith her, he did not want to take notice, to talk. He wanted to\nlive unthinking, with her presence flickering upon him.\n\nHe always went in silence. The child would push open the shed\ndoor, and see him working by lamplight, his sleeves rolled back.\nHis clothes hung about him, carelessly, like mere wrapping.\nInside, his body was concentrated with a flexible, charged power\nall of its own, isolated. From when she was a tiny child Ursula\ncould remember his forearm, with its fine black hairs and its\nelectric flexibility, working at the bench through swift,\nunnoticeable movements, always ambushed in a sort of\nsilence.\n\nShe hung a moment in the door of the shed, waiting for him to\nnotice her. He turned, his black, curved eyebrows arching\nslightly.\n\n\"Hullo, Twittermiss!\"\n\nAnd he closed the door behind her. Then the child was happy\nin the shed that smelled of sweet wood and resounded to the\nnoise of the plane or the hammer or the saw, yet was charged\nwith the silence of the worker. She played on, intent and\nabsorbed, among the shavings and the little nogs of wood. She\nnever touched him: his feet and legs were near, she did not\napproach them.\n\nShe liked to flit out after him when he was going to church\nat night. If he were going to be alone, he swung her over the\nwall, and let her come.\n\nAgain she was transported when the door was shut behind them,\nand they two inherited the big, pale, void place. She would\nwatch him as he lit the organ candles, wait whilst he began his\npracticing his tunes, then she ran foraging here and there, like\na kitten playing by herself in the darkness with eyes dilated.\nThe ropes hung vaguely, twining on the floor, from the bells in\nthe tower, and Ursula always wanted the fluffy, red-and-white,\nor blue-and-white rope-grips. But they were above her.\n\nSometimes her mother came to claim her. Then the child was\nseized with resentment. She passionately resented her mother's\nsuperficial authority. She wanted to assert her own\ndetachment.\n\nHe, however, also gave her occasional cruel shocks. He let\nher play about in the church, she rifled foot-stools and\nhymn-books and cushions, like a bee among flowers, whilst the\norgan echoed away. This continued for some weeks. Then the\ncharwoman worked herself up into a frenzy of rage, to dare to\nattack Brangwen, and one day descended on him like a harpy. He\nwilted away, and wanted to break the old beast's neck.\n\nInstead he came glowering in fury to the house, and turned on\nUrsula.\n\n\"Why, you tiresome little monkey, can't you even come to\nchurch without pulling the place to bits?\"\n\nHis voice was harsh and cat-like, he was blind to the child.\nShe shrank away in childish anguish and dread. What was it, what\nawful thing was it?\n\nThe mother turned with her calm, almost superb manner.\n\n\"What has she done, then?\"\n\n\"Done? She shall go in the church no more, pulling and\nlittering and destroying.\"\n\nThe wife slowly rolled her eyes and lowered her eyelids.\n\n\"What has she destroyed, then?\"\n\nHe did not know.\n\n\"I've just had Mrs. Wilkinson at me,\" he cried, \"with a list\nof things she's done.\"\n\nUrsula withered under the contempt and anger of the \"she\", as\nhe spoke of her.\n\n\"Send Mrs. Wilkinson here to me with a list of the things\nshe's done,\" said Anna. \"I am the one to hear that.\"\n\n\"It's not the things the child has done,\" continued the\nmother, \"that have put you out so much, it's because you can't\nbear being spoken to by that old woman. But you haven't the\ncourage to turn on her when she attacks you, you bring your rage\nhere.\"\n\nHe relapsed into silence. Ursula knew that he was wrong. In\nthe outside, upper world, he was wrong. Already came over the\nchild the cold sense of the impersonal world. There she knew her\nmother was right. But still her heart clamoured after her\nfather, for him to be right, in his dark, sensuous underworld.\nBut he was angry, and went his way in blackness and brutal\nsilence again.\n\nThe child ran about absorbed in life, quiet, full of\namusement. She did not notice things, nor changes nor\nalterations. One day she would find daisies in the grass,\nanother day, apple-blossoms would be sprinkled white on the\nground, and she would run among it, for pleasure because it was\nthere. Yet again birds would be pecking at the cherries, her\nfather would throw cherries down from the tree all round her on\nthe garden. Then the fields were full of hay.\n\nShe did not remember what had been nor what would be, the\noutside things were there each day. She was always herself, the\nworld outside was accidental. Even her mother was accidental to\nher: a condition that happened to endure.\n\nOnly her father occupied any permanent position in the\nchildish consciousness. When he came back she remembered vaguely\nhow he had gone away, when he went away she knew vaguely that\nshe must wait for his coming back. Whereas her mother, returning\nfrom an outing, merely became present, there was no reason for\nconnecting her with some previous departure.\n\nThe return or the departure of the father was the one event\nwhich the child remembered. When he came, something woke up in\nher, some yearning. She knew when he was out of joint or\nirritable or tired: then she was uneasy, she could not rest.\n\nWhen he was in the house, the child felt full and warm, rich\nlike a creature in the sunshine. When he was gone, she was\nvague, forgetful. When he scolded her even, she was often more\naware of him than of herself. He was her strength and her\ngreater self.\n\nUrsula was three years old when another baby girl was born.\nThen the two small sisters were much together, Gudrun and\nUrsula. Gudrun was a quiet child who played for hours alone,\nabsorbed in her fancies. She was brown-haired, fair-skinned,\nstrangely placid, almost passive. Yet her will was indomitable,\nonce set. From the first she followed Ursula's lead. Yet she was\na thing to herself, so that to watch the two together was\nstrange. They were like two young animals playing together but\nnot taking real notice of each other. Gudrun was the mother's\nfavourite--except that Anna always lived in her latest\nbaby.\n\nThe burden of so many lives depending on him wore the youth\ndown. He had his work in the office, which was done purely by\neffort of will: he had his barren passion for the church; he had\nthree young children. Also at this time his health was not good.\nSo he was haggard and irritable, often a pest in the house. Then\nhe was told to go to his woodwork, or to the church.\n\nBetween him and the little Ursula there came into being a\nstrange alliance. They were aware of each other. He knew the\nchild was always on his side. But in his consciousness he\ncounted it for nothing. She was always for him. He took it for\ngranted. Yet his life was based on her, even whilst she was a\ntiny child, on her support and her accord.\n\nAnna continued in her violent trance of motherhood, always\nbusy, often harassed, but always contained in her trance of\nmotherhood. She seemed to exist in her own violent fruitfulness,\nand it was as if the sun shone tropically on her. Her colour was\nbright, her eyes full of a fecund gloom, her brown hair tumbled\nloosely over her ears. She had a look of richness. No\nresponsibility, no sense of duty troubled her. The outside,\npublic life was less than nothing to her, really.\n\nWhereas when, at twenty-six, he found himself father of four\nchildren, with a wife who lived intrinsically like the ruddiest\nlilies of the field, he let the weight of responsibility press\non him and drag him. It was then that his child Ursula strove to\nbe with him. She was with him, even as a baby of four, when he\nwas irritable and shouted and made the household unhappy. She\nsuffered from his shouting, but somehow it was not really him.\nShe wanted it to be over, she wanted to resume her normal\nconnection with him. When he was disagreeable, the child echoed\nto the crying of some need in him, and she responded blindly.\nHer heart followed him as if he had some tie with her, and some\nlove which he could not deliver. Her heart followed him\npersistently, in its love.\n\nBut there was the dim, childish sense of her own smallness\nand inadequacy, a fatal sense of worthlessness. She could not do\nanything, she was not enough. She could not be important to him.\nThis knowledge deadened her from the first.\n\nStill she set towards him like a quivering needle. All her\nlife was directed by her awareness of him, her wakefulness to\nhis being. And she was against her mother.\n\nHer father was the dawn wherein her consciousness woke up.\nBut for him, she might have gone on like the other children,\nGudrun and Theresa and Catherine, one with the flowers and\ninsects and playthings, having no existence apart from the\nconcrete object of her attention. But her father came too near\nto her. The clasp of his hands and the power of his breast woke\nher up almost in pain from the transient unconsciousness of\nchildhood. Wide-eyed, unseeing, she was awake before she knew\nhow to see. She was wakened too soon. Too soon the call had come\nto her, when she was a small baby, and her father held her close\nto his breast, her sleep-living heart was beaten into\nwakefulness by the striving of his bigger heart, by his clasping\nher to his body for love and for fulfilment, asking as a magnet\nmust always ask. From her the response had struggled dimly,\nvaguely into being.\n\nThe children were dressed roughly for the country. When she\nwas little, Ursula pattered about in little wooden clogs, a blue\noverall over her thick red dress, a red shawl crossed on her\nbreast and tied behind again. So she ran with her father to the\ngarden.\n\nThe household rose early. He was out digging by six o'clock\nin the morning, he went to his work at half-past eight. And\nUrsula was usually in the garden with him, though not near at\nhand.\n\nAt Eastertime one year, she helped him to set potatoes. It\nwas the first time she had ever helped him. The occasion\nremained as a picture, one of her earliest memories. They had\ngone out soon after dawn. A cold wind was blowing. He had his\nold trousers tucked into his boots, he wore no coat nor\nwaistcoat, his shirt-sleeves fluttered in the wind, his face was\nruddy and intent, in a kind of sleep. When he was at work he\nneither heard nor saw. A long, thin man, looking still a youth,\nwith a line of black moustache above his thick mouth, and his\nfine hair blown on his forehead, he worked away at the earth in\nthe grey first light, alone. His solitariness drew the child\nlike a spell.\n\nThe wind came chill over the dark-green fields. Ursula ran up\nand watched him push the setting-peg in at one side of his ready\nearth, stride across, and push it in the other side, pulling the\nline taut and clear upon the clods intervening. Then with a\nsharp cutting noise the bright spade came towards her, cutting a\ngrip into the new, soft earth.\n\nHe struck his spade upright and straightened himself.\n\n\"Do you want to help me?\" he said.\n\nShe looked up at him from out of her little woollen\nbonnet.\n\n\"Ay,\" he said, \"you can put some taters in for me.\nLook--like that--these little sprits standing\nup--so much apart, you see.\"\n\nAnd stooping down he quickly, surely placed the spritted\npotatoes in the soft grip, where they rested separate and\npathetic on the heavy cold earth.\n\nHe gave her a little basket of potatoes, and strode himself\nto the other end of the line. She saw him stooping, working\ntowards her. She was excited, and unused. She put in one potato,\nthen rearranged it, to make it sit nicely. Some of the sprits\nwere broken, and she was afraid. The responsibility excited her\nlike a string tying her up. She could not help looking with\ndread at the string buried under the heaped-back soil. Her\nfather was working nearer, stooping, working nearer. She was\novercome by her responsibility. She put potatoes quickly into\nthe cold earth.\n\nHe came near.\n\n\"Not so close,\" he said, stooping over her potatoes, taking\nsome out and rearranging the others. She stood by with the\npainful terrified helplessness of childhood. He was so unseeing\nand confident, she wanted to do the thing and yet she could not.\nShe stood by looking on, her little blue overall fluttering in\nthe wind, the red woollen ends of her shawl blowing gustily.\nThen he went down the row, relentlessly, turning the potatoes in\nwith his sharp spade-cuts. He took no notice of her, only worked\non. He had another world from hers.\n\nShe stood helplessly stranded on his world. He continued his\nwork. She knew she could not help him. A little bit forlorn, at\nlast she turned away, and ran down the garden, away from him, as\nfast as she could go away from him, to forget him and his\nwork.\n\nHe missed her presence, her face in her red woollen bonnet,\nher blue overall fluttering. She ran to where a little water ran\ntrickling between grass and stones. That she loved.\n\nWhen he came by he said to her:\n\n\"You didn't help me much.\"\n\nThe child looked at him dumbly. Already her heart was heavy\nbecause of her own disappointment. Her mouth was dumb and\npathetic. But he did not notice, he went his way.\n\nAnd she played on, because of her disappointment persisting\neven the more in her play. She dreaded work, because she could\nnot do it as he did it. She was conscious of the great breach\nbetween them. She knew she had no power. The grown-up power to\nwork deliberately was a mystery to her.\n\nHe would smash into her sensitive child's world\ndestructively. Her mother was lenient, careless The children\nplayed about as they would all day. Ursula was\nthoughtless--why should she remember things? If across the\ngarden she saw the hedge had budded, and if she wanted these\ngreeny-pink, tiny buds for bread-and-cheese, to play at teaparty\nwith, over she went for them.\n\nThen suddenly, perhaps the next day, her soul would almost\nstart out of her body as her father turned on her, shouting:\n\n\"Who's been tramplin' an' dancin' across where I've just\nsowed seed? I know it's you, nuisance! Can you find nowhere else\nto walk, but just over my seed beds? But it's like you, that\nis--no heed but to follow your own greedy nose.\"\n\nIt had shocked him in his intent world to see the zigzagging\nlines of deep little foot-prints across his work. The child was\ninfinitely more shocked. Her vulnerable little soul was flayed\nand trampled. Why were the foot-prints there? She had not\nwanted to make them. She stood dazzled with pain and shame and\nunreality.\n\nHer soul, her consciousness seemed to die away. She became\nshut off and senseless, a little fixed creature whose soul had\ngone hard and unresponsive. The sense of her own unreality\nhardened her like a frost. She cared no longer.\n\nAnd the sight of her face, shut and superior with\nself-asserting indifference, made a flame of rage go over him.\nHe wanted to break her.\n\n\"I'll break your obstinate little face,\" he said, through\nshut teeth, lifting his hand.\n\nThe child did not alter in the least. The look of\nindifference, complete glancing indifference, as if nothing but\nherself existed to her, remained fixed.\n\nYet far away in her, the sobs were tearing her soul. And when\nhe had gone, she would go and creep under the parlour sofa, and\nlie clinched in the silent, hidden misery of childhood.\n\nWhen she crawled out, after an hour or so, she went rather\nstiffly to play. She willed to forget. She cut off her childish\nsoul from memory, so that the pain, and the insult should not be\nreal. She asserted herself only. There was not nothing in the\nworld but her own self. So very soon, she came to believe in the\noutward malevolence that was against her. And very early, she\nlearned that even her adored father was part of this\nmalevolence. And very early she learned to harden her soul in\nresistance and denial of all that was outside her, harden\nherself upon her own being.\n\nShe never felt sorry for what she had done, she never forgave\nthose who had made her guilty. If he had said to her, \"Why,\nUrsula, did you trample my carefully-made bed?\" that would have\nhurt her to the quick, and she would have done anything for him.\nBut she was always tormented by the unreality of outside things.\nThe earth was to walk on. Why must she avoid a certain patch,\njust because it was called a seed-bed? It was the earth to walk\non. This was her instinctive assumption. And when he bullied\nher, she became hard, cut herself off from all connection, lived\nin the little separate world of her own violent will.\n\nAs she grew older, five, six, seven, the connection between\nher and her father was even stronger. Yet it was always\nstraining to break. She was always relapsing on her own violent\nwill into her own separate world of herself. This made him grind\nhis teeth with bitterness, for he still wanted her. But she\ncould harden herself into her own self's universe,\nimpregnable.\n\nHe was very fond of swimming, and in warm weather would take\nher down to the canal, to a silent place, or to a big pond or\nreservoir, to bathe. He would take her on his back as he went\nswimming, and she clung close, feeling his strong movement under\nher, so strong, as if it would uphold all the world. Then he\ntaught her to swim.\n\nShe was a fearless little thing, when he dared her. And he\nhad a curious craving to frighten her, to see what she would do\nwith him. He said, would she ride on his back whilst he jumped\noff the canal bridge down into the water beneath.\n\nShe would. He loved to feel the naked child clinging on to\nhis shoulders. There was a curious fight between their two\nwills. He mounted the parapet of the canal bridge. The water was\na long way down. But the child had a deliberate will set upon\nhis. She held herself fixed to him.\n\nHe leapt, and down they went. The crash of the water as they\nwent under struck through the child's small body, with a sort of\nunconsciousness. But she remained fixed. And when they came up\nagain, and when they went to the bank, and when they sat on the\ngrass side by side, he laughed, and said it was fine. And the\ndark-dilated eyes of the child looked at him wonderingly,\ndarkly, wondering from the shock, yet reserved and unfathomable,\nso he laughed almost with a sob.\n\nIn a moment she was clinging safely on his back again, and he\nwas swimming in deep water. She was used to his nakedness, and\nto her mother's nakedness, ever since she was born. They were\nclinging to each other, and making up to each other for the\nstrange blow that had been struck at them. Yet still, on other\ndays, he would leap again with her from the bridge, daringly,\nalmost wickedly. Till at length, as he leapt, once, she dropped\nforward on to his head, and nearly broke his neck, so that they\nfell into the water in a heap, and fought for a few moments with\ndeath. He saved her, and sat on the bank, quivering. But his\neyes were full of the blackness of death. It was as if death had\ncut between their two lives, and separated them.\n\nStill they were not separate. There was this curious taunting\nintimacy between them. When the fair came, she wanted to go in\nthe swing-boats. He took her, and, standing up in the boat,\nholding on to the irons, began to drive higher, perilously\nhigher. The child clung fast on her seat.\n\n\"Do you want to go any higher?\" he said to her, and she\nlaughed with her mouth, her eyes wide and dilated. They were\nrushing through the air.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, feeling as if she would turn into vapour,\nlose hold of everything, and melt away. The boat swung far up,\nthen down like a stone, only to be caught sickeningly up\nagain.\n\n\"Any higher?\" he called, looking at her over his shoulder,\nhis face evil and beautiful to her.\n\nShe laughed with white lips.\n\nHe sent the swing-boat sweeping through the air in a great\nsemi-circle, till it jerked and swayed at the high horizontal.\nThe child clung on, pale, her eyes fixed on him. People below\nwere calling. The jerk at the top had almost shaken them both\nout. He had done what he could--and he was attracting\ncensure. He sat down, and let the swingboat swing itself\nout.\n\nPeople in the crowd cried shame on him as he came out of the\nswingboat. He laughed. The child clung to his hand, pale and\nmute. In a while she was violently sick. He gave her lemonade,\nand she gulped a little.\n\n\"Don't tell your mother you've been sick,\" he said. There was\nno need to ask that. When she got home, the child crept away\nunder the parlour sofa, like a sick little animal, and was a\nlong time before she crawled out.\n\nBut Anna got to know of this escapade, and was passionately\nangry and contemptuous of him. His golden-brown eyes glittered,\nhe had a strange, cruel little smile. And as the child watched\nhim, for the first time in her life a disillusion came over her,\nsomething cold and isolating. She went over to her mother. Her\nsoul was dead towards him. It made her sick.\n\nStill she forgot and continued to love him, but ever more\ncoldly. He was at this time, when he was about twenty-eight\nyears old, strange and violent in his being, sensual. He\nacquired some power over Anna, over everybody he came into\ncontact with.\n\nAfter a long bout of hostility, Anna at last closed with him.\nShe had now four children, all girls. For seven years she had\nbeen absorbed in wifehood and motherhood. For years he had gone\non beside her, never really encroaching upon her. Then gradually\nanother self seemed to assert its being within him. He was still\nsilent and separate. But she could feel him all the while coming\nnear upon her, as if his breast and his body were threatening\nher, and he was always coming closer. Gradually he became\nindifferent of responsibility. He would do what pleased him, and\nno more.\n\nHe began to go away from home. He went to Nottingham on\nSaturdays, always alone, to the football match and to the\nmusic-hall, and all the time he was watching, in readiness. He\nnever cared to drink. But with his hard, golden-brown eyes, so\nkeen seeing with their tiny black pupils, he watched all the\npeople, everything that happened, and he waited.\n\nIn the Empire one evening he sat next to two girls. He was\naware of the one beside him. She was rather small, common, with\na fresh complexion and an upper lip that lifted from her teeth,\nso that, when she was not conscious, her mouth was slightly open\nand her lips pressed outwards in a kind of blind appeal. She was\nstrongly aware of the man next to her, so that all her body was\nstill, very still. Her face watched the stage. Her arms went\ndown into her lap, very self-conscious and still.\n\nA gleam lit up in him: should he begin with her? Should he\nbegin with her to live the other, the unadmitted life of his\ndesire? Why not? He had always been so good. Save for his wife,\nhe was a virgin. And why, when all women were different? Why,\nwhen he would only live once? He wanted the other life. His own\nlife was barren, not enough. He wanted the other.\n\nHer open mouth, showing the small, irregular, white teeth,\nappealed to him. It was open and ready. It was so vulnerable.\nWhy should he not go in and enjoy what was there? The slim arm\nthat went down so still and motionless to the lap, it was\npretty. She would be small, he would be able almost to hold her\nin his two hands. She would be small, almost like a child, and\npretty. Her childishness whetted him keenly. She would he\nhelpless between his hands.\n\n\"That was the best turn we've had,\" he said to her, leaning\nover as he clapped his hands. He felt strong and unshakeable in\nhimself, set over against all the world. His soul was keen and\nwatchful, glittering with a kind of amusement. He was perfectly\nself-contained. He was himself, the absolute, the rest of the\nworld was the object that should contribute to his being.\n\nThe girl started, turned round, her eyes lit up with an\nalmost painful flash of a smile, the colour came deeply in her\ncheeks.\n\n\"Yes, it was,\" she said, quite meaninglessly, and she covered\nher rather prominent teeth with her lips. Then she sat looking\nstraight before her, seeing nothing, only conscious of the\ncolour burning in her cheeks.\n\nIt pricked him with a pleasant sensation. His veins and his\nnerves attended to her, she was so young and palpitating.\n\n\"It's not such a good programme as last week's,\" he said.\n\nAgain she half turned her face to him, and her clear, bright\neyes, bright like shallow water, filled with light, frightened,\nyet involuntarily lighting and shaking with response.\n\n\"Oh, isn't it! I wasn't able to come last week.\"\n\nHe noted the common accent. It pleased him. He knew what\nclass she came of. Probably she was a warehouse-lass. He was\nglad she was a common girl.\n\nHe proceeded to tell her about the last week's programme. She\nanswered at random, very confusedly. The colour burned in her\ncheek. Yet she always answered him. The girl on the other side\nsat remotely, obviously silent. He ignored her. All his address\nwas for his own girl, with her bright, shallow eyes and her\nvulnerably opened mouth.\n\nThe talk went on, meaningless and random on her part, quite\ndeliberate and purposive on his. It was a pleasure to him to\nmake this conversation, an activity pleasant as a fine game of\nchance and skill. He was very quiet and pleasant-humoured, but\nso full of strength. She fluttered beside his steady pressure of\nwarmth and his surety.\n\nHe saw the performance drawing to a close. His senses were\nalert and wilful. He would press his advantages. He followed her\nand her plain friend down the stairs to the street. It was\nraining.\n\n\"It's a nasty night,\" he said. \"Shall you come and have a\ndrink of something--a cup of coffee--it's early\nyet.\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't think so,\" she said, looking away into the\nnight.\n\n\"I wish you would,\" he said, putting himself as it were at\nher mercy. There was a moment's pause.\n\n\"Come to Rollins?\" he said.\n\n\"No--not there.\"\n\n\"To Carson's, then?\"\n\nThere was a silence. The other girl hung on. The man was the\ncentre of positive force.\n\n\"Will your friend come as well?\"\n\nThere was another moment of silence, while the other girl\nfelt her ground.\n\n\"No, thanks,\" she said. \"I've promised to meet a friend.\"\n\n\"Another time, then?\" he said.\n\n\"Oh, thanks,\" she replied, very awkward.\n\n\"Good night,\" he said.\n\n\"See you later,\" said his girl to her friend.\n\n\"Where?\" said the friend.\n\n\"You know, Gertie,\" replied his girl.\n\n\"All right, Jennie.\"\n\nThe friend was gone into the darkness. He turned with his\ngirl to the tea-shop. They talked all the time. He made his\nsentences in sheer, almost muscular pleasure of exercising\nhimself with her. He was looking at her all the time, perceiving\nher, appreciating her, finding her out, gratifying himself with\nher. He could see distinct attractions in her; her eyebrows,\nwith their particular curve, gave him keen aesthetic pleasure.\nLater on he would see her bright, pellucid eyes, like shallow\nwater, and know those. And there remained the open, exposed\nmouth, red and vulnerable. That he reserved as yet. And all the\nwhile his eyes were on the girl, estimating and handling with\npleasure her young softness. About the girl herself, who or what\nshe was, he cared nothing, he was quite unaware that she was\nanybody. She was just the sensual object of his attention.\n\n\"Shall we go, then?\" he said.\n\nShe rose in silence, as if acting without a mind, merely\nphysically. He seemed to hold her in his will. Outside it was\nstill raining.\n\n\"Let's have a walk,\" he said. \"I don't mind the rain, do\nyou?\"\n\n\"No, I don't mind it,\" she said.\n\nHe was alert in every sense and fibre, and yet quite sure and\nsteady, and lit up, as if transfused. He had a free sensation of\nwalking in his own darkness, not in anybody else's world at all.\nHe was purely a world to himself, he had nothing to do with any\ngeneral consciousness. Just his own senses were supreme. All the\nrest was external, insignificant, leaving him alone with this\ngirl whom he wanted to absorb, whose properties he wanted to\nabsorb into his own senses. He did not care about her, except\nthat he wanted to overcome her resistance, to have her in his\npower, fully and exhaustively to enjoy her.\n\nThey turned into the dark streets. He held her umbrella over\nher, and put his arm round her. She walked as if she were\nunaware. But gradually, as he walked, he drew her a little\ncloser, into the movement of his side and hip. She fitted in\nthere very well. It was a real good fit, to walk with her like\nthis. It made him exquisitely aware of his own muscular self.\nAnd his hand that grasped her side felt one curve of her, and it\nseemed like a new creation to him, a reality, an absolute, an\nexisting tangible beauty of the absolute. It was like a star.\nEverything in him was absorbed in the sensual delight of this\none small, firm curve in her body, that his hand, and his whole\nbeing, had lighted upon.\n\nHe led her into the Park, where it was almost dark. He\nnoticed a corner between two walls, under a great overhanging\nbush of ivy.\n\n\"Let us stand here a minute,\" he said.\n\nHe put down the umbrella, and followed her into the corner,\nretreating out of the rain. He needed no eyes to see. All he\nwanted was to know through touch. She was like a piece of\npalpable darkness. He found her in the darkness, put his arms\nround her and his hands upon her. She was silent and\ninscrutable. But he did not want to know anything about her, he\nonly wanted to discover her. And through her clothing, what\nabsolute beauty he touched.\n\n\"Take your hat off,\" he said.\n\nSilently, obediently, she shook off her hat and gave herself\nto his arms again. He liked her--he liked the feel of\nher--he wanted to know her more closely. He let his fingers\nsubtly seek out her cheek and neck. What amazing beauty and\npleasure, in the dark! His fingers had often touched Anna on the\nface and neck like that. What matter! It was one man who touched\nAnna, another who now touched this girl. He liked best his new\nself. He was given over altogether to the sensuous knowledge of\nthis woman, and every moment he seemed to be touching absolute\nbeauty, something beyond knowledge.\n\nVery close, marvelling and exceedingly joyful in their\ndiscoveries, his hands pressed upon her, so subtly, so\nseekingly, so finely and desirously searching her out, that she\ntoo was almost swooning in the absolute of sensual knowledge. In\nutter sensual delight she clenched her knees, her thighs, her\nloins together! It was an added beauty to him.\n\nBut he was patiently working for her relaxation, patiently,\nhis whole being fixed in the smile of latent gratification, his\nwhole body electric with a subtle, powerful, reducing force upon\nher. So he came at length to kiss her, and she was almost\nbetrayed by his insidious kiss. Her open mouth was too helpless\nand unguarded. He knew this, and his first kiss was very gentle,\nand soft, and assuring, so assuring. So that her soft,\ndefenseless mouth became assured, even bold, seeking upon his\nmouth. And he answered her gradually, gradually, his soft kiss\nsinking in softly, softly, but ever more heavily, more heavily\nyet, till it was too heavy for her to meet, and she began to\nsink under it. She was sinking, sinking, his smile of latent\ngratification was becoming more tense, he was sure of her. He\nlet the whole force of his will sink upon her to sweep her away.\nBut it was too great a shock for her. With a sudden horrible\nmovement she ruptured the state that contained them both.\n\n\"Don't--don't!\"\n\nIt was a rather horrible cry that seemed to come out of her,\nnot to belong to her. It was some strange agony of terror crying\nout the words. There was something vibrating and beside herself\nin the noise. His nerves ripped like silk.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" he said, as if calmly. \"What's the\nmatter?\"\n\nShe came back to him, but trembling, reservedly this\ntime.\n\nHer cry had given him gratification. But he knew he had been\ntoo sudden for her. He was now careful. For a while he merely\nsheltered her. Also there had broken a flaw into his perfect\nwill. He wanted to persist, to begin again, to lead up to the\npoint where he had let himself go on her, and then manage more\ncarefully, successfully. So far she had won. And the battle was\nnot over yet. But another voice woke in him and prompted him to\nlet her go--let her go in contempt.\n\nHe sheltered her, and soothed her, and caressed her, and\nkissed her, and again began to come nearer, nearer. He gathered\nhimself together. Even if he did not take her, he would make her\nrelax, he would fuse away her resistance. So softly, softly,\nwith infinite caressiveness he kissed her, and the whole of his\nbeing seemed to fondle her. Till, at the verge, swooning at the\nbreaking point, there came from her a beaten, inarticulate,\nmoaning cry:\n\n\"Don't--oh, don't!\"\n\nHis veins fused with extreme voluptuousness. For a moment he\nalmost lost control of himself, and continued automatically. But\nthere was a moment of inaction, of cold suspension. He was not\ngoing to take her. He drew her to him and soothed her, and\ncaressed her. But the pure zest had gone. She struggled to\nherself and realized he was not going to take her. And then, at\nthe very last moment, when his fondling had come near again, his\nhot living desire despising her, against his cold sensual\ndesire, she broke violently away from him.\n\n\"Don't,\" she cried, harsh now with hatred, and she flung her\nhand across and hit him violently. \"Keep off of me.\"\n\nHis blood stood still for a moment. Then the smile came again\nwithin him, steady, cruel.\n\n\"Why, what's the matter?\" he said, with suave irony.\n\"Nobody's going to hurt you.\"\n\n\"I know what you want,\" she said.\n\n\"I know what I want,\" he said. \"What's the odds?\"\n\n\"Well, you're not going to have it off me.\"\n\n\"Aren't I? Well, then I'm not. It's no use crying about it,\nis it?\"\n\n\"No, it isn't,\" said the girl, rather disconcerted by his\nirony.\n\n\"But there's no need to have a row about it. We can kiss good\nnight just the same, can't we?\"\n\nShe was silent in the darkness.\n\n\"Or do you want your hat and umbrella to go home this\nminute?\"\n\nStill she was silent. He watched her dark figure as she stood\nthere on the edge of the faint darkness, and he waited.\n\n\"Come and say good night nicely, if we're going to say it,\"\nhe said.\n\nStill she did not stir. He put his hand out and drew her into\nthe darkness again.\n\n\"It's warmer in here,\" he said; \"a lot cosier.\"\n\nHis will had not yet relaxed from her. The moment of hatred\nexhilarated him.\n\n\"I'm going now,\" she muttered, as he closed his hand over\nher.\n\n\"See how well you fit your place,\" he said, as he drew her to\nher previous position, close upon him. \"What do you want to\nleave it for?\"\n\nAnd gradually the intoxication invaded him again, the zest\ncame back. After all, why should he not take her?\n\nBut she did not yield to him entirely.\n\n\"Are you a married man?\" she asked at length.\n\n\"What if I am?\" he said.\n\nShe did not answer.\n\n\"I don't ask you whether you're married or not,\" he\nsaid.\n\n\"You know jolly well I'm not,\" she answered hotly. Oh,\nif she could only break away from him, if only she need not\nyield to him.\n\nAt length her will became cold against him. She had escaped.\nBut she hated him for her escape more than for her danger. Did\nhe despise her so coldly? And she was in torture of adherence to\nhim still.\n\n\"Shall I see you next week--next Saturday?\" he said, as\nthey returned to the town. She did not answer.\n\n\"Come to the Empire with me--you and Gertie,\" he\nsaid.\n\n\"I should look well, going with a married man,\" she said.\n\n\"I'm no less of a man for being married, am I?\" he said.\n\n\"Oh, it's a different matter altogether with a married man,\"\nshe said, in a ready-made speech that showed her chagrin.\n\n\"How's that?\" he asked.\n\nBut she would not enlighten him. Yet she promised, without\npromising, to be at the meeting-place next Saturday evening.\n\nSo he left her. He did not know her name. He caught a train\nand went home.\n\nIt was the last train, he was very late. He was not home till\nmidnight. But he was quite indifferent. He had no real relation\nwith his home, not this man which he now was. Anna was sitting\nup for him. She saw the queer, absolved look on his face, a sort\nof latent, almost sinister smile, as if he were absolved from\nhis \"good\" ties.\n\n\"Where have you been?\" she asked, puzzled, interested.\n\n\"To the Empire.\"\n\n\"Who with?\"\n\n\"By myself. I came home with Tom Cooper.\"\n\nShe looked at him, and wondered what he had been doing She\nwas indifferent as to whether he lied or not.\n\n\"You have come home very strange,\" she said. And there was an\nappreciative inflexion in the speech.\n\nHe was not affected. As for his humble, good self, he was\nabsolved from it. He sat down and ate heartily. He was not\ntired. He seemed to take no notice of her.\n\nFor Anna the moment was critical. She kept herself aloof, and\nwatched him. He talked to her, but with a little indifference,\nsince he was scarcely aware of her. So, then she did not affect\nhim. Here was a new turn of affairs! He was rather attractive,\nnevertheless. She liked him better than the ordinary mute,\nhalf-effaced, half-subdued man she usually knew him to be. So,\nhe was blossoming out into his real self! It piqued her. Very\ngood, let him blossom! She liked a new turn of affairs. He was a\nstrange man come home to her. Glancing at him, she saw she could\nnot reduce him to what he had been before. In an instant she\ngave it up. Yet not without a pang of rage, which would insist\non their old, beloved love, their old, accustomed intimacy and\nher old, established supremacy. She almost rose up to fight for\nthem. And looking at him, and remembering his father, she was\nwary. This was the new turn of affairs!\n\nVery good, if she could not influence him in the old way, she\nwould be level with him in the new. Her old defiant hostility\ncame up. Very good, she too was out on her own adventure. Her\nvoice, her manner changed, she was ready for the game. Something\nwas liberated in her. She liked him. She liked this strange man\ncome home to her. He was very welcome, indeed! She was very glad\nto welcome a stranger. She had been bored by the old husband. To\nhis latent, cruel smile she replied with brilliant challenge. He\nexpected her to keep the moral fortress. Not she! It was much\ntoo dull a part. She challenged him back with a sort of\nradiance, very bright and free, opposite to him. He looked at\nher, and his eyes glinted. She too was out in the field.\n\nHis senses pricked up and keenly attended to her. She\nlaughed, perfectly indifferent and loose as he was. He came\ntowards her. She neither rejected him nor responded to him. In a\nkind of radiance, superb in her inscrutability, she laughed\nbefore him. She too could throw everything overboard, love,\nintimacy, responsibility. What were her four children to her\nnow? What did it matter that this man was the father of her four\nchildren?\n\nHe was the sensual male seeking his pleasure, she was the\nfemale ready to take hers: but in her own way. A man could turn\ninto a free lance: so then could a woman. She adhered as little\nas he to the moral world. All that had gone before was nothing\nto her. She was another woman, under the instance of a strange\nman. He was a stranger to her, seeking his own ends. Very good.\nShe wanted to see what this stranger would do now, what he\nwas.\n\nShe laughed, and kept him at arm's length, whilst apparently\nignoring him. She watched him undress as if he were a stranger.\nIndeed he was a stranger to her.\n\nAnd she roused him profoundly, violently, even before he\ntouched her. The little creature in Nottingham had but been\nleading up to this. They abandoned in one motion the moral\nposition, each was seeking gratification pure and simple.\n\nStrange his wife was to him. It was as if he were a perfect\nstranger, as if she were infinitely and essentially strange to\nhim, the other half of the world, the dark half of the moon. She\nwaited for his touch as if he were a marauder who had come in,\ninfinitely unknown and desirable to her. And he began to\ndiscover her. He had an inkling of the vastness of the unknown\nsensual store of delights she was. With a passion of\nvoluptuousness that made him dwell on each tiny beauty, in a\nkind of frenzy of enjoyment, he lit upon her: her beauty, the\nbeauties, the separate, several beauties of her body.\n\nHe was quite ousted from himself, and sensually transported\nby that which he discovered in her. He was another man revelling\nover her. There was no tenderness, no love between them any\nmore, only the maddening, sensuous lust for discovery and the\ninsatiable, exorbitant gratification in the sensual beauties of\nher body. And she was a store, a store of absolute beauties that\nit drove him to contemplate. There was such a feast to enjoy,\nand he with only one man's capacity.\n\nHe lived in a passion of sensual discovery with her for some\ntime--it was a duel: no love, no words, no kisses even,\nonly the maddening perception of beauty consummate, absolute\nthrough touch. He wanted to touch her, to discover her,\nmaddeningly he wanted to know her. Yet he must not hurry, or he\nmissed everything. He must enjoy one beauty at a time. And the\nmultitudinous beauties of her body, the many little rapturous\nplaces, sent him mad with delight, and with desire to be able to\nknow more, to have strength to know more. For all was there.\n\nHe would say during the daytime:\n\n\"To-night I shall know the little hollow under her ankle,\nwhere the blue vein crosses.\" And the thought of it, and the\ndesire for it, made a thick darkness of anticipation.\n\nHe would go all the day waiting for the night to come, when\nhe could give himself to the enjoyment of some luxurious\nabsolute of beauty in her. The thought of the hidden resources\nof her, the undiscovered beauties and ecstatic places of delight\nin her body, waiting, only waiting for him to discover them,\nsent him slightly insane. He was obsessed. If he did not\ndiscover and make known to himself these delights, they might be\nlost for ever. He wished he had a hundred men's energies, with\nwhich to enjoy her. [He wished he were a cat, to lick her with a\nrough, grating, lascivious tongue. He wanted to wallow in her,\nbury himself in her flesh, cover himself over with her flesh.]\n\nAnd she, separate, with a strange, dangerous, glistening look\nin her eyes received all his activities upon her as if they were\nexpected by her, and provoked him when he was quiet to more,\ntill sometimes he was ready to perish for sheer inability to be\nsatisfied of her, inability to have had enough of her.\n\nTheir children became mere offspring to them, they lived in\nthe darkness and death of their own sensual activities.\nSometimes he felt he was going mad with a sense of Absolute\nBeauty, perceived by him in her through his senses. It was\nsomething too much for him. And in everything, was this same,\nalmost sinister, terrifying beauty. But in the revelations of\nher body through contact with his body, was the ultimate beauty,\nto know which was almost death in itself, and yet for the\nknowledge of which he would have undergone endless torture. He\nwould have forfeited anything, anything, rather than forego his\nright even to the instep of her foot, and the place from which\nthe toes radiated out, the little, miraculous white plain from\nwhich ran the little hillocks of the toes, and the folded,\ndimpling hollows between the toes. He felt he would have died\nrather than forfeit this.\n\nThis was what their love had become, a sensuality violent and\nextreme as death. They had no conscious intimacy, no tenderness\nof love. It was all the lust and the infinite, maddening\nintoxication of the sense, a passion of death.\n\nHe had always, all his life, had a secret dread of Absolute\nBeauty. It had always been like a fetish to him, something to\nfear, really. For it was immoral and against mankind. So he had\nturned to the Gothic form, which always asserted the broken\ndesire of mankind in its pointed arches, escaping the rolling,\nabsolute beauty of the round arch.\n\nBut now he had given way, and with infinite sensual violence\ngave himself to the realization of this supreme, immoral,\nAbsolute Beauty, in the body of woman. It seemed to him, that it\ncame to being in the body of woman, under his touch. Under his\ntouch, even under his sight, it was there. But when he neither\nsaw nor touched the perfect place, it was not perfect, it was\nnot there. And he must make it exist.\n\nBut still the thing terrified him. Awful and threatening it\nwas, dangerous to a degree, even whilst he gave himself to it.\nIt was pure darkness, also. All the shameful things of the body\nrevealed themselves to him now with a sort of sinister, tropical\nbeauty. All the shameful, natural and unnatural acts of sensual\nvoluptuousness which he and the woman partook of together,\ncreated together, they had their heavy beauty and their delight.\nShame, what was it? It was part of extreme delight. It was that\npart of delight of which man is usually afraid. Why afraid? The\nsecret, shameful things are most terribly beautiful.\n\nThey accepted shame, and were one with it in their most\nunlicensed pleasures. It was incorporated. It was a bud that\nblossomed into beauty and heavy, fundamental gratification.\n\nTheir outward life went on much the same, but the inward life\nwas revolutionized. The children became less important, the\nparents were absorbed in their own living.\n\nAnd gradually, Brangwen began to find himself free to attend\nto the outside life as well. His intimate life was so violently\nactive, that it set another man in him free. And this new man\nturned with interest to public life, to see what part he could\ntake in it. This would give him scope for new activity, activity\nof a kind for which he was now created and released. He wanted\nto be unanimous with the whole of purposive mankind.\n\nAt this time Education was in the forefront as a subject of\ninterest. There was the talk of new Swedish methods, of handwork\ninstruction, and so on. Brangwen embraced sincerely the idea of\nhandwork in schools. For the first time, he began to take real\ninterest in a public affair. He had at length, from his profound\nsensual activity, developed a real purposive self.\n\nThere was talk of night-schools, and of handicraft classes.\nHe wanted to start a woodwork class in Cossethay, to teach\ncarpentry and joinery and wood-carving to the village boys, two\nnights a week. This seemed to him a supremely desirable thing to\nbe doing. His pay would be very little--and when he had it,\nhe spent it all on extra wood and tools. But he was very happy\nand keen in his new public spirit.\n\nHe started his night-classes in woodwork when he was thirty\nyears old. By this time he had five children, the last a boy.\nBut boy or girl mattered very little to him. He had a natural\nblood-affection for his children, and he liked them as they\nturned up: boys or girls. Only he was fondest of Ursula.\nSomehow, she seemed to be at the back of his new night-school\nventure.\n\nThe house by the yew trees was in connection with the great\nhuman endeavour at last. It gained a new vigour thereby.\n\nTo Ursula, a child of eight, the increase in magic was\nconsiderable. She heard all the talk, she saw the parish room\nfitted up as a workshop. The parish room was a high, stone,\nbarn-like, ecclesiastical building standing away by itself in\nthe Brangwens' second garden, across the lane. She was always\nattracted by its age and its stranded obsoleteness. Now she\nwatched preparations made, she sat on the flight of stone steps\nthat came down from the porch to the garden, and heard her\nfather and the vicar talking and planning and working. Then an\ninspector came, a very strange man, and stayed talking with her\nfather all one evening. Everything was settled, and twelve boys\nenrolled their names. It was very exciting.\n\nBut to Ursula, everything her father did was magic. Whether\nhe came from Ilkeston with news of the town, whether he went\nacross to the church with his music or his tools on a sunny\nevening, whether he sat in his white surplice at the organ on\nSundays, leading the singing with his strong tenor voice, or\nwhether he were in the workshop with the boys, he was always a\ncentre of magic and fascination to her, his voice, sounding out\nin command, cheerful, laconic, had always a twang in it that\nsent a thrill over her blood, and hypnotized her. She seemed to\nrun in the shadow of some dark, potent secret of which she would\nnot, of whose existence even she dared not become conscious, it\ncast such a spell over her, and so darkened her mind.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nTHE MARSH AND THE FLOOD\n\nThere was always regular connection between the Yew Cottage\nand the Marsh, yet the two households remained separate,\ndistinct.\n\nAfter Anna's marriage, the Marsh became the home of the two\nboys, Tom and Fred. Tom was a rather short, good-looking youth,\nwith crisp black hair and long black eyelashes and soft, dark,\npossessed eyes. He had a quick intelligence. From the High\nSchool he went to London to study. He had an instinct for\nattracting people of character and energy. He gave place\nentirely to the other person, and at the same time kept himself\nindependent. He scarcely existed except through other people.\nWhen he was alone he was unresolved. When he was with another\nman, he seemed to add himself to the other, make the other\nbigger than life size. So that a few people loved him and\nattained a sort of fulfilment in him. He carefully chose these\nfew.\n\nHe had a subtle, quick, critical intelligence, a mind that\nwas like a scale or balance. There was something of a woman in\nall this.\n\nIn London he had been the favourite pupil of an engineer, a\nclever man, who became well-known at the time when Tom Brangwen\nhad just finished his studies. Through this master the youth\nkept acquaintance with various individual, outstanding\ncharacters. He never asserted himself. He seemed to be there to\nestimate and establish the rest. He was like a presence that\nmakes us aware of our own being. So that he was while still\nyoung connected with some of the most energetic scientific and\nmathematical people in London. They took him as an equal. Quiet\nand perceptive and impersonal as he was, he kept his place and\nlearned how to value others in just degree. He was there like a\njudgment. Besides, he was very good-looking, of medium stature,\nbut beautifully proportioned, dark, with fine colouring, always\nperfectly healthy.\n\nHis father allowed him a liberal pocket-money, besides which\nhe had a sort of post as assistant to his chief. Then from time\nto time the young man appeared at the Marsh, curiously\nattractive, well-dressed, reserved, having by nature a subtle,\nrefined manner. And he set the change in the farm.\n\nFred, the younger brother, was a Brangwen, large-boned,\nblue-eyed, English. He was his father's very son, the two men,\nfather and son, were supremely at ease with one another. Fred\nwas succeeding to the farm.\n\nBetween the elder brother and the younger existed an almost\npassionate love. Tom watched over Fred with a woman's poignant\nattention and self-less care. Fred looked up to Tom as to\nsomething miraculous, that which he himself would aspire to be,\nwere he great also.\n\nSo that after Anna's departure, the Marsh began to take on a\nnew tone. The boys were gentlemen; Tom had a rare nature and had\nrisen high. Fred was sensitive and fond of reading, he pondered\nRuskin and then the Agnostic writings. Like all the Brangwens,\nhe was very much a thing to himself, though fond of people, and\nindulgent to them, having an exaggerated respect for them.\n\nThere was a rather uneasy friendship between him and one of\nthe young Hardys at the Hall. The two households were different,\nyet the young men met on shy terms of equality.\n\nIt was young Tom Brangwen, with his dark lashes and beautiful\ncolouring, his soft, inscrutable nature, his strange repose and\nhis informed air, added to his position in London, who seemed to\nemphasize the superior foreign element in the Marsh. When he\nappeared, perfectly dressed, as if soft and affable, and yet\nquite removed from everybody, he created an uneasiness in\npeople, he was reserved in the minds of the Cossethay and\nIlkeston acquaintances to a different, remote world.\n\nHe and his mother had a kind of affinity. The affection\nbetween them was of a mute, distant character, but radical. His\nfather was always uneasy and slightly deferential to his eldest\nson. Tom also formed the link that kept the Marsh in real\nconnection with the Skrebenskys, now quite important people in\ntheir own district.\n\nSo a change in tone came over the Marsh. Tom Brangwen the\nfather, as he grew older, seemed to mature into a\ngentleman-farmer. His figure lent itself: burly and handsome.\nHis face remained fresh and his blue eyes as full of light, his\nthick hair and beard had turned gradually to a silky whiteness.\nIt was his custom to laugh a great deal, in his acquiescent,\nwilful manner. Things had puzzled him very much, so he had taken\nthe line of easy, good-humoured acceptance. He was not\nresponsible for the frame of things. Yet he was afraid of the\nunknown in life.\n\nHe was fairly well-off. His wife was there with him, a\ndifferent being from himself, yet somewhere vitally connected\nwith him:--who was he to understand where and how? His two\nsons were gentlemen. They were men distinct from himself, they\nhad separate beings of their own, yet they were connected with\nhimself. It was all adventurous and puzzling. Yet one remained\nvital within one's own existence, whatever the off-shoots.\n\nSo, handsome and puzzled, he laughed and stuck to himself as\nthe only thing he could stick to. His youngness and the wonder\nremained almost the same in him. He became indolent, he\ndeveloped a luxuriant ease. Fred did most of the farm-work, the\nfather saw to the more important transactions. He drove a good\nmare, and sometimes he rode his cob. He drank in the hotels and\nthe inns with better-class farmers and proprietors, he had\nwell-to-do acquaintances among men. But one class suited him no\nbetter than another.\n\nHis wife, as ever, had no acquaintances. Her hair was\nthreaded now with grey, her face grew older in form without\nchanging in expression. She seemed the same as when she had come\nto the Marsh twenty-five years ago, save that her health was\nmore fragile. She seemed always to haunt the Marsh rather than\nto live there. She was never part of the life. Something she\nrepresented was alien there, she remained a stranger within the\ngates, in some ways fixed and impervious, in some ways curiously\nrefining. She caused the separateness and individuality of all\nthe Marsh inmates, the friability of the household.\n\nWhen young Tom Brangwen was twenty-three years old there was\nsome breach between him and his chief which was never explained,\nand he went away to Italy, then to America. He came home for a\nwhile, then went to Germany; always the same good-looking,\ncarefully-dressed, attractive young man, in perfect health, yet\nsomehow outside of everything. In his dark eyes was a deep\nmisery which he wore with the same ease and pleasantness as he\nwore his close-sitting clothes.\n\nTo Ursula he was a romantic, alluring figure. He had a grace\nof bringing beautiful presents: a box of expensive sweets, such\nas Cossethay had never seen; or he gave her a hair-brush and a\nlong slim mirror of mother-of-pearl, all pale and glimmering and\nexquisite; or he sent her a little necklace of rough stones,\namethyst and opal and brilliants and garnet. He spoke other\nlanguages easily and fluently, his nature was curiously gracious\nand insinuating. With all that, he was undefinably an outsider.\nHe belonged to nowhere, to no society.\n\nAnna Brangwen had left her intimacy with her father\nundeveloped since the time of her marriage. At her marriage it\nhad been abandoned. He and she had drawn a reserve between them.\nAnna went more to her mother.\n\nThen suddenly the father died.\n\nIt happened one springtime when Ursula was about eight years\nold, he, Tom Brangwen, drove off on a Saturday morning to the\nmarket in Nottingham, saying he might not be back till late, as\nthere was a special show and then a meeting he had to attend.\nHis family understood that he would enjoy himself.\n\nThe season had been rainy and dreary. In the evening it was\npouring with rain. Fred Brangwen, unsettled, uneasy, did not go\nout, as was his wont. He smoked and read and fidgeted, hearing\nalways the trickling of water outside. This wet, black night\nseemed to cut him off and make him unsettled, aware of himself,\naware that he wanted something else, aware that he was scarcely\nliving. There seemed to him to be no root to his life, no place\nfor him to get satisfied in. He dreamed of going abroad. But his\ninstinct knew that change of place would not solve his problem.\nHe wanted change, deep, vital change of living. And he did not\nknow how to get it.\n\nTilly, an old woman now, came in saying that the labourers\nwho had been suppering up said the yard and everywhere was just\na slew of water. He heard in indifference. But he hated a\ndesolate, raw wetness in the world. He would leave the\nMarsh.\n\nHis mother was in bed. At last he shut his book, his mind was\nblank, he walked upstairs intoxicated with depression and anger,\nand, intoxicated with depression and anger, locked himself into\nsleep.\n\nTilly set slippers before the kitchen fire, and she also went\nto bed, leaving the door unlocked. Then the farm was in\ndarkness, in the rain.\n\nAt eleven o'clock it was still raining. Tom Brangwen stood in\nthe yard of the \"Angel\", Nottingham, and buttoned his coat.\n\n\"Oh, well,\" he said cheerfully, \"it's rained on me before.\nPut 'er in, Jack, my lad, put her in--Tha'rt a rare old\ncock, Jacky-boy, wi' a belly on thee as does credit to thy\ndrink, if not to thy corn. Co' up lass, let's get off ter th'\nold homestead. Oh, my heart, what a wetness in the night!\nThere'll be no volcanoes after this. Hey, Jack, my beautiful\nyoung slender feller, which of us is Noah? It seems as though\nthe water-works is bursted. Ducks and ayquatic fowl 'll be king\no' the castle at this rate--dove an' olive branch an' all.\nStand up then, gel, stand up, we're not stoppin' here all night,\neven if you thought we was. I'm dashed if the jumping rain\nwouldn't make anybody think they was drunk. Hey, Jack--does\nrain-water wash the sense in, or does it wash it out?\" And he\nlaughed to himself at the joke.\n\nHe was always ashamed when he had to drive after he had been\ndrinking, always apologetic to the horse. His apologetic frame\nmade him facetious. He was aware of his inability to walk quite\nstraight. Nevertheless his will kept stiff and attentive, in all\nhis fuddleness.\n\nHe mounted and bowled off through the gates of the innyard.\nThe mare went well, he sat fixed, the rain beating on his face.\nHis heavy body rode motionless in a kind of sleep, one centre of\nattention was kept fitfully burning, the rest was dark. He\nconcentrated his last attention on the fact of driving along the\nroad he knew so well. He knew it so well, he watched for it\nattentively, with an effort of will.\n\nHe talked aloud to himself, sententious in his anxiety, as if\nhe were perfectly sober, whilst the mare bowled along and the\nrain beat on him. He watched the rain before the gig-lamps, the\nfaint gleaming of the shadowy horse's body, the passing of the\ndark hedges.\n\n\"It's not a fit night to turn a dog out,\" he said to himself,\naloud. \"It's high time as it did a bit of clearing up, I'll be\ndamned if it isn't. It was a lot of use putting those ten loads\nof cinders on th' road. They'll be washed to kingdom-come if it\ndoesn't alter. Well, it's our Fred's look-out, if they are. He's\ntop-sawyer as far as those things go. I don't see why I should\nconcern myself. They can wash to kingdom-come and back again for\nwhat I care. I suppose they would be washed back again some day.\nThat's how things are. Th' rain tumbles down just to mount up in\nclouds again. So they say. There's no more water on the earth\nthan there was in the year naught. That's the story, my boy, if\nyou understand it. There's no more to-day than there was a\nthousand years ago--nor no less either. You can't wear\nwater out. No, my boy: it'll give you the go-by. Try to wear it\nout, and it takes its hook into vapour, it has its fingers at\nits nose to you. It turns into cloud and falleth as rain on the\njust and unjust. I wonder if I'm the just or the unjust.\"\n\nHe started awake as the trap lurched deep into a rut. And he\nwakened to the point in his journey. He had travelled some\ndistance since he was last conscious.\n\nBut at length he reached the gate, and stumbled heavily down,\nreeling, gripping fast to the trap. He descended into several\ninches of water.\n\n\"Be damned!\" he said angrily. \"Be damned to the miserable\nslop.\"\n\nAnd he led the horse washing through the gate. He was quite\ndrunk now, moving blindly, in habit. Everywhere there was water\nunderfoot.\n\nThe raised causeway of the house and the farm-stead was dry,\nhowever. But there was a curious roar in the night which seemed\nto be made in the darkness of his own intoxication. Reeling,\nblinded, almost without consciousness he carried his parcels and\nthe rug and cushions into the house, dropped them, and went out\nto put up the horse.\n\nNow he was at home, he was a sleep-walker, waiting only for\nthe moment of activity to stop. Very deliberately and carefully,\nhe led the horse down the slope to the cart-shed. She shied and\nbacked.\n\n\"Why, wha's amiss?\" he hiccupped, plodding steadily on. And\nhe was again in a wash of water, the horse splashed up water as\nhe went. It was thickly dark, save for the gig-lamps, and they\nlit on a rippling surface of water.\n\n\"Well, that's a knock-out,\" he said, as he came to the\ncart-shed, and was wading in six inches of water. But everything\nseemed to him amusing. He laughed to think of six inches of\nwater being in the cart-shed.\n\nHe backed in the mare. She was restive. He laughed at the fun\nof untackling the mare with a lot of water washing round his\nfeet. He laughed because it upset her. \"What's amiss, what's\namiss, a drop o' water won't hurt you!\" As soon as he had undone\nthe traces, she walked quickly away.\n\nHe hung up the shafts and took the gig-lamp. As he came out\nof the familiar jumble of shafts and wheels in the shed, the\nwater, in little waves, came washing strongly against his legs.\nHe staggered and almost fell.\n\n\"Well, what the deuce!\" he said, staring round at the running\nwater in the black, watery night.\n\nHe went to meet the running flood, sinking deeper and deeper.\nHis soul was full of great astonishment. He had to go and\nlook where it came from, though the ground was going from under\nhis feet. He went on, down towards the pond, shakily. He rather\nenjoyed it. He was knee-deep, and the water was pulling heavily.\nHe stumbled, reeled sickeningly.\n\nFear took hold of him. Gripping tightly to the lamp, he\nreeled, and looked round. The water was carrying his feet away,\nhe was dizzy. He did not know which way to turn. The water was\nwhirling, whirling, the whole black night was swooping in rings.\nHe swayed uncertainly at the centre of all the attack, reeling\nin dismay. In his soul, he knew he would fall.\n\nAs he staggered something in the water struck his legs, and\nhe fell. Instantly he was in the turmoil of suffocation. He\nfought in a black horror of suffocation, fighting, wrestling,\nbut always borne down, borne inevitably down. Still he wrestled\nand fought to get himself free, in the unutterable struggle of\nsuffocation, but he always fell again deeper. Something struck\nhis head, a great wonder of anguish went over him, then the\nblackness covered him entirely.\n\nIn the utter darkness, the unconscious, drowning body was\nrolled along, the waters pouring, washing, filling in the place.\nThe cattle woke up and rose to their feet, the dog began to\nyelp. And the unconscious, drowning body was washed along in the\nblack, swirling darkness, passively.\n\nMrs. Brangwen woke up and listened. With preternaturally\nsharp senses she heard the movement of all the darkness that\nswirled outside. For a moment she lay still. Then she went to\nthe window. She heard the sharp rain, and the deep running of\nwater. She knew her husband was outside.\n\n\"Fred,\" she called, \"Fred!\"\n\nAway in the night was a hoarse, brutal roar of a mass of\nwater rushing downwards.\n\nShe went downstairs. She could not understand the multiplied\nrunning of water. Stepping down the step into the kitchen, she\nput her foot into water. The kitchen was flooded. Where did it\ncome from? She could not understand.\n\nWater was running in out of the scullery. She paddled through\nbarefoot, to see. Water was bubbling fiercely under the outer\ndoor. She was afraid. Then something washed against her,\nsomething twined under her foot. It was the riding whip. On the\ntable were the rug and the cushion and the parcel from the\ngig.\n\nHe had come home.\n\n\"Tom!\" she called, afraid of her own voice.\n\nShe opened the door. Water ran in with a horrid sound.\nEverywhere was moving water, a sound of waters.\n\n\"Tom!\" she cried, standing in her nightdress with the candle,\ncalling into the darkness and the flood out of the doorway.\n\n\"Tom! Tom!\"\n\nAnd she listened. Fred appeared behind her, in trousers and\nshirt.\n\n\"Where is he?\" he asked.\n\nHe looked at the flood, then at his mother. She seemed small\nand uncanny, elvish, in her nightdress.\n\n\"Go upstairs,\" he said. \"He'll be in th' stable.\"\n\n\"To--om! To--om!\" cried the elderly woman, with a\nlong, unnatural, penetrating call that chilled her son to the\nmarrow. He quickly pulled on his boots and his coat.\n\n\"Go upstairs, mother,\" he said; \"I'll go an' see where he\nis.\"\n\n\"To--om! To--o--om!\" rang out the shrill,\nunearthly cry of the small woman. There was only the noise of\nwater and the mooing of uneasy cattle, and the long yelping of\nthe dog, clamouring in the darkness.\n\nFred Brangwen splashed out into the flood with a lantern. His\nmother stood on a chair in the doorway, watching him go. It was\nall water, water, running, flashing under the lantern.\n\n\"Tom! Tom! To--o--om!\" came her long, unnatural\ncry, ringing over the night. It made her son feel cold in his\nsoul.\n\nAnd the unconscious, drowning body of the father rolled on\nbelow the house, driven by the black water towards the\nhigh-road.\n\nTilly appeared, a skirt over her nightdress. She saw her\nmistress clinging on the top of a chair in the open doorway, a\ncandle burning on the table.\n\n\"God's sake!\" cried the old serving-woman. \"The cut's burst.\nThat embankment's broke down. Whativer are we goin' to do!\"\n\nMrs. Brangwen watched her son, and the lantern, go along the\nupper causeway to the stable. Then she saw the dark figure of a\nhorse: then her son hung the lamp in the stable, and the light\nshone out faintly on him as he untackled the mare. The mother\nsaw the soft blazed face of the horse thrust forward into the\nstable-door. The stables were still above the flood. But the\nwater flowed strongly into the house.\n\n\"It's getting higher,\" said Tilly. \"Hasn't master come\nin?\"\n\nMrs. Brangwen did not hear.\n\n\"Isn't he the--ere?\" she called, in her far-reaching,\nterrifying voice.\n\n\"No,\" came the short answer out of the night.\n\n\"Go and loo--ok for him.\"\n\nHis mother's voice nearly drove the youth mad.\n\nHe put the halter on the horse and shut the stable door. He\ncame splashing back through the water, the lantern swinging.\n\nThe unconscious, drowning body was pushed past the house in\nthe deepest current. Fred Brangwen came to his mother.\n\n\"I'll go to th' cart-shed,\" he said.\n\n\"To--om, To--o--om!\" rang out the strong,\ninhuman cry. Fred Brangwen's blood froze, his heart was very\nangry. He gripped his veins in a frenzy. Why was she yelling\nlike this? He could not bear the sight of her, perched on a\nchair in her white nightdress in the doorway, elvish and\nhorrible.\n\n\"He's taken the mare out of the trap, so he's all right,\" he\nsaid, growling, pretending to be normal.\n\nBut as he descended to the cart-shed, he sank into a foot of\nwater. He heard the rushing in the distance, he knew the canal\nhad broken down. The water was running deeper.\n\nThe trap was there all right, but no signs of his father. The\nyoung man waded down to the pond. The water rose above his\nknees, it swirled and forced him. He drew back.\n\n\"Is he the--e--ere?\" came the maddening cry of the\nmother.\n\n\"No,\" was the sharp answer.\n\n\"To--om--To--o--om!\" came the piercing,\nfree, unearthly call. It seemed high and supernatural, almost\npure. Fred Brangwen hated it. It nearly drove him mad. So\nawfully it sang out, almost like a song.\n\nThe water was flowing fuller into the house.\n\n\"You'd better go up to Beeby's and bring him and Arthur down,\nand tell Mrs. Beeby to fetch Wilkinson,\" said Fred to Tilly. He\nforced his mother to go upstairs.\n\n\"I know your father is drowned,\" she said, in a curious\ndismay.\n\nThe flood rose through the night, till it washed the kettle\noff the hob in the kitchen. Mrs. Brangwen sat alone at a window\nupstairs. She called no more. The men were busy with the pigs\nand the cattle. They were coming with a boat for her.\n\nTowards morning the rain ceased, the stars came out over the\nnoise and the terrifying clucking and trickling of the water.\nThen there was a pallor in the east, the light began to come. In\nthe ruddy light of the dawn she saw the waters spreading out,\nmoving sluggishly, the buildings rising out of a waste of water.\nBirds began to sing, drowsily, and as if slightly hoarse with\nthe dawn. It grew brighter. Up the second field was the great,\nraw gap in the canal embankment.\n\nMrs. Brangwen went from window to window, watching the flood.\nSomebody had brought a little boat. The light grew stronger, the\nred gleam was gone off the flood-waters, day took place. Mrs.\nBrangwen went from the front of the house to the back, looking\nout, intent and unrelaxing, on the pallid morning of spring.\n\nShe saw a glimpse of her husband's buff coat in the floods,\nas the water rolled the body against the garden hedge. She\ncalled to the men in the boat. She was glad he was found. They\ndragged him out of the hedge. They could not lift him into the\nboat. Fred Brangwen jumped into the water, up to his waist, and\nhalf carried the body of his father through the flood to the\nroad. Hay and twigs and dirt were in the beard and hair. The\nyouth pushed through the water crying loudly without tears, like\na stricken animal. The mother at the window cried, making no\ntrouble.\n\nThe doctor came. But the body was dead. They carried it up to\nCossethay, to Anna's house.\n\nWhen Anna Brangwen heard the news, she pressed back her head\nand rolled her eyes, as if something were reaching forward to\nbite at her throat. She pressed back her head, her mind was\ndriven back to sleep. Since she had married and become a mother,\nthe girl she had been was forgotten. Now, the shock threatened\nto break in upon her and sweep away all her intervening life,\nmake her as a girl of eighteen again, loving her father. So she\npressed back, away from the shock, she clung to her present\nlife.\n\nIt was when they brought him to her house dead and in his wet\nclothes, his wet, sodden clothes, fully dressed as he came from\nmarket, yet all sodden and inert, that the shock really broke\ninto her, and she was terrified. A big, soaked, inert heap, he\nwas, who had been to her the image of power and strong life.\n\nAlmost in horror, she began to take the wet things from him,\nto pull off him the incongruous market-clothes of a well-to-do\nfarmer. The children were sent away to the Vicarage, the dead\nbody lay on the parlour floor, Anna quickly began to undress\nhim, laid his fob and seals in a wet heap on the table. Her\nhusband and the woman helped her. They cleared and washed the\nbody, and laid it on the bed.\n\nThere, it looked still and grand. He was perfectly calm in\ndeath, and, now he was laid in line, inviolable, unapproachable.\nTo Anna, he was the majesty of the inaccessible male, the\nmajesty of death. It made her still and awe-stricken, almost\nglad.\n\nLydia Brangwen, the mother, also came and saw the impressive,\ninviolable body of the dead man. She went pale, seeing death. He\nwas beyond change or knowledge, absolute, laid in line with the\ninfinite. What had she to do with him? He was a majestic\nAbstraction, made visible now for a moment, inviolate, absolute.\nAnd who could lay claim to him, who could speak of him, of the\nhim who was revealed in the stripped moment of transit from life\ninto death? Neither the living nor the dead could claim him, he\nwas both the one and the other, inviolable, inaccessibly\nhimself.\n\n\"I shared life with you, I belong in my own way to eternity,\"\nsaid Lydia Brangwen, her heart cold, knowing her own\nsingleness.\n\n\"I did not know you in life. You are beyond me, supreme now\nin death,\" said Anna Brangwen, awe-stricken, almost glad.\n\nIt was the sons who could not bear it. Fred Brangwen went\nabout with a set, blanched face and shut hands, his heart full\nof hatred and rage for what had been done to his father,\nbleeding also with desire to have his father again, to see him,\nto hear him again. He could not bear it.\n\nTom Brangwen only arrived on the day of the funeral. He was\nquiet and controlled as ever. He kissed his mother, who was\nstill dark-faced, inscrutable, he shook hands with his brother\nwithout looking at him, he saw the great coffin with its black\nhandles. He even read the name-plate, \"Tom Brangwen, of the\nMarsh Farm. Born ----. Died ----.\"\n\nThe good-looking, still face of the young man crinkled up for\na moment in a terrible grimace, then resumed its stillness. The\ncoffin was carried round to the church, the funeral bell tanged\nat intervals, the mourners carried their wreaths of white\nflowers. The mother, the Polish woman, went with dark, abstract\nface, on her son's arm. He was good-looking as ever, his face\nperfectly motionless and somehow pleasant. Fred walked with\nAnna, she strange and winsome, he with a face like wood, stiff,\nunyielding.\n\nOnly afterwards Ursula, flitting between the currant bushes\ndown the garden, saw her Uncle Tom standing in his black\nclothes, erect and fashionable, but his fists lifted, and his\nface distorted, his lips curled back from his teeth in a\nhorrible grin, like an animal which grimaces with torment,\nwhilst his body panted quick, like a panting dog's. He was\nfacing the open distance, panting, and holding still, then\npanting rapidly again, but his face never changing from its\nalmost bestial look of torture, the teeth all showing, the nose\nwrinkled up, the eyes, unseeing, fixed.\n\nTerrified, Ursula slipped away. And when her Uncle Tom was in\nthe house again, grave and very quiet, so that he seemed almost\nto affect gravity, to pretend grief, she watched his still,\nhandsome face, imagining it again in its distortion. But she saw\nthe nose was rather thick, rather Russian, under its transparent\nskin, she remembered the teeth under the carefully cut moustache\nwere small and sharp and spaced. She could see him, in all his\nelegant demeanour, bestial, almost corrupt. And she was\nfrightened. She never forgot to look for the bestial,\nfrightening side of him, after this.\n\nHe said \"Good-bye\" to his mother and went away at once.\nUrsula almost shrank from his kiss, now. She wanted it,\nnevertheless, and the little revulsion as well.\n\nAt the funeral, and after the funeral, Will Brangwen was\nmadly in love with his wife. The death had shaken him. But death\nand all seemed to gather in him into a mad, over-whelming\npassion for his wife. She seemed so strange and winsome. He was\nalmost beside himself with desire for her.\n\nAnd she took him, she seemed ready for him, she wanted\nhim.\n\nThe grandmother stayed a while at the Yew Cottage, till the\nMarsh was restored. Then she returned to her own rooms, quiet,\nand it seemed, wanting nothing. Fred threw himself into the work\nof restoring the farm. That his father was killed there, seemed\nto make it only the more intimate and the more inevitably his\nown place.\n\nThere was a saying that the Brangwens always died a violent\ndeath. To them all, except perhaps Tom, it seemed almost\nnatural. Yet Fred went about obstinate, his heart fixed. He\ncould never forgive the Unknown this murder of his father.\n\nAfter the death of the father, the Marsh was very quiet. Mrs.\nBrangwen was unsettled. She could not sit all the evening\npeacefully, as she could before, and during the day she was\nalways rising to her feet and hesitating, as if she must go\nsomewhere, and were not quite sure whither.\n\nShe was seen loitering about the garden, in her little\nwoollen jacket. She was often driven out in the gig, sitting\nbeside her son and watching the countryside or the streets of\nthe town, with a childish, candid, uncanny face, as if it all\nwere strange to her.\n\nThe children, Ursula and Gudrun and Theresa went by the\ngarden gate on their way to school. The grandmother would have\nthem call in each time they passed, she would have them come to\nthe Marsh for dinner. She wanted children about her.\n\nOf her sons, she was almost afraid. She could see the sombre\npassion and desire and dissatisfaction in them, and she wanted\nnot to see it any more. Even Fred, with his blue eyes and his\nheavy jaw, troubled her. There was no peace. He wanted\nsomething, he wanted love, passion, and he could not find them.\nBut why must he trouble her? Why must he come to her with his\nseething and suffering and dissatisfactions? She was too\nold.\n\nTom was more restrained, reserved. He kept his body very\nstill. But he troubled her even more. She could not but see the\nblack depths of disintegration in his eyes, the sudden glance\nupon her, as if she could save him, as if he would reveal\nhimself.\n\nAnd how could age save youth? Youth must go to youth. Always\nthe storm! Could she not lie in peace, these years, in the\nquiet, apart from life? No, always the swell must heave upon her\nand break against the barriers. Always she must be embroiled in\nthe seethe and rage and passion, endless, endless, going on for\never. And she wanted to draw away. She wanted at last her own\ninnocence and peace. She did not want her sons to force upon her\nany more the old brutal story of desire and offerings and deep,\ndeep-hidden rage of unsatisfied men against women. She wanted to\nbe beyond it all, to know the peace and innocence of age.\n\nShe had never been a woman to work much. So that now she\nwould stand often at the garden-gate, watching the scant world\ngo by. And the sight of children pleased her, made her happy.\nShe had usually an apple or a few sweets in her pocket. She\nliked children to smile at her.\n\nShe never went to her husband's grave. She spoke of him\nsimply, as if he were alive. Sometimes the tears would run down\nher face, in helpless sadness. Then she recovered, and was\nherself again, happy.\n\nOn wet days, she stayed in bed. Her bedroom was her city of\nrefuge, where she could lie down and muse and muse. Sometimes\nFred would read to her. But that did not mean much. She had so\nmany dreams to dream over, such an unsifted store. She wanted\ntime.\n\nHer chief friend at this period was Ursula. The little girl\nand the musing, fragile woman of sixty seemed to understand the\nsame language. At Cossethay all was activity and passion,\neverything moved upon poles of passion. Then there were four\nchildren younger than Ursula, a throng of babies, all the time\nmany lives beating against each other.\n\nSo that for the eldest child, the peace of the grandmother's\nbedroom was exquisite. Here Ursula came as to a hushed,\nparadisal land, here her own existence became simple and\nexquisite to her as if she were a flower.\n\nAlways on Saturdays she came down to the Marsh, and always\nclutching a little offering, either a little mat made of strips\nof coloured, woven paper, or a tiny basket made in the\nkindergarten lesson, or a little crayon drawing of a bird.\n\nWhen she appeared in the doorway, Tilly, ancient but still in\nauthority, would crane her skinny neck to see who it was.\n\n\"Oh, it's you, is it?\" she said. \"I thought we should be\nseein' you. My word, that's a bobby-dazzlin' posy you've\nbrought!\"\n\nIt was curious how Tilly preserved the spirit of Tom\nBrangwen, who was dead, in the Marsh. Ursula always connected\nher with her grandfather.\n\nThis day the child had brought a tight little nosegay of\npinks, white ones, with a rim of pink ones. She was very proud\nof it, and very shy because of her pride.\n\n\"Your gran'mother's in her bed. Wipe your shoes well if\nyou're goin' up, and don't go burstin' in on her like a\nskyrocket. My word, but that's a fine posy! Did you do it all by\nyourself, an' all?\"\n\nTilly stealthily ushered her into the bedroom. The child\nentered with a strange, dragging hesitation characteristic of\nher when she was moved. Her grandmother was sitting up in bed,\nwearing a little grey woollen jacket.\n\nThe child hesitated in silence near the bed, clutching the\nnosegay in front of her. Her childish eyes were shining. The\ngrandmother's grey eyes shone with a similar light.\n\n\"How pretty!\" she said. \"How pretty you have made them! What\na darling little bunch.\"\n\nUrsula, glowing, thrust them into her grandmother's hand,\nsaying, \"I made them you.\"\n\n\"That is how the peasants tied them at home,\" said the\ngrandmother, pushing the pinks with her fingers, and smelling\nthem. \"Just such tight little bunches! And they make wreaths for\ntheir hair--they weave the stalks. Then they go round with\nwreaths in their hair, and wearing their best aprons.\"\n\nUrsula immediately imagined herself in this story-land.\n\n\"Did you used to have a wreath in your hair,\ngrandmother?\"\n\n\"When I was a little girl, I had golden hair, something like\nKatie's. Then I used to have a wreath of little blue flowers,\noh, so blue, that come when the snow is gone. Andrey, the\ncoachman, used to bring me the very first.\"\n\nThey talked, and then Tilly brought the tea-tray, set for\ntwo. Ursula had a special green and gold cup kept for herself at\nthe Marsh. There was thin bread and butter, and cress for tea.\nIt was all special and wonderful. She ate very daintily, with\nlittle fastidious bites.\n\n\"Why do you have two wedding-rings, grandmother?--Must\nyou?\" asked the child, noticing her grandmother's ivory coloured\nhand with blue veins, above the tray.\n\n\"If I had two husbands, child.\"\n\nUrsula pondered a moment.\n\n\"Then you must wear both rings together?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Which was my grandfather's ring?\"\n\nThe woman hesitated.\n\n\"This grandfather whom you knew? This was his ring, the red\none. The yellow one was your other grandfather's whom you never\nknew.\"\n\nUrsula looked interestedly at the two rings on the proffered\nfinger.\n\n\"Where did he buy it you?\" she asked.\n\n\"This one? In Warsaw, I think.\"\n\n\"You didn't know my own grandfather then?\"\n\n\"Not this grandfather.\"\n\nUrsula pondered this fascinating intelligence.\n\n\"Did he have white whiskers as well?\"\n\n\"No, his beard was dark. You have his brows, I think.\"\n\nUrsula ceased and became self-conscious. She at once\nidentified herself with her Polish grandfather.\n\n\"And did he have brown eyes?\"\n\n\"Yes, dark eyes. He was a clever man, as quick as a lion. He\nwas never still.\"\n\nLydia still resented Lensky. When she thought of him, she was\nalways younger than he, she was always twenty, or twenty-five,\nand under his domination. He incorporated her in his ideas as if\nshe were not a person herself, as if she were just his\naide-de-camp, or part of his baggage, or one among his surgical\nappliances. She still resented it. And he was always only\nthirty: he had died when he was thirty-four. She did not feel\nsorry for him. He was older than she. Yet she still ached in the\nthought of those days.\n\n\"Did you like my first grandfather best?\" asked Ursula.\n\n\"I liked them both,\" said the grandmother.\n\nAnd, thinking, she became again Lensky's girl-bride. He was\nof good family, of better family even than her own, for she was\nhalf German. She was a young girl in a house of insecure\nfortune. And he, an intellectual, a clever surgeon and\nphysician, had loved her. How she had looked up to him! She\nremembered her first transports when he talked to her, the\nimportant young man with the severe black beard. He had seemed\nso wonderful, such an authority. After her own lax household,\nhis gravity and confident, hard authority seemed almost God-like\nto her. For she had never known it in her life, all her\nsurroundings had been loose, lax, disordered, a welter.\n\n\"Miss Lydia, will you marry me?\" he had said to her in\nGerman, in his grave, yet tremulous voice. She had been afraid\nof his dark eyes upon her. They did not see her, they were fixed\nupon her. And he was hard, confident. She thrilled with the\nexcitement of it, and accepted. During the courtship, his kisses\nwere a wonder to her. She always thought about them, and\nwondered over them. She never wanted to kiss him back. In her\nidea, the man kissed, and the woman examined in her soul the\nkisses she had received.\n\nShe had never quite recovered from her prostration of the\nfirst days, or nights, of marriage. He had taken her to Vienna,\nand she was utterly alone with him, utterly alone in another\nworld, everything, everything foreign, even he foreign to her.\nThen came the real marriage, passion came to her, and she became\nhis slave, he was her lord, her lord. She was the girl-bride,\nthe slave, she kissed his feet, she had thought it an honour to\ntouch his body, to unfasten his boots. For two years, she had\ngone on as his slave, crouching at his feet, embracing his\nknees.\n\nChildren had come, he had followed his ideas. She was there\nfor him, just to keep him in condition. She was to him one of\nthe baser or material conditions necessary for his welfare in\nprosecuting his ideas, of nationalism, of liberty, of\nscience.\n\nBut gradually, at twenty-three, twenty-four, she began to\nrealize that she too might consider these ideas. By his\nacceptance of her self-subordination, he exhausted the feeling\nin her. There were those of his associates who would discuss the\nideas with her, though he did not wish to do so himself. She\nadventured into the minds of other men. His, then, was not the\nonly male mind! She did not exist, then, just as his attribute!\nShe began to perceive the attention of other men. An excitement\ncame over her. She remembered now the men who had paid her\ncourt, when she was married, in Warsaw.\n\nThen the rebellion broke out, and she was inspired too. She\nwould go as a nurse at her husband's side. He worked like a\nlion, he wore his life out. And she followed him helplessly. But\nshe disbelieved in him. He was so separate, he ignored so much.\nHe counted too much on himself. His work, his ideas,--did\nnothing else matter?\n\nThen the children were dead, and for her, everything became\nremote. He became remote. She saw him, she saw him go white when\nhe heard the news, then frown, as if he thought, \"Why\nhave they died now, when I have no time to grieve?\"\n\n\"He has no time to grieve,\" she had said, in her remote,\nawful soul. \"He has no time. It is so important, what he does!\nHe is then so self-important, this half-frenzied man! Nothing\nmatters, but this work of rebellion! He has not time to grieve,\nnor to think of his children! He had not time even to beget\nthem, really.\"\n\nShe had let him go on alone. But, in the chaos, she had\nworked by his side again. And out of the chaos, she had fled\nwith him to London.\n\nHe was a broken, cold man. He had no affection for her, nor\nfor anyone. He had failed in his work, so everything had failed.\nHe stiffened, and died.\n\nShe could not subscribe. He had failed, everything had\nfailed, yet behind the failure was the unyielding passion of\nlife. The individual effort might fail, but not the human joy.\nShe belonged to the human joy.\n\nHe died and went his way, but not before there was another\nchild. And this little Ursula was his grandchild. She was glad\nof it. For she still honoured him, though he had been\nmistaken.\n\nShe, Lydia Brangwen, was sorry for him now. He was\ndead--he had scarcely lived. He had never known her. He had\nlain with her, but he had never known her. He had never received\nwhat she could give him. He had gone away from her empty. So, he\nhad never lived. So, he had died and passed away. Yet there had\nbeen strength and power in him.\n\nShe could scarcely forgive him that he had never lived. If it\nwere not for Anna, and for this little Ursula, who had his\nbrows, there would be no more left of him than of a broken\nvessel thrown away, and just remembered.\n\nTom Brangwen had served her. He had come to her, and taken\nfrom her. He had died and gone his way into death. But he had\nmade himself immortal in his knowledge with her. So she had her\nplace here, in life, and in immortality. For he had taken his\nknowledge of her into death, so that she had her place in death.\n\"In my father's house are many mansions.\"\n\nShe loved both her husbands. To one she had been a naked\nlittle girl-bride, running to serve him. The other she loved out\nof fulfilment, because he was good and had given her being,\nbecause he had served her honourably, and become her man, one\nwith her.\n\nShe was established in this stretch of life, she had come to\nherself. During her first marriage, she had not existed, except\nthrough him, he was the substance and she the shadow running at\nhis feet. She was very glad she had come to her own self. She\nwas grateful to Brangwen. She reached out to him in gratitude,\ninto death.\n\nIn her heart she felt a vague tenderness and pity for her\nfirst husband, who had been her lord. He was so wrong when he\ndied. She could not bear it, that he had never lived, never\nreally become himself. And he had been her lord! Strange, it all\nhad been! Why had he been her lord? He seemed now so far off, so\nwithout bearing on her.\n\n\"Which did you, grandmother?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Like best.\"\n\n\"I liked them both. I married the first when I was quite a\ngirl. Then I loved your grandfather when I was a woman. There is\na difference.\"\n\nThey were silent for a time.\n\n\"Did you cry when my first grandfather died?\" the child\nasked.\n\nLydia Brangwen rocked herself on the bed, thinking aloud.\n\n\"When we came to England, he hardly ever spoke, he was too\nmuch concerned to take any notice of anybody. He grew thinner\nand thinner, till his cheeks were hollow and his mouth stuck\nout. He wasn't handsome any more. I knew he couldn't bear being\nbeaten, I thought everything was lost in the world. Only I had\nyour mother a baby, it was no use my dying.\n\n\"He looked at me with his black eyes, almost as if he hated\nme, when he was ill, and said, 'It only wanted this. It only\nwanted that I should leave you and a young child to starve in\nthis London.' I told him we should not starve. But I was young,\nand foolish, and frightened, which he knew.\n\n\"He was bitter, and he never gave way. He lay beating his\nbrains, to see what he could do. 'I don't know what you will\ndo,' he said. 'I am no good, I am a failure from beginning to\nend. I cannot even provide for my wife and child!'\n\n\"But you see, it was not for him to provide for us. My life\nwent on, though his stopped, and I married your grandfather.\n\n\"I ought to have known, I ought to have been able to say to\nhim: 'Don't be so bitter, don't die because this has failed. You\nare not the beginning and the end.' But I was too young, he had\nnever let me become myself, I thought he was truly the beginning\nand the end. So I let him take all upon himself. Yet all did not\ndepend on him. Life must go on, and I must marry your\ngrandfather, and have your Uncle Tom, and your Uncle Fred. We\ncannot take so much upon ourselves.\"\n\nThe child's heart beat fast as she listened to these things.\nShe could not understand, but she seemed to feel far-off things.\nIt gave her a deep, joyous thrill, to know she hailed from far\noff, from Poland, and that dark-bearded impressive man. Strange,\nher antecedents were, and she felt fate on either side of her\nterrible.\n\nAlmost every day, Ursula saw her grandmother, and every time,\nthey talked together. Till the grandmother's sayings and\nstories, told in the complete hush of the Marsh bedroom,\naccumulated with mystic significance, and became a sort of Bible\nto the child.\n\nAnd Ursula asked her deepest childish questions of her\ngrandmother.\n\n\"Will somebody love me, grandmother?\"\n\n\"Many people love you, child. We all love you.\"\n\n\"But when I am grown up, will somebody love me?\"\n\n\"Yes, some man will love you, child, because it's your\nnature. And I hope it will be somebody who will love you for\nwhat you are, and not for what he wants of you. But we have a\nright to what we want.\"\n\nUrsula was frightened, hearing these things. Her heart sank,\nshe felt she had no ground under her feet. She clung to her\ngrandmother. Here was peace and security. Here, from her\ngrandmother's peaceful room, the door opened on to the greater\nspace, the past, which was so big, that all it contained seemed\ntiny, loves and births and deaths, tiny units and features\nwithin a vast horizon. That was a great relief, to know the tiny\nimportance of the individual, within the great past.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nTHE WIDENING CIRCLE\n\nIt was very burdensome to Ursula, that she was the eldest of\nthe family. By the time she was eleven, she had to take to\nschool Gudrun and Theresa and Catherine. The boy, William,\nalways called Billy, so that he should not be confused with his\nfather, was a lovable, rather delicate child of three, so he\nstayed at home as yet. There was another baby girl, called\nCassandra.\n\nThe children went for a time to the little church school just\nnear the Marsh. It was the only place within reach, and being so\nsmall, Mrs. Brangwen felt safe in sending her children there,\nthough the village boys did nickname Ursula \"Urtler\", and Gudrun\n\"Good-runner\", and Theresa \"Tea-pot\".\n\nGudrun and Ursula were co-mates. The second child, with her\nlong, sleepy body and her endless chain of fancies, would have\nnothing to do with realities. She was not for them, she was for\nher own fancies. Ursula was the one for realities. So Gudrun\nleft all such to her elder sister, and trusted in her\nimplicitly, indifferently. Ursula had a great tenderness for her\nco-mate sister.\n\nIt was no good trying to make Gudrun responsible. She floated\nalong like a fish in the sea, perfect within the medium of her\nown difference and being. Other existence did not trouble her.\nOnly she believed in Ursula, and trusted to Ursula.\n\nThe eldest child was very much fretted by her responsibility\nfor the other young ones. Especially Theresa, a sturdy,\nbold-eyed thing, had a faculty for warfare.\n\n\"Our Ursula, Billy Pillins has lugged my hair.\"\n\n\"What did you say to him?\"\n\n\"I said nothing.\"\n\nThen the Brangwen girls were in for a feud with the\nPillinses, or Phillipses.\n\n\"You won't pull my hair again, Billy Pillins,\" said Theresa,\nwalking with her sisters, and looking superbly at the freckled,\nred-haired boy.\n\n\"Why shan't I?\" retorted Billy Pillins.\n\n\"You won't because you dursn't,\" said the tiresome\nTheresa.\n\n\"You come here, then, Tea-pot, an' see if I dursna.\"\n\nUp marched Tea-pot, and immediately Billy Pillins lugged her\nblack, snaky locks. In a rage she flew at him. Immediately in\nrushed Ursula and Gudrun, and little Katie, in clashed the other\nPhillipses, Clem and Walter, and Eddie Anthony. Then there was a\nfray. The Brangwen girls were well-grown and stronger than many\nboys. But for pinafores and long hair, they would have carried\neasy victories. They went home, however, with hair lugged and\npinafores torn. It was a joy to the Phillips boys to rip the\npinafores of the Brangwen girls.\n\nThen there was an outcry. Mrs. Brangwen would not have\nit; no, she would not. All her innate dignity and\nstandoffishness rose up. Then there was the vicar lecturing the\nschool. \"It was a sad thing that the boys of Cossethay could not\nbehave more like gentlemen to the girls of Cossethay. Indeed,\nwhat kind of boy was it that should set upon a girl, and kick\nher, and beat her, and tear her pinafore? That boy deserved\nsevere castigation, and the name of coward, for no boy\nwho was not a coward--etc., etc.\"\n\nMeanwhile much hang-dog fury in the Pillinses' hearts, much\nvirtue in the Brangwen girls', particularly in Theresa's. And\nthe feud continued, with periods of extraordinary amity, when\nUrsula was Clem Phillips's sweetheart, and Gudrun was Walter's,\nand Theresa was Billy's, and even the tiny Katie had to be Eddie\nAnt'ny's sweetheart. There was the closest union. At every\npossible moment the little gang of Brangwens and Phillipses flew\ntogether. Yet neither Ursula nor Gudrun would have any real\nintimacy with the Phillips boys. It was a sort of fiction to\nthem, this alliance and this dubbing of sweethearts.\n\nAgain Mrs. Brangwen rose up.\n\n\"Ursula, I will not have you raking the roads with\nlads, so I tell you. Now stop it, and the rest will stop\nit.\"\n\nHow Ursula hated always to represent the little\nBrangwen club. She could never be herself, no, she was always\nUrsula-Gudrun-Theresa-Catherine--and later even Billy was\nadded on to her. Moreover, she did not want the Phillipses\neither. She was out of taste with them.\n\nHowever, the Brangwen-Pillins coalition readily broke down,\nowing to the unfair superiority of the Brangwens. The Brangwens\nwere rich. They had free access to the Marsh Farm. The school\nteachers were almost respectful to the girls, the vicar spoke to\nthem on equal terms. The Brangwen girls presumed, they tossed\ntheir heads.\n\n\"You're not ivrybody, Urtler Brangwin, ugly-mug,\" said\nClem Phillips, his face going very red.\n\n\"I'm better than you, for all that,\" retorted Urtler.\n\n\"You think you are--wi' a face like\nthat--Ugly Mug,--Urtler Brangwin,\" he began to jeer,\ntrying to set all the others in cry against her. Then there was\nhostility again. How she hated their jeering. She became\ncold against the Phillipses. Ursula was very proud in her\nfamily. The Brangwen girls had all a curious blind dignity, even\na kind of nobility in their bearing. By some result of breed and\nupbringing, they seemed to rush along their own lives without\ncaring that they existed to other people. Never from the start\ndid it occur to Ursula that other people might hold a low\nopinion of her. She thought that whosoever knew her, knew she\nwas enough and accepted her as such. She thought it was a world\nof people like herself. She suffered bitterly if she were forced\nto have a low opinion of any person, and she never forgave that\nperson.\n\nThis was maddening to many little people. All their lives,\nthe Brangwens were meeting folk who tried to pull them down to\nmake them seem little. Curiously, the mother was aware of what\nwould happen, and was always ready to give her children the\nadvantage of the move.\n\nWhen Ursula was twelve, and the common school and the\ncompanionship of the village children, niggardly and begrudging,\nwas beginning to affect her, Anna sent her with Gudrun to the\nGrammar School in Nottingham. This was a great release for\nUrsula. She had a passionate craving to escape from the\nbelittling circumstances of life, the little jealousies, the\nlittle differences, the little meannesses. It was a torture to\nher that the Phillipses were poorer and meaner than herself,\nthat they used mean little reservations, took petty little\nadvantages. She wanted to be with her equals: but not by\ndiminishing herself. She did want Clem Phillips to be her\nequal. But by some puzzling, painful fate or other, when he was\nreally there with her, he produced in her a tight feeling in the\nhead. She wanted to beat her forehead, to escape.\n\nThen she found that the way to escape was easy. One departed\nfrom the whole circumstance. One went away to the Grammar\nSchool, and left the little school, the meagre teachers, the\nPhillipses whom she had tried to love but who had made her fail,\nand whom she could not forgive. She had an instinctive fear of\npetty people, as a deer is afraid of dogs. Because she was\nblind, she could not calculate nor estimate people. She must\nthink that everybody was just like herself.\n\nShe measured by the standard of her own people: her father\nand mother, her grandmother, her uncles. Her beloved father, so\nutterly simple in his demeanour, yet with his strong, dark soul\nfixed like a root in unexpressed depths that fascinated and\nterrified her: her mother, so strangely free of all money and\nconvention and fear, entirely indifferent to the world, standing\nby herself, without connection: her grandmother, who had come\nfrom so far and was centred in so wide an horizon: people must\ncome up to these standards before they could be Ursula's\npeople.\n\nSo even as a girl of twelve she was glad to burst the narrow\nboundary of Cossethay, where only limited people lived. Outside,\nwas all vastness, and a throng of real, proud people whom she\nwould love.\n\nGoing to school by train, she must leave home at a quarter to\neight in the morning, and she did not arrive again till\nhalf-past five at evening. Of this she was glad, for the house\nwas small and overful. It was a storm of movement, whence there\nhad been no escape. She hated so much being in charge.\n\nThe house was a storm of movement. The children were healthy\nand turbulent, the mother only wanted their animal well-being.\nTo Ursula, as she grew a little older, it became a nightmare.\nWhen she saw, later, a Rubens picture with storms of naked\nbabies, and found this was called \"Fecundity\", she shuddered,\nand the world became abhorrent to her. She knew as a child what\nit was to live amidst storms of babies, in the heat and swelter\nof fecundity. And as a child, she was against her mother,\npassionately against her mother, she craved for some\nspirituality and stateliness.\n\nIn bad weather, home was a bedlam. Children dashed in and out\nof the rain, to the puddles under the dismal yew trees, across\nthe wet flagstones of the kitchen, whilst the cleaning-woman\ngrumbled and scolded; children were swarming on the sofa,\nchildren were kicking the piano in the parlour, to make it sound\nlike a beehive, children were rolling on the hearthrug, legs in\nair, pulling a book in two between them, children, fiendish,\nubiquitous, were stealing upstairs to find out where our Ursula\nwas, whispering at bedroom doors, hanging on the latch, calling\nmysteriously, \"Ursula! Ursula!\" to the girl who had locked\nherself in to read. And it was hopeless. The locked door excited\ntheir sense of mystery, she had to open to dispel the lure.\nThese children hung on to her with round-eyed excited\nquestions.\n\nThe mother flourished amid all this.\n\n\"Better have them noisy than ill,\" she said.\n\nBut the growing girls, in turn, suffered bitterly. Ursula was\njust coming to the stage when Andersen and Grimm were being left\nbehind for the \"Idylls of the King\" and romantic\nlove-stories.\n\n \"Elaine the fair Elaine the lovable,\n Elaine the lily maid of Astolat,\n High in her chamber in a tower to the east\n Guarded the sacred shield of Launcelot.\"\n\nHow she loved it! How she leaned in her bedroom window with\nher black, rough hair on her shoulders, and her warm face all\nrapt, and gazed across at the churchyard and the little church,\nwhich was a turreted castle, whence Launcelot would ride just\nnow, would wave to her as he rode by, his scarlet cloak passing\nbehind the dark yew trees and between the open space: whilst\nshe, ah, she, would remain the lonely maid high up and isolated\nin the tower, polishing the terrible shield, weaving it a\ncovering with a true device, and waiting, waiting, always remote\nand high.\n\nAt which point there would be a faint scuffle on the stairs,\na light-pitched whispering outside the door, and a creaking of\nthe latch: then Billy, excited, whispering:\n\n\"It's locked--it's locked.\"\n\nThen the knocking, kicking at the door with childish knees,\nand the urgent, childish:\n\n\"Ursula--our Ursula? Ursula? Eh, our Ursula?\"\n\nNo reply.\n\n\"Ursula! Eh--our Ursula?\" the name was shouted now Still\nno answer.\n\n\"Mother, she won't answer,\" came the yell. \"She's dead.\"\n\n\"Go away--I'm not dead. What do you want?\" came the\nangry voice of the girl.\n\n\"Open the door, our Ursula,\" came the complaining cry. It was\nall over. She must open the door. She heard the screech of the\nbucket downstairs dragged across the flagstones as the woman\nwashed the kitchen floor. And the children were prowling in the\nbedroom, asking:\n\n\"What were you doing? What had you locked the door for?\" Then\nshe discovered the key of the parish room, and betook herself\nthere, and sat on some sacks with her books. There began another\ndream.\n\nShe was the only daughter of the old lord, she was gifted\nwith magic. Day followed day of rapt silence, whilst she\nwandered ghost-like in the hushed, ancient mansion, or flitted\nalong the sleeping terraces.\n\nHere a grave grief attacked her: that her hair was dark. She\nmust have fair hair and a white skin. She was rather\nbitter about her black mane.\n\nNever mind, she would dye it when she grew up, or bleach it\nin the sun, till it was bleached fair. Meanwhile she wore a fair\nwhite coif of pure Venetian lace.\n\nShe flitted silently along the terraces, where jewelled\nlizards basked upon the stone, and did not move when her shadow\nfell upon them. In the utter stillness she heard the tinkle of\nthe fountain, and smelled the roses whose blossoms hung rich and\nmotionless. So she drifted, drifted on the wistful feet of\nbeauty, past the water and the swans, to the noble park, where,\nunderneath a great oak, a doe all dappled lay with her four fine\nfeet together, her fawn nestling sun-coloured beside her.\n\nOh, and this doe was her familiar. It would talk to her,\nbecause she was a magician, it would tell her stories as if the\nsunshine spoke.\n\nThen one day, she left the door of the parish room unlocked,\ncareless and unheeding as she always was; the children found\ntheir way in, Katie cut her finger and howled, Billy hacked\nnotches in the fine chisels, and did much damage. There was a\ngreat commotion.\n\nThe crossness of the mother was soon finished. Ursula locked\nup the room again, and considered all was over. Then her father\ncame in with the notched tools, his forehead knotted.\n\n\"Who the deuce opened the door?\" he cried in anger.\n\n\"It was Ursula who opened the door,\" said her mother. He had\na duster in his hand. He turned and flapped the cloth hard\nacross the girl's face. The cloth stung, for a moment the girl\nwas as if stunned. Then she remained motionless, her face closed\nand stubborn. But her heart was blazing. In spite of herself the\ntears surged higher, in spite of her they surged higher.\n\nIn spite of her, her face broke, she made a curious gulping\ngrimace, and the tears were falling. So she went away, desolate.\nBut her blazing heart was fierce and unyielding. He watched her\ngo, and a pleasurable pain filled him, a sense of triumph and\neasy power, followed immediately by acute pity.\n\n\"I'm sure that was unnecessary--to hit the girl across\nthe face,\" said the mother coldly.\n\n\"A flip with the duster won't hurt her,\" he said.\n\n\"Nor will it do her any good.\"\n\nFor days, for weeks, Ursula's heart burned from this rebuff.\nShe felt so cruelly vulnerable. Did he not know how vulnerable\nshe was, how exposed and wincing? He, of all people, knew. And\nhe wanted to do this to her. He wanted to hurt her right through\nher closest sensitiveness, he wanted to treat her with shame, to\nmaim her with insult.\n\nHer heart burnt in isolation, like a watchfire lighted. She\ndid not forget, she did not forget, she never forgot. When she\nreturned to her love for her father, the seed of mistrust and\ndefiance burned unquenched, though covered up far from sight.\nShe no longer belonged to him unquestioned. Slowly, slowly, the\nfire of mistrust and defiance burned in her, burned away her\nconnection with him.\n\nShe ran a good deal alone, having a passion for all moving,\nactive things. She loved the little brooks. Wherever she found a\nlittle running water, she was happy. It seemed to make her run\nand sing in spirit along with it. She could sit for hours by a\nbrook or stream, on the roots of the alders, and watch the water\nhasten dancing over the stones, or among the twigs of a fallen\nbranch. Sometimes, little fish vanished before they had become\nreal, like hallucinations, sometimes wagtails ran by the water's\nbrink, sometimes other little birds came to drink. She saw a\nkingfisher darting blue--and then she was very happy. The\nkingfisher was the key to the magic world: he was witness of the\nborder of enchantment.\n\nBut she must move out of the intricately woven illusion of\nher life: the illusion of a father whose life was an Odyssey in\nan outer world; the illusion of her grandmother, of realities so\nshadowy and far-off that they became as mystic\nsymbols:--peasant-girls with wreaths of blue flowers in\ntheir hair, the sledges and the depths of winter; the\ndark-bearded young grandfather, marriage and war and death; then\nthe multitude of illusions concerning herself, how she was truly\na princess of Poland, how in England she was under a spell, she\nwas not really this Ursula Brangwen; then the mirage of her\nreading: out of the multicoloured illusion of this her life, she\nmust move on, to the Grammar School in Nottingham.\n\nShe was shy, and she suffered. For one thing, she bit her\nnails, and had a cruel consciousness in her finger-tips, a\nshame, an exposure. Out of all proportion, this shame haunted\nher. She spent hours of torture, conjuring how she might keep\nher gloves on: if she might say her hands were scalded, if she\nmight seem to forget to take off her gloves.\n\nFor she was going to inherit her own estate, when she went to\nthe High School. There, each girl was a lady. There, she was\ngoing to walk among free souls, her co-mates and her equals, and\nall petty things would be put away. Ah, if only she did not bite\nher nails! If only she had not this blemish! She wanted so much\nto be perfect--without spot or blemish, living the high,\nnoble life.\n\nIt was a grief to her that her father made such a poor\nintroduction. He was brief as ever, like a boy saying his\nerrand, and his clothes looked ill-fitting and casual. Whereas\nUrsula would have liked robes and a ceremonial of introduction\nto this, her new estate.\n\nShe made a new illusion of school. Miss Grey, the\nheadmistress, had a certain silvery, school-mistressy beauty of\ncharacter. The school itself had been a gentleman's house. Dark,\nsombre lawns separated it from the dark, select avenue. But its\nrooms were large and of good appearance, and from the back, one\nlooked over lawns and shrubbery, over the trees and the grassy\nslope of the Arboretum, to the town which heaped the hollow with\nits roofs and cupolas and its shadows.\n\nSo Ursula seated herself upon the hill of learning, looking\ndown on the smoke and confusion and the manufacturing, engrossed\nactivity of the town. She was happy. Up here, in the Grammar\nSchool, she fancied the air was finer, beyond the factory smoke.\nShe wanted to learn Latin and Greek and French and mathematics.\nShe trembled like a postulant when she wrote the Greek alphabet\nfor the first time.\n\nShe was upon another hill-slope, whose summit she had not\nscaled. There was always the marvellous eagerness in her heart,\nto climb and to see beyond. A Latin verb was virgin soil to her:\nshe sniffed a new odour in it; it meant something, though she\ndid not know what it meant. But she gathered it up: it was\nsignificant. When she knew that:\n\n x2-y2 = (x + y)(x-y)\n\nthen she felt that she had grasped something, that she was\nliberated into an intoxicating air, rare and unconditioned. And\nshe was very glad as she wrote her French exercise:\n\n\"J'AI DONNE LE PAIN A MON PETIT FRERE.\"\n\nIn all these things there was the sound of a bugle to her\nheart, exhilarating, summoning her to perfect places. She never\nforgot her brown \"Longman's First French Grammar\", nor her \"Via\nLatina\" with its red edges, nor her little grey Algebra book.\nThere was always a magic in them.\n\nAt learning she was quick, intelligent, instinctive, but she\nwas not \"thorough\". If a thing did not come to her\ninstinctively, she could not learn it. And then, her mad rage of\nloathing for all lessons, her bitter contempt of all teachers\nand schoolmistresses, her recoil to a fierce, animal arrogance\nmade her detestable.\n\nShe was a free, unabateable animal, she declared in her\nrevolts: there was no law for her, nor any rule. She existed for\nherself alone. Then ensued a long struggle with everybody, in\nwhich she broke down at last, when she had run the full length\nof her resistance, and sobbed her heart out, desolate; and\nafterwards, in a chastened, washed-out, bodiless state, she\nreceived the understanding that would not come before, and went\nher way sadder and wiser.\n\nUrsula and Gudrun went to school together. Gudrun was a shy,\nquiet, wild creature, a thin slip of a thing hanging back from\nnotice or twisting past to disappear into her own world again.\nShe seemed to avoid all contact, instinctively, and pursued her\nown intent way, pursuing half-formed fancies that had no\nrelation to anyone else.\n\nShe was not clever at all. She thought Ursula clever enough\nfor two. Ursula understood, so why should she, Gudrun, bother\nherself? The younger girl lived her religious, responsible life\nin her sister, by proxy. For herself, she was indifferent and\nintent as a wild animal, and as irresponsible.\n\nWhen she found herself at the bottom of the class, she\nlaughed, lazily, and was content, saying she was safe now. She\ndid not mind her father's chagrin nor her mother's tinge of\nmortification.\n\n\"What do I pay for you to go to Nottingham for?\" her father\nasked, exasperated.\n\n\"Well, Dad, you know you needn't pay for me,\" she replied,\nnonchalant. \"I'm ready to stop at home.\"\n\nShe was happy at home, Ursula was not. Slim and unwilling\nabroad, Gudrun was easy in her own house as a wild thing in its\nlair. Whereas Ursula, attentive and keen abroad, at home was\nreluctant, uneasy, unwilling to be herself, or unable.\n\nNevertheless Sunday remained the maximum day of the week for\nboth. Ursula turned passionately to it, to the sense of eternal\nsecurity it gave. She suffered anguish of fears during the\nweek-days, for she felt strong powers that would not recognize\nher. There was upon her always a fear and a dislike of\nauthority. She felt she could always do as she wanted if she\nmanaged to avoid a battle with Authority and the authorised\nPowers. But if she gave herself away, she would be lost,\ndestroyed. There was always the menace against her.\n\nThis strange sense of cruelty and ugliness always imminent,\nready to seize hold upon her this feeling of the grudging power\nof the mob lying in wait for her, who was the exception, formed\none of the deepest influences of her life. Wherever she was, at\nschool, among friends, in the street, in the train, she\ninstinctively abated herself, made herself smaller, feigned to\nbe less than she was, for fear that her undiscovered self should\nbe seen, pounced upon, attacked by brutish resentment of the\ncommonplace, the average Self.\n\nShe was fairly safe at school, now. She knew how to take her\nplace there, and how much of herself to reserve. But she was\nfree only on Sundays. When she was but a girl of fourteen, she\nbegan to feel a resentment growing against her in her own home.\nShe knew she was the disturbing influence there. But as yet, on\nSundays, she was free, really free, free to be herself, without\nfear or misgiving.\n\nEven at its stormiest, Sunday was a blessed day. Ursula woke\nto it with a feeling of immense relief. She wondered why her\nheart was so light. Then she remembered it was Sunday. A\ngladness seemed to burst out around her, a feeling of great\nfreedom. The whole world was for twenty-four hours revoked, put\nback. Only the Sunday world existed.\n\nShe loved the very confusion of the household. It was lucky\nif the children slept till seven o'clock. Usually, soon after\nsix, a chirp was heard, a voice, an excited chirrup began,\nannouncing the creation of a new day, there was a thudding of\nquick little feet, and the children were up and about,\nscampering in their shirts, with pink legs and glistening,\nflossy hair all clean from the Saturday's night bathing, their\nsouls excited by their bodies' cleanliness.\n\nAs the house began to teem with rushing, half-naked clean\nchildren, one of the parents rose, either the mother, easy and\nslatternly, with her thick, dark hair loosely coiled and\nslipping over one ear, or the father, warm and comfortable, with\nruffled black hair and shirt unbuttoned at the neck.\n\nThen the girls upstairs heard the continual:\n\n\"Now then, Billy, what are you up to?\" in the father's\nstrong, vibrating voice: or the mother's dignified:\n\n\"I have said, Cassie, I will not have it.\"\n\nIt was amazing how the father's voice could ring out like a\ngong, without his being in the least moved, and how the mother\ncould speak like a queen holding an audience, though her blouse\nwas sticking out all round and her hair was not fastened up and\nthe children were yelling a pandemonium.\n\nGradually breakfast was produced, and the elder girls came\ndown into the babel, whilst half-naked children flitted round\nlike the wrong ends of cherubs, as Gudrun said, watching the\nbare little legs and the chubby tails appearing and\ndisappearing.\n\nGradually the young ones were captured, and nightdresses\nfinally removed, ready for the clean Sunday shirt. But before\nthe Sunday shirt was slipped over the fleecy head, away darted\nthe naked body, to wallow in the sheepskin which formed the\nparlour rug, whilst the mother walked after, protesting sharply,\nholding the shirt like a noose, and the father's bronze voice\nrang out, and the naked child wallowing on its back in the deep\nsheepskin announced gleefully:\n\n\"I'm bading in the sea, mother.\"\n\n\"Why should I walk after you with your shirt?\" said the\nmother. \"Get up now.\"\n\n\"I'm bading in the sea, mother,\" repeated the wallowing,\nnaked figure.\n\n\"We say bathing, not bading,\" said the mother, with her\nstrange, indifferent dignity. \"I am waiting here with your\nshirt.\"\n\nAt length shirts were on, and stockings were paired, and\nlittle trousers buttoned and little petticoats tied behind. The\nbesetting cowardice of the family was its shirking of the garter\nquestion.\n\n\"Where are your garters, Cassie?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Well, look for them.\"\n\nBut not one of the elder Brangwens would really face the\nsituation. After Cassie had grovelled under all the furniture\nand blacked up all her Sunday cleanliness, to the infinite grief\nof everybody, the garter was forgotten in the new washing of the\nyoung face and hands.\n\nLater, Ursula would be indignant to see Miss Cassie marching\ninto church from Sunday school with her stocking sluthered down\nto her ankle, and a grubby knee showing.\n\n\"It's disgraceful!\" cried Ursula at dinner. \"People will\nthink we're pigs, and the children are never washed.\"\n\n\"Never mind what people think,\" said the mother superbly. \"I\nsee that the child is bathed properly, and if I satisfy myself I\nsatisfy everybody. She can't keep her stocking up and no garter,\nand it isn't the child's fault she was let to go without\none.\"\n\nThe garter trouble continued in varying degrees, but till\neach child wore long skirts or long trousers, it was not\nremoved.\n\nOn this day of decorum, the Brangwen family went to church by\nthe high-road, making a detour outside all the garden-hedge,\nrather than climb the wall into the churchyard. There was no law\nof this, from the parents. The children themselves were the\nwardens of the Sabbath decency, very jealous and instant with\neach other.\n\nIt came to be, gradually, that after church on Sundays the\nhouse was really something of a sanctuary, with peace breathing\nlike a strange bird alighted in the rooms. Indoors, only reading\nand tale-telling and quiet pursuits, such as drawing, were\nallowed. Out of doors, all playing was to be carried on\nunobtrusively. If there were noise, yelling or shouting, then\nsome fierce spirit woke up in the father and the elder children,\nso that the younger were subdued, afraid of being\nexcommunicated.\n\nThe children themselves preserved the Sabbath. If Ursula in\nher vanity sang:\n\n \"Il etait un' bergere\n Et ron-ron-ron petit patapon,\"\n\nTheresa was sure to cry:\n\n\"That's not a Sunday song, our Ursula.\"\n\n\"You don't know,\" replied Ursula, superior. Nevertheless, she\nwavered. And her song faded down before she came to the end.\n\nBecause, though she did not know it, her Sunday was very\nprecious to her. She found herself in a strange, undefined\nplace, where her spirit could wander in dreams, unassailed.\n\nThe white-robed spirit of Christ passed between olive trees.\nIt was a vision, not a reality. And she herself partook of the\nvisionary being. There was the voice in the night calling,\n\"Samuel, Samuel!\" And still the voice called in the night. But\nnot this night, nor last night, but in the unfathomed night of\nSunday, of the Sabbath silence.\n\nThere was Sin, the serpent, in whom was also wisdom. There\nwas Judas with the money and the kiss.\n\nBut there was no actual Sin. If Ursula slapped Theresa\nacross the face, even on a Sunday, that was not Sin, the\neverlasting. It was misbehaviour. If Billy played truant from\nSunday school, he was bad, he was wicked, but he was not a\nSinner.\n\nSin was absolute and everlasting: wickedness and badness were\ntemporary and relative. When Billy, catching up the local\njargon, called Cassie a \"sinner\", everybody detested him. Yet\nwhen there came to the Marsh a flippetty-floppetty foxhound\npuppy, he was mischievously christened \"Sinner\".\n\nThe Brangwens shrank from applying their religion to their\nown immediate actions. They wanted the sense of the eternal and\nimmortal, not a list of rules for everyday conduct. Therefore\nthey were badly-behaved children, headstrong and arrogant,\nthough their feelings were generous. They had,\nmoreover--intolerable to their ordinary neighbours--a\nproud gesture, that did not fit with the jealous idea of the\ndemocratic Christian. So that they were always extraordinary,\noutside of the ordinary.\n\nHow bitterly Ursula resented her first acquaintance with\nevangelical teachings. She got a peculiar thrill from the\napplication of salvation to her own personal case. \"Jesus died\nfor me, He suffered for me.\" There was a pride and a thrill in\nit, followed almost immediately by a sense of dreariness. Jesus\nwith holes in His hands and feet: it was distasteful to her. The\nshadowy Jesus with the Stigmata: that was her own vision. But\nJesus the actual man, talking with teeth and lips, telling one\nto put one's finger into His wounds, like a villager gloating in\nhis sores, repelled her. She was enemy of those who insisted on\nthe humanity of Christ. If He were just a man, living in\nordinary human life, then she was indifferent.\n\nBut it was the jealousy of vulgar people which must insist on\nthe humanity of Christ. It was the vulgar mind which would allow\nnothing extra-human, nothing beyond itself to exist. It was the\ndirty, desecrating hands of the revivalists which wanted to drag\nJesus into this everyday life, to dress Jesus up in trousers and\nfrock-coat, to compel Him to a vulgar equality of footing. It\nwas the impudent suburban soul which would ask, \"What would\nJesus do, if he were in my shoes?\"\n\nAgainst all this, the Brangwens stood at bay. If any one, it\nwas the mother who was caught by, or who was most careless of\nthe vulgar clamour. She would have nothing extra-human. She\nnever really subscribed, all her life, to Brangwen's mystical\npassion.\n\nBut Ursula was with her father. As she became adolescent,\nthirteen, fourteen, she set more and more against her mother's\npractical indifference. To Ursula, there was something callous,\nalmost wicked in her mother's attitude. What did Anna Brangwen,\nin these years, care for God or Jesus or Angels? She was the\nimmediate life of to-day. Children were still being born to her,\nshe was throng with all the little activities of her family. And\nalmost instinctively she resented her husband's slavish service\nto the Church, his dark, subject hankering to worship an unseen\nGod. What did the unrevealed God matter, when a man had a young\nfamily that needed fettling for? Let him attend to the immediate\nconcerns of his life, not go projecting himself towards the\nultimate.\n\nBut Ursula was all for the ultimate. She was always in revolt\nagainst babies and muddled domesticity. To her Jesus was another\nworld, He was not of this world. He did not thrust His hands\nunder her face and, pointing to His wounds, say:\n\n\"Look, Ursula Brangwen, I got these for your sake. Now do as\nyou're told.\"\n\nTo her, Jesus was beautifully remote, shining in the\ndistance, like a white moon at sunset, a crescent moon beckoning\nas it follows the sun, out of our ken. Sometimes dark clouds\nstanding very far off, pricking up into a clear yellow band of\nsunset, of a winter evening, reminded her of Calvary, sometimes\nthe full moon rising blood-red upon the hill terrified her with\nthe knowledge that Christ was now dead, hanging heavy and dead\nupon the Cross.\n\nOn Sundays, this visionary world came to pass. She heard the\nlong hush, she knew the marriage of dark and light was taking\nplace. In church, the Voice sounded, re-echoing not from this\nworld, as if the Church itself were a shell that still spoke the\nlanguage of creation.\n\n\"The Sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were\nfair: and they took them wives of all which they chose.\n\n\"And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with\nMan, for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred\nand twenty years.\n\n\"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after\nthat, when the Sons of God came in unto the daughters of men,\nand they bare children unto them, the same became mighty men\nwhich were of old, men of renown.\"\n\nOver this Ursula was stirred as by a call from far off. In\nthose days, would not the Sons of God have found her fair, would\nshe not have been taken to wife by one of the Sons of God? It\nwas a dream that frightened her, for she could not understand\nit.\n\nWho were the sons of God? Was not Jesus the only begotten\nSon? Was not Adam the only man created from God? Yet there were\nmen not begotten by Adam. Who were these, and whence did they\ncome? They too must derive from God. Had God many offspring,\nbesides Adam and besides Jesus, children whose origin the\nchildren of Adam cannot recognize? And perhaps these children,\nthese sons of God, had known no expulsion, no ignominy of the\nfall.\n\nThese came on free feet to the daughters of men, and saw they\nwere fair, and took them to wife, so that the women conceived\nand brought forth men of renown. This was a genuine fate. She\nmoved about in the essential days, when the sons of God came in\nunto the daughters of men.\n\nNor would any comparison of myths destroy her passion in the\nknowledge. Jove had become a bull, or a man, in order to love a\nmortal woman. He had begotten in her a giant, a hero.\n\nVery good, so he had, in Greece. For herself, she was no\nGrecian woman. Not Jove nor Pan nor any of those gods, not even\nBacchus nor Apollo, could come to her. But the Sons of God who\ntook to wife the daughters of men, these were such as should\ntake her to wife.\n\nShe clung to the secret hope, the aspiration. She lived a\ndual life, one where the facts of daily life encompassed\neverything, being legion, and the other wherein the facts of\ndaily life were superseded by the eternal truth. So utterly did\nshe desire the Sons of God should come to the daughters of men;\nand she believed more in her desire and its fulfilment than in\nthe obvious facts of life. The fact that a man was a man, did\nnot state his descent from Adam, did not exclude that he was\nalso one of the unhistoried, unaccountable Sons of God. As yet,\nshe was confused, but not denied.\n\nAgain she heard the Voice:\n\n\"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,\nthan for a rich man to enter into heaven.\"\n\nBut it was explained, the needle's eye was a little gateway\nfor foot passengers, through which the great, humped camel with\nhis load could not possibly squeeze himself: or perhaps at a\ngreat risk, if he were a little camel, he might get through. For\none could not absolutely exclude the rich man from heaven, said\nthe Sunday school teachers.\n\nIt pleased her also to know, that in the East one must use\nhyperbole, or else remain unheard; because the Eastern man must\nsee a thing swelling to fill all heaven, or dwindled to a mere\nnothing, before he is suitably impressed. She immediately\nsympathized with this Eastern mind.\n\nYet the words continued to have a meaning that was untouched\neither by the knowledge of gateways or hyperboles. The\nhistorical, or local, or psychological interest in the words was\nanother thing. There remained unaltered the inexplicable value\nof the saying. What was this relation between a needle's eye, a\nrich man, and heaven? What sort of a needle's eye, what sort of\na rich man, what sort of heaven? Who knows? It means the\nAbsolute World, and can never be more than half interpreted in\nterms of the relative world.\n\nBut must one apply the speech literally? Was her father a\nrich man? Couldn't he get to heaven? Or was he only a half-rich\nman? Or was he merely a poor man? At any rate, unless he gave\neverything away to the poor, he would find it much harder to get\nto heaven. The needle's eye would be too tight for him. She\nalmost wished he were penniless poor. If one were coming to the\nbase of it, any man was rich who was not as poor as the\npoorest.\n\nShe had her qualms, when in imagination she saw her father\ngiving away their piano and the two cows, and the capital at the\nbank, to the labourers of the district, so that they, the\nBrangwens, should be as poor as the Wherrys. And she did not\nwant it. She was impatient.\n\n\"Very well,\" she thought, \"we'll forego that heaven, that's\nall--at any rate the needle's eye sort.\" And she dismissed\nthe problem. She was not going to be as poor as the Wherrys, not\nfor all the sayings on earth--the miserable squalid\nWherrys.\n\nSo she reverted to the non-literal application of the\nscriptures. Her father very rarely read, but he had collected\nmany books of reproductions, and he would sit and look at these,\ncuriously intent, like a child, yet with a passion that was not\nchildish. He loved the early Italian painters, but particularly\nGiotto and Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi. The great\ncompositions cast a spell over him. How many times had he turned\nto Raphael's \"Dispute of the Sacrament\" or Fra Angelico's \"Last\nJudgment\" or the beautiful, complicated renderings of the\nAdoration of the Magi, and always, each time, he received the\nsame gradual fulfilment of delight. It had to do with the\nestablishment of a whole mystical, architectural conception\nwhich used the human figure as a unit. Sometimes he had to hurry\nhome, and go to the Fra Angelico \"Last Judgment\". The pathway of\nopen graves, the huddled earth on either side, the seemly heaven\narranged above, the singing process to paradise on the one hand,\nthe stuttering descent to hell on the other, completed and\nsatisfied him. He did not care whether or not he believed in\ndevils or angels. The whole conception gave him the deepest\nsatisfaction, and he wanted nothing more.\n\nUrsula, accustomed to these pictures from her childhood,\nhunted out their detail. She adored Fra Angelico's flowers and\nlight and angels, she liked the demons and enjoyed the hell. But\nthe representation of the encircled God, surrounded by all the\nangels on high, suddenly bored her. The figure of the Most High\nbored her, and roused her resentment. Was this the culmination\nand the meaning of it all, this draped, null figure? The angels\nwere so lovely, and the light so beautiful. And only for this,\nto surround such a banality for God!\n\nShe was dissatisfied, but not fit as yet to criticize. There\nwas yet so much to wonder over. Winter came, pine branches were\ntorn down in the snow, the green pine needles looked rich upon\nthe ground. There was the wonderful, starry, straight track of a\npheasant's footsteps across the snow imprinted so clear; there\nwas the lobbing mark of the rabbit, two holes abreast, two holes\nfollowing behind; the hare shoved deeper shafts, slanting, and\nhis two hind feet came down together and made one large pit; the\ncat podded little holes, and birds made a lacy pattern.\n\nGradually there gathered the feeling of expectation.\nChristmas was coming. In the shed, at nights, a secret candle\nwas burning, a sound of veiled voices was heard. The boys were\nlearning the old mystery play of St. George and Beelzebub. Twice\na week, by lamplight, there was choir practice in the church,\nfor the learning of old carols Brangwen wanted to hear. The\ngirls went to these practices. Everywhere was a sense of mystery\nand rousedness. Everybody was preparing for something.\n\nThe time came near, the girls were decorating the church,\nwith cold fingers binding holly and fir and yew about the\npillars, till a new spirit was in the church, the stone broke\nout into dark, rich leaf, the arches put forth their buds, and\ncold flowers rose to blossom in the dim, mystic atmosphere.\nUrsula must weave mistletoe over the door, and over the screen,\nand hang a silver dove from a sprig of yew, till dusk came down,\nand the church was like a grove.\n\nIn the cow-shed the boys were blacking their faces for a\ndress-rehearsal; the turkey hung dead, with opened, speckled\nwings, in the dairy. The time was come to make pies, in\nreadiness.\n\nThe expectation grew more tense. The star was risen into the\nsky, the songs, the carols were ready to hail it. The star was\nthe sign in the sky. Earth too should give a sign. As evening\ndrew on, hearts beat fast with anticipation, hands were full of\nready gifts. There were the tremulously expectant words of the\nchurch service, the night was past and the morning was come, the\ngifts were given and received, joy and peace made a flapping of\nwings in each heart, there was a great burst of carols, the\nPeace of the World had dawned, strife had passed away, every\nhand was linked in hand, every heart was singing.\n\nIt was bitter, though, that Christmas Day, as it drew on to\nevening, and night, became a sort of bank holiday, flat and\nstale. The morning was so wonderful, but in the afternoon and\nevening the ecstasy perished like a nipped thing, like a bud in\na false spring. Alas, that Christmas was only a domestic feast,\na feast of sweetmeats and toys! Why did not the grown-ups also\nchange their everyday hearts, and give way to ecstasy? Where was\nthe ecstasy?\n\nHow passionately the Brangwens craved for it, the ecstasy.\nThe father was troubled, dark-faced and disconsolate, on\nChristmas night, because the passion was not there, because the\nday was become as every day, and hearts were not aflame. Upon\nthe mother was a kind of absentness, as ever, as if she were\nexiled for all her life. Where was the fiery heart of joy, now\nthe coming was fulfilled; where was the star, the Magi's\ntransport, the thrill of new being that shook the earth?\n\nStill it was there, even if it were faint and inadequate. The\ncycle of creation still wheeled in the Church year. After\nChristmas, the ecstasy slowly sank and changed. Sunday followed\nSunday, trailing a fine movement, a finely developed\ntransformation over the heart of the family. The heart that was\nbig with joy, that had seen the star and had followed to the\ninner walls of the Nativity, that there had swooned in the great\nlight, must now feel the light slowly withdrawing, a shadow\nfalling, darkening. The chill crept in, silence came over the\nearth, and then all was darkness. The veil of the temple was\nrent, each heart gave up the ghost, and sank dead.\n\nThey moved quietly, a little wanness on the lips of the\nchildren, at Good Friday, feeling the shadow upon their hearts.\nThen, pale with a deathly scent, came the lilies of\nresurrection, that shone coldly till the Comforter was\ngiven.\n\nBut why the memory of the wounds and the death? Surely Christ\nrose with healed hands and feet, sound and strong and glad?\nSurely the passage of the cross and the tomb was forgotten? But\nno--always the memory of the wounds, always the smell of\ngrave-clothes? A small thing was Resurrection, compared with the\nCross and the death, in this cycle.\n\nSo the children lived the year of christianity, the epic of\nthe soul of mankind. Year by year the inner, unknown drama went\non in them, their hearts were born and came to fulness, suffered\non the cross, gave up the ghost, and rose again to unnumbered\ndays, untired, having at least this rhythm of eternity in a\nragged, inconsequential life.\n\nBut it was becoming a mechanical action now, this drama:\nbirth at Christmas for death at Good Friday. On Easter Sunday\nthe life-drama was as good as finished. For the Resurrection was\nshadowy and overcome by the shadow of death, the Ascension was\nscarce noticed, a mere confirmation of death.\n\nWhat was the hope and the fulfilment? Nay, was it all only a\nuseless after-death, a wan, bodiless after-death? Alas, and alas\nfor the passion of the human heart, that must die so long before\nthe body was dead.\n\nFor from the grave, after the passion and the trial of\nanguish, the body rose torn and chill and colourless. Did not\nChrist say, \"Mary!\" and when she turned with outstretched hands\nto him, did he not hasten to add, \"Touch me not; for I am not\nyet ascended to my father.\"\n\nThen how could the hands rejoice, or the heart be glad,\nseeing themselves repulsed. Alas, for the resurrection of the\ndead body! Alas, for the wavering, glimmering appearance of the\nrisen Christ. Alas, for the Ascension into heaven, which is a\nshadow within death, a complete passing away.\n\nAlas, that so soon the drama is over; that life is ended at\nthirty-three; that the half of the year of the soul is cold and\nhistoriless! Alas, that a risen Christ has no place with us!\nAlas, that the memory of the passion of Sorrow and Death and the\nGrave holds triumph over the pale fact of Resurrection!\n\nBut why? Why shall I not rise with my body whole and perfect,\nshining with strong life? Why, when Mary says: Rabboni, shall I\nnot take her in my arms and kiss her and hold her to my breast?\nWhy is the risen body deadly, and abhorrent with wounds?\n\nThe Resurrection is to life, not to death. Shall I not see\nthose who have risen again walk here among men perfect in body\nand spirit, whole and glad in the flesh, living in the flesh,\nloving in the flesh, begetting children in the flesh, arrived at\nlast to wholeness, perfect without scar or blemish, healthy\nwithout fear of ill health? Is this not the period of manhood\nand of joy and fulfilment, after the Resurrection? Who shall be\nshadowed by Death and the Cross, being risen, and who shall fear\nthe mystic, perfect flesh that belongs to heaven?\n\nCan I not, then, walk this earth in gladness, being risen\nfrom sorrow? Can I not eat with my brother happily, and with joy\nkiss my beloved, after my resurrection, celebrate my marriage in\nthe flesh with feastings, go about my business eagerly, in the\njoy of my fellows? Is heaven impatient for me, and bitter\nagainst this earth, that I should hurry off, or that I should\nlinger pale and untouched? Is the flesh which was crucified\nbecome as poison to the crowds in the street, or is it as a\nstrong gladness and hope to them, as the first flower blossoming\nout of the earth's humus?\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nFIRST LOVE\n\nAs Ursula passed from girlhood towards womanhood, gradually\nthe cloud of self-responsibility gathered upon her. She became\naware of herself, that she was a separate entity in the midst of\nan unseparated obscurity, that she must go somewhere, she must\nbecome something. And she was afraid, troubled. Why, oh why must\none grow up, why must one inherit this heavy, numbing\nresponsibility of living an undiscovered life? Out of the\nnothingness and the undifferentiated mass, to make something of\nherself! But what? In the obscurity and pathlessness to take a\ndirection! But whither? How take even one step? And yet, how\nstand still? This was torment indeed, to inherit the\nresponsibility of one's own life.\n\nThe religion which had been another world for her, a glorious\nsort of play-world, where she lived, climbing the tree with the\nshort-statured man, walking shakily on the sea like the\ndisciple, breaking the bread into five thousand portions, like\nthe Lord, giving a great picnic to five thousand people, now\nfell away from reality, and became a tale, a myth, an illusion,\nwhich, however much one might assert it to be true an historical\nfact, one knew was not true--at least, for this\npresent--day life of ours. There could, within the limits\nof this life we know, be no Feeding of the Five Thousand. And\nthe girl had come to the point where she held that that which\none cannot experience in daily life is not true for oneself.\n\nSo, the old duality of life, wherein there had been a weekday\nworld of people and trains and duties and reports, and besides\nthat a Sunday world of absolute truth and living mystery, of\nwalking upon the waters and being blinded by the face of the\nLord, of following the pillar of cloud across the desert and\nwatching the bush that crackled yet did not burn away, this old,\nunquestioned duality suddenly was found to be broken apart. The\nweekday world had triumphed over the Sunday world. The Sunday\nworld was not real, or at least, not actual. And one lived by\naction.\n\nOnly the weekday world mattered. She herself, Ursula\nBrangwen, must know how to take the weekday life. Her body must\nbe a weekday body, held in the world's estimate. Her soul must\nhave a weekday value, known according to the world's\nknowledge.\n\nWell, then, there was a weekday life to live, of action and\ndeeds. And so there was a necessity to choose one's action and\none's deeds. One was responsible to the world for what one\ndid.\n\nNay, one was more than responsible to the world. One was\nresponsible to oneself. There was some puzzling, tormenting\nresidue of the Sunday world within her, some persistent Sunday\nself, which insisted upon a relationship with the now shed-away\nvision world. How could one keep up a relationship with that\nwhich one denied? Her task was now to learn the week-day\nlife.\n\nHow to act, that was the question? Whither to go, how to\nbecome oneself? One was not oneself, one was merely a\nhalf-stated question. How to become oneself, how to know the\nquestion and the answer of oneself, when one was merely an\nunfixed something--nothing, blowing about like the winds of\nheaven, undefined, unstated.\n\nShe turned to the visions, which had spoken far-off words\nthat ran along the blood like ripples of an unseen wind, she\nheard the words again, she denied the vision, for she must be a\nweekday person, to whom visions were not true, and she demanded\nonly the weekday meaning of the words.\n\nThere were words spoken by the vision: and words must\nhave a weekday meaning, since words were weekday stuff. Let them\nspeak now: let them bespeak themselves in weekday terms. The\nvision should translate itself into weekday terms.\n\n\"Sell all thou hast, and give to the poor,\" she heard on\nSunday morning. That was plain enough, plain enough for Monday\nmorning too. As she went down the hill to the station, going to\nschool, she took the saying with her.\n\n\"Sell all thou hast, and give to the poor.\"\n\nDid she want to do that? Did she want to sell her\npearl-backed brush and mirror, her silver candlestick, her\npendant, her lovely little necklace, and go dressed in drab like\nthe Wherrys: the unlovely uncombed Wherrys, who were the \"poor\"\nto her? She did not.\n\nShe walked this Monday morning on the verge of misery. For\nshe did want to do what was right. And she didn't want to do\nwhat the gospels said. She didn't want to be poor--really\npoor. The thought was a horror to her: to live like the Wherrys,\nso ugly, to be at the mercy of everybody.\n\n\"Sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.\"\n\nOne could not do it in real life. How dreary and hopeless it\nmade her!\n\nNor could one turn the other cheek. Theresa slapped Ursula on\nthe face. Ursula, in a mood of Christian humility, silently\npresented the other side of her face. Which Theresa, in\nexasperation at the challenge, also hit. Whereupon Ursula, with\nboiling heart, went meekly away.\n\nBut anger, and deep, writhing shame tortured her, so she was\nnot easy till she had again quarrelled with Theresa and had\nalmost shaken her sister's head off.\n\n\"That'll teach you,\" she said, grimly.\n\nAnd she went away, unchristian but clean.\n\nThere was something unclean and degrading about this humble\nside of Christianity. Ursula suddenly revolted to the other\nextreme.\n\n\"I hate the Wherrys, and I wish they were dead. Why does my\nfather leave us in the lurch like this, making us be poor and\ninsignificant? Why is he not more? If we had a father as he\nought to be, he would be Earl William Brangwen, and I should be\nthe Lady Ursula? What right have I to be poor? crawling\nalong the lane like vermin? If I had my rights I should be\nseated on horseback in a green riding-habit, and my groom would\nbe behind me. And I should stop at the gates of the cottages,\nand enquire of the cottage woman who came out with a child in\nher arms, how did her husband, who had hurt his foot. And I\nwould pat the flaxen head of the child, stooping from my horse,\nand I would give her a shilling from my purse, and order\nnourishing food to be sent from the hall to the cottage.\"\n\nSo she rode in her pride. And sometimes, she dashed into\nflames to rescue a forgotten child; or she dived into the canal\nlocks and supported a boy who was seized with cramp; or she\nswept up a toddling infant from the feet of a runaway horse:\nalways imaginatively, of course.\n\nBut in the end there returned the poignant yearning from the\nSunday world. As she went down in the morning from Cossethay and\nsaw Ilkeston smoking blue and tender upon its hill, then her\nheart surged with far-off words:\n\n\"Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem--how often would I have\ngathered thy children together as a hen gathereth her chickens\nunder her wings, and ye would not--\"\n\nThe passion rose in her for Christ, for the gathering under\nthe wings of security and warmth. But how did it apply to the\nweekday world? What could it mean, but that Christ should clasp\nher to his breast, as a mother clasps her child? And oh, for\nChrist, for him who could hold her to his breast and lose her\nthere. Oh, for the breast of man, where she should have refuge\nand bliss for ever! All her senses quivered with passionate\nyearning.\n\nVaguely she knew that Christ meant something else: that in\nthe vision-world He spoke of Jerusalem, something that did not\nexist in the everyday world. It was not houses and factories He\nwould hold in His bosom: nor householders nor factory-workers\nnor poor people: but something that had no part in the weekday\nworld, nor seen nor touched with weekday hands and eyes.\n\nYet she must have it in weekday terms--she must.\nFor all her life was a weekday life, now, this was the whole. So\nhe must gather her body to his breast, that was strong with a\nbroad bone, and which sounded with the beating of the heart, and\nwhich was warm with the life of which she partook, the life of\nthe running blood.\n\nSo she craved for the breast of the Son of Man, to lie there.\nAnd she was ashamed in her soul, ashamed. For whereas Christ\nspoke for the Vision to answer, she answered from the weekday\nfact. It was a betrayal, a transference of meaning, from the\nvision world, to the matter-of-fact world. So she was ashamed of\nher religious ecstasy, and dreaded lest any one should see\nit.\n\nEarly in the year, when the lambs came, and shelters were\nbuilt of straw, and on her uncle's farm the men sat at night\nwith a lantern and a dog, then again there swept over her this\npassionate confusion between the vision world and the weekday\nworld. Again she felt Jesus in the countryside. Ah, he would\nlift up the lambs in his arms! Ah, and she was the lamb. Again,\nin the morning, going down the lane, she heard the ewe call, and\nthe lambs came running, shaking and twinkling with new-born\nbliss. And she saw them stooping, nuzzling, groping to the\nudder, to find the teats, whilst the mother turned her head\ngravely and sniffed her own. And they were sucking, vibrating\nwith bliss on their little, long legs, their throats stretched\nup, their new bodies quivering to the stream of blood-warm,\nloving milk.\n\nOh, and the bliss, the bliss! She could scarcely tear herself\naway to go to school. The little noses nuzzling at the udder,\nthe little bodies so glad and sure, the little black legs,\ncrooked, the mother standing still, yielding herself to their\nquivering attraction--then the mother walked calmly\naway.\n\nJesus--the vision world--the everyday\nworld--all mixed inextricably in a confusion of pain and\nbliss. It was almost agony, the confusion, the inextricability.\nJesus, the vision, speaking to her, who was non-visionary! And\nshe would take his words of the spirit and make them to pander\nto her own carnality.\n\nThis was a shame to her. The confusing of the spirit world\nwith the material world, in her own soul, degraded her. She\nanswered the call of the spirit in terms of immediate, everyday\ndesire.\n\n\"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I\nwill give you rest.\"\n\nIt was the temporal answer she gave. She leapt with sensuous\nyearning to respond to Christ. If she could go to him really,\nand lay her head on his breast, to have comfort, to be made much\nof, caressed like a child!\n\nAll the time she walked in a confused heat of religious\nyearning. She wanted Jesus to love her deliciously, to take her\nsensuous offering, to give her sensuous response. For weeks she\nwent in a muse of enjoyment.\n\nAnd all the time she knew underneath that she was playing\nfalse, accepting the passion of Jesus for her own physical\nsatisfaction. But she was in such a daze, such a tangle. How\ncould she get free?\n\nShe hated herself, she wanted to trample on herself, destroy\nherself. How could one become free? She hated religion, because\nit lent itself to her confusion. She abused everything. She\nwanted to become hard, indifferent, brutally callous to\neverything but just the immediate need, the immediate\nsatisfaction. To have a yearning towards Jesus, only that she\nmight use him to pander to her own soft sensation, use him as a\nmeans of reacting upon herself, maddened her in the end. There\nwas then no Jesus, no sentimentality. With all the bitter hatred\nof helplessness she hated sentimentality.\n\nAt this period came the young Skrebensky. She was nearly\nsixteen years old, a slim, smouldering girl, deeply reticent,\nyet lapsing into unreserved expansiveness now and then, when she\nseemed to give away her whole soul, but when in fact she only\nmade another counterfeit of her soul for outward presentation.\nShe was sensitive in the extreme, always tortured, always\naffecting a callous indifference to screen herself.\n\nShe was at this time a nuisance on the face of the earth,\nwith her spasmodic passion and her slumberous torment. She\nseemed to go with all her soul in her hands, yearning, to the\nother person. Yet all the while, deep at the bottom of her was a\nchildish antagonism of distrust. She thought she loved everybody\nand believed in everybody. But because she could not love\nherself nor believe in herself, she mistrusted everybody with\nthe mistrust of a serpent or a captured bird. Her starts of\nrevulsion and hatred were more inevitable than her impulses of\nlove.\n\nSo she wrestled through her dark days of confusion, soulless,\nuncreated, unformed.\n\nOne evening, as she was studying in the parlour, her head\nburied in her hands, she heard new voices in the kitchen\nspeaking. At once, from its apathy, her excitable spirit started\nand strained to listen. It seemed to crouch, to lurk under\ncover, tense, glaring forth unwilling to be seen.\n\nThere were two strange men's voices, one soft and candid,\nveiled with soft candour, the other veiled with easy mobility,\nrunning quickly. Ursula sat quite tense, shocked out of her\nstudies, lost. She listened all the time to the sound of the\nvoices, scarcely heeding the words.\n\nThe first speaker was her Uncle Tom. She knew the naive\ncandour covering the girding and savage misery of his soul. Who\nwas the other speaker? Whose voice ran on so easy, yet with an\ninflamed pulse? It seemed to hasten and urge her forward, that\nother voice.\n\n\"I remember you,\" the young man's voice was saying. \"I\nremember you from the first time I saw you, because of your dark\neyes and fair face.\"\n\nMrs. Brangwen laughed, shy and pleased.\n\n\"You were a curly-headed little lad,\" she said.\n\n\"Was I? Yes, I know. They were very proud of my curls.\"\n\nAnd a laugh ran to silence.\n\n\"You were a very well-mannered lad, I remember,\" said her\nfather.\n\n\"Oh! did I ask you to stay the night? I always used to ask\npeople to stay the night. I believe it was rather trying for my\nmother.\"\n\nThere was a general laugh. Ursula rose. She had to go.\n\nAt the click of the latch everybody looked round. The girl\nhung in the doorway, seized with a moment's fierce confusion.\nShe was going to be good-looking. Now she had an attractive\ngawkiness, as she hung a moment, not knowing how to carry her\nshoulders. Her dark hair was tied behind, her yellow-brown eyes\nshone without direction. Behind her, in the parlour, was the\nsoft light of a lamp upon open books.\n\nA superficial readiness took her to her Uncle Tom, who kissed\nher, greeting her with warmth, making a show of intimate\npossession of her, and at the same time leaving evident his own\ncomplete detachment.\n\nBut she wanted to turn to the stranger. He was standing back\na little, waiting. He was a young man with very clear greyish\neyes that waited until they were called upon, before they took\nexpression.\n\nSomething in his self-possessed waiting moved her, and she\nbroke into a confused, rather beautiful laugh as she gave him\nher hand, catching her breath like an excited child. His hand\nclosed over hers very close, very near, he bowed, and his eyes\nwere watching her with some attention. She felt proud--her\nspirit leapt to life.\n\n\"You don't know Mr. Skrebensky, Ursula,\" came her Uncle Tom's\nintimate voice. She lifted her face with an impulsive flash to\nthe stranger, as if to declare a knowledge, laughing her\npalpitating, excited laugh.\n\nHis eyes became confused with roused lights, his detached\nattention changed to a readiness for her. He was a young man of\ntwenty-one, with a slender figure and soft brown hair brushed up\non the German fashion straight from his brow.\n\n\"Are you staying long?\" she asked.\n\n\"I've got a month's leave,\" he said, glancing at Tom\nBrangwen. \"But I've various places I must go to--put in\nsome time here and there.\"\n\nHe brought her a strong sense of the outer world. It was as\nif she were set on a hill and could feel vaguely the whole world\nlying spread before her.\n\n\"What have you a month's leave from?\" she asked.\n\n\"I'm in the Engineers--in the Army.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" she exclaimed, glad.\n\n\"We're taking you away from your studies,\" said her\nUncle Tom.\n\n\"Oh, no,\" she replied quickly.\n\nSkrebensky laughed, young and inflammable.\n\n\"She won't wait to be taken away,\" said her father. But that\nseemed clumsy. She wished he would leave her to say her own\nthings.\n\n\"Don't you like study?\" asked Skrebensky, turning to her,\nputting the question from his own case.\n\n\"I like some things,\" said Ursula. \"I like Latin and\nFrench--and grammar.\"\n\nHe watched her, and all his being seemed attentive to her,\nthen he shook his head.\n\n\"I don't,\" he said. \"They say all the brains of the army are\nin the Engineers. I think that's why I joined them--to get\nthe credit of other people's brains.\"\n\nHe said this quizzically and with chagrin. And she became\nalert to him. It interested her. Whether he had brains or not,\nhe was interesting. His directness attracted her, his\nindependent motion. She was aware of the movement of his life\nover against hers.\n\n\"I don't think brains matter,\" she said.\n\n\"What does matter then?\" came her Uncle Tom's intimate,\ncaressing, half-jeering voice.\n\nShe turned to him.\n\n\"It matters whether people have courage or not,\" she\nsaid.\n\n\"Courage for what?\" asked her uncle.\n\n\"For everything.\"\n\nTom Brangwen gave a sharp little laugh. The mother and father\nsat silent, with listening faces. Skrebensky waited. She was\nspeaking for him.\n\n\"Everything's nothing,\" laughed her uncle.\n\nShe disliked him at that moment.\n\n\"She doesn't practice what she preaches,\" said her father,\nstirring in his chair and crossing one leg over the other. \"She\nhas courage for mighty little.\"\n\nBut she would not answer. Skrebensky sat still, waiting. His\nface was irregular, almost ugly, flattish, with a rather thick\nnose. But his eyes were pellucid, strangely clear, his brown\nhair was soft and thick as silk, he had a slight moustache. His\nskin was fine, his figure slight, beautiful. Beside him, her\nUncle Tom looked full-blown, her father seemed uncouth. Yet he\nreminded her of her father, only he was finer, and he seemed to\nbe shining. And his face was almost ugly.\n\nHe seemed simply acquiescent in the fact of his own being, as\nif he were beyond any change or question. He was himself. There\nwas a sense of fatality about him that fascinated her. He made\nno effort to prove himself to other people. Let it be accepted\nfor what it was, his own being. In its isolation it made no\nexcuse or explanation for itself.\n\nSo he seemed perfectly, even fatally established, he did not\nasked to be rendered before he could exist, before he could have\nrelationship with another person.\n\nThis attracted Ursula very much. She was so used to unsure\npeople who took on a new being with every new influence. Her\nUncle Tom was always more or less what the other person would\nhave him. In consequence, one never knew the real Uncle Tom,\nonly a fluid, unsatisfactory flux with a more or less consistent\nappearance.\n\nBut, let Skrebensky do what he would, betray himself\nentirely, he betrayed himself always upon his own\nresponsibility. He permitted no question about himself. He was\nirrevocable in his isolation.\n\nSo Ursula thought him wonderful, he was so finely\nconstituted, and so distinct, self-contained, self-supporting.\nThis, she said to herself, was a gentleman, he had a nature like\nfate, the nature of an aristocrat.\n\nShe laid hold of him at once for her dreams. Here was one\nsuch as those Sons of God who saw the daughters of men, that\nthey were fair. He was no son of Adam. Adam was servile. Had not\nAdam been driven cringing out of his native place, had not the\nhuman race been a beggar ever since, seeking its own being? But\nAnton Skrebensky could not beg. He was in possession of himself,\nof that, and no more. Other people could not really give him\nanything nor take anything from him. His soul stood alone.\n\nShe knew that her mother and father acknowledged him. The\nhouse was changed. There had been a visit paid to the house.\nOnce three angels stood in Abraham's doorway, and greeted him,\nand stayed and ate with him, leaving his household enriched for\never when they went.\n\nThe next day she went down to the Marsh according to\ninvitation. The two men were not come home. Then, looking\nthrough the window, she saw the dogcart drive up, and Skrebensky\nleapt down. She saw him draw himself together, jump, laugh to\nher uncle, who was driving, then come towards her to the house.\nHe was so spontaneous and revealed in his movements. He was\nisolated within his own clear, fine atmosphere, and as still as\nif fated.\n\nHis resting in his own fate gave him an appearance of\nindolence, almost of languor: he made no exuberant movement.\nWhen he sat down, he seemed to go loose, languid.\n\n\"We are a little late,\" he said.\n\n\"Where have you been?\"\n\n\"We went to Derby to see a friend of my father's.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\nIt was an adventure to her to put direct questions and get\nplain answers. She knew she might do it with this man.\n\n\"Why, he is a clergyman too--he is my guardian--one\nof them.\"\n\nUrsula knew that Skrebensky was an orphan.\n\n\"Where is really your home now?\" she asked.\n\n\"My home?--I wonder. I am very fond of my\ncolonel--Colonel Hepburn: then there are my aunts: but my\nreal home, I suppose, is the army.\"\n\n\"Do you like being on your own?\"\n\nHis clear, greenish-grey eyes rested on her a moment, and, as\nhe considered, he did not see her.\n\n\"I suppose so,\" he said. \"You see my father--well, he\nwas never acclimatized here. He wanted--I don't know what\nhe wanted--but it was a strain. And my mother--I\nalways knew she was too good to me. I could feel her being too\ngood to me--my mother! Then I went away to school so early.\nAnd I must say, the outside world was always more naturally a\nhome to me than the vicarage--I don't know why.\"\n\n\"Do you feel like a bird blown out of its own latitude?\" she\nasked, using a phrase she had met.\n\n\"No, no. I find everything very much as I like it.\"\n\nHe seemed more and more to give her a sense of the vast\nworld, a sense of distances and large masses of humanity. It\ndrew her as a scent draws a bee from afar. But also it hurt\nher.\n\nIt was summer, and she wore cotton frocks. The third time he\nsaw her she had on a dress with fine blue-and-white stripes,\nwith a white collar, and a large white hat. It suited her\ngolden, warm complexion.\n\n\"I like you best in that dress,\" he said, standing with his\nhead slightly on one side, and appreciating her in a perceiving,\ncritical fashion.\n\nShe was thrilled with a new life. For the first time she was\nin love with a vision of herself: she saw as it were a fine\nlittle reflection of herself in his eyes. And she must act up to\nthis: she must be beautiful. Her thoughts turned swiftly to\nclothes, her passion was to make a beautiful appearance. Her\nfamily looked on in amazement at the sudden transformation of\nUrsula. She became elegant, really elegant, in figured cotton\nfrocks she made for herself, and hats she bent to her fancy. An\ninspiration was upon her.\n\nHe sat with a sort of languor in her grandmother's rocking\nchair, rocking slowly, languidly, backward and forward, as\nUrsula talked to him.\n\n\"You are not poor, are you?\" she said.\n\n\"Poor in money? I have about a hundred and fifty a year of my\nown--so I am poor or rich, as you like. I am poor enough,\nin fact.\"\n\n\"But you will earn money?\"\n\n\"I shall have my pay--I have my pay now. I've got my\ncommission. That is another hundred and fifty.\"\n\n\"You will have more, though?\"\n\n\"I shan't have more than 200 pounds a year for ten years to\ncome. I shall always be poor, if I have to live on my pay.\"\n\n\"Do you mind it?\"\n\n\"Being poor? Not now--not very much. I may later.\nPeople--the officers, are good to me. Colonel Hepburn has a\nsort of fancy for me--he is a rich man, I suppose.\"\n\nA chill went over Ursula. Was he going to sell himself in\nsome way?\n\n\"Is Colonel Hepburn married?\"\n\n\"Yes--with two daughters.\"\n\nBut she was too proud at once to care whether Colonel\nHepburn's daughter wanted to marry him or not.\n\nThere came a silence. Gudrun entered, and Skrebensky still\nrocked languidly on the chair.\n\n\"You look very lazy,\" said Gudrun.\n\n\"I am lazy,\" he answered.\n\n\"You look really floppy,\" she said.\n\n\"I am floppy,\" he answered.\n\n\"Can't you stop?\" asked Gudrun.\n\n\"No--it's the perpetuum mobile.\"\n\n\"You look as if you hadn't a bone in your body.\"\n\n\"That's how I like to feel.\"\n\n\"I don't admire your taste.\"\n\n\"That's my misfortune.\"\n\nAnd he rocked on.\n\nGudrun seated herself behind him, and as he rocked back, she\ncaught his hair between her finger and thumb, so that it tugged\nhim as he swung forward again. He took no notice. There was only\nthe sound of the rockers on the floor. In silence, like a crab,\nGudrun caught a strand of his hair each time he rocked back.\nUrsula flushed, and sat in some pain. She saw the irritation\ngathering on his brow.\n\nAt last he leapt up, suddenly, like a steel spring going off,\nand stood on the hearthrug.\n\n\"Damn it, why can't I rock?\" he asked petulantly,\nfiercely.\n\nUrsula loved him for his sudden, steel-like start out of the\nlanguor. He stood on the hearthrug fuming, his eyes gleaming\nwith anger.\n\nGudrun laughed in her deep, mellow fashion.\n\n\"Men don't rock themselves,\" she said.\n\n\"Girls don't pull men's hair,\" he said.\n\nGudrun laughed again.\n\nUrsula sat amused, but waiting. And he knew Ursula was\nwaiting for him. It roused his blood. He had to go to her, to\nfollow her call.\n\nOnce he drove her to Derby in the dog-cart. He belonged to\nthe horsey set of the sappers. They had lunch in an inn, and\nwent through the market, pleased with everything. He bought her\na copy of Wuthering Heights from a bookstall. Then they found a\nlittle fair in progress and she said:\n\n\"My father used to take me in the swingboats.\"\n\n\"Did you like it?\" he asked.\n\n\"Oh, it was fine,\" she said.\n\n\"Would you like to go now?\"\n\n\"Love it,\" she said, though she was afraid. But the prospect\nof doing an unusual, exciting thing was attractive to her.\n\nHe went straight to the stand, paid the money, and helped her\nto mount. He seemed to ignore everything but just what he was\ndoing. Other people were mere objects of indifference to him.\nShe would have liked to hang back, but she was more ashamed to\nretreat from him than to expose herself to the crowd or to dare\nthe swingboat. His eyes laughed, and standing before her with\nhis sharp, sudden figure, he set the boat swinging. She was not\nafraid, she was thrilled. His colour flushed, his eyes shone\nwith a roused light, and she looked up at him, her face like a\nflower in the sun, so bright and attractive. So they rushed\nthrough the bright air, up at the sky as if flung from a\ncatapult, then falling terribly back. She loved it. The motion\nseemed to fan their blood to fire, they laughed, feeling the\nflames.\n\nAfter the swingboats, they went on the roundabouts to calm\ndown, he twisting astride on his jerky wooden steed towards her,\nand always seeming at his ease, enjoying himself. A zest of\nantagonism to the convention made him fully himself. As they sat\non the whirling carousal, with the music grinding out, she was\naware of the people on the earth outside, and it seemed that he\nand she were riding carelessly over the faces of the crowd,\nriding for ever buoyantly, proudly, gallantly over the upturned\nfaces of the crowd, moving on a high level, spurning the common\nmass.\n\nWhen they must descend and walk away, she was unhappy,\nfeeling like a giant suddenly cut down to ordinary level, at the\nmercy of the mob.\n\nThey left the fair, to return for the dog-cart. Passing the\nlarge church, Ursula must look in. But the whole interior was\nfilled with scaffolding, fallen stone and rubbish were heaped on\nthe floor, bits of plaster crunched underfoot, and the place\nre-echoed to the calling of secular voices and to blows of the\nhammer.\n\nShe had come to plunge in the utter gloom and peace for a\nmoment, bringing all her yearning, that had returned on her\nuncontrolled after the reckless riding over the face of the\ncrowd, in the fair. After pride, she wanted comfort, solace, for\npride and scorn seemed to hurt her most of all.\n\nAnd she found the immemorial gloom full of bits of falling\nplaster, and dust of floating plaster, smelling of old lime,\nhaving scaffolding and rubbish heaped about, dust cloths over\nthe altar.\n\n\"Let us sit down a minute,\" she said.\n\nThey sat unnoticed in the back pew, in the gloom, and she\nwatched the dirty, disorderly work of bricklayers and\nplasterers. Workmen in heavy boots walking grinding down the\naisles, calling out in a vulgar accent:\n\n\"Hi, mate, has them corner mouldin's come?\"\n\nThere were shouts of coarse answer from the roof of the\nchurch. The place echoed desolate.\n\nSkrebensky sat close to her. Everything seemed wonderful, if\ndreadful to her, the world tumbling into ruins, and she and he\nclambering unhurt, lawless over the face of it all. He sat close\nto her, touching her, and she was aware of his influence upon\nher. But she was glad. It excited her to feel the press of him\nupon her, as if his being were urging her to something.\n\nAs they drove home, he sat near to her. And when he swayed to\nthe cart, he swayed in a voluptuous, lingering way, against her,\nlingering as he swung away to recover balance. Without speaking,\nhe took her hand across, under the wrap, and with his unseeing\nface lifted to the road, his soul intent, he began with his one\nhand to unfasten the buttons of her glove, to push back her\nglove from her hand, carefully laying bare her hand. And the\nclose-working, instinctive subtlety of his fingers upon her hand\nsent the young girl mad with voluptuous delight. His hand was so\nwonderful, intent as a living creature skilfully pushing and\nmanipulating in the dark underworld, removing her glove and\nlaying bare her palm, her fingers. Then his hand closed over\nhers, so firm, so close, as if the flesh knitted to one thing\nhis hand and hers. Meanwhile his face watched the road and the\nears of the horse, he drove with steady attention through the\nvillages, and she sat beside him, rapt, glowing, blinded with a\nnew light. Neither of them spoke. In outward attention they were\nentirely separate. But between them was the compact of his flesh\nwith hers, in the hand-clasp.\n\nThen, in a strange voice, affecting nonchalance and\nsuperficiality he said to her:\n\n\"Sitting in the church there reminded me of Ingram.\"\n\n\"Who is Ingram?\" she asked.\n\nShe also affected calm superficiality. But she knew that\nsomething forbidden was coming.\n\n\"He is one of the other men with me down at Chatham--a\nsubaltern--but a year older than I am.\"\n\n\"And why did the church remind you of him?\"\n\n\"Well, he had a girl in Rochester, and they always sat in a\nparticular corner in the cathedral for their love-making.\"\n\n\"How nice!\" she cried, impulsively.\n\nThey misunderstood each other.\n\n\"It had its disadvantages though. The verger made a row about\nit.\"\n\n\"What a shame! Why shouldn't they sit in a cathedral?\"\n\n\"I suppose they all think it a profanity--except you and\nIngram and the girl.\"\n\n\"I don't think it a profanity--I think it's right, to\nmake love in a cathedral.\"\n\nShe said this almost defiantly, in despite of her own\nsoul.\n\nHe was silent.\n\n\"And was she nice?\"\n\n\"Who? Emily? Yes, she was rather nice. She was a milliner,\nand she wouldn't be seen in the streets with Ingram. It was\nrather sad, really, because the verger spied on them, and got to\nknow their names and then made a regular row. It was a common\ntale afterwards.\"\n\n\"What did she do?\"\n\n\"She went to London, into a big shop. Ingram still goes up to\nsee her.\"\n\n\"Does he love her?\"\n\n\"It's a year and a half he's been with her now.\"\n\n\"What was she like?\"\n\n\"Emily? Little, shy-violet sort of girl with nice\neyebrows.\"\n\nUrsula meditated this. It seemed like real romance of the\nouter world.\n\n\"Do all men have lovers?\" she asked, amazed at her own\ntemerity. But her hand was still fastened with his, and his face\nstill had the same unchanging fixity of outward calm.\n\n\"They're always mentioning some amazing fine woman or other,\nand getting drunk to talk about her. Most of them dash up to\nLondon the moment they are free.\"\n\n\"What for?\"\n\n\"To some amazing fine woman or other.\"\n\n\"What sort of woman?\"\n\n\"Various. Her name changes pretty frequently, as a rule. One\nof the fellows is a perfect maniac. He keeps a suit-case always\nready, and the instant he is at liberty, he bolts with it to the\nstation, and changes in the train. No matter who is in the\ncarriage, off he whips his tunic, and performs at least the top\nhalf of his toilet.\"\n\nUrsula quivered and wondered.\n\n\"Why is he in such a hurry?\" she asked.\n\nHer throat was becoming hard and difficult.\n\n\"He's got a woman in his mind, I suppose.\"\n\nShe was chilled, hardened. And yet this world of passions and\nlawlessness was fascinating to her. It seemed to her a splendid\nrecklessness. Her adventure in life was beginning. It seemed\nvery splendid.\n\nThat evening she stayed at the Marsh till after dark, and\nSkrebensky escorted her home. For she could not go away from\nhim. And she was waiting, waiting for something more.\n\nIn the warm of the early night, with the shadows new about\nthem, she felt in another, harder, more beautiful, less personal\nworld. Now a new state should come to pass.\n\nHe walked near to her, and with the same, silent, intent\napproach put his arm round her waist, and softly, very softly,\ndrew her to him, till his arm was hard and pressed in upon her;\nshe seemed to be carried along, floating, her feet scarce\ntouching the ground, borne upon the firm, moving surface of his\nbody, upon whose side she seemed to lie, in a delicious swoon of\nmotion. And whilst she swooned, his face bent nearer to her, her\nhead was leaned on his shoulder, she felt his warm breath on her\nface. Then softly, oh softly, so softly that she seemed to faint\naway, his lips touched her cheek, and she drifted through\nstrands of heat and darkness.\n\nStill she waited, in her swoon and her drifting, waited, like\nthe Sleeping Beauty in the story. She waited, and again his face\nwas bent to hers, his lips came warm to her face, their\nfootsteps lingered and ceased, they stood still under the trees,\nwhilst his lips waited on her face, waited like a butterfly that\ndoes not move on a flower. She pressed her breast a little\nnearer to him, he moved, put both his arms round her, and drew\nher close.\n\nAnd then, in the darkness, he bent to her mouth, softly, and\ntouched her mouth with his mouth. She was afraid, she lay still\non his arm, feeling his lips on her lips. She kept still,\nhelpless. Then his mouth drew near, pressing open her mouth, a\nhot, drenching surge rose within her, she opened her lips to\nhim, in pained, poignant eddies she drew him nearer, she let him\ncome farther, his lips came and surging, surging, soft, oh soft,\nyet oh, like the powerful surge of water, irresistible, till\nwith a little blind cry, she broke away.\n\nShe heard him breathing heavily, strangely, beside her. A\nterrible and magnificent sense of his strangeness possessed her.\nBut she shrank a little now, within herself. Hesitating, they\ncontinued to walk on, quivering like shadows under the ash trees\nof the hill, where her grandfather had walked with his daffodils\nto make his proposal, and where her mother had gone with her\nyoung husband, walking close upon him as Ursula was now walking\nupon Skrebensky.\n\nUrsula was aware of the dark limbs of the trees stretching\noverhead, clothed with leaves, and of fine ash leaves tressing\nthe summer night.\n\nThey walked with their bodies moving in complex unity, close\ntogether. He held her hand, and they went the long way round by\nthe road, to be farther. Always she felt as if she were\nsupported off her feet, as if her feet were light as little\nbreezes in motion.\n\nHe would kiss her again--but not again that night with\nthe same deep--reaching kiss. She was aware now, aware of\nwhat a kiss might be. And so, it was more difficult to come to\nhim.\n\nShe went to bed feeling all warm with electric warmth, as if\nthe gush of dawn were within her, upholding her. And she slept\ndeeply, sweetly, oh, so sweetly. In the morning she felt sound\nas an ear of wheat, fragrant and firm and full.\n\nThey continued to be lovers, in the first wondering state of\nunrealization. Ursula told nobody; she was entirely lost in her\nown world.\n\nYet some strange affectation made her seek for a spurious\nconfidence. She had at school a quiet, meditative,\nserious-souled friend called Ethel, and to Ethel must Ursula\nconfide the story. Ethel listened absorbedly, with bowed,\nunbetraying head, whilst Ursula told her secret. Oh, it was so\nlovely, his gentle, delicate way of making love! Ursula talked\nlike a practiced lover.\n\n\"Do you think,\" asked Ursula, \"it is wicked to let a man kiss\nyou--real kisses, not flirting?\"\n\n\"I should think,\" said Ethel, \"it depends.\"\n\n\"He kissed me under the ash trees on Cossethay hill--do\nyou think it was wrong?\"\n\n\"When?\"\n\n\"On Thursday night when he was seeing me home--but real\nkisses--real--. He is an officer in the army.\"\n\n\"What time was it?\" asked the deliberate Ethel.\n\n\"I don't know--about half-past nine.\"\n\nThere was a pause.\n\n\"I think it's wrong,\" said Ethel, lifting her head with\nimpatience. \"You don't know him.\"\n\nShe spoke with some contempt.\n\n\"Yes, I do. He is half a Pole, and a Baron too. In England he\nis equivalent to a Lord. My grandmother was his father's\nfriend.\"\n\nBut the two friends were hostile. It was as if Ursula\nwanted to divide herself from her acquaintances, in\nasserting her connection with Anton, as she now called him.\n\nHe came a good deal to Cossethay, because her mother was fond\nof him. Anna Brangwen became something of a grande dame\nwith Skrebensky, very calm, taking things for granted.\n\n\"Aren't the children in bed?\" cried Ursula petulantly, as she\ncame in with the young man.\n\n\"They will be in bed in half an hour,\" said the mother.\n\n\"There is no peace,\" cried Ursula.\n\n\"The children must live, Ursula,\" said her mother.\n\nAnd Skrebensky was against Ursula in this. Why should she be\nso insistent?\n\nBut then, as Ursula knew, he did not have the perpetual\ntyranny of young children about him. He treated her mother with\ngreat courtliness, to which Mrs. Brangwen returned an easy,\nfriendly hospitality. Something pleased the girl in her mother's\ncalm assumption of state. It seemed impossible to abate Mrs.\nBrangwen's position. She could never be beneath anyone in public\nrelation. Between Brangwen and Skrebensky there was an\nunbridgeable silence. Sometimes the two men made a slight\nconversation, but there was no interchange. Ursula rejoiced to\nsee her father retreating into himself against the young\nman.\n\nShe was proud of Skrebensky in the house. His lounging,\nlanguorous indifference irritated her and yet cast a spell over\nher. She knew it was the outcome of a spirit of\nlaissez-aller combined with profound young vitality. Yet\nit irritated her deeply.\n\nNotwithstanding, she was proud of him as he lounged in his\nlambent fashion in her home, he was so attentive and courteous\nto her mother and to herself all the time. It was wonderful to\nhave his awareness in the room. She felt rich and augmented by\nit, as if she were the positive attraction and he the flow\ntowards her. And his courtesy and his agreement might be all her\nmother's, but the lambent flicker of his body was for herself.\nShe held it.\n\nShe must ever prove her power.\n\n\"I meant to show you my little wood-carving,\" she said.\n\n\"I'm sure it's not worth showing, that,\" said her father.\n\n\"Would you like to see it?\" she asked, leaning towards the\ndoor.\n\nAnd his body had risen from the chair, though his face seemed\nto want to agree with her parents.\n\n\"It is in the shed,\" she said.\n\nAnd he followed her out of the door, whatever his feelings\nmight be.\n\nIn the shed they played at kisses, really played at kisses.\nIt was a delicious, exciting game. She turned to him, her face\nall laughing, like a challenge. And he accepted the challenge at\nonce. He twined his hand full of her hair, and gently, with his\nhand wrapped round with hair behind her head, gradually brought\nher face nearer to his, whilst she laughed breathless with\nchallenge, and his eyes gleamed with answer, with enjoyment of\nthe game. And he kissed her, asserting his will over her, and\nshe kissed him back, asserting her deliberate enjoyment of him.\nDaring and reckless and dangerous they knew it was, their game,\neach playing with fire, not with love. A sort of defiance of all\nthe world possessed her in it--she would kiss him just\nbecause she wanted to. And a dare-devilry in him, like a\ncynicism, a cut at everything he pretended to serve, retaliated\nin him.\n\nShe was very beautiful then, so wide opened, so radiant, so\npalpitating, exquisitely vulnerable and poignantly, wrongly,\nthrowing herself to risk. It roused a sort of madness in him.\nLike a flower shaking and wide-opened in the sun, she tempted\nhim and challenged him, and he accepted the challenge, something\nwent fixed in him. And under all her laughing, poignant\nrecklessness was the quiver of tears. That almost sent him mad,\nmad with desire, with pain, whose only issue was through\npossession of her body.\n\nSo, shaken, afraid, they went back to her parents in the\nkitchen, and dissimulated. But something was roused in both of\nthem that they could not now allay. It intensified and\nheightened their senses, they were more vivid, and powerful in\ntheir being. But under it all was a poignant sense of\ntransience. It was a magnificent self-assertion on the part of\nboth of them, he asserted himself before her, he felt himself\ninfinitely male and infinitely irresistible, she asserted\nherself before him, she knew herself infinitely desirable, and\nhence infinitely strong. And after all, what could either of\nthem get from such a passion but a sense of his or of her own\nmaximum self, in contradistinction to all the rest of life?\nWherein was something finite and sad, for the human soul at its\nmaximum wants a sense of the infinite.\n\nNevertheless, it was begun now, this passion, and must go on,\nthe passion of Ursula to know her own maximum self, limited and\nso defined against him. She could limit and define herself\nagainst him, the male, she could be her maximum self, female, oh\nfemale, triumphant for one moment in exquisite assertion against\nthe male, in supreme contradistinction to the male.\n\nThe next afternoon, when he came, prowling, she went with him\nacross to the church. Her father was gradually gathering in\nanger against him, her mother was hardening in anger against\nher. But the parents were naturally tolerant in action.\n\nThey went together across the churchyard, Ursula and\nSkrebensky, and ran to hiding in the church. It was dimmer in\nthere than the sunny afternoon outside, but the mellow glow\namong the bowed stone was very sweet. The windows burned in ruby\nand in blue, they made magnificent arras to their bower of\nsecret stone.\n\n\"What a perfect place for a rendezvous,\" he said, in a\nhushed voice, glancing round.\n\nShe too glanced round the familiar interior. The dimness and\nstillness chilled her. But her eyes lit up with daring. Here,\nhere she would assert her indomitable gorgeous female self,\nhere. Here she would open her female flower like a flame, in\nthis dimness that was more passionate than light.\n\nThey hung apart a moment, then wilfully turned to each other\nfor the desired contact. She put her arms round him, she cleaved\nher body to his, and with her hands pressed upon his shoulders,\non his back, she seemed to feel right through him, to know his\nyoung, tense body right through. And it was so fine, so hard,\nyet so exquisitely subject and under her control. She reached\nhim her mouth and drank his full kiss, drank it fuller and\nfuller.\n\nAnd it was so good, it was very, very good. She seemed to be\nfilled with his kiss, filled as if she had drunk strong, glowing\nsunshine. She glowed all inside, the sunshine seemed to beat\nupon her heart underneath, she had drunk so beautifully.\n\nShe drew away, and looked at him radiant, exquisitely,\nglowingly beautiful, and satisfied, but radiant as an illumined\ncloud.\n\nTo him this was bitter, that she was so radiant and\nsatisfied. She laughed upon him, blind to him, so full of her\nown bliss, never doubting but that he was the same as she was.\nAnd radiant as an angel she went with him out of the church, as\nif her feet were beams of light that walked on flowers for\nfootsteps.\n\nHe went beside her, his soul clenched, his body unsatisfied.\nWas she going to make this easy triumph over him? For him, there\nwas now no self-bliss, only pain and confused anger.\n\nIt was high summer, and the hay-harvest was almost over. It\nwould be finished on Saturday. On Saturday, however, Skrebensky\nwas going away. He could not stay any longer.\n\nHaving decided to go he became very tender and loving to her,\nkissing her gently, with such soft, sweet, insidious closeness\nthat they were both of them intoxicated.\n\nThe very last Friday of his stay he met her coming out of\nschool, and took her to tea in the town. Then he had a motor-car\nto drive her home.\n\nHer excitement at riding in a motor-car was greatest of all.\nHe too was very proud of this last coup. He saw Ursula kindle\nand flare up to the romance of the situation. She raised her\nhead like a young horse snuffing with wild delight.\n\nThe car swerved round a corner, and Ursula was swung against\nSkrebensky. The contact made her aware of him. With a swift,\nforaging impulse she sought for his hand and clasped it in her\nown, so close, so combined, as if they were two children.\n\nThe wind blew in on Ursula's face, the mud flew in a soft,\nwild rush from the wheels, the country was blackish green, with\nthe silver of new hay here and there, and masses of trees under\na silver-gleaming sky.\n\nHer hand tightened on his with a new consciousness, troubled.\nThey did not speak for some time, but sat, hand-fast, with\naverted, shining faces.\n\nAnd every now and then the car swung her against him. And\nthey waited for the motion to bring them together. Yet they\nstared out of the windows, mute.\n\nShe saw the familiar country racing by. But now, it was no\nfamiliar country, it was wonderland. There was the Hemlock Stone\nstanding on its grassy hill. Strange it looked on this wet,\nearly summer evening, remote, in a magic land. Some rooks were\nflying out of the trees.\n\nAh, if only she and Skrebensky could get out, dismount into\nthis enchanted land where nobody had ever been before! Then they\nwould be enchanted people, they would put off the dull,\ncustomary self. If she were wandering there, on that hill-slope\nunder a silvery, changing sky, in which many rooks melted like\nhurrying showers of blots! If they could walk past the wetted\nhay-swaths, smelling the early evening, and pass in to the wood\nwhere the honeysuckle scent was sweet on the cold tang in the\nair, and showers of drops fell when one brushed a bough, cold\nand lovely on the face!\n\nBut she was here with him in the car, close to him, and the\nwind was rushing on her lifted, eager face, blowing back the\nhair. He turned and looked at her, at her face clean as a\nchiselled thing, her hair chiselled back by the wind, her fine\nnose keen and lifted.\n\nIt was agony to him, seeing her swift and clean-cut and\nvirgin. He wanted to kill himself, and throw his detested\ncarcase at her feet. His desire to turn round on himself and\nrend himself was an agony to him.\n\nSuddenly she glanced at him. He seemed to be crouching\ntowards her, reaching, he seemed to wince between the brows. But\ninstantly, seeing her lighted eyes and radiant face, his\nexpression changed, his old reckless laugh shone to her. She\npressed his hand in utter delight, and he abided. And suddenly\nshe stooped and kissed his hand, bent her head and caught it to\nher mouth, in generous homage. And the blood burned in him. Yet\nhe remained still, he made no move.\n\nShe started. They were swinging into Cossethay. Skrebensky\nwas going to leave her. But it was all so magic, her cup was so\nfull of bright wine, her eyes could only shine.\n\nHe tapped and spoke to the man. The car swung up by the yew\ntrees. She gave him her hand and said good-bye, naive and brief\nas a schoolgirl. And she stood watching him go, her face\nshining. The fact of his driving on meant nothing to her, she\nwas so filled by her own bright ecstacy. She did not see him go,\nfor she was filled with light, which was of him. Bright with an\namazing light as she was, how could she miss him.\n\nIn her bedroom she threw her arms in the air in clear pain of\nmagnificence. Oh, it was her transfiguration, she was beyond\nherself. She wanted to fling herself into all the hidden\nbrightness of the air. It was there, it was there, if she could\nbut meet it.\n\nBut the next day she knew he had gone. Her glory had partly\ndied down--but never from her memory. It was too real. Yet\nit was gone by, leaving a wistfulness. A deeper yearning came\ninto her soul, a new reserve.\n\nShe shrank from touch and question. She was very proud, but\nvery new, and very sensitive. Oh, that no one should lay hands\non her!\n\nShe was happier running on by herself. Oh, it was a joy to\nrun along the lanes without seeing things, yet being with them.\nIt was such a joy to be alone with all one's riches.\n\nThe holidays came, when she was free. She spent most of her\ntime running on by herself, curled up in a squirrel-place in the\ngarden, lying in a hammock in the coppice, while the birds came\nnear--near--so near. Oh, in rainy weather, she flitted\nto the Marsh, and lay hidden with her book in a hay-loft.\n\nAll the time, she dreamed of him, sometimes definitely, but\nwhen she was happiest, only vaguely. He was the warm colouring\nof her dreams, he was the hot blood beating within them.\n\nWhen she was less happy, out of sorts, she pondered over his\nappearance, his clothes, the buttons with his regimental badge,\nwhich he had given her. Or she tried to imagine his life in\nbarracks. Or she conjured up a vision of herself as she appeared\nin his eyes.\n\nHis birthday was in August, and she spent some pains on\nmaking him a cake. She felt that it would not be in good taste\nfor her to give him a present.\n\nTheir correspondence was brief, mostly an exchange of\npost-cards, not at all frequent. But with her cake she must send\nhim a letter.\n\n\"Dear Anton. The sunshine has come back specially for your\nbirthday, I think. I made the cake myself, and wish you many\nhappy returns of the day. Don't eat it if it is not good. Mother\nhopes you will come and see us when you are near enough.\n\n \"I am\n\n \"Your Sincere Friend,\n\n \"Ursula Brangwen.\"\n\nIt bored her to write a letter even to him. After all,\nwriting words on paper had nothing to do with him and her.\n\nThe fine weather had set in, the cutting machine went on from\ndawn till sunset, chattering round the fields. She heard from\nSkrebensky; he too was on duty in the country, on Salisbury\nPlain. He was now a second lieutenant in a Field Troop. He would\nhave a few days off shortly, and would come to the Marsh for the\nwedding.\n\nFred Brangwen was going to marry a schoolmistress out of\nIlkeston as soon as corn-harvest was at an end.\n\nThe dim blue-and-gold of a hot, sweet autumn saw the close of\nthe corn-harvest. To Ursula, it was as if the world had opened\nits softest purest flower, its chicory flower, its meadow\nsaffron. The sky was blue and sweet, the yellow leaves down the\nlane seemed like free, wandering flowers as they chittered round\nthe feet, making a keen, poignant, almost unbearable music to\nher heart. And the scents of autumn were like a summer madness\nto her. She fled away from the little, purple-red\nbutton-chrysanthemums like a frightened dryad, the bright yellow\nlittle chrysanthemums smelled so strong, her feet seemed to\ndither in a drunken dance.\n\nThen her Uncle Tom appeared, always like the cynical Bacchus\nin the picture. He would have a jolly wedding, a harvest supper\nand a wedding feast in one: a tent in the home close, and a band\nfor dancing, and a great feast out of doors.\n\nFred demurred, but Tom must be satisfied. Also Laura, a\nhandsome, clever girl, the bride, she also must have a great and\njolly feast. It appealed to her educated sense. She had been to\nSalisbury Training College, knew folk-songs and\nmorris-dancing.\n\nSo the preparations were begun, directed by Tom Brangwen. A\nmarquee was set up on the home close, two large bonfires were\nprepared. Musicians were hired, feast made ready.\n\nSkrebensky was to come, arriving in the morning. Ursula had a\nnew white dress of soft crepe, and a white hat. She liked to\nwear white. With her black hair and clear golden skin, she\nlooked southern, or rather tropical, like a Creole. She wore no\ncolour whatsoever.\n\nShe trembled that day as she appeared to go down to the\nwedding. She was to be a bridesmaid. Skrebensky would not arrive\ntill afternoon. The wedding was at two o'clock.\n\nAs the wedding-party returned home, Skrebensky stood in the\nparlour at the Marsh. Through the window he saw Tom Brangwen,\nwho was best man, coming up the garden path most elegant in\ncut-away coat and white slip and spats, with Ursula laughing on\nhis arm. Tom Brangwen was handsome, with his womanish colouring\nand dark eyes and black close-cut moustache. But there was\nsomething subtly coarse and suggestive about him for all his\nbeauty; his strange, bestial nostrils opened so hard and wide,\nand his well-shaped head almost disquieting in its nakedness,\nrather bald from the front, and all its soft fulness\nbetrayed.\n\nSkrebensky saw the man rather than the woman. She saw only\nthe slender, unchangeable youth waiting there inscrutable, like\nher fate. He was beyond her, with his loose, slightly horsey\nappearance, that made him seem very manly and foreign. Yet his\nface was smooth and soft and impressionable. She shook hands\nwith him, and her voice was like the rousing of a bird startled\nby the dawn.\n\n\"Isn't it nice,\" she cried, \"to have a wedding?\"\n\nThere were bits of coloured confetti lodged on her dark\nhair.\n\nAgain the confusion came over him, as if he were losing\nhimself and becoming all vague, undefined, inchoate. Yet he\nwanted to be hard, manly, horsey. And he followed her.\n\nThere was a light tea, and the guests scattered. The real\nfeast was for the evening. Ursula walked out with Skrebensky\nthrough the stackyard to the fields, and up the embankment to\nthe canal-side.\n\nThe new corn-stacks were big and golden as they went by, an\narmy of white geese marched aside in braggart protest. Ursula\nwas light as a white ball of down. Skrebensky drifted beside\nher, indefinite, his old from loosened, and another self, grey,\nvague, drifting out as from a bud. They talked lightly, of\nnothing.\n\nThe blue way of the canal wound softly between the autumn\nhedges, on towards the greenness of a small hill. On the left\nwas the whole black agitation of colliery and railway and the\ntown which rose on its hill, the church tower topping all. The\nround white dot of the clock on the tower was distinct in the\nevening light.\n\nThat way, Ursula felt, was the way to London, through the\ngrim, alluring seethe of the town. On the other hand was the\nevening, mellow over the green water-meadows and the winding\nalder trees beside the river, and the pale stretches of stubble\nbeyond. There the evening glowed softly, and even a pee-wit was\nflapping in solitude and peace.\n\nUrsula and Anton Skrebensky walked along the ridge of the\ncanal between. The berries on the hedges were crimson and bright\nred, above the leaves. The glow of evening and the wheeling of\nthe solitary pee-wit and the faint cry of the birds came to meet\nthe shuffling noise of the pits, the dark, fuming stress of the\ntown opposite, and they two walked the blue strip of water-way,\nthe ribbon of sky between.\n\nHe was looking, Ursula thought, very beautiful, because of a\nflush of sunburn on his hands and face. He was telling her how\nhe had learned to shoe horses and select cattle fit for\nkilling.\n\n\"Do you like to be a soldier?\" she asked.\n\n\"I am not exactly a soldier,\" he replied.\n\n\"But you only do things for wars,\" she said.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Would you like to go to war?\"\n\n\"I? Well, it would be exciting. If there were a war I would\nwant to go.\"\n\nA strange, distracted feeling came over her, a sense of\npotent unrealities.\n\n\"Why would you want to go?\"\n\n\"I should be doing something, it would be genuine. It's a\nsort of toy-life as it is.\"\n\n\"But what would you be doing if you went to war?\"\n\n\"I would be making railways or bridges, working like a\nnigger.\"\n\n\"But you'd only make them to be pulled down again when the\narmies had done with them. It seems just as much a game.\"\n\n\"If you call war a game.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"It's about the most serious business there is,\nfighting.\"\n\nA sense of hard separateness came over her.\n\n\"Why is fighting more serious than anything else?\" she\nasked.\n\n\"You either kill or get killed--and I suppose it is\nserious enough, killing.\"\n\n\"But when you're dead you don't matter any more,\" she\nsaid.\n\nHe was silenced for a moment.\n\n\"But the result matters,\" he said. \"It matters whether we\nsettle the Mahdi or not.\"\n\n\"Not to you--nor me--we don't care about\nKhartoum.\"\n\n\"You want to have room to live in: and somebody has to make\nroom.\"\n\n\"But I don't want to live in the desert of Sahara--do\nyou?\" she replied, laughing with antagonism.\n\n\"I don't--but we've got to back up those who do.\n\n\"Why have we?\"\n\n\"Where is the nation if we don't?\"\n\n\"But we aren't the nation. There are heaps of other people\nwho are the nation.\"\n\n\"They might say they weren't either.\"\n\n\"Well, if everybody said it, there wouldn't be a nation. But\nI should still be myself,\" she asserted brilliantly.\n\n\"You wouldn't be yourself if there were no nation.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Because you'd just be a prey to everybody and anybody.\"\n\n\"How a prey?\"\n\n\"They'd come and take everything you'd got.\"\n\n\"Well, they couldn't take much even then. I don't care what\nthey take. I'd rather have a robber who carried me off than a\nmillionaire who gave me everything you can buy.\"\n\n\"That's because you are a romanticist.\"\n\n\"Yes, I am. I want to be romantic. I hate houses that never\ngo away, and people just living in the houses. It's all so stiff\nand stupid. I hate soldiers, they are stiff and wooden. What do\nyou fight for, really?\"\n\n\"I would fight for the nation.\"\n\n\"For all that, you aren't the nation. What would you do for\nyourself?\"\n\n\"I belong to the nation and must do my duty by the\nnation.\"\n\n\"But when it didn't need your services in\nparticular--when there is no fighting? What would you do\nthen?\"\n\nHe was irritated.\n\n\"I would do what everybody else does.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Nothing. I would be in readiness for when I was needed.\"\n\nThe answer came in exasperation.\n\n\"It seems to me,\" she answered, \"as if you weren't\nanybody--as if there weren't anybody there, where you are.\nAre you anybody, really? You seem like nothing to me.\"\n\nThey had walked till they had reached a wharf, just above a\nlock. There an empty barge, painted with a red and yellow cabin\nhood, but with a long, coal-black hold, was lying moored. A man,\nlean and grimy, was sitting on a box against the cabin-side by\nthe door, smoking, and nursing a baby that was wrapped in a drab\nshawl, and looking into the glow of evening. A woman bustled\nout, sent a pail dashing into the canal, drew her water, and\nbustled in again. Children's voices were heard. A thin blue\nsmoke ascended from the cabin chimney, there was a smell of\ncooking.\n\nUrsula, white as a moth, lingered to look. Skrebensky\nlingered by her. The man glanced up.\n\n\"Good evening,\" he called, half impudent, half attracted. He\nhad blue eyes which glanced impudently from his grimy face.\n\n\"Good evening,\" said Ursula, delighted. \"Isn't it\nnice now?\"\n\n\"Ay,\" said the man, \"very nice.\"\n\nHis mouth was red under his ragged, sandy moustache. His\nteeth were white as he laughed.\n\n\"Oh, but--\" stammered Ursula, laughing, \"it is. Why do\nyou say it as if it weren't?\"\n\n\"'Appen for them as is childt-nursin' it's none so rosy.\"\n\n\"May I look inside your barge?\" asked Ursula.\n\n\"There's nobody'll stop you; you come if you like.\"\n\nThe barge lay at the opposite bank, at the wharf. It was the\nAnnabel, belonging to J. Ruth of Loughborough. The man\nwatched Ursula closely from his keen, twinkling eyes. His fair\nhair was wispy on his grimed forehead. Two dirty children\nappeared to see who was talking.\n\nUrsula glanced at the great lock gates. They were shut, and\nthe water was sounding, spurting and trickling down in the gloom\nbeyond. On this side the bright water was almost to the top of\nthe gate. She went boldly across, and round to the wharf.\n\nStooping from the bank, she peeped into the cabin, where was\na red glow of fire and the shadowy figure of a woman. She did\nwant to go down.\n\n\"You'll mess your frock,\" said the man, warningly.\n\n\"I'll be careful,\" she answered. \"May I come?\"\n\n\"Ay, come if you like.\"\n\nShe gathered her skirts, lowered her foot to the side of the\nboat, and leapt down, laughing. Coal-dust flew up.\n\nThe woman came to the door. She was plump and sandy-haired,\nyoung, with an odd, stubby nose.\n\n\"Oh, you will make a mess of yourself,\" she cried,\nsurprised and laughing with a little wonder.\n\n\"I did want to see. Isn't it lovely living on a barge?\" asked\nUrsula.\n\n\"I don't live on one altogether,\" said the woman\ncheerfully.\n\n\"She's got her parlour an' her plush suite in Loughborough,\"\nsaid her husband with just pride.\n\nUrsula peeped into the cabin, where saucepans were boiling\nand some dishes were on the table. It was very hot. Then she\ncame out again. The man was talking to the baby. It was a\nblue-eyed, fresh-faced thing with floss of red-gold hair.\n\n\"Is it a boy or a girl?\" she asked.\n\n\"It's a girl--aren't you a girl, eh?\" he shouted at the\ninfant, shaking his head. Its little face wrinkled up into the\noddest, funniest smile.\n\n\"Oh!\" cried Ursula. \"Oh, the dear! Oh, how nice when she\nlaughs!\"\n\n\"She'll laugh hard enough,\" said the father.\n\n\"What is her name?\" asked Ursula.\n\n\"She hasn't got a name, she's not worth one,\" said the man.\n\"Are you, you fag-end o' nothing?\" he shouted to the baby. The\nbaby laughed.\n\n\"No we've been that busy, we've never took her to th'\nregistry office,\" came the woman's voice. \"She was born on th'\nboat here.\"\n\n\"But you know what you're going to call her?\" asked\nUrsula.\n\n\"We did think of Gladys Em'ly,\" said the mother.\n\n\"We thought of nowt o' th' sort,\" said the father.\n\n\"Hark at him! What do you want?' cried the mother in\nexasperation.\n\n\"She'll be called Annabel after th' boat she was born\non.\"\n\n\"She's not, so there,\" said the mother, viciously defiant\n\nThe father sat in humorous malice, grinning.\n\n\"Well, you'll see,\" he said.\n\nAnd Ursula could tell, by the woman's vibrating exasperation,\nthat he would never give way.\n\n\"They're all nice names,\" she said. \"Call her Gladys Annabel\nEmily.\"\n\n\"Nay, that's heavy-laden, if you like,\" he answered.\n\n\"You see!\" cried the woman. \"He's that pig-headed!\"\n\n\"And she's so nice, and she laughs, and she hasn't even got a\nname,\" crooned Ursula to the child.\n\n\"Let me hold her,\" she added.\n\nHe yielded her the child, that smelt of babies. But it had\nsuch blue, wide, china blue eyes, and it laughed so oddly, with\nsuch a taking grimace, Ursula loved it. She cooed and talked to\nit. It was such an odd, exciting child.\n\n\"What's your name?\" the man suddenly asked of her.\n\n\"My name is Ursula--Ursula Brangwen,\" she replied.\n\n\"Ursula!\" he exclaimed, dumbfounded.\n\n\"There was a Saint Ursula. It's a very old name,\" she added\nhastily, in justification.\n\n\"Hey, mother!\" he called.\n\nThere was no answer.\n\n\"Pem!\" he called, \"can't y'hear?\"\n\n\"What?\" came the short answer.\n\n\"What about 'Ursula'?\" he grinned.\n\n\"What about what?\" came the answer, and the woman\nappeared in the doorway, ready for combat.\n\n\"Ursula--it's the lass's name there,\" he said,\ngently.\n\nThe woman looked the young girl up and down. Evidently she\nwas attracted by her slim, graceful, new beauty, her effect of\nwhite elegance, and her tender way of holding the child.\n\n\"Why, how do you write it?\" the mother asked, awkward now she\nwas touched. Ursula spelled out her name. The man looked at the\nwoman. A bright, confused flush came over the mother's face, a\nsort of luminous shyness.\n\n\"It's not a common name, is it!\" she exclaimed,\nexcited as by an adventure.\n\n\"Are you goin' to have it then?\" he asked.\n\n\"I'd rather have it than Annabel,\" she said, decisively.\n\n\"An' I'd rather have it than Gladys Em'ler,\" he replied.\n\nThere was a silence, Ursula looked up.\n\n\"Will you really call her Ursula?\" she asked.\n\n\"Ursula Ruth,\" replied the man, laughing vainly, as pleased\nas if he had found something.\n\nIt was now Ursula's turn to be confused.\n\n\"It does sound awfully nice,\" she said. \"I must give\nher something. And I haven't got anything at all.\"\n\nShe stood in her white dress, wondering, down there in the\nbarge. The lean man sitting near to her watched her as if she\nwere a strange being, as if she lit up his face. His eyes smiled\non her, boldly, and yet with exceeding admiration\nunderneath.\n\n\"Could I give her my necklace?\" she said.\n\nIt was the little necklace made of pieces of amethyst and\ntopaz and pearl and crystal, strung at intervals on a little\ngolden chain, which her Uncle Tom had given her. She was very\nfond of it. She looked at it lovingly, when she had taken it\nfrom her neck.\n\n\"Is it valuable?\" the man asked her, curiously.\n\n\"I think so,\" she replied.\n\n\"The stones and pearl are real; it is worth three or four\npounds,\" said Skrebensky from the wharf above. Ursula could tell\nhe disapproved of her.\n\n\"I must give it to your baby--may I?\" she said to\nthe bargee.\n\nHe flushed, and looked away into the evening.\n\n\"Nay,\" he said, \"it's not for me to say.\"\n\n\"What would your father and mother say?\" cried the woman\ncuriously, from the door.\n\n\"It is my own,\" said Ursula, and she dangled the little\nglittering string before the baby. The infant spread its little\nfingers. But it could not grasp. Ursula closed the tiny hand\nover the jewel. The baby waved the bright ends of the string.\nUrsula had given her necklace away. She felt sad. But she did\nnot want it back.\n\nThe jewel swung from the baby's hand and fell in a little\nheap on the coal-dusty bottom of the barge. The man groped for\nit, with a kind of careful reverence. Ursula noticed the\ncoarsened, blunted fingers groping at the little jewelled heap.\nThe skin was red on the back of the hand, the fair hairs\nglistened stiffly. It was a thin, sinewy, capable hand\nnevertheless, and Ursula liked it. He took up the necklace\ncarefully, and blew the coal-dust from it, as it lay in the\nhollow of his hand. He seemed still and attentive. He held out\nhis hand with the necklace shining small in its hard, black\nhollow.\n\n\"Take it back,\" he said.\n\nUrsula hardened with a kind of radiance.\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"It belongs to little Ursula.\"\n\nAnd she went to the infant and fastened the necklace round\nits warm, soft, weak little neck.\n\nThere was a moment of confusion, then the father bent over\nhis child:\n\n\"What do you say?\" he said. \"Do you say thank you? Do you say\nthank you, Ursula?\"\n\n\"Her name's Ursula now,\" said the mother, smiling a\nlittle bit ingratiatingly from the door. And she came out to\nexamine the jewel on the child's neck.\n\n\"It is Ursula, isn't it?\" said Ursula Brangwen.\n\nThe father looked up at her, with an intimate, half-gallant,\nhalf-impudent, but wistful look. His captive soul loved her: but\nhis soul was captive, he knew, always.\n\nShe wanted to go. He set a little ladder for her to climb up\nto the wharf. She kissed the child, which was in its mother's\narms, then she turned away. The mother was effusive. The man\nstood silent by the ladder.\n\nUrsula joined Skrebensky. The two young figures crossed the\nlock, above the shining yellow water. The barge-man watched them\ngo.\n\n\"I loved them,\" she was saying. \"He was so\ngentle--oh, so gentle! And the baby was such a dear!\"\n\n\"Was he gentle?\" said Skrebensky. \"The woman had been a\nservant, I'm sure of that.\"\n\nUrsula winced.\n\n\"But I loved his impudence--it was so gentle\nunderneath.\"\n\nShe went hastening on, gladdened by having met the grimy,\nlean man with the ragged moustache. He gave her a pleasant warm\nfeeling. He made her feel the richness of her own life.\nSkrebensky, somehow, had created a deadness round her, a\nsterility, as if the world were ashes.\n\nThey said very little as they hastened home to the big\nsupper. He was envying the lean father of three children, for\nhis impudent directness and his worship of the woman in Ursula,\na worship of body and soul together, the man's body and soul\nwistful and worshipping the body and spirit of the girl, with a\ndesire that knew the inaccessibility of its object, but was only\nglad to know that the perfect thing existed, glad to have had a\nmoment of communion.\n\nWhy could not he himself desire a woman so? Why did he never\nreally want a woman, not with the whole of him: never loved,\nnever worshipped, only just physically wanted her.\n\nBut he would want her with his body, let his soul do as it\nwould. A kind of flame of physical desire was gradually beating\nup in the Marsh, kindled by Tom Brangwen, and by the fact of the\nwedding of Fred, the shy, fair, stiff-set farmer with the\nhandsome, half-educated girl. Tom Brangwen, with all his secret\npower, seemed to fan the flame that was rising. The bride was\nstrongly attracted by him, and he was exerting his influence on\nanother beautiful, fair girl, chill and burning as the sea, who\nsaid witty things which he appreciated, making her glint with\nmore, like phosphorescence. And her greenish eyes seemed to rock\na secret, and her hands like mother-of-pearl seemed luminous,\ntransparent, as if the secret were burning visible in them.\n\nAt the end of supper, during dessert, the music began to\nplay, violins, and flutes. Everybody's face was lit up. A glow\nof excitement prevailed. When the little speeches were over, and\nthe port remained unreached for any more, those who wished were\ninvited out to the open for coffee. The night was warm.\n\nBright stars were shining, the moon was not yet up. And under\nthe stars burned two great, red, flameless fires, and round\nthese lights and lanterns hung, the marquee stood open before a\nfire, with its lights inside.\n\nThe young people flocked out into the mysterious night. There\nwas sound of laughter and voices, and a scent of coffee. The\nfarm-buildings loomed dark in the background. Figures, pale and\ndark, flitted about, intermingling. The red fire glinted on a\nwhite or a silken skirt, the lanterns gleamed on the transient\nheads of the wedding guests.\n\nTo Ursula it was wonderful. She felt she was a new being. The\ndarkness seemed to breathe like the sides of some great beast,\nthe haystacks loomed half-revealed, a crowd of them, a dark,\nfecund lair just behind. Waves of delirious darkness ran through\nher soul. She wanted to let go. She wanted to reach and be\namongst the flashing stars, she wanted to race with her feet and\nbe beyond the confines of this earth. She was mad to be gone. It\nwas as if a hound were straining on the leash, ready to hurl\nitself after a nameless quarry into the dark. And she was the\nquarry, and she was also the hound. The darkness was passionate\nand breathing with immense, unperceived heaving. It was waiting\nto receive her in her flight. And how could she start--and\nhow could she let go? She must leap from the known into the\nunknown. Her feet and hands beat like a madness, her breast\nstrained as if in bonds.\n\nThe music began, and the bonds began to slip. Tom Brangwen\nwas dancing with the bride, quick and fluid and as if in another\nelement, inaccessible as the creatures that move in the water.\nFred Brangwen went in with another partner. The music came in\nwaves. One couple after another was washed and absorbed into the\ndeep underwater of the dance.\n\n\"Come,\" said Ursula to Skrebensky, laying her hand on his\narm.\n\nAt the touch of her hand on his arm, his consciousness melted\naway from him. He took her into his arms, as if into the sure,\nsubtle power of his will, and they became one movement, one dual\nmovement, dancing on the slippery grass. It would be endless,\nthis movement, it would continue for ever. It was his will and\nher will locked in a trance of motion, two wills locked in one\nmotion, yet never fusing, never yielding one to the other. It\nwas a glaucous, intertwining, delicious flux and contest in\nflux.\n\nThey were both absorbed into a profound silence, into a deep,\nfluid underwater energy that gave them unlimited strength. All\nthe dancers were waving intertwined in the flux of music.\nShadowy couples passed and repassed before the fire, the dancing\nfeet danced silently by into the darkness. It was a vision of\nthe depths of the underworld, under the great flood.\n\nThere was a wonderful rocking of the darkness, slowly, a\ngreat, slow swinging of the whole night, with the music playing\nlightly on the surface, making the strange, ecstatic, rippling\non the surface of the dance, but underneath only one great flood\nheaving slowly backwards to the verge of oblivion, slowly\nforward to the other verge, the heart sweeping along each time,\nand tightening with anguish as the limit was reached, and the\nmovement, at crises, turned and swept back.\n\nAs the dance surged heavily on, Ursula was aware of some\ninfluence looking in upon her. Something was looking at her.\nSome powerful, glowing sight was looking right into her, not\nupon her, but right at her. Out of the great distance, and yet\nimminent, the powerful, overwhelming watch was kept upon her.\nAnd she danced on and on with Skrebensky, while the great, white\nwatching continued, balancing all in its revelation.\n\n\"The moon has risen,\" said Anton, as the music ceased, and\nthey found themselves suddenly stranded, like bits of jetsam on\na shore. She turned, and saw a great white moon looking at her\nover the hill. And her breast opened to it, she was cleaved like\na transparent jewel to its light. She stood filled with the full\nmoon, offering herself. Her two breasts opened to make way for\nit, her body opened wide like a quivering anemone, a soft,\ndilated invitation touched by the moon. She wanted the moon to\nfill in to her, she wanted more, more communion with the moon,\nconsummation. But Skrebensky put his arm round her, and led her\naway. He put a big, dark cloak round her, and sat holding her\nhand, whilst the moonlight streamed above the glowing fires.\n\nShe was not there. Patiently she sat, under the cloak, with\nSkrebensky holding her hand. But her naked self was away there\nbeating upon the moonlight, dashing the moonlight with her\nbreasts and her knees, in meeting, in communion. She half\nstarted, to go in actuality, to fling away her clothing and flee\naway, away from this dark confusion and chaos of people to the\nhill and the moon. But the people stood round her like stones,\nlike magnetic stones, and she could not go, in actuality.\nSkrebensky, like a load-stone weighed on her, the weight of his\npresence detained her. She felt the burden of him, the blind,\npersistent, inert burden. He was inert, and he weighed upon her.\nShe sighed in pain. Oh, for the coolness and entire liberty and\nbrightness of the moon. Oh, for the cold liberty to be herself,\nto do entirely as she liked. She wanted to get right away. She\nfelt like bright metal weighted down by dark, impure magnetism.\nHe was the dross, people were the dross. If she could but get\naway to the clean free moonlight.\n\n\"Don't you like me to-night?\" said his low voice, the voice\nof the shadow over her shoulder. She clenched her hands in the\ndewy brilliance of the moon, as if she were mad.\n\n\"Don't you like me to-night?\" repeated the soft voice.\n\nAnd she knew that if she turned, she would die. A strange\nrage filled her, a rage to tear things asunder. Her hands felt\ndestructive, like metal blades of destruction.\n\n\"Let me alone,\" she said.\n\nA darkness, an obstinacy settled on him too, in a kind of\ninertia. He sat inert beside her. She threw off her cloak and\nwalked towards the moon, silver-white herself. He followed her\nclosely.\n\nThe music began again and the dance. He appropriated her.\nThere was a fierce, white, cold passion in her heart. But he\nheld her close, and danced with her. Always present, like a soft\nweight upon her, bearing her down, was his body against her as\nthey danced. He held her very close, so that she could feel his\nbody, the weight of him sinking, settling upon her, overcoming\nher life and energy, making her inert along with him, she felt\nhis hands pressing behind her, upon her. But still in her body\nwas the subdued, cold, indomitable passion. She liked the dance:\nit eased her, put her into a sort of trance. But it was only a\nkind of waiting, of using up the time that intervened between\nher and her pure being. She left herself against him, she let\nhim exert all his power over her, to bear her down. She received\nall the force of his power. She even wished he might overcome\nher. She was cold and unmoved as a pillar of salt.\n\nHis will was set and straining with all its tension to\nencompass him and compel her. If he could only compel her. He\nseemed to be annihilated. She was cold and hard and compact of\nbrilliance as the moon itself, and beyond him as the moonlight\nwas beyond him, never to be grasped or known. If he could only\nset a bond round her and compel her!\n\nSo they danced four or five dances, always together, always\nhis will becoming more tense, his body more subtle, playing upon\nher. And still he had not got her, she was hard and bright as\never, intact. But he must weave himself round her, enclose her,\nenclose her in a net of shadow, of darkness, so she would be\nlike a bright creature gleaming in a net of shadows, caught.\nThen he would have her, he would enjoy her. How he would enjoy\nher, when she was caught.\n\nAt last, when the dance was over, she would not sit down, she\nwalked away. He came with his arm round her, keeping her upon\nthe movement of his walking. And she seemed to agree. She was\nbright as a piece of moonlight, as bright as a steel blade, he\nseemed to be clasping a blade that hurt him. Yet he would clasp\nher, if it killed him.\n\nThey went towards the stackyard. There he saw, with something\nlike terror, the great new stacks of corn glistening and\ngleaming transfigured, silvery and present under the night-blue\nsky, throwing dark, substantial shadows, but themselves majestic\nand dimly present. She, like glimmering gossamer, seemed to burn\namong them, as they rose like cold fires to the silvery-bluish\nair. All was intangible, a burning of cold, glimmering,\nwhitish-steely fires. He was afraid of the great\nmoon-conflagration of the cornstacks rising above him. His heart\ngrew smaller, it began to fuse like a bead. He knew he would\ndie.\n\nShe stood for some moments out in the overwhelming luminosity\nof the moon. She seemed a beam of gleaming power. She was afraid\nof what she was. Looking at him, at his shadowy, unreal,\nwavering presence a sudden lust seized her, to lay hold of him\nand tear him and make him into nothing. Her hands and wrists\nfelt immeasurably hard and strong, like blades. He waited there\nbeside her like a shadow which she wanted to dissipate, destroy\nas the moonlight destroys a darkness, annihilate, have done\nwith. She looked at him and her face gleamed bright and\ninspired. She tempted him.\n\nAnd an obstinacy in him made him put his arm round her and\ndraw her to the shadow. She submitted: let him try what he could\ndo. Let him try what he could do. He leaned against the side of\nthe stack, holding her. The stack stung him keenly with a\nthousand cold, sharp flames. Still obstinately he held her.\n\nAnd timorously, his hands went over her, over the salt,\ncompact brilliance of her body. If he could but have her, how he\nwould enjoy her! If he could but net her brilliant, cold,\nsalt-burning body in the soft iron of his own hands, net her,\ncapture her, hold her down, how madly he would enjoy her. He\nstrove subtly, but with all his energy, to enclose her, to have\nher. And always she was burning and brilliant and hard as salt,\nand deadly. Yet obstinately, all his flesh burning and\ncorroding, as if he were invaded by some consuming, scathing\npoison, still he persisted, thinking at last he might overcome\nher. Even, in his frenzy, he sought for her mouth with his\nmouth, though it was like putting his face into some awful\ndeath. She yielded to him, and he pressed himself upon her in\nextremity, his soul groaning over and over:\n\n\"Let me come--let me come.\"\n\nShe took him in the kiss, hard her kiss seized upon him, hard\nand fierce and burning corrosive as the moonlight. She seemed to\nbe destroying him. He was reeling, summoning all his strength to\nkeep his kiss upon her, to keep himself in the kiss.\n\nBut hard and fierce she had fastened upon him, cold as the\nmoon and burning as a fierce salt. Till gradually his warm, soft\niron yielded, yielded, and she was there fierce, corrosive,\nseething with his destruction, seething like some cruel,\ncorrosive salt around the last substance of his being,\ndestroying him, destroying him in the kiss. And her soul\ncrystallized with triumph, and his soul was dissolved with agony\nand annihilation. So she held him there, the victim, consumed,\nannihilated. She had triumphed: he was not any more.\n\nGradually she began to come to herself. Gradually a sort of\ndaytime consciousness came back to her. Suddenly the night was\nstruck back into its old, accustomed, mild reality. Gradually\nshe realized that the night was common and ordinary, that the\ngreat, blistering, transcendent night did not really exist. She\nwas overcome with slow horror. Where was she? What was this\nnothingness she felt? The nothingness was Skrebensky. Was he\nreally there?--who was he? He was silent, he was not there.\nWhat had happened? Had she been mad: what horrible thing had\npossessed her? She was filled with overpowering fear of herself,\noverpowering desire that it should not be, that other burning,\ncorrosive self. She was seized with a frenzied desire that what\nhad been should never be remembered, never be thought of, never\nbe for one moment allowed possible. She denied it with all her\nmight. With all her might she turned away from it. She was good,\nshe was loving. Her heart was warm, her blood was dark and warm\nand soft. She laid her hand caressively on Anton's shoulder.\n\n\"Isn't it lovely?\" she said, softly, coaxingly, caressingly.\nAnd she began to caress him to life again. For he was dead. And\nshe intended that he should never know, never become aware of\nwhat had been. She would bring him back from the dead without\nleaving him one trace of fact to remember his annihilation\nby.\n\nShe exerted all her ordinary, warm self, she touched him, she\ndid him homage of loving awareness. And gradually he came back\nto her, another man. She was soft and winning and caressing. She\nwas his servant, his adoring slave. And she restored the whole\nshell of him. She restored the whole form and figure of him. But\nthe core was gone. His pride was bolstered up, his blood ran\nonce more in pride. But there was no core to him: as a distinct\nmale he had no core. His triumphant, flaming, overweening heart\nof the intrinsic male would never beat again. He would be\nsubject now, reciprocal, never the indomitable thing with a core\nof overweening, unabateable fire. She had abated that fire, she\nhad broken him.\n\nBut she caressed him. She would not have him remember what\nhad been. She would not remember herself.\n\n\"Kiss me, Anton, kiss me,\" she pleaded.\n\nHe kissed her, but she knew he could not touch her. His arms\nwere round her, but they had not got her. She could feel his\nmouth upon her, but she was not at all compelled by it.\n\n\"Kiss me,\" she whispered, in acute distress, \"kiss me.\"\n\nAnd he kissed her as she bade him, but his heart was hollow.\nShe took his kisses, outwardly. But her soul was empty and\nfinished.\n\nLooking away, she saw the delicate glint of oats dangling\nfrom the side of the stack, in the moonlight, something proud\nand royal, and quite impersonal. She had been proud with them,\nwhere they were, she had been also. But in this temporary warm\nworld of the commonplace, she was a kind, good girl. She reached\nout yearningly for goodness and affection. She wanted to be kind\nand good.\n\nThey went home through the night that was all pale and\nglowing around, with shadows and glimmerings and presences.\nDistinctly, she saw the flowers in the hedge-bottoms, she saw\nthe thin, raked sheaves flung white upon the thorny hedge.\n\nHow beautiful, how beautiful it was! She thought with anguish\nhow wildly happy she was to-night, since he had kissed her. But\nas he walked with his arm round her waist, she turned with a\ngreat offering of herself to the night that glistened\ntremendous, a magnificent godly moon white and candid as a\nbridegroom, flowers silvery and transformed filling up the\nshadows.\n\nHe kissed her again, under the yew trees at home, and she\nleft him. She ran from the intrusion of her parents at home, to\nher bedroom, where, looking out on the moonlit country, she\nstretched up her arms, hard, hard, in bliss, agony offering\nherself to the blond, debonair presence of the night.\n\nBut there was a wound of sorrow, she had hurt herself, as if\nshe had bruised herself, in annihilating him. She covered up her\ntwo young breasts with her hands, covering them to herself; and\ncovering herself with herself, she crouched in bed, to\nsleep.\n\nIn the morning the sun shone, she got up strong and dancing.\nSkrebensky was still at the Marsh. He was coming to church. How\nlovely, how amazing life was! On the fresh Sunday morning she\nwent out to the garden, among the yellows and the deep-vibrating\nreds of autumn, she smelled the earth and felt the gossamer, the\ncornfields across the country were pale and unreal, everywhere\nwas the intense silence of the Sunday morning, filled with\nunacquainted noises. She smelled the body of the earth, it\nseemed to stir its powerful flank beneath her as she stood. In\nthe bluish air came the powerful exudation, the peace was the\npeace of strong, exhausted breathing, the reds and yellows and\nthe white gleam of stubble were the quivers and motion of the\nlast subsiding transports and clear bliss of fulfilment.\n\nThe church-bells were ringing when he came. She looked up in\nkeen anticipation at his entry. But he was troubled and his\npride was hurt. He seemed very much clothed, she was conscious\nof his tailored suit.\n\n\"Wasn't it lovely last night?\" she whispered to him.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said. But his face did not open nor become\nfree.\n\nThe service and the singing in church that morning passed\nunnoticed by her. She saw the coloured glow of the windows, the\nforms of the worshippers. Only she glanced at the book of\nGenesis, which was her favourite book in the Bible.\n\n\"And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be\nfruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.\n\n\"And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every\nbeast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all\nthat moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes in the sea;\ninto your hand are they delivered.\n\n\"Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even\nas the green herb have I given you all things.\"\n\nBut Ursula was not moved by the history this morning.\nMultiplying and replenishing the earth bored her. Altogether it\nseemed merely a vulgar and stock-raising sort of business. She\nwas left quite cold by man's stock-breeding lordship over beast\nand fishes.\n\n\"And you, be ye fruitful and multiply; bring forth abundantly\nin the earth, and multiply therein.\"\n\nIn her soul she mocked at this multiplication, every cow\nbecoming two cows, every turnip ten turnips.\n\n\"And God said; This is the token of the covenant which I make\nbetween me and you and every living creature that is with you,\nfor perpetual generations;\n\n\"I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a token of a\ncovenant between me and the earth.\n\n\"And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the\nearth, that a bow shall be seen in the cloud;\n\n\"And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you\nand every living creature of all flesh, and the waters shall no\nmore become a flood to destroy all flesh.\"\n\n\"Destroy all flesh,\" why \"flesh\" in particular? Who was this\nlord of flesh? After all, how big was the Flood? Perhaps a few\ndryads and fauns had just run into the hills and the farther\nvalleys and woods, frightened, but most had gone on blithely\nunaware of any flood at all, unless the nymphs should tell them.\nIt pleased Ursula to think of the naiads in Asia Minor meeting\nthe nereids at the mouth of the streams, where the sea washed\nagainst the fresh, sweet tide, and calling to their sisters the\nnews of Noah's Flood. They would tell amusing accounts of Noah\nin his ark. Some nymphs would relate how they had hung on the\nside of the ark, peeped in, and heard Noah and Shem and Ham and\nJapeth, sitting in their place under the rain, saying, how they\nfour were the only men on earth now, because the Lord had\ndrowned all the rest, so that they four would have everything to\nthemselves, and be masters of every thing, sub-tenants under the\ngreat Proprietor.\n\nUrsula wished she had been a nymph. She would have laughed\nthrough the window of the ark, and flicked drops of the flood at\nNoah, before she drifted away to people who were less important\nin their Proprietor and their Flood.\n\nWhat was God, after all? If maggots in a dead dog be but God\nkissing carrion, what then is not God? She was surfeited of this\nGod. She was weary of the Ursula Brangwen who felt troubled\nabout God. What ever God was, He was, and there was no need for\nher to trouble about Him. She felt she had now all licence.\n\nSkrebensky sat beside her, listening to the sermon, to the\nvoice of law and order. \"The very hairs of your head are all\nnumbered.\" He did not believe it. He believed his own things\nwere quite at his own disposal. You could do as you liked with\nyour own things, so long as you left other people's alone.\n\nUrsula caressed him and made love to him. Nevertheless he\nknew she wanted to react upon him and to destroy his being. She\nwas not with him, she was against him. But her making love to\nhim, her complete admiration of him, in open life, gratified\nhim.\n\nShe caught him out of himself, and they were lovers, in a\nyoung, romantic, almost fantastic way. He gave her a little\nring. They put it in Rhine wine, in their glass, and she drank,\nthen he drank. They drank till the ring lay exposed at the\nbottom of the glass. Then she took the simple jewel, and tied it\non a thread round her neck, where she wore it.\n\nHe asked her for a photograph when he was going away. She\nwent in great excitement to the photographer, with five\nshillings. The result was an ugly little picture of herself with\nher mouth on one side. She wondered over it and admired it.\n\nHe saw only the live face of the girl. The picture hurt him.\nHe kept it, he always remembered it, but he could scarcely bear\nto see it. There was a hurt to his soul in the clear, fearless\nface that was touched with abstraction. Its abstraction was\ncertainly away from him.\n\nThen war was declared with the Boers in South Africa, and\neverywhere was a fizz of excitement. He wrote that he might have\nto go. And he sent her a box of sweets.\n\nShe was slightly dazed at the thought of his going to the\nwar, not knowing how to feel. It was a sort of romantic\nsituation that she knew so well in fiction she hardly understood\nit in fact. Underneath a top elation was a sort of dreariness,\ndeep, ashy disappointment.\n\nHowever, she secreted the sweets under her bed, and ate them\nall herself, when she went to bed, and when she woke in the\nmorning. All the time she felt very guilty and ashamed, but she\nsimply did not want to share them.\n\nThat box of sweets remained stuck in her mind afterwards. Why\nhad she secreted them and eaten them every one? Why? She did not\nfeel guilty--she only knew she ought to feel guilty. And\nshe could not make up her mind. Curiously monumental that box of\nsweets stood up, now it was empty. It was a crux for her. What\nwas she to think of it?\n\nThe idea of war altogether made her feel uneasy, uneasy. When\nmen began organized fighting with each other it seemed to her as\nif the poles of the universe were cracking, and the whole might\ngo tumbling into the bottomless pit. A horrible bottomless\nfeeling she had. Yet of course there was the minted\nsuperscription of romance and honour and even religion about\nwar. She was very confused.\n\nSkrebensky was busy, he could not come to see her. She asked\nfor no assurance, no security. What was between them, was, and\ncould not be altered by avowals. She knew that by instinct, she\ntrusted to the intrinsic reality.\n\nBut she felt an agony of helplessness. She could do nothing.\nVaguely she knew the huge powers of the world rolling and\ncrashing together, darkly, clumsily, stupidly, yet colossal, so\nthat one was brushed along almost as dust. Helpless, helpless,\nswirling like dust! Yet she wanted so hard to rebel, to rage, to\nfight. But with what?\n\nCould she with her hands fight the face of the earth, beat\nthe hills in their places? Yet her breast wanted to fight, to\nfight the whole world. And these two small hands were all she\nhad to do it with.\n\nThe months went by, and it was Christmas--the snowdrops\ncame. There was a little hollow in the wood near Cossethay,\nwhere snowdrops grew wild. She sent him some in a box, and he\nwrote her a quick little note of thanks--very grateful and\nwistful he seemed. Her eyes grew childlike and puzzled. Puzzled\nfrom day to day she went on, helpless, carried along by all that\nmust happen.\n\nHe went about at his duties, giving himself up to them. At\nthe bottom of his heart his self, the soul that aspired and had\ntrue hope of self-effectuation lay as dead, still-born, a dead\nweight in his womb. Who was he, to hold important his personal\nconnection? What did a man matter personally? He was just a\nbrick in the whole great social fabric, the nation, the modern\nhumanity. His personal movements were small, and entirely\nsubsidiary. The whole form must be ensured, not ruptured, for\nany personal reason whatsoever, since no personal reason could\njustify such a breaking. What did personal intimacy matter? One\nhad to fill one's place in the whole, the great scheme of man's\nelaborate civilization, that was all. The Whole\nmattered--but the unit, the person, had no importance,\nexcept as he represented the Whole.\n\nSo Skrebensky left the girl out and went his way, serving\nwhat he had to serve, and enduring what he had to endure,\nwithout remark. To his own intrinsic life, he was dead. And he\ncould not rise again from the dead. His soul lay in the tomb.\nHis life lay in the established order of things. He had his five\nsenses too. They were to be gratified. Apart from this, he\nrepresented the great, established, extant Idea of life, and as\nthis he was important and beyond question.\n\nThe good of the greatest number was all that mattered. That\nwhich was the greatest good for them all, collectively, was the\ngreatest good for the individual. And so, every man must give\nhimself to support the state, and so labour for the greatest\ngood of all. One might make improvements in the state, perhaps,\nbut always with a view to preserving it intact.\n\nNo highest good of the community, however, would give him the\nvital fulfilment of his soul. He knew this. But he did not\nconsider the soul of the individual sufficiently important. He\nbelieved a man was important in so far as he represented all\nhumanity.\n\nHe could not see, it was not born in him to see, that the\nhighest good of the community as it stands is no longer the\nhighest good of even the average individual. He thought that,\nbecause the community represents millions of people, therefore\nit must be millions of times more important than any individual,\nforgetting that the community is an abstraction from the many,\nand is not the many themselves. Now when the statement of the\nabstract good for the community has become a formula lacking in\nall inspiration or value to the average intelligence, then the\n\"common good\" becomes a general nuisance, representing the\nvulgar, conservative materialism at a low level.\n\nAnd by the highest good of the greatest number is chiefly\nmeant the material prosperity of all classes. Skrebensky did not\nreally care about his own material prosperity. If he had been\npenniless--well, he would have taken his chances. Therefore\nhow could he find his highest good in giving up his life for the\nmaterial prosperity of everybody else! What he considered an\nunimportant thing for himself he could not think worthy of every\nsacrifice on behalf of other people. And that which he would\nconsider of the deepest importance to himself as an\nindividual--oh, he said, you mustn't consider the community\nfrom that standpoint. No--no--we know what the\ncommunity wants; it wants something solid, it wants good wages,\nequal opportunities, good conditions of living, that's what the\ncommunity wants. It doesn't want anything subtle or difficult.\nDuty is very plain-keep in mind the material, the immediate\nwelfare of every man, that's all.\n\nSo there came over Skrebensky a sort of nullity, which more\nand more terrified Ursula. She felt there was something hopeless\nwhich she had to submit to. She felt a great sense of disaster\nimpending. Day after day was made inert with a sense of\ndisaster. She became morbidly sensitive, depressed,\napprehensive. It was anguish to her when she saw one rook slowly\nflapping in the sky. That was a sign of ill-omen. And the\nforeboding became so black and so powerful in her, that she was\nalmost extinguished.\n\nYet what was the matter? At the worst he was only going away.\nWhy did she mind, what was it she feared? She did not know. Only\nshe had a black dread possessing her. When she went at night and\nsaw the big, flashing stars they seemed terrible, by day she was\nalways expecting some charge to be made against her.\n\nHe wrote in March to say that he was going to South Africa in\na short time, but before he went, he would snatch a day at the\nMarsh.\n\nAs if in a painful dream, she waited suspended, unresolved.\nShe did not know, she could not understand. Only she felt that\nall the threads of her fate were being held taut, in suspense.\nShe only wept sometimes as she went about, saying blindly:\n\n\"I am so fond of him, I am so fond of him.\"\n\nHe came. But why did he come? She looked at him for a sign.\nHe gave no sign. He did not even kiss her. He behaved as if he\nwere an affable, usual acquaintance. This was superficial, but\nwhat did it hide? She waited for him, she wanted him to make\nsome sign.\n\nSo the whole of the day they wavered and avoided contact,\nuntil evening. Then, laughing, saying he would be back in six\nmonths' time and would tell them all about it, he shook hands\nwith her mother and took his leave.\n\nUrsula accompanied him into the lane. The night was windy,\nthe yew trees seethed and hissed and vibrated. The wind seemed\nto rush about among the chimneys and the church-tower. It was\ndark.\n\nThe wind blew Ursula's face, and her clothes cleaved to her\nlimbs. But it was a surging, turgid wind, instinct with\ncompressed vigour of life. And she seemed to have lost\nSkrebensky. Out there in the strong, urgent night she could not\nfind him.\n\n\"Where are you?\" she asked.\n\n\"Here,\" came his bodiless voice.\n\nAnd groping, she touched him. A fire like lightning drenched\nthem.\n\n\"Anton?\" she said.\n\n\"What?\" he answered.\n\nShe held him with her hands in the darkness, she felt his\nbody again with hers.\n\n\"Don't leave me--come back to me,\" she said.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, holding her in his arms.\n\nBut the male in him was scotched by the knowledge that she\nwas not under his spell nor his influence. He wanted to go away\nfrom her. He rested in the knowledge that to-morrow he was going\naway, his life was really elsewhere. His life was\nelsewhere--his life was elsewhere--the centre of his\nlife was not what she would have. She was different--there\nwas a breach between them. They were hostile worlds.\n\n\"You will come back to me?\" she reiterated.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said. And he meant it. But as one keeps an\nappointment, not as a man returning to his fulfilment.\n\nSo she kissed him, and went indoors, lost. He walked down to\nthe Marsh abstracted. The contact with her hurt him, and\nthreatened him. He shrank, he had to be free of her spirit. For\nshe would stand before him, like the angel before Balaam, and\ndrive him back with a sword from the way he was going, into a\nwilderness.\n\nThe next day she went to the station to see him go. She\nlooked at him, she turned to him, but he was always so strange\nand null--so null. He was so collected. She thought it was\nthat which made him null. Strangely nothing he was.\n\nUrsula stood near him with a mute, pale face which he would\nrather not see. There seemed some shame at the very root of\nlife, cold, dead shame for her.\n\nThe three made a noticeable group on the station; the girl in\nher fur cap and tippet and her olive green costume, pale, tense\nwith youth, isolated, unyielding; the soldierly young man in a\ncrush hat and a heavy overcoat, his face rather pale and\nreserved above his purple scarf, his whole figure neutral; then\nthe elder man, a fashionable bowler hat pressed low over his\ndark brows, his face warm-coloured and calm, his whole figure\ncuriously suggestive of full-blooded indifference; he was the\neternal audience, the chorus, the spectator at the drama; in his\nown life he would have no drama.\n\nThe train was rushing up. Ursula's heart heaved, but the ice\nwas frozen too strong upon it.\n\n\"Good-bye,\" she said, lifting her hand, her face laughing\nwith her peculiar, blind, almost dazzling laugh. She wondered\nwhat he was doing, when he stooped and kissed her. He should be\nshaking hands and going.\n\n\"Good-bye,\" she said again.\n\nHe picked up his little bag and turned his back on her. There\nwas a hurry along the train. Ah, here was his carriage. He took\nhis seat. Tom Brangwen shut the door, and the two men shook\nhands as the whistle went.\n\n\"Good-bye--and good luck,\" said Brangwen.\n\n\"Thank you--good-bye.\"\n\nThe train moved off. Skrebensky stood at the carriage window,\nwaving, but not really looking to the two figures, the girl and\nthe warm-coloured, almost effeminately-dressed man Ursula waved\nher handkerchief. The train gathered speed, it grew smaller and\nsmaller. Still it ran in a straight line. The speck of white\nvanished. The rear of the train was small in the distance. Still\nshe stood on the platform, feeling a great emptiness about her.\nIn spite of herself her mouth was quivering: she did not want to\ncry: her heart was dead cold.\n\nHer Uncle Tom had gone to an automatic machine, and was\ngetting matches.\n\n\"Would you like some sweets?\" he said, turning round.\n\nHer face was covered with tears, she made curious, downward\ngrimaces with her mouth, to get control. Yet her heart was not\ncrying--it was cold and earthy.\n\n\"What kind would you like--any?\" persisted her\nuncle.\n\n\"I should love some peppermint drops,\" she said, in a\nstrange, normal voice, from her distorted face. But in a few\nmoments she had gained control of herself, and was still,\ndetached.\n\n\"Let us go into the town,\" he said, and he rushed her into a\ntrain, moving to the town station. They went to a cafe to drink\ncoffee, she sat looking at people in the street, and a great\nwound was in her breast, a cold imperturbability in her\nsoul.\n\nThis cold imperturbability of spirit continued in her now. It\nwas as if some disillusion had frozen upon her, a hard\ndisbelief. Part of her had gone cold, apathetic. She was too\nyoung, too baffled to understand, or even to know that she\nsuffered much. And she was too deeply hurt to submit.\n\nShe had her blind agonies, when she wanted him, she wanted\nhim. But from the moment of his departure, he had become a\nvisionary thing of her own. All her roused torment and passion\nand yearning she turned to him.\n\nShe kept a diary, in which she wrote impulsive thoughts.\nSeeing the moon in the sky, her own heart surcharged, she went\nand wrote:\n\n\"If I were the moon, I know where I would fall down.\"\n\nIt meant so much to her, that sentence--she put into it\nall the anguish of her youth and her young passion and yearning.\nShe called to him from her heart wherever she went, her limbs\nvibrated with anguish towards him wherever she was, the\nradiating force of her soul seemed to travel to him, endlessly,\nendlessly, and in her soul's own creation, find him.\n\nBut who was he, and where did he exist? In her own desire\nonly.\n\nShe received a post-card from him, and she put it in her\nbosom. It did not mean much to her, really. The second day, she\nlost it, and never even remembered she had had it, till some\ndays afterwards.\n\nThe long weeks went by. There came the constant bad news of\nthe war. And she felt as if all, outside there in the world,\nwere a hurt, a hurt against her. And something in her soul\nremained cold, apathetic, unchanging.\n\nHer life was always only partial at this time, never did she\nlive completely. There was the cold, unliving part of her. Yet\nshe was madly sensitive. She could not bear herself. When a\ndirty, red-eyed old woman came begging of her in the street, she\nstarted away as from an unclean thing. And then, when the old\nwoman shouted acrid insults after her, she winced, her limbs\npalpitated with insane torment, she could not bear herself.\nWhenever she thought of the red-eyed old woman, a sort of\nmadness ran in inflammation over her flesh and her brain, she\nalmost wanted to kill herself.\n\nAnd in this state, her sexual life flamed into a kind of\ndisease within her. She was so overwrought and sensitive, that\nthe mere touch of coarse wool seemed to tear her nerves.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nSHAME\n\nUrsula had only two more terms at school. She was studying\nfor her matriculation examination. It was dreary work, for she\nhad very little intelligence when she was disjointed from\nhappiness. Stubbornness and a consciousness of impending fate\nkept her half-heartedly pinned to it. She knew that soon she\nwould want to become a self-responsible person, and her dread\nwas that she would be prevented. An all-containing will in her\nfor complete independence, complete social independence,\ncomplete independence from any personal authority, kept her\ndullishly at her studies. For she knew that she had always her\nprice of ransom--her femaleness. She was always a woman,\nand what she could not get because she was a human being, fellow\nto the rest of mankind, she would get because she was a female,\nother than the man. In her femaleness she felt a secret riches,\na reserve, she had always the price of freedom.\n\nHowever, she was sufficiently reserved about this last\nresource. The other things should be tried first. There was the\nmysterious man's world to be adventured upon, the world of daily\nwork and duty, and existence as a working member of the\ncommunity. Against this she had a subtle grudge. She wanted to\nmake her conquest also of this man's world.\n\nSo she ground away at her work, never giving it up. Some\nthings she liked. Her subjects were English, Latin, French,\nmathematics and history. Once she knew how to read French and\nLatin, the syntax bored her. Most tedious was the close study of\nEnglish literature. Why should one remember the things one read?\nSomething in mathematics, their cold absoluteness, fascinated\nher, but the actual practice was tedious. Some people in history\npuzzled her and made her ponder, but the political parts angered\nher, and she hated ministers. Only in odd streaks did she get a\npoignant sense of acquisition and enrichment and enlarging from\nher studies; one afternoon, reading As You Like It; once when,\nwith her blood, she heard a passage of Latin, and she knew how\nthe blood beat in a Roman's body; so that ever after she felt\nshe knew the Romans by contact. She enjoyed the vagaries of\nEnglish Grammar, because it gave her pleasure to detect the live\nmovements of words and sentences; and mathematics, the very\nsight of the letters in Algebra, had a real lure for her.\n\nShe felt so much and so confusedly at this time, that her\nface got a queer, wondering, half-scared look, as if she were\nnot sure what might seize upon her at any moment out of the\nunknown.\n\nOdd little bits of information stirred unfathomable passion\nin her. When she knew that in the tiny brown buds of autumn were\nfolded, minute and complete, the finished flowers of the summer\nnine months hence, tiny, folded up, and left there waiting, a\nflash of triumph and love went over her.\n\n\"I could never die while there was a tree,\" she said\npassionately, sententiously, standing before a great ash in\nworship.\n\nIt was the people who, somehow, walked as an upright menace\nto her. Her life at this time was unformed, palpitating,\nessentially shrinking from all touch. She gave something to\nother people, but she was never herself, since she had no self.\nShe was not afraid nor ashamed before trees, and birds, and the\nsky. But she shrank violently from people, ashamed she was not\nas they were, fixed, emphatic, but a wavering, undefined\nsensibility only, without form or being.\n\nGudrun was at this time a great comfort and shield to her.\nThe younger girl was a lithe, farouche animal, who\nmistrusted all approach, and would have none of the petty\nsecrecies and jealousies of schoolgirl intimacy. She would have\nno truck with the tame cats, nice or not, because she believed\nthat they were all only untamed cats with a nasty, untrustworthy\nhabit of tameness.\n\nThis was a great stand-back for Ursula, who suffered agonies\nwhen she thought a person disliked her, no matter how much she\ndespised that other person. How could anyone dislike her, Ursula\nBrangwen? The question terrified her and was unanswerable. She\nsought refuge in Gudrun's natural, proud indifference.\n\nIt had been discovered that Gudrun had a talent for drawing.\nThis solved the problem of the girl's indifference to all study.\nIt was said of her, \"She can draw marvellously.\"\n\nSuddenly Ursula found a queer awareness existed between\nherself and her class-mistress, Miss Inger. The latter was a\nrather beautiful woman of twenty-eight, a fearless-seeming,\nclean type of modern girl whose very independence betrays her\nsorrow. She was clever, and expert in what she did, accurate,\nquick, commanding.\n\nTo Ursula she had always given pleasure, because of her\nclear, decided, yet graceful appearance. She carried her head\nhigh, a little thrown back, and Ursula thought there was a look\nof nobility in the way she twisted her smooth brown hair upon\nher head. She always wore clean, attractive, well-fitting\nblouses, and a well-made skirt. Everything about her was so\nwell-ordered, betraying a fine, clear spirit, that it was a\npleasure to sit in her class.\n\nHer voice was just as ringing and clear, and with unwavering,\nfinely-touched modulation. Her eyes were blue, clear, proud, she\ngave one altogether the sense of a fine-mettled, scrupulously\ngroomed person, and of an unyielding mind. Yet there was an\ninfinite poignancy about her, a great pathos in her lonely,\nproudly closed mouth.\n\nIt was after Skrebensky had gone that there sprang up between\nthe mistress and the girl that strange awareness, then the\nunspoken intimacy that sometimes connects two people who may\nnever even make each other's acquaintance. Before, they had\nalways been good friends, in the undistinguished way of the\nclass-room, with the professional relationship of mistress and\nscholar always present. Now, however, another thing came to\npass. When they were in the room together, they were aware of\neach other, almost to the exclusion of everything else. Winifred\nInger felt a hot delight in the lessons when Ursula was present,\nUrsula felt her whole life begin when Miss Inger came into the\nroom. Then, with the beloved, subtly-intimate teacher present,\nthe girl sat as within the rays of some enrichening sun, whose\nintoxicating heat poured straight into her veins.\n\nThe state of bliss, when Miss Inger was present, was supreme\nin the girl, but always eager, eager. As she went home, Ursula\ndreamed of the schoolmistress, made infinite dreams of things\nshe could give her, of how she might make the elder woman adore\nher.\n\nMiss Inger was a Bachelor of Arts, who had studied at\nNewnham. She was a clergyman's daughter, of good family. But\nwhat Ursula adored so much was her fine, upright, athletic\nbearing, and her indomitably proud nature. She was proud and\nfree as a man, yet exquisite as a woman.\n\nThe girl's heart burned in her breast as she set off for\nschool in the morning. So eager was her breast, so glad her\nfeet, to travel towards the beloved. Ah, Miss Inger, how\nstraight and fine was her back, how strong her loins, how calm\nand free her limbs!\n\nUrsula craved ceaselessly to know if Miss Inger cared for\nher. As yet no definite sign had been passed between the two.\nYet surely, surely Miss Inger loved her too, was fond of her,\nliked her at least more than the rest of the scholars in the\nclass. Yet she was never certain. It might be that Miss Inger\ncared nothing for her. And yet, and yet, with blazing heart,\nUrsula felt that if only she could speak to her, touch her, she\nwould know.\n\nThe summer term came, and with it the swimming class. Miss\nInger was to take the swimming class. Then Ursula trembled and\nwas dazed with passion. Her hopes were soon to be realized. She\nwould see Miss Inger in her bathing dress.\n\nThe day came. In the great bath the water was glimmering pale\nemerald green, a lovely, glimmering mass of colour within the\nwhitish marble-like confines. Overhead the light fell softly and\nthe great green body of pure water moved under it as someone\ndived from the side.\n\nUrsula, trembling, hardly able to contain herself, pulled off\nher clothes, put on her tight bathing-suit, and opened the door\nof her cabin. Two girls were in the water. The mistress had not\nappeared. She waited. A door opened. Miss Inger came out,\ndressed in a rust-red tunic like a Greek girl's, tied round the\nwaist, and a red silk handkerchief round her head. How lovely\nshe looked! Her knees were so white and strong and proud, and\nshe was firm-bodied as Diana. She walked simply to the side of\nthe bath, and with a negligent movement, flung herself in. For a\nmoment Ursula watched the white, smooth, strong shoulders, and\nthe easy arms swimming. Then she too dived into the water.\n\nNow, ah now, she was swimming in the same water with her dear\nmistress. The girl moved her limbs voluptuously, and swam by\nherself, deliciously, yet with a craving of unsatisfaction. She\nwanted to touch the other, to touch her, to feel her.\n\n\"I will race you, Ursula,\" came the well-modulated voice.\n\nUrsula started violently. She turned to see the warm,\nunfolded face of her mistress looking at her, to her. She was\nacknowledged. Laughing her own beautiful, startled laugh, she\nbegan to swim. The mistress was just ahead, swimming with easy\nstrokes. Ursula could see the head put back, the water\nflickering upon the white shoulders, the strong legs kicking\nshadowily. And she swam blinded with passion. Ah, the beauty of\nthe firm, white, cool flesh! Ah, the wonderful firm limbs. Ah,\nif she did not so despise her own thin, dusky fragment of a\nbody, if only she too were fearless and capable.\n\nShe swam on eagerly, not wanting to win, only wanting to be\nnear her mistress, to swim in a race with her. They neared the\nend of the bath, the deep end. Miss Inger touched the pipe,\nswung herself round, and caught Ursula round the waist in the\nwater, and held her for a moment.\n\n\"I won,\" said Miss Inger, laughing.\n\nThere was a moment of suspense. Ursula's heart was beating so\nfast, she clung to the rail, and could not move. Her dilated,\nwarm, unfolded, glowing face turned to the mistress, as if to\nher very sun.\n\n\"Good-bye,\" said Miss Inger, and she swam away to the other\npupils, taking professional interest in them.\n\nUrsula was dazed. She could still feel the touch of the\nmistress's body against her own--only this, only this. The\nrest of the swimming time passed like a trance. When the call\nwas given to leave the water, Miss Inger walked down the bath\ntowards Ursula. Her rust-red, thin tunic was clinging to her,\nthe whole body was defined, firm and magnificent, as it seemed\nto the girl.\n\n\"I enjoyed our race, Ursula, did you?\" said Miss Inger.\n\nThe girl could only laugh with revealed, open, glowing\nface.\n\nThe love was now tacitly confessed. But it was some time\nbefore any further progress was made. Ursula continued in\nsuspense, in inflamed bliss.\n\nThen one day, when she was alone, the mistress came near to\nher, and touching her cheek with her fingers, said with some\ndifficulty.\n\n\"Would you like to come to tea with me on Saturday,\nUrsula?\"\n\nThe girl flushed all gratitude.\n\n\"We'll go to a lovely little bungalow on the Soar, shall we?\nI stay the week-ends there sometimes.\"\n\nUrsula was beside herself. She could not endure till the\nSaturday came, her thoughts burned up like a fire. If only it\nwere Saturday, if only it were Saturday.\n\nThen Saturday came, and she set out. Miss Inger met her in\nSawley, and they walked about three miles to the bungalow. It\nwas a moist, warm cloudy day.\n\nThe bungalow was a tiny, two-roomed shanty set on a steep\nbank. Everything in it was exquisite. In delicious privacy, the\ntwo girls made tea, and then they talked. Ursula need not be\nhome till about ten o'clock.\n\nThe talk was led, by a kind of spell, to love. Miss Inger was\ntelling Ursula of a friend, how she had died in childbirth, and\nwhat she had suffered; then she told of a prostitute, and of\nsome of her experiences with men.\n\nAs they talked thus, on the little verandah of the bungalow,\nthe night fell, there was a little warm rain.\n\n\"It is really stifling,\" said Miss Inger.\n\nThey watched a train, whose lights were pale in the lingering\ntwilight, rushing across the distance.\n\n\"It will thunder,\" said Ursula.\n\nThe electric suspense continued, the darkness sank, they were\neclipsed.\n\n\"I think I shall go and bathe,\" said Miss Inger, out of the\ncloud-black darkness.\n\n\"At night?\" said Ursula.\n\n\"It is best at night. Will you come?\"\n\n\"I should like to.\"\n\n\"It is quite safe--the grounds are private. We had\nbetter undress in the bungalow, for fear of the rain, then run\ndown.\"\n\nShyly, stiffly, Ursula went into the bungalow, and began to\nremove her clothes. The lamp was turned low, she stood in the\nshadow. By another chair Winifred Inger was undressing.\n\nSoon the naked, shadowy figure of the elder girl came to the\nyounger.\n\n\"Are you ready?\" she said.\n\n\"One moment.\"\n\nUrsula could hardly speak. The other naked woman stood by,\nstood near, silent. Ursula was ready.\n\nThey ventured out into the darkness, feeling the soft air of\nnight upon their skins.\n\n\"I can't see the path,\" said Ursula.\n\n\"It is here,\" said the voice, and the wavering, pallid figure\nwas beside her, a hand grasping her arm. And the elder held the\nyounger close against her, close, as they went down, and by the\nside of the water, she put her arms round her, and kissed her.\nAnd she lifted her in her arms, close, saying, softly:\n\n\"I shall carry you into the water.\"\n\n[Ursula lay still in her mistress's arms, her forehead against the\nbeloved, maddening breast.\n\n\"I shall put you in,\" said Winifred.\n\nBut Ursula twined her body about her mistress.]\n\nAfter awhile the rain came down on their flushed, hot limbs,\nstartling, delicious. A sudden, ice-cold shower burst in a great\nweight upon them. They stood up to it with pleasure. Ursula\nreceived the stream of it upon her breasts and her limbs. It\nmade her cold, and a deep, bottomless silence welled up in her,\nas if bottomless darkness were returning upon her.\n\nSo the heat vanished away, she was chilled, as if from a\nwaking up. She ran indoors, a chill, non-existent thing, wanting\nto get away. She wanted the light, the presence of other people,\nthe external connection with the many. Above all she wanted to\nlose herself among natural surroundings.\n\nShe took her leave of her mistress and returned home. She was\nglad to be on the station with a crowd of Saturday-night people,\nglad to sit in the lighted, crowded railway carriage. Only she\ndid not want to meet anybody she knew. She did not want to talk.\nShe was alone, immune.\n\nAll this stir and seethe of lights and people was but the\nrim, the shores of a great inner darkness and void. She wanted\nvery much to be on the seething, partially illuminated shore,\nfor within her was the void reality of dark space.\n\nFor a time Miss Inger, her mistress, was gone; she was only a\ndark void, and Ursula was free as a shade walking in an\nunderworld of extinction, of oblivion. Ursula was glad, with a\nkind of motionless, lifeless gladness, that her mistress was\nextinct, gone out of her.\n\nIn the morning, however, the love was there again, burning,\nburning. She remembered yesterday, and she wanted more, always\nmore. She wanted to be with her mistress. All separation from\nher mistress was a restriction from living. Why could she not go\nto her to-day, to-day? Why must she pace about revoked at\nCossethay whilst her mistress was elsewhere? She sat down and\nwrote a burning, passionate love-letter: she could not help\nit.\n\nThe two women became intimate. Their lives seemed suddenly to\nfuse into one, inseparable. Ursula went to Winifred's lodging,\nshe spent there her only living hours. Winifred was very fond of\nwater,--of swimming, of rowing. She belonged to various\nathletic clubs. Many delicious afternoons the two girls spent in\na light boat on the river, Winifred always rowing. Indeed,\nWinifred seemed to delight in having Ursula in her charge, in\ngiving things to the girl, in filling and enrichening her\nlife.\n\nSo that Ursula developed rapidly during the few months of her\nintimacy with her mistress. Winifred had had a scientific\neducation. She had known many clever people. She wanted to bring\nUrsula to her own position of thought.\n\nThey took religion and rid it of its dogmas, its falsehoods.\nWinifred humanized it all. Gradually it dawned upon Ursula that\nall the religion she knew was but a particular clothing to a\nhuman aspiration. The aspiration was the real thing,--the\nclothing was a matter almost of national taste or need. The\nGreeks had a naked Apollo, the Christians a white-robed Christ,\nthe Buddhists a royal prince, the Egyptians their Osiris.\nReligions were local and religion was universal. Christianity\nwas a local branch. There was as yet no assimilation of local\nreligions into universal religion.\n\nIn religion there were the two great motives of fear and\nlove. The motive of fear was as great as the motive of love.\nChristianity accepted crucifixion to escape from fear; \"Do your\nworst to me, that I may have no more fear of the worst.\" But\nthat which was feared was not necessarily all evil, and that\nwhich was loved not necessarily all good. Fear shall become\nreverence, and reverence is submission in identification; love\nshall become triumph, and triumph is delight in\nidentification.\n\nSo much she talked of religion, getting the gist of many\nwritings. In philosophy she was brought to the conclusion that\nthe human desire is the criterion of all truth and all good.\nTruth does not lie beyond humanity, but is one of the products\nof the human mind and feeling. There is really nothing to fear.\nThe motive of fear in religion is base, and must be left to the\nancient worshippers of power, worship of Moloch.\n\nWe do not worship power, in our enlightened souls. Power is\ndegenerated to money and Napoleonic stupidity.\n\nUrsula could not help dreaming of Moloch. Her God was not\nmild and gentle, neither Lamb nor Dove. He was the lion and the\neagle. Not because the lion and the eagle had power, but because\nthey were proud and strong; they were themselves, they were not\npassive subjects of some shepherd, or pets of some loving woman,\nor sacrifices of some priest. She was weary to death of mild,\npassive lambs and monotonous doves. If the lamb might lie down\nwith the lion, it would be a great honour to the lamb, but the\nlion's powerful heart would suffer no diminishing. She loved the\ndignity and self-possession of lions.\n\nShe did not see how lambs could love. Lambs could only be\nloved. They could only be afraid, and tremblingly submit to\nfear, and become sacrificial; or they could submit to love, and\nbecome beloveds. In both they were passive. Raging, destructive\nlovers, seeking the moment when fear is greatest, and triumph is\ngreatest, the fear not greater than the triumph, the triumph not\ngreater than the fear, these were no lambs nor doves. She\nstretched her own limbs like a lion or a wild horse, her heart\nwas relentless in its desires. It would suffer a thousand\ndeaths, but it would still be a lion's heart when it rose from\ndeath, a fiercer lion she would be, a surer, knowing herself\ndifferent from and separate from the great, conflicting universe\nthat was not herself.\n\nWinifred Inger was also interested in the Women's\nMovement.\n\n\"The men will do no more,--they have lost the capacity\nfor doing,\" said the elder girl. \"They fuss and talk, but they\nare really inane. They make everything fit into an old, inert\nidea. Love is a dead idea to them. They don't come to one and\nlove one, they come to an idea, and they say 'You are my idea,'\nso they embrace themselves. As if I were any man's idea! As if I\nexist because a man has an idea of me! As if I will be betrayed\nby him, lend him my body as an instrument for his idea, to be a\nmere apparatus of his dead theory. But they are too fussy to be\nable to act; they are all impotent, they can't take a\nwoman. They come to their own idea every time, and take that.\nThey are like serpents trying to swallow themselves because they\nare hungry.\"\n\nUrsula was introduced by her friend to various women and men,\neducated, unsatisfied people, who still moved within the smug\nprovincial society as if they were nearly as tame as their\noutward behaviour showed, but who were inwardly raging and\nmad.\n\nIt was a strange world the girl was swept into, like a chaos,\nlike the end of the world. She was too young to understand it\nall. Yet the inoculation passed into her, through her love for\nher mistress.\n\nThe examination came, and then school was over. It was the\nlong vacation. Winifred Inger went away to London. Ursula was\nleft alone in Cossethay. A terrible, outcast, almost poisonous\ndespair possessed her. It was no use doing anything, or being\nanything. She had no connection with other people. Her lot was\nisolated and deadly. There was nothing for her anywhere, but\nthis black disintegration. Yet, within all the great attack of\ndisintegration upon her, she remained herself. It was the\nterrible core of all her suffering, that she was always herself.\nNever could she escape that: she could not put off being\nherself.\n\nShe still adhered to Winifred Inger. But a sort of nausea was\ncoming over her. She loved her mistress. But a heavy, clogged\nsense of deadness began to gather upon her, from the other\nwoman's contact. And sometimes she thought Winifred was ugly,\nclayey. Her female hips seemed big and earthy, her ankles and\nher arms were too thick. She wanted some fine intensity, instead\nof this heavy cleaving of moist clay, that cleaves because it\nhas no life of its own.\n\nWinifred still loved Ursula. She had a passion for the fine\nflame of the girl, she served her endlessly, would have done\nanything for her.\n\n\"Come with me to London,\" she pleaded to the girl. \"I will\nmake it nice for you,--you shall do lots of things you will\nenjoy.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Ursula, stubbornly and dully. \"No, I don't want to\ngo to London, I want to be by myself.\"\n\nWinifred knew what this meant. She knew that Ursula was\nbeginning to reject her. The fine, unquenchable flame of the\nyounger girl would consent no more to mingle with the perverted\nlife of the elder woman. Winifred knew it would come. But she\ntoo was proud. At the bottom of her was a black pit of despair.\nShe knew perfectly well that Ursula would cast her off.\n\nAnd that seemed like the end of her life. But she was too\nhopeless to rage. Wisely, economizing what was left of Ursula's\nlove, she went away to London, leaving the beloved girl\nalone.\n\nAnd after a fortnight, Ursula's letters became tender again,\nloving. Her Uncle Tom had invited her to go and stay with him.\nHe was managing a big, new colliery in Yorkshire. Would Winifred\ncome too?\n\nFor now Ursula was imagining marriage for Winifred. She\nwanted her to marry her Uncle Tom. Winifred knew this. She said\nshe would come to Wiggiston. She would now let fate do as it\nliked with her, since there was nothing remaining to be done.\nTom Brangwen also saw Ursula's intention. He too was at the end\nof his desires. He had done the things he had wanted to. They\nhad all ended in a disintegrated lifelessness of soul, which he\nhid under an utterly tolerant good-humour. He no longer cared\nabout anything on earth, neither man nor woman, nor God nor\nhumanity. He had come to a stability of nullification. He did\nnot care any more, neither about his body nor about his soul.\nOnly he would preserve intact his own life. Only the simple,\nsuperficial fact of living persisted. He was still healthy. He\nlived. Therefore he would fill each moment. That had always been\nhis creed. It was not instinctive easiness: it was the\ninevitable outcome of his nature. When he was in the absolute\nprivacy of his own life, he did as he pleased, unscrupulous,\nwithout any ulterior thought. He believed neither in good nor\nevil. Each moment was like a separate little island, isolated\nfrom time, and blank, unconditioned by time.\n\nHe lived in a large new house of red brick, standing outside\na mass of homogeneous red-brick dwellings, called Wiggiston.\nWiggiston was only seven years old. It had been a hamlet of\neleven houses on the edge of healthy, half-agricultural country.\nThen the great seam of coal had been opened. In a year Wiggiston\nappeared, a great mass of pinkish rows of thin, unreal dwellings\nof five rooms each. The streets were like visions of pure\nugliness; a grey-black macadamized road, asphalt causeways, held\nin between a flat succession of wall, window, and door, a\nnew-brick channel that began nowhere, and ended nowhere.\nEverything was amorphous, yet everything repeated itself\nendlessly. Only now and then, in one of the house-windows\nvegetables or small groceries were displayed for sale.\n\nIn the middle of the town was a large, open, shapeless space,\nor market-place, of black trodden earth, surrounded by the same\nflat material of dwellings, new red-brick becoming grimy, small\noblong windows, and oblong doors, repeated endlessly, with just,\nat one corner, a great and gaudy public house, and somewhere\nlost on one of the sides of the square, a large window opaque\nand darkish green, which was the post office.\n\nThe place had the strange desolation of a ruin. Colliers\nhanging about in gangs and groups, or passing along the asphalt\npavements heavily to work, seemed not like living people, but\nlike spectres. The rigidity of the blank streets, the\nhomogeneous amorphous sterility of the whole suggested death\nrather than life. There was no meeting place, no centre, no\nartery, no organic formation. There it lay, like the new\nfoundations of a red-brick confusion rapidly spreading, like a\nskin-disease.\n\nJust outside of this, on a little hill, was Tom Brangwen's\nbig, red-brick house. It looked from the front upon the edge of\nthe place, a meaningless squalor of ash-pits and closets and\nirregular rows of the backs of houses, each with its small\nactivity made sordid by barren cohesion with the rest of the\nsmall activities. Farther off was the great colliery that went\nnight and day. And all around was the country, green with two\nwinding streams, ragged with gorse, and heath, the darker woods\nin the distance.\n\nThe whole place was just unreal, just unreal. Even now, when\nhe had been there for two years, Tom Brangwen did not believe in\nthe actuality of the place. It was like some gruesome dream,\nsome ugly, dead, amorphous mood become concrete.\n\nUrsula and Winifred were met by the motor-car at the raw\nlittle station, and drove through what seemed to them like the\nhorrible raw beginnings of something. The place was a moment of\nchaos perpetuated, persisting, chaos fixed and rigid. Ursula was\nfascinated by the many men who were there--groups of men\nstanding in the streets, four or five men walking in a gang\ntogether, their dogs running behind or before. They were all\ndecently dressed, and most of them rather gaunt. The terrible\ngaunt repose of their bearing fascinated her. Like creatures\nwith no more hope, but which still live and have passionate\nbeing, within some utterly unliving shell, they passed\nmeaninglessly along, with strange, isolated dignity. It was as\nif a hard, horny shell enclosed them all.\n\nShocked and startled, Ursula was carried to her Uncle Tom's\nhouse. He was not yet at home. His house was simply, but well\nfurnished. He had taken out a dividing wall, and made the whole\nfront of the house into a large library, with one end devoted to\nhis science. It was a handsome room, appointed as a laboratory\nand reading room, but giving the same sense of hard, mechanical\nactivity, activity mechanical yet inchoate, and looking out on\nthe hideous abstraction of the town, and at the green meadows\nand rough country beyond, and at the great, mathematical\ncolliery on the other side.\n\nThey saw Tom Brangwen walking up the curved drive. He was\ngetting stouter, but with his bowler hat worn well set down on\nhis brows, he looked manly, handsome, curiously like any other\nman of action. His colour was as fresh, his health as perfect as\never, he walked like a man rather absorbed.\n\nWinifred Inger was startled when he entered the library, his\ncoat fastened and correct, his head bald to the crown, but not\nshiny, rather like something naked that one is accustomed to see\ncovered, and his dark eyes liquid and formless. He seemed to\nstand in the shadow, like a thing ashamed. And the clasp of his\nhand was so soft and yet so forceful, that it chilled the heart.\nShe was afraid of him, repelled by him, and yet attracted.\n\nHe looked at the athletic, seemingly fearless girl, and he\ndetected in her a kinship with his own dark corruption.\nImmediately, he knew they were akin.\n\nHis manner was polite, almost foreign, and rather cold. He\nstill laughed in his curious, animal fashion, suddenly wrinkling\nup his wide nose, and showing his sharp teeth. The fine beauty\nof his skin and his complexion, some almost waxen quality, hid\nthe strange, repellent grossness of him, the slight sense of\nputrescence, the commonness which revealed itself in his rather\nfat thighs and loins.\n\nWinifred saw at once the deferential, slightly servile,\nslightly cunning regard he had for Ursula, which made the girl\nat once so proud and so perplexed.\n\n\"But is this place as awful as it looks?\" the young girl\nasked, a strain in her eyes.\n\n\"It is just what it looks,\" he said. \"It hides nothing.\"\n\n\"Why are the men so sad?\"\n\n\"Are they sad?\" he replied.\n\n\"They seem unutterably, unutterably sad,\" said Ursula, out of\na passionate throat.\n\n\"I don't think they are that. They just take it for\ngranted.\"\n\n\"What do they take for granted?\"\n\n\"This--the pits and the place altogether.\"\n\n\"Why don't they alter it?\" she passionately protested.\n\n\"They believe they must alter themselves to fit the pits and\nthe place, rather than alter the pits and the place to fit\nthemselves. It is easier,\" he said.\n\n\"And you agree with them,\" burst out his niece, unable to\nbear it. \"You think like they do--that living human beings\nmust be taken and adapted to all kinds of horrors. We could\neasily do without the pits.\"\n\nHe smiled, uncomfortably, cynically. Ursula felt again the\nrevolt of hatred from him.\n\n\"I suppose their lives are not really so bad,\" said Winifred\nInger, superior to the Zolaesque tragedy.\n\nHe turned with his polite, distant attention.\n\n\"Yes, they are pretty bad. The pits are very deep, and hot,\nand in some places wet. The men die of consumption fairly often.\nBut they earn good wages.\"\n\n\"How gruesome!\" said Winifred Inger.\n\n\"Yes,\" he replied gravely. It was his grave, solid,\nself-contained manner which made him so much respected as a\ncolliery manager.\n\nThe servant came in to ask where they would have tea.\n\n\"Put it in the summer-house, Mrs. Smith,\" he said.\n\nThe fair-haired, good-looking young woman went out.\n\n\"Is she married and in service?\" asked Ursula.\n\n\"She is a widow. Her husband died of consumption a little\nwhile ago.\" Brangwen gave a sinister little laugh. \"He lay there\nin the house-place at her mother's, and five or six other people\nin the house, and died very gradually. I asked her if his death\nwasn't a great trouble to her. 'Well,' she said, 'he was very\nfretful towards the last, never satisfied, never easy, always\nfret-fretting, an' never knowing what would satisfy him. So in\none way it was a relief when it was over--for him and for\neverybody.' They had only been married two years, and she has\none boy. I asked her if she hadn't been very happy. 'Oh, yes,\nsir, we was very comfortable at first, till he took\nbad--oh, we was very comfortable--oh, yes--but,\nyou see, you get used to it. I've had my father and two brothers\ngo off just the same. You get used to it'.\"\n\n\"It's a horrible thing to get used to,\" said Winifred Inger,\nwith a shudder.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, still smiling. \"But that's how they are.\nShe'll be getting married again directly. One man or\nanother--it does not matter very much. They're all\ncolliers.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" asked Ursula. \"They're all colliers?\"\n\n\"It is with the women as with us,\" he replied. \"Her husband\nwas John Smith, loader. We reckoned him as a loader, he reckoned\nhimself as a loader, and so she knew he represented his job.\nMarriage and home is a little side-show.\n\n\"The women know it right enough, and take it for what it's\nworth. One man or another, it doesn't matter all the world. The\npit matters. Round the pit there will always be the sideshows,\nplenty of 'em.\"\n\nHe looked round at the red chaos, the rigid, amorphous\nconfusion of Wiggiston.\n\n\"Every man his own little side-show, his home, but the pit\nowns every man. The women have what is left. What's left of this\nman, or what is left of that--it doesn't matter altogether.\nThe pit takes all that really matters.\"\n\n\"It is the same everywhere,\" burst out Winifred. \"It is the\noffice, or the shop, or the business that gets the man, the\nwoman gets the bit the shop can't digest. What is he at home, a\nman? He is a meaningless lump--a standing machine, a\nmachine out of work.\"\n\n\"They know they are sold,\" said Tom Brangwen. \"That's where\nit is. They know they are sold to their job. If a woman talks\nher throat out, what difference can it make? The man's sold to\nhis job. So the women don't bother. They take what they can\ncatch--and vogue la galere.\"\n\n\"Aren't they very strict here?\" asked Miss Inger.\n\n\"Oh, no. Mrs. Smith has two sisters who have just changed\nhusbands. They're not very particular--neither are they\nvery interested. They go dragging along what is left from the\npits. They're not interested enough to be very immoral--it\nall amounts to the same thing, moral or immoral--just a\nquestion of pit-wages. The most moral duke in England makes two\nhundred thousand a year out of these pits. He keeps the morality\nend up.\"\n\nUrsula sat black-souled and very bitter, hearing the two of\nthem talk. There seemed something ghoulish even in their very\ndeploring of the state of things. They seemed to take a ghoulish\nsatisfaction in it. The pit was the great mistress. Ursula\nlooked out of the window and saw the proud, demonlike colliery\nwith her wheels twinkling in the heavens, the formless, squalid\nmass of the town lying aside. It was the squalid heap of\nside-shows. The pit was the main show, the raison d'etre\nof all.\n\nHow terrible it was! There was a horrible fascination\nin it--human bodies and lives subjected in slavery to that\nsymmetric monster of the colliery. There was a swooning,\nperverse satisfaction in it. For a moment she was dizzy.\n\nThen she recovered, felt herself in a great loneliness,\nwhere-in she was sad but free. She had departed. No more would\nshe subscribe to the great colliery, to the great machine which\nhas taken us all captives. In her soul, she was against it, she\ndisowned even its power. It had only to be forsaken to be inane,\nmeaningless. And she knew it was meaningless. But it needed a\ngreat, passionate effort of will on her part, seeing the\ncolliery, still to maintain her knowledge that it was\nmeaningless.\n\nBut her Uncle Tom and her mistress remained there among the\nhorde, cynically reviling the monstrous state and yet adhering\nto it, like a man who reviles his mistress, yet who is in love\nwith her. She knew her Uncle Tom perceived what was going on.\nBut she knew moreover that in spite of his criticism and\ncondemnation, he still wanted the great machine. His only happy\nmoments, his only moments of pure freedom were when he was\nserving the machine. Then, and then only, when the machine\ncaught him up, was he free from the hatred of himself, could he\nact wholely, without cynicism and unreality.\n\nHis real mistress was the machine, and the real mistress of\nWinifred was the machine. She too, Winifred, worshipped the\nimpure abstraction, the mechanisms of matter. There, there, in\nthe machine, in service of the machine, was she free from the\nclog and degradation of human feeling. There, in the monstrous\nmechanism that held all matter, living or dead, in its service,\ndid she achieve her consummation and her perfect unison, her\nimmortality.\n\nHatred sprang up in Ursula's heart. If she could she would\nsmash the machine. Her soul's action should be the smashing of\nthe great machine. If she could destroy the colliery, and make\nall the men of Wiggiston out of work, she would do it. Let them\nstarve and grub in the earth for roots, rather than serve such a\nMoloch as this.\n\nShe hated her Uncle Tom, she hated Winifred Inger. They went\ndown to the summer-house for tea. It was a pleasant place among\na few trees, at the end of a tiny garden, on the edge of a\nfield. Her Uncle Tom and Winifred seemed to jeer at her, to\ncheapen her. She was miserable and desolate. But she would never\ngive way.\n\nHer coldness for Winifred should never cease. She knew it was\nover between them. She saw gross, ugly movements in her\nmistress, she saw a clayey, inert, unquickened flesh, that\nreminded her of the great prehistoric lizards. One day her Uncle\nTom came in out of the broiling sunshine heated from walking.\nThen the perspiration stood out upon his head and brow, his hand\nwas wet and hot and suffocating in its clasp. He too had\nsomething marshy about him--the succulent moistness and\nturgidity, and the same brackish, nauseating effect of a marsh,\nwhere life and decaying are one.\n\nHe was repellent to her, who was so dry and fine in her fire.\nHer very bones seemed to bid him keep his distance from her.\n\nIt was in these weeks that Ursula grew up. She stayed two\nweeks at Wiggiston, and she hated it. All was grey, dry ash,\ncold and dead and ugly. But she stayed. She stayed also to get\nrid of Winifred. The girl's hatred and her sense of\nrepulsiveness in her mistress and in her uncle seemed to throw\nthe other two together. They drew together as if against\nher.\n\nIn hardness and bitterness of soul, Ursula knew that Winifred\nwas become her uncle's lover. She was glad. She had loved them\nboth. Now she wanted to be rid of them both. Their marshy,\nbitter-sweet corruption came sick and unwholesome in her\nnostrils. Anything, to get out of the foetid air. She would\nleave them both for ever, leave for ever their strange, soft,\nhalf-corrupt element. Anything to get away.\n\nOne night Winifred came all burning into Ursula's bed, and\nput her arms round the girl, holding her to herself in spite of\nunwillingness, and said,\n\n\"Dear, my dear--shall I marry Mr. Brangwen--shall\nI?\"\n\nThe clinging, heavy, muddy question weighed on Ursula\nintolerably.\n\n\"Has he asked you?\" she said, using all her might of hard\nresistance.\n\n\"He's asked me,\" said Winifred. \"Do you want me to marry him,\nUrsula?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Ursula.\n\nThe arms tightened more on her.\n\n\"I knew you did, my sweet--and I will marry him. You're\nfond of him, aren't you?\"\n\n\"I've been awfully fond of him--ever since I was\na child.\"\n\n\"I know--I know. I can see what you like in him. He is a\nman by himself, he has something apart from the rest.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Ursula.\n\n\"But he's not like you, my dear--ha, he's not as good as\nyou. There's something even objectionable in him--his thick\nthighs--\"\n\nUrsula was silent.\n\n\"But I'll marry him, my dear--it will be best. Now say\nyou love me.\"\n\nA sort of profession was extorted out of the girl.\nNevertheless her mistress went away sighing, to weep in her own\nchamber.\n\nIn two days' time Ursula left Wiggiston. Miss Inger went to\nNottingham. There was an engagement between her and Tom\nBrangwen, which the uncle seemed to vaunt as if it were an\nassurance of his validity.\n\nBrangwen and Winifred Inger continued engaged for another\nterm. Then they married. Brangwen had reached the age when he\nwanted children. He wanted children. Neither marriage nor the\ndomestic establishment meant anything to him. He wanted to\npropagate himself. He knew what he was doing. He had the\ninstinct of a growing inertia, of a thing that chooses its place\nof rest in which to lapse into apathy, complete, profound\nindifference. He would let the machinery carry him; husband,\nfather, pit-manager, warm clay lifted through the recurrent\naction of day after day by the great machine from which it\nderived its motion. As for Winifred, she was an educated woman,\nand of the same sort as himself. She would make a good\ncompanion. She was his mate.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nTHE MAN'S WORLD\n\nUrsula came back to Cossethay to fight with her mother. Her\nschooldays were over. She had passed the matriculation\nexamination. Now she came home to face that empty period between\nschool and possible marriage.\n\nAt first she thought it would be just like holidays all the\ntime, she would feel just free. Her soul was in chaos, blinded\nsuffering, maimed. She had no will left to think about herself.\nFor a time she must just lapse.\n\nBut very shortly she found herself up against her mother. Her\nmother had, at this time, the power to irritate and madden the\ngirl continuously. There were already seven children, yet Mrs.\nBrangwen was again with child, the ninth she had borne. One had\ndied of diphtheria in infancy.\n\nEven this fact of her mother's pregnancy enraged the eldest\ngirl. Mrs. Brangwen was so complacent, so utterly fulfilled in\nher breeding. She would not have the existence at all of\nanything but the immediate, physical, common things. Ursula\ninflamed in soul, was suffering all the anguish of youth's\nreaching for some unknown ordeal, that it can't grasp, can't\neven distinguish or conceive. Maddened, she was fighting all the\ndarkness she was up against. And part of this darkness was her\nmother. To limit, as her mother did, everything to the ring of\nphysical considerations, and complacently to reject the reality\nof anything else, was horrible. Not a thing did Mrs. Brangwen\ncare about, but the children, the house, and a little local\ngossip. And she would not be touched, she would let\nnothing else live near her. She went about, big with child,\nslovenly, easy, having a certain lax dignity, taking her own\ntime, pleasing herself, always, always doing things for the\nchildren, and feeling that she thereby fulfilled the whole of\nwomanhood.\n\nThis long trance of complacent child-bearing had kept her\nyoung and undeveloped. She was scarcely a day older than when\nGudrun was born. All these years nothing had happened save the\ncoming of the children, nothing had mattered but the bodies of\nher babies. As her children came into consciousness, as they\nbegan to suffer their own fulfilment, she cast them off. But she\nremained dominant in the house. Brangwen continued in a kind of\nrich drowse of physical heat, in connection with his wife. They\nwere neither of them quite personal, quite defined as\nindividuals, so much were they pervaded by the physical heat of\nbreeding and rearing their young.\n\nHow Ursula resented it, how she fought against the close,\nphysical, limited life of herded domesticity! Calm, placid,\nunshakeable as ever, Mrs. Brangwen went about in her dominance\nof physical maternity.\n\nThere were battles. Ursula would fight for things that\nmattered to her. She would have the children less rude and\ntyrannical, she would have a place in the house. But her\nmother pulled her down, pulled her down. With all the cunning\ninstinct of a breeding animal, Mrs. Brangwen ridiculed and held\ncheap Ursula's passions, her ideas, her pronunciations. Ursula\nwould try to insist, in her own home, on the right of women to\ntake equal place with men in the field of action and work.\n\n\"Ay,\" said the mother, \"there's a good crop of stockings\nlying ripe for mending. Let that be your field of action.\"\n\nUrsula disliked mending stockings, and this retort maddened\nher. She hated her mother bitterly. After a few weeks of\nenforced domestic life, she had had enough of her home. The\ncommonness, the triviality, the immediate meaninglessness of it\nall drove her to frenzy. She talked and stormed ideas, she\ncorrected and nagged at the children, she turned her back in\nsilent contempt on her breeding mother, who treated her with\nsupercilious indifference, as if she were a pretentious child\nnot to be taken seriously.\n\nBrangwen was sometimes dragged into the trouble. He loved\nUrsula, therefore he always had a sense of shame, almost of\nbetrayal, when he turned on her. So he turned fiercely and\nscathingly, and with a wholesale brutality that made Ursula go\nwhite, mute, and numb. Her feelings seemed to be becoming\ndeadened in her, her temper hard and cold.\n\nBrangwen himself was in one of his states or flux. After all\nthese years, he began to see a loophole of freedom. For twenty\nyears he had gone on at this office as a draughtsman, doing work\nin which he had no interest, because it seemed his allotted\nwork. The growing up of his daughters, their developing\nrejection of old forms set him also free.\n\nHe was a man of ceaseless activity. Blindly, like a mole, he\npushed his way out of the earth that covered him, working always\naway from the physical element in which his life was captured.\nSlowly, blindly, gropingly, with what initiative was left to\nhim, he made his way towards individual expression and\nindividual form.\n\nAt last, after twenty years, he came back to his woodcarving,\nalmost to the point where he had left off his Adam and Eve\npanel, when he was courting. But now he had knowledge and skill\nwithout vision. He saw the puerility of his young conceptions,\nhe saw the unreal world in which they had been conceived. He now\nhad a new strength in his sense of reality. He felt as if he\nwere real, as if he handled real things. He had worked for many\nyears at Cossethay, building the organ for the church, restoring\nthe woodwork, gradually coming to a knowledge of beauty in the\nplain labours. Now he wanted again to carve things that were\nutterances of himself.\n\nBut he could not quite hitch on--always he was too busy,\ntoo uncertain, confused. Wavering, he began to study modelling.\nTo his surprise he found he could do it. Modelling in clay, in\nplaster, he produced beautiful reproductions, really beautiful.\nThen he set-to to make a head of Ursula, in high relief, in the\nDonatello manner. In his first passion, he got a beautiful\nsuggestion of his desire. But the pitch of concentration would\nnot come. With a little ash in his mouth he gave up. He\ncontinued to copy, or to make designs by selecting motives from\nclassic stuff. He loved the Della Robbia and Donatello as he had\nloved Fra Angelico when he was a young man. His work had some of\nthe freshness, the naive alertness of the early Italians. But it\nwas only reproduction.\n\nHaving reached his limit in modelling, he turned to painting.\nBut he tried water-colour painting after the manner of any other\namateur. He got his results but was not much interested. After\none or two drawings of his beloved church, which had the same\nalertness as his modelling, he seemed to be incongruous with the\nmodern atmospheric way of painting, so that his church tower\nstood up, really stood and asserted its standing, but was\nashamed of its own lack of meaning, he turned away again.\n\nHe took up jewellery, read Benvenuto Cellini, pored over\nreproductions of ornament, and began to make pendants in silver\nand pearl and matrix. The first things he did, in his start of\ndiscovery, were really beautiful. Those later were more\nimitative. But, starting with his wife, he made a pendant each\nfor all his womenfolk. Then he made rings and bracelets.\n\nThen he took up beaten and chiselled metal work. When Ursula\nleft school, he was making a silver bowl of lovely shape. How he\ndelighted in it, almost lusted after it.\n\nAll this time his only connection with the real outer world\nwas through his winter evening classes, which brought him into\ncontact with state education. About all the rest, he was\noblivious, and entirely indifferent--even about the war.\nThe nation did not exist to him. He was in a private retreat of\nhis own, that had neither nationality, nor any great\nadherent.\n\nUrsula watched the newspapers, vaguely, concerning the war in\nSouth Africa. They made her miserable, and she tried to have as\nlittle to do with them as possible. But Skrebensky was out\nthere. He sent her an occasional post-card. But it was as if she\nwere a blank wall in his direction, without windows or outgoing.\nShe adhered to the Skrebensky of her memory.\n\nHer love for Winifred Inger wrenched her life as it seemed\nfrom the roots and native soil where Skrebensky had belonged to\nit, and she was aridly transplanted. He was really only a\nmemory. She revived his memory with strange passion, after the\ndeparture of Winifred. He was to her almost the symbol of her\nreal life. It was as if, through him, in him, she might return\nto her own self, which she was before she had loved Winifred,\nbefore this deadness had come upon her, this pitiless\ntransplanting. But even her memories were the work of her\nimagination.\n\nShe dreamed of him and her as they had been together. She\ncould not dream of him progressively, of what he was doing now,\nof what relation he would have to her now. Only sometimes she\nwept to think how cruelly she had suffered when he left\nher--ah, how she had suffered! She remembered what\nshe had written in her diary:\n\n\"If I were the moon, I know where I would fall down.\"\n\nAh, it was a dull agony to her to remember what she had been\nthen. For it was remembering a dead self. All that was dead\nafter Winifred. She knew the corpse of her young, loving self,\nshe knew its grave. And the young living self she mourned for\nhad scarcely existed, it was the creature of her\nimagination.\n\nDeep within her a cold despair remained unchanging and\nunchanged. No one would ever love her now--she would love\nno one. The body of love was killed in her after Winifred, there\nwas something of the corpse in her. She would live, she would go\non, but she would have no lovers, no lover would want her any\nmore. She herself would want no lover. The vividest little flame\nof desire was extinct in her for ever. The tiny, vivid germ that\ncontained the bud of her real self, her real love, was killed,\nshe would go on growing as a plant, she would do her best to\nproduce her minor flowers, but her leading flower was dead\nbefore it was born, all her growth was the conveying of a corpse\nof hope.\n\nThe miserable weeks went on, in the poky house crammed with\nchildren. What was her life--a sordid, formless,\ndisintegrated nothing; Ursula Brangwen a person without worth or\nimportance, living in the mean village of Cossethay, within the\nsordid scope of Ilkeston. Ursula Brangwen, at seventeen,\nworthless and unvalued, neither wanted nor needed by anybody,\nand conscious herself of her own dead value. It would not bear\nthinking of.\n\nBut still her dogged pride held its own. She might be\ndefiled, she might be a corpse that should never be loved, she\nmight be a core-rotten stalk living upon the food that others\nprovided; yet she would give in to nobody.\n\nGradually she became conscious that she could not go on\nliving at home as she was doing, without place or meaning or\nworth. The very children that went to school held her\nuselessness in contempt. She must do something.\n\nHer father said she had plenty to do to help her mother. From\nher parents she would never get more than a hit in the face. She\nwas not a practical person. She thought of wild things, of\nrunning away and becoming a domestic servant, of asking some man\nto take her.\n\nShe wrote to the mistress of the High School for advice.\n\n\"I cannot see very clearly what you should do, Ursula,\" came\nthe reply, \"unless you are willing to become an elementary\nschool teacher. You have matriculated, and that qualifies you to\ntake a post as uncertificated teacher in any school, at a salary\nof about fifty pounds a year.\n\n\"I cannot tell you how deeply I sympathize with you in your\ndesire to do something. You will learn that mankind is a great\nbody of which you are one useful member, you will take your own\nplace at the great task which humanity is trying to fulfil. That\nwill give you a satisfaction and a self-respect which nothing\nelse could give.\"\n\nUrsula's heart sank. It was a cold, dreary satisfaction to\nthink of. Yet her cold will acquiesced. This was what she\nwanted.\n\n\"You have an emotional nature,\" the letter went on, \"a quick\nnatural response. If only you could learn patience and\nself-discipline, I do not see why you should not make a good\nteacher. The least you could do is to try. You need only serve a\nyear, or perhaps two years, as uncertificated teacher. Then you\nwould go to one of the training colleges, where I hope you would\ntake your degree. I most strongly urge and advise you to keep up\nyour studies always with the intention of taking a degree. That\nwill give you a qualification and a position in the world, and\nwill give you more scope to choose your own way.\n\n\"I shall be proud to see one of my girls win her own\neconomical independence, which means so much more than it seems.\nI shall be glad indeed to know that one more of my girls has\nprovided for herself the means of freedom to choose for\nherself.\"\n\nIt all sounded grim and desperate. Ursula rather hated it.\nBut her mother's contempt and her father's harshness had made\nher raw at the quick, she knew the ignominy of being a\nhanger-on, she felt the festering thorn of her mother's animal\nestimation.\n\nAt length she had to speak. Hard and shut down and silent\nwithin herself, she slipped out one evening to the workshed. She\nheard the tap-tap-tap of the hammer upon the metal. Her father\nlifted his head as the door opened. His face was ruddy and\nbright with instinct, as when he was a youth, his black\nmoustache was cut close over his wide mouth, his black hair was\nfine and close as ever. But there was about him an abstraction,\na sort of instrumental detachment from human things. He was a\nworker. He watched his daughter's hard, expressionless face. A\nhot anger came over his breast and belly.\n\n\"What now?\" he said.\n\n\"Can't I,\" she answered, looking aside, not looking at him,\n\"can't I go out to work?\"\n\n\"Go out to work, what for?\"\n\nHis voice was so strong, and ready, and vibrant. It irritated\nher.\n\n\"I want some other life than this.\"\n\nA flash of strong rage arrested all his blood for a\nmoment.\n\n\"Some other life?\" he repeated. \"Why, what other life do you\nwant?\"\n\nShe hesitated.\n\n\"Something else besides housework and hanging about. And I\nwant to earn something.\"\n\nHer curious, brutal hardness of speech, and the fierce\ninvincibility of her youth, which ignored him, made him also\nharden with anger.\n\n\"And how do you think you're going to earn anything?\"\nhe asked.\n\n\"I can become a teacher--I'm qualified by my\nmatric.\"\n\nHe wished her matric. in hell.\n\n\"And how much are you qualified to earn by your matric.?\" he\nasked, jeering.\n\n\"Fifty pounds a year,\" she said.\n\nHe was silent, his power taken out of his hand.\n\nHe had always hugged a secret pride in the fact that his\ndaughters need not go out to work. With his wife's money and his\nown they had four hundred a year. They could draw on the capital\nif need be later on. He was not afraid for his old age. His\ndaughters might be ladies.\n\nFifty pounds a year was a pound a week--which was enough\nfor her to live on independently.\n\n\"And what sort of a teacher do you think you'd make? You\nhaven't the patience of a Jack-gnat with your own brothers and\nsisters, let alone with a class of children. And I thought you\ndidn't like dirty, board-school brats.\"\n\n\"They're not all dirty.\"\n\n\"You'd find they're not all clean.\"\n\nThere was silence in the workshop. The lamplight fell on the\nburned silver bowl that lay between him, on mallet and furnace\nand chisel. Brangwen stood with a queer, catlike light on his\nface, almost like a smile. But it was no smile.\n\n\"Can I try?\" she said.\n\n\"You can do what the deuce you like, and go where you\nlike.\"\n\nHer face was fixed and expressionless and indifferent. It\nalways sent him to a pitch of frenzy to see it like that. He\nkept perfectly still.\n\nCold, without any betrayal of feeling, she turned and left\nthe shed. He worked on, with all his nerves jangled. Then he had\nto put down his tools and go into the house.\n\nIn a bitter tone of anger and contempt he told his wife.\nUrsula was present. There was a brief altercation, closed by\nMrs. Brangwen's saying, in a tone of biting superiority and\nindifference:\n\n\"Let her find out what it's like. She'll soon have had\nenough.\"\n\nThe matter was left there. But Ursula considered herself free\nto act. For some days she made no move. She was reluctant to\ntake the cruel step of finding work, for she shrank with extreme\nsensitiveness and shyness from new contact, new situations. Then\nat length a sort of doggedness drove her. Her soul was full of\nbitterness.\n\nShe went to the Free Library in Ilkeston, copied out\naddresses from the Schoolmistress, and wrote for\napplication forms. After two days she rose early to meet the\npostman. As she expected, there were three long envelopes.\n\nHer heart beat painfully as she went up with them to her\nbedroom. Her fingers trembled, she could hardly force herself to\nlook at the long, official forms she had to fill in. The whole\nthing was so cruel, so impersonal. Yet it must be done.\n\n\"Name (surname first):...\"\n\nIn a trembling hand she wrote, \"Brangwen,--Ursula.\"\n\n\"Age and date of birth:...\"\n\nAfter a long time considering, she filled in that line.\n\n\"Qualifications, with date of Examination:...\"\n\nWith a little pride she wrote:\n\n\"London Matriculation Examination.\"\n\n\"Previous experience and where obtained:...\"\n\nHer heart sank as she wrote:\n\n\"None.\"\n\nStill there was much to answer. It took her two hours to fill\nin the three forms. Then she had to copy her testimonials from\nher head-mistress and from the clergyman.\n\nAt last, however, it was finished. She had sealed the three\nlong envelopes. In the afternoon she went down to Ilkeston to\npost them. She said nothing of it all to her parents. As she\nstamped her long letters and put them into the box at the main\npost-office she felt as if already she was out of the reach of\nher father and mother, as if she had connected herself with the\nouter, greater world of activity, the man-made world.\n\nAs she returned home, she dreamed again in her own fashion\nher old, gorgeous dreams. One of her applications was to\nGillingham, in Kent, one to Kingston-on-Thames, and one to\nSwanwick in Derbyshire.\n\nGillingham was such a lovely name, and Kent was the Garden of\nEngland. So that, in Gillingham, an old, old village by the\nhopfields, where the sun shone softly, she came out of school in\nthe afternoon into the shadow of the plane trees by the gate,\nand turned down the sleepy road towards the cottage where\ncornflowers poked their blue heads through the old wooden fence,\nand phlox stood built up of blossom beside the path.\n\nA delicate, silver-haired lady rose with delicate, ivory\nhands uplifted as Ursula entered the room, and:\n\n\"Oh, my dear, what do you think!\"\n\n\"What is it, Mrs. Wetherall?\"\n\nFrederick had come home. Nay, his manly step was heard on the\nstair, she saw his strong boots, his blue trousers, his\nuniformed figure, and then his face, clean and keen as an\neagle's, and his eyes lit up with the glamour of strange seas,\nah, strange seas that had woven through his soul, as he\ndescended into the kitchen.\n\nThis dream, with its amplifications, lasted her a mile of\nwalking. Then she went to Kingston-on-Thames.\n\nKingston-on-Thames was an old historic place just south of\nLondon. There lived the well-born dignified souls who belonged\nto the metropolis, but who loved peace. There she met a\nwonderful family of girls living in a large old Queen Anne\nhouse, whose lawns sloped to the river, and in an atmosphere of\nstately peace she found herself among her soul's intimates. They\nloved her as sisters, they shared with her all noble\nthoughts.\n\nShe was happy again. In her musings she spread her poor,\nclipped wings, and flew into the pure empyrean.\n\nDay followed day. She did not speak to her parents. Then came\nthe return of her testimonials from Gillingham. She was not\nwanted, neither at Swanwick. The bitterness of rejection\nfollowed the sweets of hope. Her bright feathers were in the\ndust again.\n\nThen, suddenly, after a fortnight, came an intimation from\nKingston-on-Thames. She was to appear at the Education Office of\nthat town on the following Thursday, for an interview with the\nCommittee. Her heart stood still. She knew she would make the\nCommittee accept her. Now she was afraid, now that her removal\nwas imminent. Her heart quivered with fear and reluctance. But\nunderneath her purpose was fixed.\n\nShe passed shadowily through the day, unwilling to tell her\nnews to her mother, waiting for her father. Suspense and fear\nwere strong upon her. She dreaded going to Kingston. Her easy\ndreams disappeared from the grasp of reality.\n\nAnd yet, as the afternoon wore away, the sweetness of the\ndream returned again. Kingston-on-Thames--there was such\nsound of dignity to her. The shadow of history and the glamour\nof stately progress enveloped her. The palaces would be old and\ndarkened, the place of kings obscured. Yet it was a place of\nkings for her--Richard and Henry and Wolsey and Queen\nElizabeth. She divined great lawns with noble trees, and\nterraces whose steps the water washed softly, where the swans\nsometimes came to earth. Still she must see the stately,\ngorgeous barge of the Queen float down, the crimson carpet put\nupon the landing stairs, the gentlemen in their purple-velvet\ncloaks, bare-headed, standing in the sunshine grouped on either\nside waiting.\n\n\"Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song.\"\n\nEvening came, her father returned home, sanguine and alert\nand detached as ever. He was less real than her fancies. She\nwaited whilst he ate his tea. He took big mouthfuls, big bites,\nand ate unconsciously with the same abandon an animal gives to\nits food.\n\nImmediately after tea he went over to the church. It was\nchoir-practice, and he wanted to try the tunes on his organ.\n\nThe latch of the big door clicked loudly as she came after\nhim, but the organ rolled more loudly still. He was unaware. He\nwas practicing the anthem. She saw his small, jet-black head and\nalert face between the candle-flames, his slim body sagged on\nthe music-stool. His face was so luminous and fixed, the\nmovements of his limbs seemed strange, apart from him. The sound\nof the organ seemed to belong to the very stone of the pillars,\nlike sap running in them.\n\nThen there was a close of music and silence.\n\n\"Father!\" she said.\n\nHe looked round as if at an apparition. Ursula stood\nshadowily within the candle-light.\n\n\"What now?\" he said, not coming to earth.\n\nIt was difficult to speak to him.\n\n\"I've got a situation,\" she said, forcing herself to\nspeak.\n\n\"You've got what?\" he answered, unwilling to come out of his\nmood of organ-playing. He closed the music before him.\n\n\"I've got a situation to go to.\"\n\nThen he turned to her, still abstracted, unwilling.\n\n\"Oh, where's that?\" he said.\n\n\"At Kingston-on-Thames. I must go on Thursday for an\ninterview with the Committee.\"\n\n\"You must go on Thursday?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nAnd she handed him the letter. He read it by the light of the\ncandles.\n\n\"Ursula Brangwen, Yew Tree Cottage, Cossethay,\nDerbyshire.\n\n\"Dear Madam, You are requested to call at the above offices\non Thursday next, the 10th, at 11.30 a.m., for an interview with\nthe committee, referring to your application for the post of\nassistant mistress at the Wellingborough Green Schools.\"\n\nIt was very difficult for Brangwen to take in this remote and\nofficial information, glowing as he was within the quiet of his\nchurch and his anthem music.\n\n\"Well, you needn't bother me with it now, need you?' he said\nimpatiently, giving her back the letter.\n\n\"I've got to go on Thursday,\" she said.\n\nHe sat motionless. Then he reached more music, and there was\na rushing sound of air, then a long, emphatic trumpet-note of\nthe organ, as he laid his hands on the keys. Ursula turned and\nwent away.\n\nHe tried to give himself again to the organ. But he could\nnot. He could not get back. All the time a sort of string was\ntugging, tugging him elsewhere, miserably.\n\nSo that when he came into the house after choir-practice his\nface was dark and his heart black. He said nothing however,\nuntil all the younger children were in bed. Ursula, however,\nknew what was brewing.\n\nAt length he asked:\n\n\"Where's that letter?\"\n\nShe gave it to him. He sat looking at it. \"You are requested\nto call at the above offices on Thursday next----\" It\nwas a cold, official notice to Ursula herself and had nothing to\ndo with him. So! She existed now as a separate social\nindividual. It was for her to answer this note, without regard\nto him. He had even no right to interfere. His heart was hard\nand angry.\n\n\"You had to do it behind our backs, had you?\" he said, with a\nsneer. And her heart leapt with hot pain. She knew she was\nfree--she had broken away from him. He was beaten.\n\n\"You said, 'let her try,'\" she retorted, almost apologizing\nto him.\n\nHe did not hear. He sat looking at the letter.\n\n\"Education Office, Kingston-on-Thames\"--and then the\ntypewritten \"Miss Ursula Brangwen, Yew Tree Cottage, Cossethay.\"\nIt was all so complete and so final. He could not but feel the\nnew position Ursula held, as recipient of that letter. It was an\niron in his soul.\n\n\"Well,\" he said at length, \"you're not going.\"\n\nUrsula started and could find no words to clamour her\nrevolt.\n\n\"If you think you're going dancin' off to th' other side of\nLondon, you're mistaken.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" she cried, at once hard fixed in her will to\ngo.\n\n\"That's why not,\" he said.\n\nAnd there was silence till Mrs. Brangwen came downstairs.\n\n\"Look here, Anna,\" he said, handing her the letter.\n\nShe put back her head, seeing a typewritten letter,\nanticipating trouble from the outside world. There was the\ncurious, sliding motion of her eyes, as if she shut off her\nsentient, maternal self, and a kind of hard trance, meaningless,\ntook its place. Thus, meaningless, she glanced over the letter,\ncareful not to take it in. She apprehended the contents with her\ncallous, superficial mind. Her feeling self was shut down.\n\n\"What post is it?\" she asked.\n\n\"She wants to go and be a teacher in Kingston-on-Thames, at\nfifty pounds a year.\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed.\"\n\nThe mother spoke as if it were a hostile fact concerning some\nstranger. She would have let her go, out of callousness. Mrs.\nBrangwen would begin to grow up again only with her youngest\nchild. Her eldest girl was in the way now.\n\n\"She's not going all that distance,\" said the father.\n\n\"I have to go where they want me,\" cried Ursula. \"And it's a\ngood place to go to.\"\n\n\"What do you know about the place?\" said her father\nharshly.\n\n\"And it doesn't matter whether they want you or not, if your\nfather says you are not to go,\" said the mother calmly.\n\nHow Ursula hated her!\n\n\"You said I was to try,\" the girl cried. \"Now I've got a\nplace and I'm going to go.\"\n\n\"You're not going all that distance,\" said her father.\n\n\"Why don't you get a place at Ilkeston, where you can live at\nhome?\" asked Gudrun, who hated conflicts, who could not\nunderstand Ursula's uneasy way, yet who must stand by her\nsister.\n\n\"There aren't any places in Ilkeston,\" cried Ursula. \"And I'd\nrather go right away.\"\n\n\"If you'd asked about it, a place could have been got for you\nin Ilkeston. But you had to play Miss High-an'-mighty, and go\nyour own way,\" said her father.\n\n\"I've no doubt you'd rather go right away,\" said her mother,\nvery caustic. \"And I've no doubt you'd find other people didn't\nput up with you for very long either. You've too much opinion of\nyourself for your good.\"\n\nBetween the girl and her mother was a feeling of pure hatred.\nThere came a stubborn silence. Ursula knew she must break\nit.\n\n\"Well, they've written to me, and I s'll have to go,\" she\nsaid.\n\n\"Where will you get the money from?\" asked her father.\n\n\"Uncle Tom will give it me,\" she said.\n\nAgain there was silence. This time she was triumphant.\n\nThen at length her father lifted his head. His face was\nabstracted, he seemed to be abstracting himself, to make a pure\nstatement.\n\n\"Well, you're not going all that distance away,\" he said.\n\"I'll ask Mr. Burt about a place here. I'm not going to have you\nby yourself at the other side of London.\"\n\n\"But I've got to go to Kingston,\" said Ursula.\n\"They've sent for me.\"\n\n\"They'll do without you,\" he said.\n\nThere was a trembling silence when she was on the point of\ntears.\n\n\"Well,\" she said, low and tense, \"you can put me off this,\nbut I'm going to have a place. I'm not going to\nstop at home.\"\n\n\"Nobody wants you to stop at home,\" he suddenly shouted,\ngoing livid with rage.\n\nShe said no more. Her nature had gone hard and smiling in its\nown arrogance, in its own antagonistic indifference to the rest\nof them. This was the state in which he wanted to kill her. She\nwent singing into the parlour.\n\n C'est la mere Michel qui a perdu son chat,\n Qui cri par la fenetre qu'est-ce qui le lue renda----\"\n\nDuring the next days Ursula went about bright and hard,\nsinging to herself, making love to the children, but her soul\nhard and cold with regard to her parents. Nothing more was said.\nThe hardness and brightness lasted for four days. Then it began\nto break up. So at evening she said to her father:\n\n\"Have you spoken about a place for me?\"\n\n\"I spoke to Mr. Burt.\"\n\n\"What did he say?\"\n\n\"There's a committee meeting to-morrow. He'll tell me on\nFriday.\"\n\nSo she waited till Friday. Kingston-on-Thames had been an\nexciting dream. Here she could feel the hard, raw reality. So\nshe knew that this would come to pass. Because nothing was ever\nfulfilled, she found, except in the hard limited reality. She\ndid not want to be a teacher in Ilkeston, because she knew\nIlkeston, and hated it. But she wanted to be free, so she must\ntake her freedom where she could.\n\nOn Friday her father said there was a place vacant in\nBrinsley Street school. This could most probably be secured for\nher, at once, without the trouble of application.\n\nHer heart halted. Brinsley Street was a school in a poor\nquarter, and she had had a taste of the common children of\nIlkeston. They had shouted after her and thrown stones. Still,\nas a teacher, she would be in authority. And it was all unknown.\nShe was excited. The very forest of dry, sterile brick had some\nfascination for her. It was so hard and ugly, so relentlessly\nugly, it would purge her of some of her floating\nsentimentality.\n\nShe dreamed how she would make the little, ugly children love\nher. She would be so personal. Teachers were always so\nhard and impersonal. There was no vivid relationship. She would\nmake everything personal and vivid, she would give herself, she\nwould give, give, give all her great stores of wealth to her\nchildren, she would make them so happy, and they would prefer\nher to any teacher on the face of the earth.\n\nAt Christmas she would choose such fascinating Christmas\ncards for them, and she would give them such a happy party in\none of the class-rooms.\n\nThe headmaster, Mr. Harby, was a short, thick-set, rather\ncommon man, she thought. But she would hold before him the light\nof grace and refinement, he would have her in such high esteem\nbefore long. She would be the gleaming sun of the school, the\nchildren would blossom like little weeds, the teachers like\ntall, hard plants would burst into rare flower.\n\nThe Monday morning came. It was the end of September, and a\ndrizzle of fine rain like veils round her, making her seem\nintimate, a world to herself. She walked forward to the new\nland. The old was blotted out. The veil would be rent that hid\nthe new world. She was gripped hard with suspense as she went\ndown the hill in the rain, carrying her dinner-bag.\n\nThrough the thin rain she saw the town, a black, extensive\nmount. She must enter in upon it. She felt at once a feeling of\nrepugnance and of excited fulfilment. But she shrank.\n\nShe waited at the terminus for the tram. Here it was\nbeginning. Before her was the station to Nottingham, whence\nTheresa had gone to school half an hour before; behind her was\nthe little church school she had attended when she was a child,\nwhen her grandmother was alive. Her grandmother had been dead\ntwo years now. There was a strange woman at the Marsh, with her\nUncle Fred, and a small baby. Behind her was Cossethay, and\nblackberries were ripe on the hedges.\n\nAs she waited at the tram-terminus she reverted swiftly to\nher childhood; her teasing grandfather, with his fair beard and\nblue eyes, and his big, monumental body; he had got drowned: her\ngrandmother, whom Ursula would sometimes say she had loved more\nthan anyone else in the world: the little church school, the\nPhillips boys; one was a soldier in the Life Guards now, one was\na collier. With a passion she clung to the past.\n\nBut as she dreamed of it, she heard the tram-car grinding\nround a bend, rumbling dully, she saw it draw into sight, and\nhum nearer. It sidled round the loop at the terminus, and came\nto a standstill, looming above her. Some shadowy grey people\nstepped from the far end, the conductor was walking in the\npuddles, swinging round the pole.\n\nShe mounted into the wet, comfortless tram, whose floor was\ndark with wet, whose windows were all steamed, and she sat in\nsuspense. It had begun, her new existence.\n\nOne other passenger mounted--a sort of charwoman with a\ndrab, wet coat. Ursula could not bear the waiting of the tram.\nThe bell clanged, there was a lurch forward. The car moved\ncautiously down the wet street. She was being carried forward,\ninto her new existence. Her heart burned with pain and suspense,\nas if something were cutting her living tissue.\n\nOften, oh often the tram seemed to stop, and wet, cloaked\npeople mounted and sat mute and grey in stiff rows opposite her,\ntheir umbrellas between their knees. The windows of the tram\ngrew more steamy; opaque. She was shut in with these unliving,\nspectral people. Even yet it did not occur to her that she was\none of them. The conductor came down issuing tickets. Each\nlittle ring of his clipper sent a pang of dread through her. But\nher ticket surely was different from the rest.\n\nThey were all going to work; she also was going to work. Her\nticket was the same. She sat trying to fit in with them. But\nfear was at her bowels, she felt an unknown, terrible grip upon\nher.\n\nAt Bath Street she must dismount and change trams. She looked\nuphill. It seemed to lead to freedom. She remembered the many\nSaturday afternoons she had walked up to the shops. How free and\ncareless she had been!\n\nAh, her tram was sliding gingerly downhill. She dreaded every\nyard of her conveyance. The car halted, she mounted hastily.\n\nShe kept turning her head as the car ran on, because she was\nuncertain of the street. At last, her heart a flame of suspense,\ntrembling, she rose. The conductor rang the bell brusquely.\n\nShe was walking down a small, mean, wet street, empty of\npeople. The school squatted low within its railed, asphalt yard,\nthat shone black with rain. The building was grimy, and\nhorrible, dry plants were shadowily looking through the\nwindows.\n\nShe entered the arched doorway of the porch. The whole place\nseemed to have a threatening expression, imitating the church's\narchitecture, for the purpose of domineering, like a gesture of\nvulgar authority. She saw that one pair of feet had paddled\nacross the flagstone floor of the porch. The place was silent,\ndeserted, like an empty prison waiting the return of tramping\nfeet.\n\nUrsula went forward to the teachers' room that burrowed in a\ngloomy hole. She knocked timidly.\n\n\"Come in!\" called a surprised man's voice, as from a prison\ncell. She entered the dark little room that never got any sun.\nThe gas was lighted naked and raw. At the table a thin man in\nshirt-sleeves was rubbing a paper on a jellytray. He looked up\nat Ursula with his narrow, sharp face, said \"Good morning,\" then\nturned away again, and stripped the paper off the tray, glancing\nat the violet-coloured writing transferred, before he dropped\nthe curled sheet aside among a heap.\n\nUrsula watched him fascinated. In the gaslight and gloom and\nthe narrowness of the room, all seemed unreal.\n\n\"Isn't it a nasty morning,\" she said.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"it's not much of weather.\"\n\nBut in here it seemed that neither morning nor weather really\nexisted. This place was timeless. He spoke in an occupied voice,\nlike an echo. Ursula did not know what to say. She took off her\nwaterproof.\n\n\"Am I early?\" she asked.\n\nThe man looked first at a little clock, then at her. His eyes\nseemed to be sharpened to needle-points of vision.\n\n\"Twenty-five past,\" he said. \"You're the second to come. I'm\nfirst this morning.\"\n\nUrsula sat down gingerly on the edge of a chair, and watched\nhis thin red hands rubbing away on the white surface of the\npaper, then pausing, pulling up a corner of the sheet, peering,\nand rubbing away again. There was a great heap of curled\nwhite-and-scribbled sheets on the table.\n\n\"Must you do so many?\" asked Ursula.\n\nAgain the man glanced up sharply. He was about thirty or\nthirty-three years old, thin, greenish, with a long nose and a\nsharp face. His eyes were blue, and sharp as points of steel,\nrather beautiful, the girl thought.\n\n\"Sixty-three,\" he answered.\n\n\"So many!\" she said, gently. Then she remembered.\n\n\"But they're not all for your class, are they?\" she\nadded.\n\n\"Why aren't they?\" he replied, a fierceness in his voice.\n\nUrsula was rather frightened by his mechanical ignoring of\nher, and his directness of statement. It was something new to\nher. She had never been treated like this before, as if she did\nnot count, as if she were addressing a machine.\n\n\"It is too many,\" she said sympathetically.\n\n\"You'll get about the same,\" he said.\n\nThat was all she received. She sat rather blank, not knowing\nhow to feel. Still she liked him. He seemed so cross. There was\na queer, sharp, keen-edge feeling about him that attracted her\nand frightened her at the same time. It was so cold, and against\nhis nature.\n\nThe door opened, and a short, neutral-tinted young woman of\nabout twenty-eight appeared.\n\n\"Oh, Ursula!\" the newcomer exclaimed. \"You are here early! My\nword, I'll warrant you don't keep it up. That's Mr. Williamson's\npeg. This is yours. Standard Five teacher always has this.\nAren't you going to take your hat off?\"\n\nMiss Violet Harby removed Ursula's waterproof from the peg on\nwhich it was hung, to one a little farther down the row. She had\nalready snatched the pins from her own stuff hat, and jammed\nthem through her coat. She turned to Ursula, as she pushed up\nher frizzed, flat, dun-coloured hair.\n\n\"Isn't it a beastly morning,\" she exclaimed, \"beastly! And if\nthere's one thing I hate above another it's a wet Monday\nmorning;--pack of kids trailing in anyhow-nohow, and no\nholding 'em----\"\n\nShe had taken a black pinafore from a newspaper package, and\nwas tying it round her waist.\n\n\"You've brought an apron, haven't you?\" she said jerkily,\nglancing at Ursula. \"Oh--you'll want one. You've no idea\nwhat a sight you'll look before half-past four, what with chalk\nand ink and kids' dirty feet.--Well, I can send a boy down\nto mamma's for one.\"\n\n\"Oh, it doesn't matter,\" said Ursula.\n\n\"Oh, yes--I can send easily,\" cried Miss Harby.\n\nUrsula's heart sank. Everybody seemed so cocksure and so\nbossy. How was she going to get on with such jolty, jerky, bossy\npeople? And Miss Harby had not spoken a word to the man at the\ntable. She simply ignored him. Ursula felt the callous crude\nrudeness between the two teachers.\n\nThe two girls went out into the passage. A few children were\nalready clattering in the porch.\n\n\"Jim Richards,\" called Miss Harby, hard and authoritative. A\nboy came sheepishly forward.\n\n\"Shall you go down to our house for me, eh?\" said Miss Harby,\nin a commanding, condescending, coaxing voice. She did not wait\nfor an answer. \"Go down and ask mamma to send me one of my\nschool pinas, for Miss Brangwen--shall you?\"\n\nThe boy muttered a sheepish \"Yes, miss,\" and was moving\naway.\n\n\"Hey,\" called Miss Harby. \"Come here--now what are you\ngoing for? What shall you say to mamma?\"\n\n\"A school pina----\" muttered the boy.\n\n\"'Please, Mrs. Harby, Miss Harby says will you send her\nanother school pinafore for Miss Brangwen, because she's come\nwithout one.'\"\n\n\"Yes, miss,\" muttered the boy, head ducked, and was moving\noff. Miss Harby caught him back, holding him by the\nshoulder.\n\n\"What are you going to say?\"\n\n\"Please, Mrs. Harby, Miss Harby wants a pinny for Miss\nBrangwin,\" muttered the boy very sheepishly.\n\n\"Miss Brangwen!\" laughed Miss Harby, pushing him away. \"Here,\nyou'd better have my umbrella--wait a minute.\"\n\nThe unwilling boy was rigged up with Miss Harby's umbrella,\nand set off.\n\n\"Don't take long over it,\" called Miss Harby, after him. Then\nshe turned to Ursula, and said brightly:\n\n\"Oh, he's a caution, that lad--but not bad, you\nknow.\"\n\n\"No,\" Ursula agreed, weakly.\n\nThe latch of the door clicked, and they entered the big room.\nUrsula glanced down the place. Its rigid, long silence was\nofficial and chilling. Half-way down was a glass partition, the\ndoors of which were open. A clock ticked re-echoing, and Miss\nHarby's voice sounded double as she said:\n\n\"This is the big room--Standard\nFive-Six-and-Seven.--Here's your\nplace--Five----\"\n\nShe stood in the near end of the great room. There was a\nsmall high teacher's desk facing a squadron of long benches, two\nhigh windows in the wall opposite.\n\nIt was fascinating and horrible to Ursula. The curious,\nunliving light in the room changed her character. She thought it\nwas the rainy morning. Then she looked up again, because of the\nhorrid feeling of being shut in a rigid, inflexible air, away\nfrom all feeling of the ordinary day; and she noticed that the\nwindows were of ribbed, suffused glass.\n\nThe prison was round her now! She looked at the walls, colour\nwashed, pale green and chocolate, at the large windows with\nfrowsy geraniums against the pale glass, at the long rows of\ndesks, arranged in a squadron, and dread filled her. This was a\nnew world, a new life, with which she was threatened. But still\nexcited, she climbed into her chair at her teacher's desk. It\nwas high, and her feet could not reach the ground, but must rest\non the step. Lifted up there, off the ground, she was in office.\nHow queer, how queer it all was! How different it was from the\nmist of rain blowing over Cossethay. As she thought of her own\nvillage, a spasm of yearning crossed her, it seemed so far off,\nso lost to her.\n\nShe was here in this hard, stark reality--reality. It\nwas queer that she should call this the reality, which she had\nnever known till to-day, and which now so filled her with dread\nand dislike, that she wished she might go away. This was the\nreality, and Cossethay, her beloved, beautiful, wellknown\nCossethay, which was as herself unto her, that was minor\nreality. This prison of a school was reality. Here, then, she\nwould sit in state, the queen of scholars! Here she would\nrealize her dream of being the beloved teacher bringing light\nand joy to her children! But the desks before her had an\nabstract angularity that bruised her sentiment and made her\nshrink. She winced, feeling she had been a fool in her\nanticipations. She had brought her feelings and her generosity\nto where neither generosity nor emotion were wanted. And already\nshe felt rebuffed, troubled by the new atmosphere, out of\nplace.\n\nShe slid down, and they returned to the teacher's room. It\nwas queer to feel that one ought to alter one's personality. She\nwas nobody, there was no reality in herself, the reality was all\noutside of her, and she must apply herself to it.\n\nMr. Harby was in the teachers' room, standing before a big,\nopen cupboard, in which Ursula could see piles of pink\nblotting-paper, heaps of shiny new books, boxes of chalk, and\nbottles of coloured inks. It looked a treasure store.\n\nThe schoolmaster was a short, sturdy man, with a fine head,\nand a heavy jowl. Nevertheless he was good-looking, with his\nshapely brows and nose, and his great, hanging moustache. He\nseemed absorbed in his work, and took no notice of Ursula's\nentry. There was something insulting in the way he could be so\nactively unaware of another person, so occupied.\n\nWhen he had a moment of absence, he looked up from the table\nand said good-morning to Ursula. There was a pleasant light in\nhis brown eyes. He seemed very manly and incontrovertible, like\nsomething she wanted to push over.\n\n\"You had a wet walk,\" he said to Ursula.\n\n\"Oh, I don't mind, I'm used to it,\" she replied, with a\nnervous little laugh.\n\nBut already he was not listening. Her words sounded\nridiculous and babbling. He was taking no notice of her.\n\n\"You will sign your name here,\" he said to her, as if she\nwere some child--\"and the time when you come and go.\"\n\nUrsula signed her name in the time book and stood back. No\none took any further notice of her. She beat her brains for\nsomething to say, but in vain.\n\n\"I'd let them in now,\" said Mr. Harby to the thin man, who\nwas very hastily arranging his papers.\n\nThe assistant teacher made no sign of acquiescence, and went\non with what he was doing. The atmosphere in the room grew\ntense. At the last moment Mr. Brunt slipped into his coat.\n\n\"You will go to the girls' lobby,\" said the schoolmaster to\nUrsula, with a fascinating, insulting geniality, purely official\nand domineering.\n\nShe went out and found Miss Harby, and another girl teacher,\nin the porch. On the asphalt yard the rain was falling. A\ntoneless bell tang-tang-tanged drearily overhead, monotonously,\ninsistently. It came to an end. Then Mr. Brunt was seen,\nbare-headed, standing at the other gate of the school yard,\nblowing shrill blasts on a whistle and looking down the rainy,\ndreary street.\n\nBoys in gangs and streams came trotting up, running past the\nmaster and with a loud clatter of feet and voices, over the yard\nto the boys' porch. Girls were running and walking through the\nother entrance.\n\nIn the porch where Ursula stood there was a great noise of\ngirls, who were tearing off their coats and hats, and hanging\nthem on the racks bristling with pegs. There was a smell of wet\nclothing, a tossing out of wet, draggled hair, a noise of voices\nand feet.\n\nThe mass of girls grew greater, the rage around the pegs grew\nsteadier, the scholars tended to fall into little noisy gangs in\nthe porch. Then Violet Harby clapped her hands, clapped them\nlouder, with a shrill \"Quiet, girls, quiet!\"\n\nThere was a pause. The hubbub died down but did not\ncease.\n\n\"What did I say?\" cried Miss Harby, shrilly.\n\nThere was almost complete silence. Sometimes a girl, rather\nlate, whirled into the porch and flung off her things.\n\n\"Leaders--in place,\" commanded Miss Harby shrilly.\n\nPairs of girls in pinafores and long hair stood separate in\nthe porch.\n\n\"Standard Four, Five, and Six--fall in,\" cried Miss\nHarby.\n\nThere was a hubbub, which gradually resolved itself into\nthree columns of girls, two and two, standing smirking in the\npassage. In among the peg-racks, other teachers were putting the\nlower classes into ranks.\n\nUrsula stood by her own Standard Five. They were jerking\ntheir shoulders, tossing their hair, nudging, writhing, staring,\ngrinning, whispering and twisting.\n\nA sharp whistle was heard, and Standard Six, the biggest\ngirls, set off, led by Miss Harby. Ursula, with her Standard\nFive, followed after. She stood beside a smirking, grinning row\nof girls, waiting in a narrow passage. What she was herself she\ndid not know.\n\nSuddenly the sound of a piano was heard, and Standard Six set\noff hollowly down the big room. The boys had entered by another\ndoor. The piano played on, a march tune, Standard Five followed\nto the door of the big room. Mr. Harby was seen away beyond at\nhis desk. Mr. Brunt guarded the other door of the room. Ursula's\nclass pushed up. She stood near them. They glanced and smirked\nand shoved.\n\n\"Go on,\" said Ursula.\n\nThey tittered.\n\n\"Go on,\" said Ursula, for the piano continued.\n\nThe girls broke loosely into the room. Mr. Harby, who had\nseemed immersed in some occupation, away at his desk, lifted his\nhead and thundered:\n\n\"Halt!\"\n\nThere was a halt, the piano stopped. The boys who were just\nstarting through the other door, pushed back. The harsh, subdued\nvoice of Mr. Brunt was heard, then the booming shout of Mr.\nHarby, from far down the room:\n\n\"Who told Standard Five girls to come in like that?\"\n\nUrsula crimsoned. Her girls were glancing up at her, smirking\ntheir accusation.\n\n\"I sent them in, Mr. Harby,\" she said, in a clear, struggling\nvoice. There was a moment of silence. Then Mr. Harby roared from\nthe distance.\n\n\"Go back to your places, Standard Five girls.\"\n\nThe girls glanced up at Ursula, accusing, rather jeering,\nfugitive. They pushed back. Ursula's heart hardened with\nignominious pain.\n\n\"Forward--march,\" came Mr. Brunt's voice, and the girls\nset off, keeping time with the ranks of boys.\n\nUrsula faced her class, some fifty-five boys and girls, who\nstood filling the ranks of the desks. She felt utterly\nnonexistent. She had no place nor being there. She faced the\nblock of children.\n\nDown the room she heard the rapid firing of questions. She\nstood before her class not knowing what to do. She waited\npainfully. Her block of children, fifty unknown faces, watched\nher, hostile, ready to jeer. She felt as if she were in torture\nover a fire of faces. And on every side she was naked to them.\nOf unutterable length and torture the seconds went by.\n\nThen she gathered courage. She heard Mr. Brunt asking\nquestions in mental arithmetic. She stood near to her class, so\nthat her voice need not be raised too much, and faltering,\nuncertain, she said:\n\n\"Seven hats at twopence ha'penny each?\"\n\nA grin went over the faces of the class, seeing her commence.\nShe was red and suffering. Then some hands shot up like blades,\nand she asked for the answer.\n\nThe day passed incredibly slowly. She never knew what to do,\nthere came horrible gaps, when she was merely exposed to the\nchildren; and when, relying on some pert little girl for\ninformation, she had started a lesson, she did not know how to\ngo on with it properly. The children were her masters. She\ndeferred to them. She could always hear Mr. Brunt. Like a\nmachine, always in the same hard, high, inhuman voice he went on\nwith his teaching, oblivious of everything. And before this\ninhuman number of children she was always at bay. She could not\nget away from it. There it was, this class of fifty collective\nchildren, depending on her for command, for command it hated and\nresented. It made her feel she could not breathe: she must\nsuffocate, it was so inhuman. They were so many, that they were\nnot children. They were a squadron. She could not speak as she\nwould to a child, because they were not individual children,\nthey were a collective, inhuman thing.\n\nDinner-time came, and stunned, bewildered, solitary, she went\ninto the teachers' room for dinner. Never had she felt such a\nstranger to life before. It seemed to her she had just\ndisembarked from some strange horrible state where everything\nwas as in hell, a condition of hard, malevolent system. And she\nwas not really free. The afternoon drew at her like some\nbondage.\n\nThe first week passed in a blind confusion. She did not know\nhow to teach, and she felt she never would know. Mr. Harby came\ndown every now and then to her class, to see what she was doing.\nShe felt so incompetent as he stood by, bullying and\nthreatening, so unreal, that she wavered, became neutral and\nnon-existent. But he stood there watching with the\nlistening-genial smile of the eyes, that was really threatening;\nhe said nothing, he made her go on teaching, she felt she had no\nsoul in her body. Then he went away, and his going was like a\nderision. The class was his class. She was a wavering\nsubstitute. He thrashed and bullied, he was hated. But he was\nmaster. Though she was gentle and always considerate of her\nclass, yet they belonged to Mr. Harby, and they did not belong\nto her. Like some invincible source of the mechanism he kept all\npower to himself. And the class owned his power. And in school\nit was power, and power alone that mattered.\n\nSoon Ursula came to dread him, and at the bottom of her dread\nwas a seed of hate, for she despised him, yet he was master of\nher. Then she began to get on. All the other teachers hated him,\nand fanned their hatred among themselves. For he was master of\nthem and the children, he stood like a wheel to make absolute\nhis authority over the herd. That seemed to be his one reason in\nlife, to hold blind authority over the school. His teachers were\nhis subjects as much as the scholars. Only, because they had\nsome authority, his instinct was to detest them.\n\nUrsula could not make herself a favourite with him. From the\nfirst moment she set hard against him. She set against Violet\nHarby also. Mr. Harby was, however, too much for her, he was\nsomething she could not come to grips with, something too strong\nfor her. She tried to approach him as a young, bright girl\nusually approaches a man, expecting a little chivalrous\ncourtesy. But the fact that she was a girl, a woman, was ignored\nor used as a matter for contempt against her. She did not know\nwhat she was, nor what she must be. She wanted to remain her own\nresponsive, personal self.\n\nSo she taught on. She made friends with the Standard Three\nteacher, Maggie Schofield. Miss Schofield was about twenty years\nold, a subdued girl who held aloof from the other teachers. She\nwas rather beautiful, meditative, and seemed to live in another,\nlovelier world.\n\nUrsula took her dinner to school, and during the second week\nate it in Miss Schofield's room. Standard Three classroom stood\nby itself and had windows on two sides, looking on to the\nplayground. It was a passionate relief to find such a retreat in\nthe jarring school. For there were pots of chrysanthemums and\ncoloured leaves, and a big jar of berries: there were pretty\nlittle pictures on the wall, photogravure reproductions from\nGreuze, and Reynolds's \"Age of Innocence\", giving an air of\nintimacy; so that the room, with its window space, its smaller,\ntidier desks, its touch of pictures and flowers, made Ursula at\nonce glad. Here at last was a little personal touch, to which\nshe could respond.\n\nIt was Monday. She had been at school a week and was getting\nused to the surroundings, though she was still an entire\nforeigner in herself. She looked forward to having dinner with\nMaggie. That was the bright spot in the day. Maggie was so\nstrong and remote, walking with slow, sure steps down a hard\nroad, carrying the dream within her. Ursula went through the\nclass teaching as through a meaningless daze.\n\nHer class tumbled out at midday in haphazard fashion. She did\nnot realize what host she was gathering against herself by her\nsuperior tolerance, her kindness and her laisseraller. They were\ngone, and she was rid of them, and that was all. She hurried\naway to the teachers' room.\n\nMr. Brunt was crouching at the small stove, putting a little\nrice pudding into the oven. He rose then, and attentively poked\nin a small saucepan on the hob with a fork. Then he replaced the\nsaucepan lid.\n\n\"Aren't they done?\" asked Ursula gaily, breaking in on his\ntense absorption.\n\nShe always kept a bright, blithe manner, and was pleasant to\nall the teachers. For she felt like the swan among the geese, of\nsuperior heritage and belonging. And her pride at being the swan\nin this ugly school was not yet abated.\n\n\"Not yet,\" replied Mr. Brunt, laconic.\n\n\"I wonder if my dish is hot,\" she said, bending down at the\noven. She half expected him to look for her, but he took no\nnotice. She was hungry and she poked her finger eagerly in the\npot to see if her brussels sprouts and potatoes and meat were\nready. They were not.\n\n\"Don't you think it's rather jolly bringing dinner?\" she said\nto Mr. Brunt.\n\n\"I don't know as I do,\" he said, spreading a serviette on a\ncorner of the table, and not looking at her.\n\n\"I suppose it is too far for you to go home?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said. Then he rose and looked at her. He had the\nbluest, fiercest, most pointed eyes that she had ever met. He\nstared at her with growing fierceness.\n\n\"If I were you, Miss Brangwen,\" he said, menacingly, \"I\nshould get a bit tighter hand over my class.\"\n\nUrsula shrank.\n\n\"Would you?\" she asked, sweetly, yet in terror. \"Aren't I\nstrict enough?\"\n\n\"Because,\" he repeated, taking no notice of her, \"they'll get\nyou down if you don't tackle 'em pretty quick. They'll pull you\ndown, and worry you, till Harby gets you shifted--that's\nhow it'll be. You won't be here another six weeks\"--and he\nfilled his mouth with food--\"if you don't tackle 'em and\ntackle 'em quick.\"\n\n\"Oh, but----\" Ursula said, resentfully, ruefully.\nThe terror was deep in her.\n\n\"Harby'll not help you. This is what he'll do--he'll let\nyou go on, getting worse and worse, till either you clear out or\nhe clears you out. It doesn't matter to me, except that you'll\nleave a class behind you as I hope I shan't have to cope\nwith.\"\n\nShe heard the accusation in the man's voice, and felt\ncondemned. But still, school had not yet become a definite\nreality to her. She was shirking it. It was reality, but it was\nall outside her. And she fought against Mr. Brunt's\nrepresentation. She did not want to realize.\n\n\"Will it be so terrible?\" she said, quivering, rather\nbeautiful, but with a slight touch of condescension, because she\nwould not betray her own trepidation.\n\n\"Terrible?\" said the man, turning to his potatoes again. \"I\ndunno about terrible.\"\n\n\"I do feel frightened,\" said Ursula. \"The children seem\nso----\"\n\n\"What?\" said Miss Harby, entering at that moment.\n\n\"Why,\" said Ursula, \"Mr. Brunt says I ought to tackle my\nclass,\" and she laughed uneasily.\n\n\"Oh, you have to keep order if you want to teach,\" said Miss\nHarby, hard, superior, trite.\n\nUrsula did not answer. She felt non valid before them.\n\n\"If you want to be let to live, you have,\" said Mr.\nBrunt.\n\n\"Well, if you can't keep order, what good are you?\" said Miss\nHarby.\n\n\"An' you've got to do it by yourself,\"--his voice rose\nlike the bitter cry of the prophets. \"You'll get no help\nfrom anybody.\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed!\" said Miss Harby. \"Some people can't be helped.\"\nAnd she departed.\n\nThe air of hostility and disintegration, of wills working in\nantagonistic subordination, was hideous. Mr. Brunt, subordinate,\nafraid, acid with shame, frightened her. Ursula wanted to run.\nShe only wanted to clear out, not to understand.\n\nThen Miss Schofield came in, and with her another, more\nrestful note. Ursula at once turned for confirmation to the\nnewcomer. Maggie remained personal within all this unclean\nsystem of authority.\n\n\"Is the big Anderson here?\" she asked of Mr. Brunt. And they\nspoke of some affair about two scholars, coldly, officially.\n\nMiss Schofield took her brown dish, and Ursula followed with\nher own. The cloth was laid in the pleasant Standard Three room,\nthere was a jar with two or three monthly roses on the\ntable.\n\n\"It is so nice in here, you have made it different,\"\nsaid Ursula gaily. But she was afraid. The atmosphere of the\nschool was upon her.\n\n\"The big room,\" said Miss Schofield, \"ha, it's misery to be\nin it!\"\n\nShe too spoke with bitterness. She too lived in the\nignominious position of an upper servant hated by the master\nabove and the class beneath. She was, she knew, liable to attack\nfrom either side at any minute, or from both at once, for the\nauthorities would listen to the complaints of parents, and both\nwould turn round on the mongrel authority, the teacher.\n\nSo there was a hard, bitter withholding in Maggie Schofield\neven as she poured out her savoury mess of big golden beans and\nbrown gravy.\n\n\"It is vegetarian hot-pot,\" said Miss Schofield. \"Would you\nlike to try it?\"\n\n\"I should love to,\" said Ursula.\n\nHer own dinner seemed coarse and ugly beside this savoury,\nclean dish.\n\n\"I've never eaten vegetarian things,\" she said. \"But I should\nthink they can be good.\"\n\n\"I'm not really a vegetarian,\" said Maggie, \"I don't like to\nbring meat to school.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Ursula, \"I don't think I do either.\"\n\nAnd again her soul rang an answer to a new refinement, a new\nliberty. If all vegetarian things were as nice as this, she\nwould be glad to escape the slight uncleanness of meat.\n\n\"How good!\" she cried.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Miss Schofield, and she proceeded to tell her the\nreceipt. The two girls passed on to talk about themselves.\nUrsula told all about the High School, and about her\nmatriculation, bragging a little. She felt so poor here, in this\nugly place. Miss Schofield listened with brooding, handsome\nface, rather gloomy.\n\n\"Couldn't you have got to some better place than this?\" she\nasked at length.\n\n\"I didn't know what it was like,\" said Ursula,\ndoubtfully.\n\n\"Ah!\" said Miss Schofield, and she turned aside her head with\na bitter motion.\n\n\"Is it as horrid as it seems?\" asked Ursula, frowning\nlightly, in fear.\n\n\"It is,\" said Miss Schofield, bitterly. \"Ha!--it is\nhateful!\"\n\nUrsula's heart sank, seeing even Miss Schofield in the deadly\nbondage.\n\n\"It is Mr. Harby,\" said Maggie Schofield, breaking forth.\n\n\"I don't think I could live again in the big\nroom--Mr. Brunt's voice and Mr.\nHarby--ah----\"\n\nShe turned aside her head with a deep hurt. Some things she\ncould not bear.\n\n\"Is Mr. Harby really horrid?\" asked Ursula, venturing into\nher own dread.\n\n\"He!--why, he's just a bully,\" said Miss Schofield,\nraising her shamed dark eyes, that flamed with tortured\ncontempt. \"He's not bad as long as you keep in with him, and\nrefer to him, and do everything in his way--but--it's\nall so mean! It's just a question of fighting on both\nsides--and those great louts----\"\n\nShe spoke with difficulty and with increased bitterness. She\nhad evidently suffered. Her soul was raw with ignominy. Ursula\nsuffered in response.\n\n\"But why is it so horrid?\" she asked, helplessly.\n\n\"You can't do anything,\" said Miss Schofield. \"He's\nagainst you on one side and he sets the children against you on\nthe other. The children are simply awful. You've got to\nmake them do everything. Everything, everything has got\nto come out of you. Whatever they learn, you've got to force it\ninto them--and that's how it is.\"\n\nUrsula felt her heart fail inside her. Why must she grasp all\nthis, why must she force learning on fifty-five reluctant\nchildren, having all the time an ugly, rude jealousy behind her,\nready to throw her to the mercy of the herd of children, who\nwould like to rend her as a weaker representative of authority.\nA great dread of her task possessed her. She saw Mr. Brunt, Miss\nHarby, Miss Schofield, all the school-teachers, drudging\nunwillingly at the graceless task of compelling many children\ninto one disciplined, mechanical set, reducing the whole set to\nan automatic state of obedience and attention, and then of\ncommanding their acceptance of various pieces of knowledge. The\nfirst great task was to reduce sixty children to one state of\nmind, or being. This state must be produced automatically,\nthrough the will of the teacher, and the will of the whole\nschool authority, imposed upon the will of the children. The\npoint was that the headmaster and the teachers should have one\nwill in authority, which should bring the will of the children\ninto accord. But the headmaster was narrow and exclusive. The\nwill of the teachers could not agree with his, their separate\nwills refused to be so subordinated. So there was a state of\nanarchy, leaving the final judgment to the children themselves,\nwhich authority should exist.\n\nSo there existed a set of separate wills, each straining\nitself to the utmost to exert its own authority. Children will\nnever naturally acquiesce to sitting in a class and submitting\nto knowledge. They must be compelled by a stronger, wiser will.\nAgainst which will they must always strive to revolt. So that\nthe first great effort of every teacher of a large class must be\nto bring the will of the children into accordance with his own\nwill. And this he can only do by an abnegation of his personal\nself, and an application of a system of laws, for the purpose of\nachieving a certain calculable result, the imparting of certain\nknowledge. Whereas Ursula thought she was going to become the\nfirst wise teacher by making the whole business personal, and\nusing no compulsion. She believed entirely in her own\npersonality.\n\nSo that she was in a very deep mess. In the first place she\nwas offering to a class a relationship which only one or two of\nthe children were sensitive enough to appreciate, so that the\nmass were left outsiders, therefore against her. Secondly, she\nwas placing herself in passive antagonism to the one fixed\nauthority of Mr. Harby, so that the scholars could more safely\nharry her. She did not know, but her instinct gradually warned\nher. She was tortured by the voice of Mr. Brunt. On it went,\njarring, harsh, full of hate, but so monotonous, it nearly drove\nher mad: always the same set, harsh monotony. The man was become\na mechanism working on and on and on. But the personal man was\nin subdued friction all the time. It was horrible--all\nhate! Must she be like this? She could feel the ghastly\nnecessity. She must become the same--put away the personal\nself, become an instrument, an abstraction, working upon a\ncertain material, the class, to achieve a set purpose of making\nthem know so much each day. And she could not submit. Yet\ngradually she felt the invincible iron closing upon her. The sun\nwas being blocked out. Often when she went out at playtime and\nsaw a luminous blue sky with changing clouds, it seemed just a\nfantasy, like a piece of painted scenery. Her heart was so black\nand tangled in the teaching, her personal self was shut in\nprison, abolished, she was subjugate to a bad, destructive will.\nHow then could the sky be shining? There was no sky, there was\nno luminous atmosphere of out-of-doors. Only the inside of the\nschool was real--hard, concrete, real and vicious.\n\nShe would not yet, however, let school quite overcome her.\nShe always said. \"It is not a permanency, it will come to an\nend.\" She could always see herself beyond the place, see the\ntime when she had left it. On Sundays and on holidays, when she\nwas away at Cossethay or in the woods where the beech-leaves\nwere fallen, she could think of St. Philip's Church School, and\nby an effort of will put it in the picture as a dirty little\nlow-squatting building that made a very tiny mound under the\nsky, while the great beech-woods spread immense about her, and\nthe afternoon was spacious and wonderful. Moreover the children,\nthe scholars, they were insignificant little objects far away,\noh, far away. And what power had they over her free soul? A\nfleeting thought of them, as she kicked her way through the\nbeech-leaves, and they were gone. But her will was tense against\nthem all the time.\n\nAll the while, they pursued her. She had never had such a\npassionate love of the beautiful things about her. Sitting on\ntop of the tram-car, at evening, sometimes school was swept away\nas she saw a magnificent sky settling down. And her breast, her\nvery hands, clamoured for the lovely flare of sunset. It was\npoignant almost to agony, her reaching for it. She almost cried\naloud seeing the sundown so lovely.\n\nFor she was held away. It was no matter how she said to\nherself that school existed no more once she had left it. It\nexisted. It was within her like a dark weight, controlling her\nmovement. It was in vain the high-spirited, proud young girl\nflung off the school and its association with her. She was Miss\nBrangwen, she was Standard Five teacher, she had her most\nimportant being in her work now.\n\nConstantly haunting her, like a darkness hovering over her\nheart and threatening to swoop down over it at every moment, was\nthe sense that somehow, somehow she was brought down. Bitterly\nshe denied unto herself that she was really a schoolteacher.\nLeave that to the Violet Harbys. She herself would stand clear\nof the accusation. It was in vain she denied it.\n\nWithin herself some recording hand seemed to point\nmechanically to a negation. She was incapable of fulfilling her\ntask. She could never for a moment escape from the fatal weight\nof the knowledge.\n\nAnd so she felt inferior to Violet Harby. Miss Harby was a\nsplendid teacher. She could keep order and inflict knowledge on\na class with remarkable efficiency. It was no good Ursula's\nprotesting to herself that she was infinitely, infinitely the\nsuperior of Violet Harby. She knew that Violet Harby succeeded\nwhere she failed, and this in a task which was almost a test of\nher. She felt something all the time wearing upon her, wearing\nher down. She went about in these first weeks trying to deny it,\nto say she was free as ever. She tried not to feel at a\ndisadvantage before Miss Harby, tried to keep up the effect of\nher own superiority. But a great weight was on her, which Violet\nHarby could bear, and she herself could not.\n\nThough she did not give in, she never succeeded. Her class\nwas getting in worse condition, she knew herself less and less\nsecure in teaching it. Ought she to withdraw and go home again?\nOught she to say she had come to the wrong place, and so retire?\nHer very life was at test.\n\nShe went on doggedly, blindly, waiting for a crisis. Mr.\nHarby had now begun to persecute her. Her dread and hatred of\nhim grew and loomed larger and larger. She was afraid he was\ngoing to bully her and destroy her. He began to persecute her\nbecause she could not keep her class in proper condition,\nbecause her class was the weak link in the chain which made up\nthe school.\n\nOne of the offences was that her class was noisy and\ndisturbed Mr. Harby, as he took Standard Seven at the other end\nof the room. She was taking composition on a certain morning,\nwalking in among the scholars. Some of the boys had dirty ears\nand necks, their clothing smelled unpleasantly, but she could\nignore it. She corrected the writing as she went.\n\n\"When you say 'their fur is brown', how do you write\n'their'?\" she asked.\n\nThere was a little pause; the boys were always jeeringly\nbackward in answering. They had begun to jeer at her authority\naltogether.\n\n\"Please, miss, t-h-e-i-r\", spelled a lad, loudly, with a note\nof mockery.\n\nAt that moment Mr. Harby was passing.\n\n\"Stand up, Hill!\" he called, in a big voice.\n\nEverybody started. Ursula watched the boy. He was evidently\npoor, and rather cunning. A stiff bit of hair stood straight off\nhis forehead, the rest fitted close to his meagre head. He was\npale and colourless.\n\n\"Who told you to call out?\" thundered Mr. Harby.\n\nThe boy looked up and down, with a guilty air, and a cunning,\ncynical reserve.\n\n\"Please, sir, I was answering,\" he replied, with the same\nhumble insolence.\n\n\"Go to my desk.\"\n\nThe boy set off down the room, the big black jacket hanging\nin dejected folds about him, his thin legs, rather knocked at\nthe knees, going already with the pauper's crawl, his feet in\ntheir big boots scarcely lifted. Ursula watched him in his\ncrawling, slinking progress down the room. He was one of her\nboys! When he got to the desk, he looked round, half furtively,\nwith a sort of cunning grin and a pathetic leer at the big boys\nin Standard VII. Then, pitiable, pale, in his dejected garments,\nhe lounged under the menace of the headmaster's desk, with one\nthin leg crooked at the knee and the foot struck out sideways\nhis hands in the low-hanging pockets of his man's jacket.\n\nUrsula tried to get her attention back to the class. The boy\ngave her a little horror, and she was at the same time hot with\npity for him. She felt she wanted to scream. She was responsible\nfor the boy's punishment. Mr. Harby was looking at her\nhandwriting on the board. He turned to the class.\n\n\"Pens down.\"\n\nThe children put down their pens and looked up.\n\n\"Fold arms.\"\n\nThey pushed back their books and folded arms.\n\nUrsula, stuck among the back forms, could not extricate\nherself.\n\n\"What is your composition about?\" asked the\nheadmaster. Every hand shot up. \"The ----\" stuttered\nsome voice in its eagerness to answer.\n\n\"I wouldn't advise you to call out,\" said Mr. Harby. He would\nhave a pleasant voice, full and musical, but for the detestable\nmenace that always tailed in it. He stood unmoved, his eyes\ntwinkling under his bushy black eyebrows, watching the class.\nThere was something fascinating in him, as he stood, and again\nshe wanted to scream. She was all jarred, she did not know what\nshe felt.\n\n\"Well, Alice?\" he said.\n\n\"The rabbit,\" piped a girl's voice.\n\n\"A very easy subject for Standard Five.\"\n\nUrsula felt a slight shame of incompetence. She was exposed\nbefore the class. And she was tormented by the contradictoriness\nof everything. Mr. Harby stood so strong, and so male, with his\nblack brows and clear forehead, the heavy jaw, the big,\noverhanging moustache: such a man, with strength and male power,\nand a certain blind, native beauty. She might have liked him as\na man. And here he stood in some other capacity, bullying over\nsuch a trifle as a boy's speaking out without permission. Yet he\nwas not a little, fussy man. He seemed to have some cruel,\nstubborn, evil spirit, he was imprisoned in a task too small and\npetty for him, which yet, in a servile acquiescence, he would\nfulfil, because he had to earn his living. He had no finer\ncontrol over himself, only this blind, dogged, wholesale will.\nHe would keep the job going, since he must. And this job was to\nmake the children spell the word \"caution\" correctly, and put a\ncapital letter after a full-stop. So at this he hammered with\nhis suppressed hatred, always suppressing himself, till he was\nbeside himself. Ursula suffered, bitterly as he stood, short and\nhandsome and powerful, teaching her class. It seemed such a\nmiserable thing for him to be doing. He had a decent, powerful,\nrude soul. What did he care about the composition on \"The\nRabbit\"? Yet his will kept him there before the class, threshing\nthe trivial subject. It was habit with him now, to be so little\nand vulgar, out of place. She saw the shamefulness of his\nposition, felt the fettered wickedness in him which would blaze\nout into evil rage in the long run, so that he was like a\npersistent, strong creature tethered. It was really intolerable.\nThe jarring was torture to her. She looked over the silent,\nattentive class that seemed to have crystallized into order and\nrigid, neutral form. This he had it in his power to do, to\ncrystallize the children into hard, mute fragments, fixed under\nhis will: his brute will, which fixed them by sheer force.\n\nShe too must learn to subdue them to her will: she must. For\nit was her duty, since the school was such. He had crystallized\nthe class into order. But to see him, a strong, powerful man,\nusing all his power for such a purpose, seemed almost horrible.\nThere was something hideous about it. The strange, genial light\nin his eye was really vicious, and ugly, his smile was one of\ntorture. He could not be impersonal. He could not have a clear,\npure purpose, he could only exercise his own brute will. He did\nnot believe in the least in the education he kept inflicting\nyear after year upon the children. So he must bully, only bully,\neven while it tortured his strong, wholesome nature with shame\nlike a spur always galling. He was so blind and ugly and out of\nplace. Ursula could not bear it as he stood there. The whole\nsituation was wrong and ugly.\n\nThe lesson was finished, Mr. Harby went away. At the far end\nof the room she heard the whistle and the thud of the cane. Her\nheart stood still within her. She could not bear it, no, she\ncould not bear it when the boy was beaten. It made her sick. She\nfelt that she must go out of this school, this torture-place.\nAnd she hated the schoolmaster, thoroughly and finally. The\nbrute, had he no shame? He should never be allowed to continue\nthe atrocity of this bullying cruelty. Then Hill came crawling\nback, blubbering piteously. There was something desolate about\nthis blubbering that nearly broke her heart. For after all, if\nshe had kept her class in proper discipline, this would never\nhave happened, Hill would never have called out and been\ncaned.\n\nShe began the arithmetic lesson. But she was distracted. The\nboy Hill sat away on the back desk, huddled up, blubbering and\nsucking his hand. It was a long time. She dared not go near, nor\nspeak to him. She felt ashamed before him. And she felt she\ncould not forgive the boy for being the huddled, blubbering\nobject, all wet and snivelled, which he was.\n\nShe went on correcting the sums. But there were too many\nchildren. She could not get round the class. And Hill was on her\nconscience. At last he had stopped crying, and sat bunched over\nhis hands, playing quietly. Then he looked up at her. His face\nwas dirty with tears, his eyes had a curious washed look, like\nthe sky after rain, a sort of wanness. He bore no malice. He had\nalready forgotten, and was waiting to be restored to the normal\nposition.\n\n\"Go on with your work, Hill,\" she said.\n\nThe children were playing over their arithmetic, and, she\nknew, cheating thoroughly. She wrote another sum on the\nblackboard. She could not get round the class. She went again to\nthe front to watch. Some were ready. Some were not. What was she\nto do?\n\nAt last it was time for recreation. She gave the order to\ncease working, and in some way or other got her class out of the\nroom. Then she faced the disorderly litter of blotted,\nuncorrected books, of broken rulers and chewed pens. And her\nheart sank in sickness. The misery was getting deeper.\n\nThe trouble went on and on, day after day. She had always\npiles of books to mark, myriads of errors to correct, a\nheart-wearying task that she loathed. And the work got worse and\nworse. When she tried to flatter herself that the composition\ngrew more alive, more interesting, she had to see that the\nhandwriting grew more and more slovenly, the books more filthy\nand disgraceful. She tried what she could, but it was of no use.\nBut she was not going to take it seriously. Why should she? Why\nshould she say to herself, that it mattered, if she failed to\nteach a class to write perfectly neatly? Why should she take the\nblame unto herself?\n\nPay day came, and she received four pounds two shillings and\none penny. She was very proud that day. She had never had so\nmuch money before. And she had earned it all herself. She sat on\nthe top of the tram-car fingering the gold and fearing she might\nlose it. She felt so established and strong, because of it. And\nwhen she got home she said to her mother:\n\n\"It is pay day to-day, mother.\"\n\n\"Ay,\" said her mother, coolly.\n\nThen Ursula put down fifty shillings on the table.\n\n\"That is my board,\" she said.\n\n\"Ay,\" said her mother, letting it lie.\n\nUrsula was hurt. Yet she had paid her scot. She was free. She\npaid for what she had. There remained moreover thirty-two\nshillings of her own. She would not spend any, she who was\nnaturally a spendthrift, because she could not bear to damage\nher fine gold.\n\nShe had a standing ground now apart from her parents. She was\nsomething else besides the mere daughter of William and Anna\nBrangwen. She was independent. She earned her own living. She\nwas an important member of the working community. She was sure\nthat fifty shillings a month quite paid for her keep. If her\nmother received fifty shillings a month for each of the\nchildren, she would have twenty pounds a month and no clothes to\nprovide. Very well then.\n\nUrsula was independent of her parents. She now adhered\nelsewhere. Now, the 'Board of Education' was a phrase that rang\nsignificant to her, and she felt Whitehall far beyond her as her\nultimate home. In the government, she knew which minister had\nsupreme control over Education, and it seemed to her that, in\nsome way, he was connected with her, as her father was connected\nwith her.\n\nShe had another self, another responsibility. She was no\nlonger Ursula Brangwen, daughter of William Brangwen. She was\nalso Standard Five teacher in St. Philip's School. And it was a\ncase now of being Standard Five teacher, and nothing else. For\nshe could not escape.\n\nNeither could she succeed. That was her horror. As the weeks\npassed on, there was no Ursula Brangwen, free and jolly. There\nwas only a girl of that name obsessed by the fact that she could\nnot manage her class of children. At week-ends there came days\nof passionate reaction, when she went mad with the taste of\nliberty, when merely to be free in the morning, to sit down at\nher embroidery and stitch the coloured silks was a passion of\ndelight. For the prison house was always awaiting her! This was\nonly a respite, as her chained heart knew well. So that she\nseized hold of the swift hours of the week-end, and wrung the\nlast drop of sweetness out of them, in a little, cruel\nfrenzy.\n\nShe did not tell anybody how this state was a torture to her.\nShe did not confide, either to Gudrun or to her parents, how\nhorrible she found it to be a school-teacher. But when Sunday\nnight came, and she felt the Monday morning at hand, she was\nstrung up tight with dreadful anticipation, because the strain\nand the torture was near again.\n\nShe did not believe that she could ever teach that great,\nbrutish class, in that brutal school: ever, ever. And yet, if\nshe failed, she must in some way go under. She must admit that\nthe man's world was too strong for her, she could not take her\nplace in it; she must go down before Mr. Harby. And all her life\nhenceforth, she must go on, never having freed herself of the\nman's world, never having achieved the freedom of the great\nworld of responsible work. Maggie had taken her place there, she\nhad even stood level with Mr. Harby and got free of him: and her\nsoul was always wandering in far-off valleys and glades of\npoetry. Maggie was free. Yet there was something like subjection\nin Maggie's very freedom. Mr. Harby, the man, disliked the\nreserved woman, Maggie. Mr. Harby, the schoolmaster, respected\nhis teacher, Miss Schofield.\n\nFor the present, however, Ursula only envied and admired\nMaggie. She herself had still to get where Maggie had got. She\nhad still to make her footing. She had taken up a position on\nMr. Harby's ground, and she must keep it. For he was now\nbeginning a regular attack on her, to drive her away out of his\nschool. She could not keep order. Her class was a turbulent\ncrowd, and the weak spot in the school's work. Therefore she\nmust go, and someone more useful must come in her place, someone\nwho could keep discipline.\n\nThe headmaster had worked himself into an obsession of fury\nagainst her. He only wanted her gone. She had come, she had got\nworse as the weeks went on, she was absolutely no good. His\nsystem, which was his very life in school, the outcome of his\nbodily movement, was attacked and threatened at the point where\nUrsula was included. She was the danger that threatened his body\nwith a blow, a fall. And blindly, thoroughly, moving from strong\ninstinct of opposition, he set to work to expel her.\n\nWhen he punished one of her children as he had punished the\nboy Hill, for an offence against himself, he made the\npunishment extra heavy with the significance that the extra\nstroke came in because of the weak teacher who allowed all these\nthings to be. When he punished for an offence against her, he\npunished lightly, as if offences against her were not\nsignificant. Which all the children knew, and they behaved\naccordingly.\n\nEvery now and again Mr. Harby would swoop down to examine\nexercise books. For a whole hour, he would be going round the\nclass, taking book after book, comparing page after page, whilst\nUrsula stood aside for all the remarks and fault-finding to be\npointed at her through the scholars. It was true, since she had\ncome, the composition books had grown more and more untidy,\ndisorderly, filthy. Mr. Harby pointed to the pages done before\nher regime, and to those done after, and fell into a passion of\nrage. Many children he sent out to the front with their books.\nAnd after he had thoroughly gone through the silent and\nquivering class he caned the worst offenders well, in front of\nthe others, thundering in real passion of anger and chagrin.\n\n\"Such a condition in a class, I can't believe it! It is\nsimply disgraceful! I can't think how you have been let to get\nlike it! Every Monday morning I shall come down and examine\nthese books. So don't think that because there is nobody paying\nany attention to you, that you are free to unlearn everything\nyou ever learned, and go back till you are not fit for Standard\nThree. I shall examine all books every Monday----\"\n\nThen in a rage, he went away with his cane, leaving Ursula to\nconfront a pale, quivering class, whose childish faces were shut\nin blank resentment, fear, and bitterness, whose souls were full\nof anger and contempt for her rather than of the master, whose\neyes looked at her with the cold, inhuman accusation of\nchildren. And she could hardly make mechanical words to speak to\nthem. When she gave an order they obeyed with an insolent\noff-handedness, as if to say: \"As for you, do you think we would\nobey you, but for the master?\" She sent the blubbering,\ncaned boys to their seats, knowing that they too jeered at her\nand her authority, holding her weakness responsible for what\npunishment had overtaken them. And she knew the whole position,\nso that even her horror of physical beating and suffering sank\nto a deeper pain, and became a moral judgment upon her, worse\nthan any hurt.\n\nShe must, during the next week, watch over her books, and\npunish any fault. Her soul decided it coldly. Her personal\ndesire was dead for that day at least. She must have nothing\nmore of herself in school. She was to be Standard Five teacher\nonly. That was her duty. In school, she was nothing but Standard\nFive teacher. Ursula Brangwen must be excluded.\n\nSo that, pale, shut, at last distant and impersonal, she saw\nno longer the child, how his eyes danced, or how he had a queer\nlittle soul that could not be bothered with shaping handwriting\nso long as he dashed down what he thought. She saw no children,\nonly the task that was to be done. And keeping her eyes there,\non the task, and not on the child, she was impersonal enough to\npunish where she could otherwise only have sympathized,\nunderstood, and condoned, to approve where she would have been\nmerely uninterested before. But her interest had no place any\nmore.\n\nIt was agony to the impulsive, bright girl of seventeen to\nbecome distant and official, having no personal relationship\nwith the children. For a few days, after the agony of the\nMonday, she succeeded, and had some success with her class. But\nit was a state not natural to her, and she began to relax.\n\nThen came another infliction. There were not enough pens to\ngo round the class. She sent to Mr. Harby for more. He came in\nperson.\n\n\"Not enough pens, Miss Brangwen?\" he said, with the smile and\ncalm of exceeding rage against her.\n\n\"No, we are six short,\" she said, quaking.\n\n\"Oh, how is that?\" he said, menacingly. Then, looking over\nthe class, he asked:\n\n\"How many are there here to-day?\"\n\n\"Fifty-two,\" said Ursula, but he did not take any notice,\ncounting for himself.\n\n\"Fifty-two,\" he said. \"And how many pens are there,\nStaples?\"\n\nUrsula was now silent. He would not heed her if she answered,\nsince he had addressed the monitor.\n\n\"That's a very curious thing,\" said Mr. Harby, looking over\nthe silent class with a slight grin of fury. All the childish\nfaces looked up at him blank and exposed.\n\n\"A few days ago there were sixty pens for this\nclass--now there are forty-eight. What is forty-eight from\nsixty, Williams?\" There was a sinister suspense in the question.\nA thin, ferret-faced boy in a sailor suit started up\nexaggeratedly.\n\n\"Please, sir!\" he said. Then a slow, sly grin came over his\nface. He did not know. There was a tense silence. The boy\ndropped his head. Then he looked up again, a little cunning\ntriumph in his eyes. \"Twelve,\" he said.\n\n\"I would advise you to attend,\" said the headmaster\ndangerously. The boy sat down.\n\n\"Forty-eight from sixty is twelve: so there are twelve pens\nto account for. Have you looked for them, Staples?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Then look again.\"\n\nThe scene dragged on. Two pens were found: ten were missing.\nThen the storm burst.\n\n\"Am I to have you thieving, besides your dirt and bad work\nand bad behaviour?\" the headmaster began. \"Not content with\nbeing the worst-behaved and dirtiest class in the school, you\nare thieves into the bargain, are you? It is a very funny thing!\nPens don't melt into the air: pens are not in the habit of\nmizzling away into nothing. What has become of them then? They\nmust be somewhere. What has become of them? For they must be\nfound, and found by Standard Five. They were lost by Standard\nFive, and they must be found.\"\n\nUrsula stood and listened, her heart hard and cold. She was\nso much upset, that she felt almost mad. Something in her\ntempted her to turn on the headmaster and tell him to stop,\nabout the miserable pens. But she did not. She could not.\n\nAfter every session, morning and evening, she had the pens\ncounted. Still they were missing. And pencils and india-rubbers\ndisappeared. She kept the class staying behind, till the things\nwere found. But as soon as Mr. Harby had gone out of the room,\nthe boys began to jump about and shout, and at last they bolted\nin a body from the school.\n\nThis was drawing near a crisis. She could not tell Mr. Harby\nbecause, while he would punish the class, he would make her the\ncause of the punishment, and her class would pay her back with\ndisobedience and derision. Already there was a deadly hostility\ngrown up between her and the children. After keeping in the\nclass, at evening, to finish some work, she would find boys\ndodging behind her, calling after her: \"Brangwen,\nBrangwen--Proud-acre.\"\n\nWhen she went into Ilkeston of a Saturday morning with\nGudrun, she heard again the voices yelling after her:\n\n\"Brangwen, Brangwen.\"\n\nShe pretended to take no notice, but she coloured with shame\nat being held up to derision in the public street. She, Ursula\nBrangwen of Cossethay, could not escape from the Standard Five\nteacher which she was. In vain she went out to buy ribbon for\nher hat. They called after her, the boys she tried to teach.\n\nAnd one evening, as she went from the edge of the town into\nthe country, stones came flying at her. Then the passion of\nshame and anger surpassed her. She walked on unheeding, beside\nherself. Because of the darkness she could not see who were\nthose that threw. But she did not want to know.\n\nOnly in her soul a change took place. Never more, and never\nmore would she give herself as individual to her class. Never\nwould she, Ursula Brangwen, the girl she was, the person she\nwas, come into contact with those boys. She would be Standard\nFive teacher, as far away personally from her class as if she\nhad never set foot in St. Philip's school. She would just\nobliterate them all, and keep herself apart, take them as\nscholars only.\n\nSo her face grew more and more shut, and over her flayed,\nexposed soul of a young girl who had gone open and warm to give\nherself to the children, there set a hard, insentient thing,\nthat worked mechanically according to a system imposed.\n\nIt seemed she scarcely saw her class the next day. She could\nonly feel her will, and what she would have of this class which\nshe must grasp into subjection. It was no good, any more, to\nappeal, to play upon the better feelings of the class. Her\nswift-working soul realized this.\n\nShe, as teacher, must bring them all as scholars, into\nsubjection. And this she was going to do. All else she would\nforsake. She had become hard and impersonal, almost avengeful on\nherself as well as on them, since the stone throwing. She did\nnot want to be a person, to be herself any more, after such\nhumiliation. She would assert herself for mastery, be only\nteacher. She was set now. She was going to fight and subdue.\n\nShe knew by now her enemies in the class. The one she hated\nmost was Williams. He was a sort of defective, not bad enough to\nbe so classed. He could read with fluency, and had plenty of\ncunning intelligence. But he could not keep still. And he had a\nkind of sickness very repulsive to a sensitive girl, something\ncunning and etiolated and degenerate. Once he had thrown an\nink-well at her, in one of his mad little rages. Twice he had\nrun home out of class. He was a well-known character.\n\nAnd he grinned up his sleeve at this girl-teacher, sometimes\nhanging round her to fawn on her. But this made her dislike him\nmore. He had a kind of leech-like power.\n\nFrom one of the children she took a supple cane, and this she\ndetermined to use when real occasion came. One morning, at\ncomposition, she said to the boy Williams:\n\n\"Why have you made this blot?\"\n\n\"Please, miss, it fell off my pen,\" he whined out, in the\nmocking voice that he was so clever in using. The boys near\nsnorted with laughter. For Williams was an actor, he could\ntickle the feelings of his hearers subtly. Particularly he could\ntickle the children with him into ridiculing his teacher, or\nindeed, any authority of which he was not afraid. He had that\npeculiar gaol instinct.\n\n\"Then you must stay in and finish another page of\ncomposition,\" said the teacher.\n\nThis was against her usual sense of justice, and the boy\nresented it derisively. At twelve o'clock she caught him\nslinking out.\n\n\"Williams, sit down,\" she said.\n\nAnd there she sat, and there he sat, alone, opposite to her,\non the back desk, looking up at her with his furtive eyes every\nminute.\n\n\"Please, miss, I've got to go an errand,\" he called out\ninsolently.\n\n\"Bring me your book,\" said Ursula.\n\nThe boy came out, flapping his book along the desks. He had\nnot written a line.\n\n\"Go back and do the writing you have to do,\" said Ursula. And\nshe sat at her desk, trying to correct books. She was trembling\nand upset. And for an hour the miserable boy writhed and grinned\nin his seat. At the end of that time he had done five lines.\n\n\"As it is so late now,\" said Ursula, \"you will finish the\nrest this evening.\"\n\nThe boy kicked his way insolently down the passage.\n\nThe afternoon came again. Williams was there, glancing at\nher, and her heart beat thick, for she knew it was a fight\nbetween them. She watched him.\n\nDuring the geography lesson, as she was pointing to the map\nwith her cane, the boy continually ducked his whitish head under\nthe desk, and attracted the attention of other boys.\n\n\"Williams,\" she said, gathering her courage, for it was\ncritical now to speak to him, \"what are you doing?\"\n\nHe lifted his face, the sore-rimmed eyes half smiling. There\nwas something intrinsically indecent about him. Ursula shrank\naway.\n\n\"Nothing,\" he replied, feeling a triumph.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" she repeated, her heart-beat\nsuffocating her.\n\n\"Nothing,\" replied the boy, insolently, aggrieved, comic.\n\n\"If I speak to you again, you must go down to Mr. Harby,\" she\nsaid.\n\nBut this boy was a match even for Mr. Harby. He was so\npersistent, so cringing, and flexible, he howled so when he was\nhurt, that the master hated more the teacher who sent him than\nhe hated the boy himself. For of the boy he was sick of the\nsight. Which Williams knew. He grinned visibly.\n\nUrsula turned to the map again, to go on with the geography\nlesson. But there was a little ferment in the class. Williams'\nspirit infected them all. She heard a scuffle, and then she\ntrembled inwardly. If they all turned on her this time, she was\nbeaten.\n\n\"Please, miss----\" called a voice in distress.\n\nShe turned round. One of the boys she liked was ruefully\nholding out a torn celluloid collar. She heard the complaint,\nfeeling futile.\n\n\"Go in front, Wright,\" she said.\n\nShe was trembling in every fibre. A big, sullen boy, not bad\nbut very difficult, slouched out to the front. She went on with\nthe lesson, aware that Williams was making faces at Wright, and\nthat Wright was grinning behind her. She was afraid. She turned\nto the map again. And she was afraid.\n\n\"Please, miss, Williams----\" came a sharp cry, and\na boy on the back row was standing up, with drawn, pained brows,\nhalf a mocking grin on his pain, half real resentment against\nWilliams--\"Please, miss, he's nipped me,\"--and he\nrubbed his leg ruefully.\n\n\"Come in front, Williams,\" she said.\n\nThe rat-like boy sat with his pale smile and did not\nmove.\n\n\"Come in front,\" she repeated, definite now.\n\n\"I shan't,\" he cried, snarling, rat-like, grinning. Something\nwent click in Ursula's soul. Her face and eyes set, she went\nthrough the class straight. The boy cowered before her\nglowering, fixed eyes. But she advanced on him, seized him by\nthe arm, and dragged him from his seat. He clung to the form. It\nwas the battle between him and her. Her instinct had suddenly\nbecome calm and quick. She jerked him from his grip, and dragged\nhim, struggling and kicking, to the front. He kicked her several\ntimes, and clung to the forms as he passed, but she went on. The\nclass was on its feet in excitement. She saw it, and made no\nmove.\n\nShe knew if she let go the boy he would dash to the door.\nAlready he had run home once out of her class. So she snatched\nher cane from the desk, and brought it down on him. He was\nwrithing and kicking. She saw his face beneath her, white, with\neyes like the eyes of a fish, stony, yet full of hate and\nhorrible fear. And she loathed him, the hideous writhing thing\nthat was nearly too much for her. In horror lest he should\novercome her, and yet at the heart quite calm, she brought down\nthe cane again and again, whilst he struggled making\ninarticulate noises, and lunging vicious kicks at her. With one\nhand she managed to hold him, and now and then the cane came\ndown on him. He writhed, like a mad thing. But the pain of the\nstrokes cut through his writhing, vicious, coward's courage, bit\ndeeper, till at last, with a long whimper that became a yell, he\nwent limp. She let him go, and he rushed at her, his teeth and\neyes glinting. There was a second of agonized terror in her\nheart: he was a beast thing. Then she caught him, and the cane\ncame down on him. A few times, madly, in a frenzy, he lunged and\nwrithed, to kick her. But again the cane broke him, he sank with\na howling yell on the floor, and like a beaten beast lay there\nyelling.\n\nMr. Harby had rushed up towards the end of this\nperformance.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" he roared.\n\nUrsula felt as if something were going to break in her.\n\n\"I've thrashed him,\" she said, her breast heaving, forcing\nout the words on the last breath. The headmaster stood choked\nwith rage, helpless. She looked at the writhing, howling figure\non the floor.\n\n\"Get up,\" she said. The thing writhed away from her. She took\na step forward. She had realized the presence of the headmaster\nfor one second, and then she was oblivious of it again.\n\n\"Get up,\" she said. And with a little dart the boy was on his\nfeet. His yelling dropped to a mad blubber. He had been in a\nfrenzy.\n\n\"Go and stand by the radiator,\" she said.\n\nAs if mechanically, blubbering, he went.\n\nThe headmaster stood robbed of movement or speech. His face\nwas yellow, his hands twitched convulsively. But Ursula stood\nstiff not far from him. Nothing could touch her now: she was\nbeyond Mr. Harby. She was as if violated to death.\n\nThe headmaster muttered something, turned, and went down the\nroom, whence, from the far end, he was heard roaring in a mad\nrage at his own class.\n\nThe boy blubbered wildly by the radiator. Ursula looked at\nthe class. There were fifty pale, still faces watching her, a\nhundred round eyes fixed on her in an attentive, expressionless\nstare.\n\n\"Give out the history readers,\" she said to the monitors.\n\nThere was dead silence. As she stood there, she could hear\nagain the ticking of the clock, and the chock of piles of books\ntaken out of the low cupboard. Then came the faint flap of books\non the desks. The children passed in silence, their hands\nworking in unison. They were no longer a pack, but each one\nseparated into a silent, closed thing.\n\n\"Take page 125, and read that chapter,\" said Ursula.\n\nThere was a click of many books opened. The children found\nthe page, and bent their heads obediently to read. And they\nread, mechanically.\n\nUrsula, who was trembling violently, went and sat in her high\nchair. The blubbering of the boy continued. The strident voice\nof Mr. Brunt, the roar of Mr. Harby, came muffled through the\nglass partition. And now and then a pair of eyes rose from the\nreading-book, rested on her a moment, watchful, as if\ncalculating impersonally, then sank again.\n\nShe sat still without moving, her eyes watching the class,\nunseeing. She was quite still, and weak. She felt that she could\nnot raise her hand from the desk. If she sat there for ever, she\nfelt she could not move again, nor utter a command. It was a\nquarter-past four. She almost dreaded the closing of the school,\nwhen she would be alone.\n\nThe class began to recover its ease, the tension relaxed.\nWilliams was still crying. Mr. Brunt was giving orders for the\nclosing of the lesson. Ursula got down.\n\n\"Take your place, Williams,\" she said.\n\nHe dragged his feet across the room, wiping his face on his\nsleeve. As he sat down, he glanced at her furtively, his eyes\nstill redder. Now he looked like some beaten rat.\n\nAt last the children were gone. Mr. Harby trod by heavily,\nwithout looking her way, or speaking. Mr. Brunt hesitated as she\nwas locking her cupboard.\n\n\"If you settle Clarke and Letts in the same way, Miss\nBrangwen, you'll be all right,\" he said, his blue eyes glancing\ndown in a strange fellowship, his long nose pointing at her.\n\n\"Shall I?\" she laughed nervously. She did not want anybody to\ntalk to her.\n\nAs she went along the street, clattering on the granite\npavement, she was aware of boys dodging behind her. Something\nstruck her hand that was carrying her bag, bruising her. As it\nrolled away she saw that it was a potato. Her hand was hurt, but\nshe gave no sign. Soon she would take the tram.\n\nShe was afraid, and strange. It was to her quite strange and\nugly, like some dream where she was degraded. She would have\ndied rather than admit it to anybody. She could not look at her\nswollen hand. Something had broken in her; she had passed a\ncrisis. Williams was beaten, but at a cost.\n\nFeeling too much upset to go home, she rode a little farther\ninto the town, and got down from the tram at a small tea-shop.\nThere, in the dark little place behind the shop, she drank her\ntea and ate bread-and-butter. She did not taste anything. The\ntaking of tea was just a mechanical action, to cover over her\nexistence. There she sat in the dark, obscure little place,\nwithout knowing. Only unconsciously she nursed the back of her\nhand, which was bruised.\n\nWhen finally she took her way home, it was sunset red across\nthe west. She did not know why she was going home. There was\nnothing for her there. She had, true, only to pretend to be\nnormal. There was nobody she could speak to, nowhere to go for\nescape. But she must keep on, under this red sunset, alone,\nknowing the horror in humanity, that would destroy her, and with\nwhich she was at war. Yet it had to be so.\n\nIn the morning again she must go to school. She got up and\nwent without murmuring even to herself. She was in the hands of\nsome bigger, stronger, coarser will.\n\nSchool was fairly quiet. But she could feel the class\nwatching her, ready to spring on her. Her instinct was aware of\nthe class instinct to catch her if she were weak. But she kept\ncold and was guarded.\n\nWilliams was absent from school. In the middle of the morning\nthere was a knock at the door: someone wanted the headmaster.\nMr. Harby went out, heavily, angrily, nervously. He was afraid\nof irate parents. After a moment in the passage, he came again\ninto school.\n\n\"Sturgess,\" he called to one of his larger boys. \"Stand in\nfront of the class and write down the name of anyone who speaks.\nWill you come this way, Miss Brangwen.\"\n\nHe seemed vindictively to seize upon her.\n\nUrsula followed him, and found in the lobby a thin woman with\na whitish skin, not ill-dressed in a grey costume and a purple\nhat.\n\n\"I called about Vernon,\" said the woman, speaking in a\nrefined accent. There was about the woman altogether an\nappearance of refinement and of cleanliness, curiously\ncontradicted by her half beggar's deportment, and a sense of her\nbeing unpleasant to touch, like something going bad inside. She\nwas neither a lady nor an ordinary working man's wife, but a\ncreature separate from society. By her dress she was not\npoor.\n\nUrsula knew at once that she was Williams' mother, and that\nhe was Vernon. She remembered that he was always clean, and\nwell-dressed, in a sailor suit. And he had this same peculiar,\nhalf transparent unwholesomeness, rather like a corpse.\n\n\"I wasn't able to send him to school to-day,\" continued the\nwoman, with a false grace of manner. \"He came home last night\nso ill--he was violently sick--I thought I\nshould have to send for the doctor.--You know he has a weak\nheart.\"\n\nThe woman looked at Ursula with her pale, dead eyes.\n\n\"No,\" replied the girl, \"I did not know.\"\n\nShe stood still with repulsion and uncertainty. Mr. Harby,\nlarge and male, with his overhanging moustache, stood by with a\nslight, ugly smile at the corner of his eyes. The woman went on\ninsidiously, not quite human:\n\n\"Oh, yes, he has had heart disease ever since he was a child.\nThat is why he isn't very regular at school. And it is very bad\nto beat him. He was awfully ill this morning--I shall call\non the doctor as I go back.\"\n\n\"Who is staying with him now, then?\" put in the deep voice of\nthe schoolmaster, cunningly.\n\n\"Oh, I left him with a woman who comes in to help\nme--and who understands him. But I shall call in the doctor\non my way home.\"\n\nUrsula stood still. She felt vague threats in all this. But\nthe woman was so utterly strange to her, that she did not\nunderstand.\n\n\"He told me he had been beaten,\" continued the woman, \"and\nwhen I undressed him to put him to bed, his body was covered\nwith marks--I could show them to any doctor.\"\n\nMr. Harby looked at Ursula to answer. She began to\nunderstand. The woman was threatening to take out a charge of\nassault on her son against her. Perhaps she wanted money.\n\n\"I caned him,\" she said. \"He was so much trouble.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry if he was troublesome,\" said the woman, \"but he\nmust have been shamefully beaten. I could show the marks to any\ndoctor. I'm sure it isn't allowed, if it was known.\"\n\n\"I caned him while he kept kicking me,\" said Ursula, getting\nangry because she was half excusing herself, Mr. Harby standing\nthere with the twinkle at the side of his eyes, enjoying the\ndilemma of the two women.\n\n\"I'm sure I'm sorry if he behaved badly,\" said the woman.\n\"But I can't think he deserved beating as he has been. I can't\nsend him to school, and really can't afford to pay the\ndoctor.--Is it allowed for the teachers to beat the\nchildren like that, Mr. Harby?\"\n\nThe headmaster refused to answer. Ursula loathed herself, and\nloathed Mr. Harby with his twinkling cunning and malice on the\noccasion. The other miserable woman watched her chance.\n\n\"It is an expense to me, and I have a great struggle to keep\nmy boy decent.\"\n\nUrsula still would not answer. She looked out at the asphalt\nyard, where a dirty rag of paper was blowing.\n\n\"And it isn't allowed to beat a child like that, I am sure,\nespecially when he is delicate.\"\n\nUrsula stared with a set face on the yard, as if she did not\nhear. She loathed all this, and had ceased to feel or to\nexist.\n\n\"Though I know he is troublesome sometimes--but I think\nit was too much. His body is covered with marks.\"\n\nMr. Harby stood sturdy and unmoved, waiting now to have done,\nwith the twinkling, tiny wrinkles of an ironical smile at the\ncorners of his eyes. He felt himself master of the\nsituation.\n\n\"And he was violently sick. I couldn't possibly send him to\nschool to-day. He couldn't keep his head up.\"\n\nYet she had no answer.\n\n\"You will understand, sir, why he is absent,\" she said,\nturning to Mr. Harby.\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" he said, rough and off-hand. Ursula detested him\nfor his male triumph. And she loathed the woman. She loathed\neverything.\n\n\"You will try to have it remembered, sir, that he has a weak\nheart. He is so sick after these things.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the headmaster, \"I'll see about it.\"\n\n\"I know he is troublesome,\" the woman only addressed herself\nto the male now--\"but if you could have him punished\nwithout beating--he is really delicate.\"\n\nUrsula was beginning to feel upset. Harby stood in rather\nsuperb mastery, the woman cringing to him to tickle him as one\ntickles trout.\n\n\"I had come to explain why he was away this morning, sir. You\nwill understand.\"\n\nShe held out her hand. Harby took it and let it go, surprised\nand angry.\n\n\"Good morning,\" she said, and she gave her gloved, seedy hand\nto Ursula. She was not ill-looking, and had a curious\ninsinuating way, very distasteful yet effective.\n\n\"Good morning, Mr. Harby, and thank you.\"\n\nThe figure in the grey costume and the purple hat was going\nacross the school yard with a curious lingering walk. Ursula\nfelt a strange pity for her, and revulsion from her. She\nshuddered. She went into the school again.\n\nThe next morning Williams turned up, looking paler than ever,\nvery neat and nicely dressed in his sailor blouse. He glanced at\nUrsula with a half-smile: cunning, subdued, ready to do as she\ntold him. There was something about him that made her shiver.\nShe loathed the idea of having laid hands on him. His elder\nbrother was standing outside the gate at playtime, a youth of\nabout fifteen, tall and thin and pale. He raised his hat, almost\nlike a gentleman. But there was something subdued, insidious\nabout him too.\n\n\"Who is it?\" said Ursula.\n\n\"It's the big Williams,\" said Violet Harby roughly.\n\"She was here yesterday, wasn't she?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"It's no good her coming--her character's not good\nenough for her to make any trouble.\"\n\nUrsula shrank from the brutality and the scandal. But it had\nsome vague, horrid fascination. How sordid everything seemed!\nShe felt sorry for the queer woman with the lingering walk, and\nthose queer, insidious boys. The Williams in her class was wrong\nsomewhere. How nasty it was altogether.\n\nSo the battle went on till her heart was sick. She had\nseveral more boys to subjugate before she could establish\nherself. And Mr. Harby hated her almost as if she were a man.\nShe knew now that nothing but a thrashing would settle some of\nthe big louts who wanted to play cat and mouse with her. Mr.\nHarby would not give them the thrashing if he could help it. For\nhe hated the teacher, the stuck-up, insolent high-school miss\nwith her independence.\n\n\"Now, Wright, what have you done this time?\" he would say\ngenially to the boy who was sent to him from Standard Five for\npunishment. And he left the lad standing, lounging, wasting his\ntime.\n\nSo that Ursula would appeal no more to the headmaster, but,\nwhen she was driven wild, she seized her cane, and slashed the\nboy who was insolent to her, over head and ears and hands. And\nat length they were afraid of her, she had them in order.\n\nBut she had paid a great price out of her own soul, to do\nthis. It seemed as if a great flame had gone through her and\nburnt her sensitive tissue. She who shrank from the thought of\nphysical suffering in any form, had been forced to fight and\nbeat with a cane and rouse all her instincts to hurt. And\nafterwards she had been forced to endure the sound of their\nblubbering and desolation, when she had broken them to\norder.\n\nOh, and sometimes she felt as if she would go mad. What did\nit matter, what did it matter if their books were dirty and they\ndid not obey? She would rather, in reality, that they disobeyed\nthe whole rules of the school, than that they should be beaten,\nbroken, reduced to this crying, hopeless state. She would rather\nbear all their insults and insolences a thousand times than\nreduce herself and them to this. Bitterly she repented having\ngot beside herself, and having tackled the boy she had\nbeaten.\n\nYet it had to be so. She did not want to do it. Yet she had\nto. Oh, why, why had she leagued herself to this evil system\nwhere she must brutalize herself to live? Why had she become a\nschool-teacher, why, why?\n\nThe children had forced her to the beatings. No, she did not\npity them. She had come to them full of kindness and love, and\nthey would have torn her to pieces. They chose Mr. Harby. Well\nthen, they must know her as well as Mr. Harby, they must first\nbe subjugate to her. For she was not going to be made nought,\nno, neither by them, nor by Mr. Harby, nor by all the system\naround her. She was not going to be put down, prevented from\nstanding free. It was not to be said of her, she could not take\nher place and carry out her task. She would fight and hold her\nplace in this state also, in the world of work and man's\nconvention.\n\nShe was isolated now from the life of her childhood, a\nforeigner in a new life, of work and mechanical consideration.\nShe and Maggie, in their dinner-hours and their occasional teas\nat the little restaurant, discussed life and ideas. Maggie was a\ngreat suffragette, trusting in the vote. To Ursula the vote was\nnever a reality. She had within her the strange, passionate\nknowledge of religion and living far transcending the limits of\nthe automatic system that contained the vote. But her\nfundamental, organic knowledge had as yet to take form and rise\nto utterance. For her, as for Maggie, the liberty of woman meant\nsomething real and deep. She felt that somewhere, in something,\nshe was not free. And she wanted to be. She was in revolt. For\nonce she were free she could get somewhere. Ah, the wonderful,\nreal somewhere that was beyond her, the somewhere that she felt\ndeep, deep inside her.\n\nIn coming out and earning her own living she had made a\nstrong, cruel move towards freeing herself. But having more\nfreedom she only became more profoundly aware of the big want.\nShe wanted so many things. She wanted to read great, beautiful\nbooks, and be rich with them; she wanted to see beautiful\nthings, and have the joy of them for ever; she wanted to know\nbig, free people; and there remained always the want she could\nput no name to.\n\nIt was so difficult. There were so many things, so much to\nmeet and surpass. And one never knew where one was going. It was\na blind fight. She had suffered bitterly in this school of St.\nPhilip's. She was like a young filly that has been broken in to\nthe shafts, and has lost its freedom. And now she was suffering\nbitterly from the agony of the shafts. The agony, the galling,\nthe ignominy of her breaking in. This wore into her soul. But\nshe would never submit. To shafts like these she would never\nsubmit for long. But she would know them. She would serve them\nthat she might destroy them.\n\nShe and Maggie went to all kinds of places together, to big\nsuffrage meetings in Nottingham, to concerts, to theatres, to\nexhibitions of pictures. Ursula saved her money and bought a\nbicycle, and the two girls rode to Lincoln, to Southwell, and\ninto Derbyshire. They had an endless wealth of things to talk\nabout. And it was a great joy, finding, discovering.\n\nBut Ursula never told about Winifred Inger. That was a sort\nof secret side-show to her life, never to be opened. She did not\neven think of it. It was the closed door she had not the\nstrength to open.\n\nOnce she was broken in to her teaching, Ursula began\ngradually to have a new life of her own again. She was going to\ncollege in eighteen months' time. Then she would take her\ndegree, and she would--ah, she would perhaps be a big\nwoman, and lead a movement. Who knows?--At any rate she\nwould go to college in eighteen months' time. All that mattered\nnow was work, work.\n\nAnd till college, she must go on with this teaching in St.\nPhilip's School, which was always destroying her, but which she\ncould now manage, without spoiling all her life. She would\nsubmit to it for a time, since the time had a definite\nlimit.\n\nThe class-teaching itself at last became almost mechanical.\nIt was a strain on her, an exhausting wearying strain, always\nunnatural. But there was a certain amount of pleasure in the\nsheer oblivion of teaching, so much work to do, so many children\nto see after, so much to be done, that one's self was forgotten.\nWhen the work had become like habit to her, and her individual\nsoul was left out, had its growth elsewhere, then she could be\nalmost happy.\n\nHer real, individual self drew together and became more\ncoherent during these two years of teaching, during the struggle\nagainst the odds of class teaching. It was always a prison to\nher, the school. But it was a prison where her wild, chaotic\nsoul became hard and independent. When she was well enough and\nnot tired, then she did not hate the teaching. She enjoyed\ngetting into the swing of work of a morning, putting forth all\nher strength, making the thing go. It was for her a strenuous\nform of exercise. And her soul was left to rest, it had the time\nof torpor in which to gather itself together in strength again.\nBut the teaching hours were too long, the tasks too heavy, and\nthe disciplinary condition of the school too unnatural for her.\nShe was worn very thin and quivering.\n\nShe came to school in the morning seeing the hawthorn flowers\nwet, the little, rosy grains swimming in a bowl of dew. The\nlarks quivered their song up into the new sunshine, and the\ncountry was so glad. It was a violation to plunge into the dust\nand greyness of the town.\n\nSo that she stood before her class unwilling to give herself\nup to the activity of teaching, to turn her energy, that longed\nfor the country and for joy of early summer, into the dominating\nof fifty children and the transferring to them some morsels of\narithmetic. There was a little absentness about her. She could\nnot force herself into forgetfulness. A jar of buttercups and\nfool's-parsley in the window-bottom kept her away in the\nmeadows, where in the lush grass the moon-daisies were\nhalf-submerged, and a spray of pink ragged robin. Yet before her\nwere faces of fifty children. They were almost like big daisies\nin a dimness of the grass.\n\nA brightness was on her face, a little unreality in her\nteaching. She could not quite see her children. She was\nstruggling between two worlds, her own world of young summer and\nflowers, and this other world of work. And the glimmer of her\nown sunlight was between her and her class.\n\nThen the morning passed with a strange far-awayness and\nquietness. Dinner-time came, when she and Maggie ate joyously,\nwith all the windows open. And then they went out into St.\nPhilip's churchyard, where was a shadowy corner under red\nhawthorn trees. And there they talked and read Shelley or\nBrowning or some work about \"Woman and Labour\".\n\nAnd when she went back to school, Ursula lived still in the\nshadowy corner of the graveyard, where pink-red petals lay\nscattered from the hawthorn tree, like myriad tiny shells on a\nbeach, and a church bell sometimes rang sonorously, and\nsometimes a bird called out, whilst Maggie's voice went on low\nand sweet.\n\nThese days she was happy in her soul: oh, she was so happy,\nthat she wished she could take her joy and scatter it in armfuls\nbroadcast. She made her children happy, too, with a little\ntingling of delight. But to her, the children were not a school\nclass this afternoon. They were flowers, birds, little bright\nanimals, children, anything. They only were not Standard Five.\nShe felt no responsibility for them. It was for once a game,\nthis teaching. And if they got their sums wrong, what matter?\nAnd she would take a pleasant bit of reading. And instead of\nhistory with dates, she would tell a lovely tale. And for\ngrammar, they could have a bit of written analysis that was not\ndifficult, because they had done it before:\n\n \"She shall be sportive as a fawn\n That wild with glee across the lawn\n Or up the mountain springs.\"\n\nShe wrote that from memory, because it pleased her.\n\nSo the golden afternoon passed away and she went home happy.\nShe had finished her day of school, and was free to plunge into\nthe glowing evening of Cossethay. And she loved walking home.\nBut it had not been school. It had been playing at school\nbeneath red hawthorn blossom.\n\nShe could not go on like this. The quarterly examination was\ncoming, and her class was not ready. It irritated her that she\nmust drag herself away from her happy self, and exert herself\nwith all her strength to force, to compel this heavy class of\nchildren to work hard at arithmetic. They did not want to work,\nshe did not want to compel them. And yet, some second conscience\ngnawed at her, telling her the work was not properly done. It\nirritated her almost to madness, and she let loose all the\nirritation in the class. Then followed a day of battle and hate\nand violence, when she went home raw, feeling the golden evening\ntaken away from her, herself incarcerated in some dark, heavy\nplace, and chained there with a consciousness of having done\nbadly at work.\n\nWhat good was it that it was summer, that right till evening,\nwhen the corncrakes called, the larks would mount up into the\nlight, to sing once more before nightfall. What good was it all,\nwhen she was out of tune, when she must only remember the burden\nand shame of school that day.\n\nAnd still, she hated school. Still she cried, she did not\nbelieve in it. Why should the children learn, and why should she\nteach them? It was all so much milling the wind. What folly was\nit that made life into this, the fulfilling of some stupid,\nfactitious duty? It was all so made up, so unnatural. The\nschool, the sums, the grammar, the quarterly examinations, the\nregisters--it was all a barren nothing!\n\nWhy should she give her allegiance to this world, and let it\nso dominate her, that her own world of warm sun and growing,\nsap-filled life was turned into nothing? She was not going to do\nit. She was not going to be a prisoner in the dry, tyrannical\nman-world. She was not going to care about it. What did it\nmatter if her class did ever so badly in the quarterly\nexamination. Let it--what did it matter?\n\nNevertheless, when the time came, and the report on her class\nwas bad, she was miserable, and the joy of the summer was taken\naway from her, she was shut up in gloom. She could not really\nescape from this world of system and work, out into her fields\nwhere she was happy. She must have her place in the working\nworld, be a recognized member with full rights there. It was\nmore important to her than fields and sun and poetry, at this\ntime. But she was only the more its enemy.\n\nIt was a very difficult thing, she thought, during the long\nhours of intermission in the summer holidays, to be herself, her\nhappy self that enjoyed so much to lie in the sun, to play and\nswim and be content, and also to be a school-teacher getting\nresults out of a class of children. She dreamed fondly of the\ntime when she need not be a teacher any more. But vaguely, she\nknew that responsibility had taken place in her for ever, and as\nyet her prime business was to work.\n\nThe autumn passed away, the winter was at hand. Ursula became\nmore and more an inhabitant of the world of work, and of what is\ncalled life. She could not see her future, but a little way off,\nwas college, and to the thought of this she clung fixedly. She\nwould go to college, and get her two or three years' training,\nfree of cost. Already she had applied and had her place\nappointed for the coming year.\n\nSo she continued to study for her degree. She would take\nFrench, Latin, English, mathematics and botany. She went to\nclasses in Ilkeston, she studied at evening. For there was this\nworld to conquer, this knowledge to acquire, this qualification\nto attain. And she worked with intensity, because of a want\ninside her that drove her on. Almost everything was subordinated\nnow to this one desire to take her place in the world. What kind\nof place it was to be she did not ask herself. The blind desire\ndrove her on. She must take her place.\n\nShe knew she would never be much of a success as an\nelementary school teacher. But neither had she failed. She hated\nit, but she had managed it.\n\nMaggie had left St. Philip's School, and had found a more\ncongenial post. The two girls remained friends. They met at\nevening classes, they studied and somehow encouraged a firm hope\neach in the other. They did not know whither they were making,\nnor what they ultimately wanted. But they knew they wanted now\nto learn, to know and to do.\n\nThey talked of love and marriage, and the position of woman\nin marriage. Maggie said that love was the flower of life, and\nblossomed unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked\nwhere it was found, and enjoyed for the brief hour of its\nduration.\n\nTo Ursula this was unsatisfactory. She thought she still\nloved Anton Skrebensky. But she did not forgive him that he had\nnot been strong enough to acknowledge her. He had denied her.\nHow then could she love him? How then was love so absolute? She\ndid not believe it. She believed that love was a way, a means,\nnot an end in itself, as Maggie seemed to think. And always the\nway of love would be found. But whither did it lead?\n\n\"I believe there are many men in the world one might\nlove--there is not only one man,\" said Ursula.\n\nShe was thinking of Skrebensky. Her heart was hollow with the\nknowledge of Winifred Inger.\n\n\"But you must distinguish between love and passion,\" said\nMaggie, adding, with a touch of contempt: \"Men will easily have\na passion for you, but they won't love you.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Ursula, vehemently, the look of suffering, almost\nof fanaticism, on her face. \"Passion is only part of love. And\nit seems so much because it can't last. That is why passion is\nnever happy.\"\n\nShe was staunch for joy, for happiness, and permanency, in\ncontrast with Maggie, who was for sadness, and the inevitable\npassing-away of things. Ursula suffered bitterly at the hands of\nlife, Maggie was always single, always withheld, so she went in\na heavy brooding sadness that was almost meat to her. In\nUrsula's last winter at St. Philip's the friendship of the two\ngirls came to a climax. It was during this winter that Ursula\nsuffered and enjoyed most keenly Maggie's fundamental sadness of\nenclosedness. Maggie enjoyed and suffered Ursula's struggles\nagainst the confines of her life. And then the two girls began\nto drift apart, as Ursula broke from that form of life wherein\nMaggie must remain enclosed.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nTHE WIDENING CIRCLE\n\nMaggie's people, the Schofields, lived in the large\ngardener's cottage, that was half a farm, behind Belcote Hall.\nThe hall was too damp to live in, so the Schofields were\ncaretakers, gamekeepers, farmers, all in one. The father was\ngamekeeper and stock-breeder, the eldest son was\nmarket-gardener, using the big hall gardens, the second son was\nfarmer and gardener. There was a large family, as at\nCossethay.\n\nUrsula loved to stay at Belcote, to be treated as a grand\nlady by Maggie's brothers. They were good-looking men. The\neldest was twenty-six years old. He was the gardener, a man not\nvery tall, but strong and well made, with brown, sunny, easy\neyes and a face handsomely hewn, brown, with a long fair\nmoustache which he pulled as he talked to Ursula.\n\nThe girl was excited because these men attended to her when\nshe came near. She could make their eyes light up and quiver,\nshe could make Anthony, the eldest, twist and twist his\nmoustache. She knew she could move them almost at will with her\nlight laughter and chatter. They loved her ideas, watched her as\nshe talked vehemently about politics or economics. And she,\nwhile she talked, saw the golden-brown eyes of Anthony gleam\nlike the eyes of a satyr as they watched her. He did not listen\nto her words, he listened to her. It excited her.\n\nHe was like a faun pleased when she would go with him over\nhis hothouses, to look at the green and pretty plants, at the\npink primulas nodding among their leaves, and cinarrias\nflaunting purple and crimson and white. She asked about\neverything, and he told her very exactly and minutely, in a\nqueer pedantic way that made her want to laugh. Yet she was\nreally interested in what he did. And he had the curious light\nin his face, like the light in the eyes of the goat that was\ntethered by the farmyard gate.\n\nShe went down with him into the warmish cellar, where already\nin the darkness the little yellow knobs of rhubarb were coming.\nHe held the lantern down to the dark earth. She saw the tiny\nknob-end of the rhubarb thrusting upwards upon the thick red\nstem, thrusting itself like a knob of flame through the soft\nsoil. His face was turned up to her, the light glittered on his\neyes and his teeth as he laughed, with a faint, musical neigh.\nHe looked handsome. And she heard a new sound in her ears, the\nfaintly-musical, neighing laugh of Anthony, whose moustache\ntwisted up, and whose eyes were luminous with a cold, steady,\narrogant-laughing glare. There seemed a little prance of triumph\nin his movement, she could not rid herself of a movement of\nacquiescence, a touch of acceptance. Yet he was so humble, his\nvoice was so caressing. He held his hand for her to step on when\nshe must climb a wall. And she stepped on the living firmness of\nhim, that quivered firmly under her weight.\n\nShe was aware of him as if in a mesmeric state. In her\nordinary sense, she had nothing to do with him. But the peculiar\nease and unnoticeableness of his entering the house, the power\nof his cold, gleaming light on her when he looked at her, was\nlike a bewitchment. In his eyes, as in the pale grey eyes of a\ngoat, there seemed some of that steady, hard fire of moonlight\nwhich has nothing to do with the day. It made her alert, and yet\nher mind went out like an extinguished thing. She was all\nsenses, all her senses were alive.\n\nThen she saw him on Sunday, dressed up in Sunday clothes,\ntrying to impress her. And he looked ridiculous. She clung to\nthe ridiculous effect of his stiff, Sunday clothes.\n\nShe was always conscious of some unfaithfulness to Maggie, on\nAnthony's score. Poor Maggie stood apart as if betrayed. Maggie\nand Anthony were enemies by instinct. Ursula had to go back to\nher friend brimming with affection and a poignancy of pity.\nWhich Maggie received with a little stiffness. Then poetry and\nbooks and learning took the place of Anthony, with his goats'\nmovements and his cold, gleaming humour.\n\nWhile Ursula was at Belcote, the snow fell. In the morning, a\ncovering of snow weighed on the rhododendron bushes.\n\n\"Shall we go out?\" said Maggie.\n\nShe had lost some of her leader's sureness, and was now\ntentative, a little in reserve from her friend.\n\nThey took the key of the gate and wandered into the park. It\nwas a white world on which dark trees and tree masses stood\nunder a sky keen with frost. The two girls went past the hall,\nthat was shuttered and silent, their footprints marking the snow\non the drive. Down the park, a long way off, a man was carrying\narmfuls of hay across the snow. He was a small, dark figure,\nlike an animal moving in its unawareness.\n\nUrsula and Maggie went on exploring, down to a tinkling,\nchilly brook, that had worn the snow away in little scoops, and\nran dark between. They saw a robin glance its bright eyes and\nburst scarlet and grey into the hedge, then some pertly-marked\nblue-tits scuffled. Meanwhile the brook slid on coldly,\nchuckling to itself.\n\nThe girls wandered across the snowy grass to where the\nartificial fish-ponds lay under thin ice. There was a big tree\nwith a thick trunk twisted with ivy, that hung almost horizontal\nover the ponds. Ursula climbed joyfully into this and sat amid\nbosses of bright ivy and dull berries. Some ivy leaves were like\ngreen spears held out, and tipped with snow. The ice was seen\nbeneath them.\n\nMaggie took out a book, and sitting lower down the trunk\nbegan to read Coleridge's \"Christabel\". Ursula half listened.\nShe was wildly thrilled. Then she saw Anthony coming across the\nsnow, with his confident, slightly strutting stride. His face\nlooked brown and hard against the snow, smiling with a sort of\ntense confidence.\n\n\"Hello!\" she called to him.\n\nA response went over his face, his head was lifted in an\nanswering, jerking gesture.\n\n\"Hello!\" he said. \"You're like a bird in there.\"\n\nAnd Ursula's laugh rang out. She answered to the peculiar,\nreedy twang in his penetrating voice.\n\nShe did not think of Anthony, yet she lived in a sort of\nconnection with him, in his world. One evening she met him as\nshe was coming down the lane, and they walked side by side.\n\n\"I think it's so lovely here,\" she cried.\n\n\"Do you?\" he said. \"I'm glad you like it.\"\n\nThere was a curious confidence in his voice.\n\n\"Oh, I love it. What more does one want than to live in this\nbeautiful place, and make things grow in your garden. It is like\nthe Garden of Eden.\"\n\n\"Is it?\" he said, with a little laugh. \"Yes--well, it's\nnot so bad----\" he was hesitating. The pale gleam was\nstrong in his eyes, he was looking at her steadily, watching\nher, as an animal might. Something leaped in her soul. She knew\nhe was going to suggest to her that she should be as he was.\n\n\"Would you like to stay here with me?\" he asked,\ntentatively.\n\nShe blenched with fear and with the intense sensation of\nproffered licence suggested to her.\n\nThey had come to the gate.\n\n\"How?\" she asked. \"You aren't alone here.\"\n\n\"We could marry,\" he answered, in the strange,\ncoldly-gleaming insinuating tone that chilled the sunshine into\nmoonlight. All substantial things seemed transformed. Shadows\nand dancing moonlight were real, and all cold, inhuman, gleaming\nsensations. She realized with something like terror that she was\ngoing to accept this. She was going inevitably to accept him.\nHis hand was reaching out to the gate before them. She stood\nstill. His flesh was hard and brown and final. She seemed to be\nin the grip of some insult.\n\n\"I couldn't,\" she answered, involuntarily.\n\nHe gave the same brief, neighing little laugh, very sad and\nbitter now, and slotted back the bar of the gate. Yet he did not\nopen. For a moment they both stood looking at the fire of sunset\nthat quivered among the purple twigs of the trees. She saw his\nbrown, hard, well-hewn face gleaming with anger and humiliation\nand submission. He was an animal that knows that it is subdued.\nHer heart flamed with sensation of him, of the fascinating thing\nhe offered her, and with sorrow, and with an inconsolable sense\nof loneliness. Her soul was an infant crying in the night. He\nhad no soul. Oh, and why had she? He was the cleaner.\n\nShe turned away, she turned round from him, and saw the east\nflushed strangely rose, the moon coming yellow and lovely upon a\nrosy sky, above the darkening, bluish snow. All this so\nbeautiful, all this so lovely! He did not see it. He was one\nwith it. But she saw it, and was one with it. Her seeing\nseparated them infinitely.\n\nThey went on in silence down the path, following their\ndifferent fates. The trees grew darker and darker, the snow made\nonly a dimness in an unreal world. And like a shadow, the day\nhad gone into a faintly luminous, snowy evening, while she was\ntalking aimlessly to him, to keep him at a distance, yet to keep\nhim near her, and he walked heavily. He opened the garden gate\nfor her quietly, and she was entering into her own pleasances,\nleaving him outside the gate.\n\nThen even whilst she was escaping, or trying to escape, this\nfeeling of pain, came Maggie the next day, saying:\n\n\"I wouldn't make Anthony love you, Ursula, if you don't want\nhim. It is not nice.\"\n\n\"But, Maggie, I never made him love me,\" cried Ursula,\ndismayed and suffering, and feeling as if she had done something\nbase.\n\nShe liked Anthony, though. All her life, at intervals, she\nreturned to the thought of him and of that which he offered. But\nshe was a traveller, she was a traveller on the face of the\nearth, and he was an isolated creature living in the fulfilment\nof his own senses.\n\nShe could not help it, that she was a traveller. She knew\nAnthony, that he was not one. But oh, ultimately and finally,\nshe must go on and on, seeking the goal that she knew she did\ndraw nearer to.\n\nShe was wearing away her second and last cycle at St.\nPhilip's. As the months went she ticked them off, first October,\nthen November, December, January. She was careful always to\nsubtract a month from the remainder, for the summer holidays.\nShe saw herself travelling round a circle, only an arc of which\nremained to complete. Then, she was in the open, like a bird\ntossed into mid-air, a bird that had learned in some measure to\nfly.\n\nThere was college ahead; that was her mid-air, unknown,\nspacious. Come college, and she would have broken from the\nconfines of all the life she had known. For her father was also\ngoing to move. They were all going to leave Cossethay.\n\nBrangwen had kept his carelessness about his circumstances.\nHe knew his work in the lace designing meant little to him\npersonally, he just earned his wage by it. He did not know what\nmeant much to him. Living close to Anna Brangwen, his mind was\nalways suffused through with physical heat, he moved from\ninstinct to instinct, groping, always groping on.\n\nWhen it was suggested to him that he might apply for one of\nthe posts as hand-work instructor, posts about to be created by\nthe Nottingham Education Committee, it was as if a space had\nbeen given to him, into which he could remove from his hot,\ndusky enclosure. He sent in his application, confidently,\nexpectantly. He had a sort of belief in his supernatural fate.\nThe inevitable weariness of his daily work had stiffened some of\nhis muscles, and made a slight deadness in his ruddy, alert\nface. Now he might escape.\n\nHe was full of the new possibilities, and his wife was\nacquiescent. She was willing now to have a change. She too was\ntired of Cossethay. The house was too small for the growing\nchildren. And since she was nearly forty years old, she began to\ncome awake from her sleep of motherhood, her energy moved more\noutwards. The din of growing lives roused her from her apathy.\nShe too must have her hand in making life. She was quite ready\nto move, taking all her brood. It would be better now if she\ntransplanted them. For she had borne her last child, it would be\ngrowing up.\n\nSo that in her easy, unused fashion she talked plans and\narrangements with her husband, indifferent really as to the\nmethod of the change, since a change was coming; even if it did\nnot come in this way it would come in another.\n\nThe house was full of ferment. Ursula was wild with\nexcitement. At last her father was going to be something,\nsocially. So long, he had been a social cypher, without form or\nstanding. Now he was going to be Art and Handwork Instructor for\nthe County of Nottingham. That was really a status. It was a\nposition. He would be a specialist in his way. And he was an\nuncommon man. Ursula felt they were all getting a foothold at\nlast. He was coming to his own. Who else that she knew could\nturn out from his own fingers the beautiful things her father\ncould produce? She felt he was certain of this new job.\n\nThey would move. They would leave this cottage at Cossethay\nwhich had grown too small for them; they would leave Cossethay,\nwhere the children had all been born, and where they were always\nkept to the same measure. For the people who had known them as\nchildren along with the other village boys and girls would\nnever, could never understand that they should grow up\ndifferent. They had held \"Urtler Brangwen\" one of themselves,\nand had given her her place in her native village, as in a\nfamily. And the bond was strong. But now, when she was growing\nto something beyond what Cossethay would allow or understand,\nthe bond between her and her old associates was becoming a\nbondage.\n\n\"'Ello, Urs'ler, 'ow are yer goin' on?\" they said when they\nmet her. And it demanded of her in the old voice the old\nresponse. And something in her must respond and belong to people\nwho knew her. But something else denied bitterly. What was true\nof her ten years ago was not true now. And something else which\nshe was, and must be, they could neither see nor allow. They\nfelt it there nevertheless, something beyond them, and they were\ninjured. They said she was proud and conceited, that she was too\nbig for her shoes nowadays. They said, she needn't pretend,\nbecause they knew what she was. They had known her since she was\nborn. They quoted this and that about her. And she was ashamed\nbecause she did feel different from the people she had lived\namongst. It hurt her that she could not be at her ease with them\nany more. And yet--and yet--one's kite will rise on\nthe wind as far as ever one has string to let it go. It tugs and\ntugs and will go, and one is glad the further it goes, even it\neverybody else is nasty about it. So Cossethay hampered her, and\nshe wanted to go away, to be free to fly her kite as high as she\nliked. She wanted to go away, to be free to stand straight up to\nher own height.\n\nSo that when she knew that her father had the new post, and\nthat the family would move, she felt like skipping on the face\nof the earth, and making psalms of joy. The old, bound shell of\nCossethay was to be cast off, and she was to dance away into the\nblue air. She wanted to dance and sing.\n\nShe made dreams of the new place she would live in, where\nstately cultured people of high feeling would be friends with\nher, and she would live with the noble in the land, moving to a\nlarge freedom of feeling. She dreamed of a rich, proud, simple\ngirl-friend, who had never known Mr. Harby and his like, nor\never had a note in her voice of bondaged contempt and fear, as\nMaggie had.\n\nAnd she gave herself to all that she loved in Cossethay,\npassionately, because she was going away now. She wandered about\nto her favourite spots. There was a place where she went\ntrespassing to find the snowdrops that grew wild. It was evening\nand the winter-darkened meadows were full of mystery. When she\ncame to the woods an oak tree had been newly chopped down in the\ndell. Pale drops of flowers glimmered many under the hazels, and\nby the sharp, golden splinters of wood that were splashed about,\nthe grey-green blades of snowdrop leaves pricked unheeding, the\ndrooping still little flowers were without heed.\n\nUrsula picked some lovingly, in an ecstasy. The golden chips\nof wood shone yellow like sunlight, the snowdrops in the\ntwilight were like the first stars of night. And she, alone\namongst them, was wildly happy to have found her way into such a\nglimmering dusk, to the intimate little flowers, and the splash\nof wood chips like sunshine over the twilight of the ground. She\nsat down on the felled tree and remained awhile remote.\n\nGoing home, she left the purplish dark of the trees for the\nopen lane, where the puddles shone long and jewel-like in the\nruts, the land about her was darkened, and the sky a jewel\noverhead. Oh, how amazing it was to her! It was almost too much.\nShe wanted to run, and sing, and cry out for very wildness and\npoignancy, but she could not run and sing and cry out in such a\nway as to cry out the deep things in her heart, so she was\nstill, and almost sad with loneliness.\n\nAt Easter she went again to Maggie's home, for a few days.\nShe was, however shy and fugitive. She saw Anthony, how\nsuggestive he was to look on, and how his eyes had a sort of\nsupplicating light, that was rather beautiful. She looked at\nhim, and she looked again, for him to become real to her. But it\nwas her own self that was occupied elsewhere. She seemed to have\nsome other being.\n\nAnd she turned to spring and the opening buds. There was a\nlarge pear tree by a wall, and it was full, thronged with tiny,\ngrey-green buds, myriads. She stood before it arrested with\ndelight, and a realization went deep into her heart. There was\nso great a host in array behind the cloud of pale, dim green, so\nmuch to come forth--so much sunshine to pour down.\n\nSo the weeks passed on, trance-like and pregnant. The pear\ntree at Cossethay burst into bloom against the cottage-end, like\na wave burst into foam. Then gradually the bluebells came, blue\nas water standing thin in the level places under the trees and\nbushes, flowing in more and more, till there was a flood of\nazure, and pale-green leaves burning, and tiny birds with fiery\nlittle song and flight. Then swiftly the flood sank and was\ngone, and it was summer.\n\nThere was to be no going to the seaside for a holiday. The\nholiday was the removal from Cossethay.\n\nThey were going to live near Willey Green, which place was\nmost central for Brangwen. It was an old, quiet village on the\nedge of the thronged colliery-district. So that it served, in\nits quaintness of odd old cottages lingering in their sunny\ngardens, as a sort of bower or pleasaunce to the sprawling\ncolliery-townlet of Beldover, a pleasant walk-round for the\ncolliers on Sunday morning, before the public-houses opened.\n\nIn Willey Green stood the Grammar School where Brangwen was\noccupied for two days during the week, and where experiments in\neducation were being carried on.\n\nUrsula wanted to live in Willey Green on the remoter side,\ntowards Southwell, and Sherwood Forest. There it was so lovely\nand romantic. But out into the world meant out into the world.\nWill Brangwen must become modern.\n\nHe bought, with his wife's money, a fairly large house in the\nnew, red-brick part of Beldover. It was a villa built by the\nwidow of the late colliery manager, and stood in a quiet, new\nlittle side-street near the large church.\n\nUrsula was rather sad. Instead of having arrived at\ndistinction they had come to new red-brick suburbia in a grimy,\nsmall town.\n\nMrs. Brangwen was happy. The rooms were splendidly\nlarge--a splendid dining-room, drawing-room and kitchen,\nbesides a very pleasant study downstairs. Everything was\nadmirably appointed. The widow had settled herself in lavishly.\nShe was a native of Beldover, and had intended to reign almost\nqueen. Her bathroom was white and silver, her stairs were of\noak, her chimney-pieces were massive and oaken, with bulging,\ncolumnar supports.\n\n\"Good and substantial,\" was the keynote. But Ursula resented\nthe stout, inflated prosperity implied everywhere. She made her\nfather promise to chisel down the bulging oaken chimney-pieces,\nchisel them flat. That sort of important paunch was very\ndistasteful to her. Her father was himself long and loosely\nbuilt. What had he to do with so much \"good and substantial\"\nimportance?\n\nThey bought a fair amount also of the widow's furniture. It\nwas in common good taste--the great Wilton carpet, the\nlarge round table, the Chesterfield covered with glossy chintz\nin roses and birds. It was all really very sunny and nice, with\nlarge windows, and a view right across the shallow valley.\n\nAfter all, they would be, as one of their acquaintances said,\namong the elite of Beldover. They would represent culture. And\nas there was no one of higher social importance than the\ndoctors, the colliery-managers, and the chemists, they would\nshine, with their Della Robbia beautiful Madonna, their lovely\nreliefs from Donatello, their reproductions from Botticelli.\nNay, the large photographs of the Primavera and the Aphrodite\nand the Nativity in the dining-room, the ordinary\nreception-room, would make dumb the mouth of Beldover.\n\nAnd after all, it is better to be princess in Beldover than a\nvulgar nobody in the country.\n\nThere was great preparation made for the removal of the whole\nBrangwen family, ten in all. The house in Beldover was prepared,\nthe house in Cossethay was dismantled. Come the end of the\nschool-term the removal would begin.\n\nUrsula left school at the end of July, when the summer\nholiday commenced. The morning outside was bright and sunny, and\nthe freedom got inside the schoolroom this last day. It was as\nif the walls of the school were going to melt away. Already they\nseemed shadowy and unreal. It was breaking-up morning. Soon\nscholars and teachers would be outside, each going his own way.\nThe irons were struck off, the sentence was expired, the prison\nwas a momentary shadow halting about them. The children were\ncarrying away books and inkwell, and rolling up maps. All their\nfaces were bright with gladness and goodwill. There was a bustle\nof cleaning and clearing away all marks of this last term of\nimprisonment. They were all breaking free. Busily, eagerly,\nUrsula made up her totals of attendances in the register. With\npride she wrote down the thousands: to so many thousands of\nchildren had she given another sessions's lessons. It looked\ntremendous. The excited hours passed slowly in suspense. Then at\nlast it was over. For the last time, she stood before her\nchildren whilst they said their prayers and sang a hymn. Then it\nwas over.\n\n\"Good-bye, children,\" she said. \"I shall not forget you, and\nyou must not forget me.\"\n\n\"No, miss,\" cried the children in chorus, with shining\nfaces.\n\nShe stood smiling on them, moved, as they filed out. Then she\ngave her monitors their term sixpences, and they too departed.\nCupboards were locked, blackboards washed, ink wells and dusters\nremoved. The place stood bare and vacated. She had triumphed\nover it. It was a shell now. She had fought a good fight here,\nand it had not been altogether unenjoyable. She owed some\ngratitude even to this hard, vacant place, that stood like a\nmemorial or a trophy. So much of her life had been fought for\nand won and lost here. Something of this school would always\nbelong to her, something of her to it. She acknowledged it. And\nnow came the leave-taking.\n\nIn the teachers' room the teachers were chatting and\nloitering, talking excitedly of where they were going: to the\nIsle of Man, to Llandudno, to Yarmouth. They were eager, and\nattached to each other, like comrades leaving a ship.\n\nThen it was Mr. Harby's turn to make a speech to Ursula. He\nlooked handsome, with his silver-grey temples and black brows,\nand his imperturbable male solidity.\n\n\"Well,\" he said, \"we must say good-bye to Miss Brangwen and\nwish her all good fortune for the future. I suppose we shall see\nher again some time, and hear how she is getting on.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said Ursula, stammering, blushing, laughing. \"Oh,\nyes, I shall come and see you.\"\n\nThen she realized that this sounded too personal, and she\nfelt foolish.\n\n\"Miss Schofield suggested these two books,\" he said, putting\na couple of volumes on the table: \"I hope you will like\nthem.\"\n\nUrsula feeling very shy picked up the books. There was a\nvolume of Swinburne's poetry, and a volume of Meredith's.\n\n\"Oh, I shall love them,\" she said. \"Thank you very\nmuch--thank you all so much--it is\nso----\"\n\nShe stuttered to an end, and very red, turned the leaves of\nthe books eagerly, pretending to be taking the first pleasure,\nbut really seeing nothing.\n\nMr. Harby's eyes were twinkling. He alone was at his ease,\nmaster of the situation. It was pleasing to him to make Ursula\nthe gift, and for once extend good feeling to his teachers. As a\nrule, it was so difficult, each one was so strained in\nresentment under his rule.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"we hoped you would like the\nchoice----\"\n\nHe looked with his peculiar, challenging smile for a moment,\nthen returned to his cupboards.\n\nUrsula felt very confused. She hugged her books, loving them.\nAnd she felt that she loved all the teachers, and Mr. Harby. It\nwas very confusing.\n\nAt last she was out. She cast one hasty glance over the\nschool buildings squatting on the asphalt yard in the hot,\nglistening sun, one look down the well-known road, and turned\nher back on it all. Something strained in her heart. She was\ngoing away.\n\n\"Well, good luck,\" said the last of the teachers, as she\nshook hands at the end of the road. \"We'll expect you back some\nday.\"\n\nHe spoke in irony. She laughed, and broke away. She was free.\nAs she sat on the top of the tram in the sunlight, she looked\nround her with tremendous delight. She had left something which\nhad meant much to her. She would not go to school any more, and\ndo the familiar things. Queer! There was a little pang amid her\nexultation, of fear, not of regret. Yet how she exulted this\nmorning!\n\nShe was tremulous with pride and joy. She loved the two\nbooks. They were tokens to her, representing the fruit and\ntrophies of her two years which, thank God, were over.\n\n\"To Ursula Brangwen, with best wishes for her future, and in\nwarm memory of the time she spent in St. Philip's School,\" was\nwritten in the headmaster's neat, scrupulous handwriting. She\ncould see the careful hand holding the pen, the thick fingers\nwith tufts of black hair on the back of each one.\n\nHe had signed, all the teachers had signed. She liked having\nall their signatures. She felt she loved them all. They were her\nfellow-workers. She carried away from the school a pride she\ncould never lose. She had her place as comrade and sharer in the\nwork of the school, her fellow teachers had signed to her, as\none of them. And she was one of all workers, she had put in her\ntiny brick to the fabric man was building, she had qualified\nherself as co-builder.\n\nThen the day for the home removal came. Ursula rose early, to\npack up the remaining goods. The carts arrived, lent by her\nuncle at the Marsh, in the lull between hay and corn harvest.\nThe goods roped in the cart, Ursula mounted her bicycle and sped\naway to Beldover.\n\nThe house was hers. She entered its clean-scrubbed silence.\nThe dining-room had been covered with a thick rush matting, hard\nand of the beautiful, luminous, clean colour of sun-dried reeds.\nThe walls were pale grey, the doors were darker grey. Ursula\nadmired it very much, as the sun came through the large windows,\nstreaming in.\n\nShe flung open doors and windows to the sunshine. Flowers\nwere bright and shining round the small lawn, which stood above\nthe road, looking over the raw field opposite, which would later\nbe built upon. No one came. So she wandered down the garden at\nthe back of the wall. The eight bells of the church rang the\nhour. She could hear the many sounds of the town about her.\n\nAt last, the cart was seen coming round the corner, familiar\nfurniture piled undignified on top, Tom, her brother, and\nTheresa, marching on foot beside the mass, proud of having\nwalked ten miles or more, from the tram terminus. Ursula poured\nout beer, and the men drank thirstily, by the door. A second\ncart was coming. Her father appeared on his motor bicycle. There\nwas the staggering transport of furniture up the steps to the\nlittle lawn, where it was deposited all pell-mell in the\nsunshine, very queer and discomforting.\n\nBrangwen was a pleasant man to work with, cheerful and easy.\nUrsula loved deciding him where the heavy things should stand.\nShe watched anxiously the struggle up the steps and through the\ndoorways. Then the big things were in, the carts set off again.\nUrsula and her father worked away carrying in all the light\nthings that remained upon the lawn, and putting them in place.\nDinner time came. They ate bread and cheese in the kitchen.\n\n\"Well, we're getting on,\" said Brangwen, cheerfully.\n\nTwo more loads arrived. The afternoon passed away in a\nstruggle with the furniture, upstairs. Towards five o'clock,\nappeared the last loads, consisting also of Mrs. Brangwen and\nthe younger children, driven by Uncle Fred in the trap. Gudrun\nhad walked with Margaret from the station. The whole family had\ncome.\n\n\"There!\" said Brangwen, as his wife got down from the cart:\n\"Now we're all here.\"\n\n\"Ay,\" said his wife pleasantly.\n\nAnd the very brevity, the silence of intimacy between the two\nmade a home in the hearts of the children, who clustered round\nfeeling strange in the new place.\n\nEverything was at sixes and sevens. But a fire was made in\nthe kitchen, the hearth-rug put down, the kettle set on the hob,\nand Mrs. Brangwen began towards sunset to prepare the first\nmeal. Ursula and Gudrun were slaving in the bedrooms, candles\nwere rushing about. Then from the kitchen came the smell of ham\nand eggs and coffee, and in the gaslight, the scrambled meal\nbegan. The family seemed to huddle together like a little camp\nin a strange place. Ursula felt a load of responsibility upon\nher, caring for the half-little ones. The smallest kept near the\nmother.\n\nIt was dark, and the children went sleepy but excited to bed.\nIt was a long time before the sound of voices died out. There\nwas a tremendous sense of adventure.\n\nIn the morning everybody was awake soon after dawn, the\nchildren crying:\n\n\"When I wakened up I didn't know where I was.\"\n\nThere were the strange sounds of the town, and the repeated\nchiming of the big church bells, so much harsher and more\ninsistent than the little bells of Cossethay. They looked\nthrough the windows past the other new red houses to the wooded\nhill across the valley. They had all a delightful sense of space\nand liberation, space and light and air.\n\nBut gradually all set to work. They were a careless, untidy\nfamily. Yet when once they set about to get the house in order,\nthe thing went with felicity and quickness. By evening the place\nwas roughly established.\n\nThey would not have a servant to live in the house, only a\nwoman who could go home at night. And they would not even have\nthe woman yet. They wanted to do as they liked in their own\nhome, with no stranger in the midst.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nTHE BITTERNESS OF ECSTASY\n\nA storm of industry raged on in the house. Ursula did not go\nto college till October. So, with a distinct feeling of\nresponsibility, as if she must express herself in this house,\nshe laboured arranging, re-arranging, selecting, contriving.\n\nShe could use her father's ordinary tools, both for woodwork\nand metal-work, so she hammered and tinkered. Her mother was\nquite content to have the thing done. Brangwen was interested.\nHe had a ready belief in his daughter. He himself was at work\nputting up his work-shed in the garden.\n\nAt last she had finished for the time being. The drawing-room\nwas big and empty. It had the good Wilton carpet, of which the\nfamily was so proud, and the large couch and large chairs\ncovered with shiny chintz, and the piano, a little sculpture in\nplaster that Brangwen had done, and not very much more. It was\ntoo large and empty-feeling for the family to occupy very much.\nYet they liked to know it was there, large and empty.\n\nThe home was the dining-room. There the hard rush\nfloor-covering made the ground light, reflecting light upon the\nbottom their hearts; in the window-bay was a broad, sunny seat,\nthe table was so solid one could not jostle it, and the chairs\nso strong one could knock them over without hurting them. The\nfamiliar organ that Brangwen had made stood on one side, looking\npeculiarly small, the sideboard was comfortably reduced to\nnormal proportions. This was the family living-room.\n\nUrsula had a bedroom to herself. It was really a servants'\nbedroom, small and plain. Its window looked over the back garden\nat other back gardens, some of them old and very nice, some of\nthem littered with packing-cases, then at the backs of the\nhouses whose fronts were the shops in High Street, or the\ngenteel homes of the under-manager or the chief cashier, facing\nthe chapel.\n\nShe had six weeks still before going to college. In this time\nshe nervously read over some Latin and some botany, and fitfully\nworked at some mathematics. She was going into college as a\nteacher, for her training. But, having already taken her\nmatriculation examination, she was entered for a university\ncourse. At the end of a year she would sit for the Intermediate\nArts, then two years after for her B.A. So her case was not that\nof the ordinary school-teacher. She would be working among the\nprivate students who came only for pure education, not for mere\nprofessional training. She would be of the elect.\n\nFor the next three years she would be more or less dependent\non her parents again. Her training was free. All college fees\nwere paid by the government, she had moreover a few pounds grant\nevery year. This would just pay for her train fares and her\nclothing. Her parents would only have to feed her. She did not\nwant to cost them much. They would not be well off. Her father\nwould earn only two hundred a year, and a good deal of her\nmother's capital was spent in buying the house. Still, there was\nenough to get along with.\n\nGudrun was attending the Art School at Nottingham. She was\nworking particularly at sculpture. She had a gift for this. She\nloved making little models in clay, of children or of animals.\nAlready some of these had appeared in the Students' Exhibition\nin the Castle, and Gudrun was a distinguished person. She was\nchafing at the Art School and wanted to go to London. But there\nwas not enough money. Neither would her parents let her go so\nfar.\n\nTheresa had left the High School. She was a great strapping,\nbold hussy, indifferent to all higher claims. She would stay at\nhome. The others were at school, except the youngest. When term\nstarted, they would all be transferred to the Grammar School at\nWilley Green.\n\nUrsula was excited at making acquaintances in Beldover. The\nexcitement soon passed. She had tea at the clergyman's, at the\nchemist's, at the other chemist's, at the doctor's, at the\nunder-manager's--then she knew practically everybody. She\ncould not take people very seriously, though at the time she\nwanted to.\n\nShe wandered the country, on foot and on her bicycle, finding\nit very beautiful in the forest direction, between Mansfield and\nSouthwell and Worksop. But she was here only skirmishing for\namusement. Her real exploration would begin in college.\n\nTerm began. She went into town each day by train. The\ncloistered quiet of the college began to close around her.\n\nShe was not at first disappointed. The big college built of\nstone, standing in the quiet street, with a rim of grass and\nlime trees all so peaceful: she felt it remote, a magic land.\nIts architecture was foolish, she knew from her father. Still,\nit was different from that of all other buildings. Its rather\npretty, plaything, Gothic form was almost a style, in the dirty\nindustrial town.\n\nShe liked the hall, with its big stone chimney-piece and its\nGothic arches supporting the balcony above. To be sure the\narches were ugly, the chimney-piece of cardboard-like carved\nstone, with its armorial decoration, looked silly just opposite\nthe bicycle stand and the radiator, whilst the great\nnotice-board with its fluttering papers seemed to slam away all\nsense of retreat and mystery from the far wall. Nevertheless,\namorphous as it might be, there was in it a reminiscence of the\nwondrous, cloistral origin of education. Her soul flew straight\nback to the medieval times, when the monks of God held the\nlearning of men and imparted it within the shadow of religion.\nIn this spirit she entered college.\n\nThe harshness and vulgarity of the lobbies and cloak-rooms\nhurt her at first. Why was it not all beautiful? But she could\nnot openly admit her criticism. She was on holy ground.\n\nShe wanted all the students to have a high, pure spirit, she\nwanted them to say only the real, genuine things, she wanted\ntheir faces to be still and luminous as the nuns' and the monks'\nfaces.\n\nAlas, the girls chattered and giggled and were nervous, they\nwere dressed up and frizzed, the men looked mean and\nclownish.\n\nStill, it was lovely to pass along the corridor with one's\nbooks in one's hands, to push the swinging, glass-panelled door,\nand enter the big room where the first lecture would be given.\nThe windows were large and lofty, the myriad brown students'\ndesks stood waiting, the great blackboard was smooth behind the\nrostrum.\n\nUrsula sat beside her window, rather far back. Looking down,\nshe saw the lime trees turning yellow, the tradesman's boy\npassing silent down the still, autumn-sunny street. There was\nthe world, remote, remote.\n\nHere, within the great, whispering sea-shell, that whispered\nall the while with reminiscence of all the centuries, time faded\naway, and the echo of knowledge filled the timeless silence.\n\nShe listened, she scribbled her notes with joy, almost with\necstasy, never for a moment criticizing what she heard. The\nlecturer was a mouth-piece, a priest. As he stood, black-gowned,\non the rostrum, some strands of the whispering confusion of\nknowledge that filled the whole place seemed to be singled out\nand woven together by him, till they became a lecture.\n\nAt first, she preserved herself from criticism. She would not\nconsider the professors as men, ordinary men who ate bacon, and\npulled on their boots before coming to college. They were the\nblack-gowned priests of knowledge, serving for ever in a remote,\nhushed temple. They were the initiated, and the beginning and\nthe end of the mystery was in their keeping.\n\nCurious joy she had of the lectures. It was a joy to hear the\ntheory of education, there was such freedom and pleasure in\nranging over the very stuff of knowledge, and seeing how it\nmoved and lived and had its being. How happy Racine made her!\nShe did not know why. But as the big lines of the drama unfolded\nthemselves, so steady, so measured, she felt a thrill as of\nbeing in the realm of the reality. Of Latin, she was doing Livy\nand Horace. The curious, intimate, gossiping tone of the Latin\nclass suited Horace. Yet she never cared for him, nor even Livy.\nThere was an entire lack of sternness in the gossipy class-room.\nShe tried hard to keep her old grasp of the Roman spirit. But\ngradually the Latin became mere gossip-stuff and artificiality\nto her, a question of manners and verbosities.\n\nHer terror was the mathematics class. The lecturer went so\nfast, her heart beat excitedly, she seemed to be straining every\nnerve. And she struggled hard, during private study, to get the\nstuff into control.\n\nThen came the lovely, peaceful afternoons in the botany\nlaboratory. There were few students. How she loved to sit on her\nhigh stool before the bench, with her pith and her razor and her\nmaterial, carefully mounting her slides, carefully bringing her\nmicroscope into focus, then turning with joy to record her\nobservation, drawing joyfully in her book, if the slide were\ngood.\n\nShe soon made a college friend, a girl who had lived in\nFlorence, a girl who wore a wonderful purple or figured scarf\ndraped over a plain, dark dress. She was Dorothy Russell,\ndaughter of a south-country advocate. Dorothy lived with a\nmaiden aunt in Nottingham, and spent her spare moments slaving\nfor the Women's Social and Political Union. She was quiet and\nintense, with an ivory face and dark hair looped plain over her\nears. Ursula was very fond of her, but afraid of her. She seemed\nso old and so relentless towards herself. Yet she was only\ntwenty-two. Ursula always felt her to be a creature of fate,\nlike Cassandra.\n\nThe two girls had a close, stern friendship. Dorothy worked\nat all things with the same passion, never sparing herself. She\ncame closest to Ursula during the botany hours. For she could\nnot draw. Ursula made beautiful and wonderful drawings of the\nsections under the microscope, and Dorothy always came to learn\nthe manner of the drawing.\n\nSo the first year went by, in magnificent seclusion and\nactivity of learning. It was strenuous as a battle, her college\nlife, yet remote as peace.\n\nShe came to Nottingham in the morning with Gudrun. The two\nsisters were distinguished wherever they went, slim, strong\ngirls, eager and extremely sensitive. Gudrun was the more\nbeautiful of the two, with her sleepy, half-languid girlishness\nthat looked so soft, and yet was balanced and inalterable\nunderneath. She wore soft, easy clothing, and hats which fell by\nthemselves into a careless grace.\n\nUrsula was much more carefully dressed, but she was\nself-conscious, always falling into depths of admiration of\nsomebody else, and modelling herself upon this other, and so\nproducing a hopeless incongruity. When she dressed for practical\npurposes she always looked well. In winter, wearing a tweed\ncoat-and-skirt and a small hat of black fur pulled over her\neager, palpitant face, she seemed to move down the street in a\ndrifting motion of suspense and exceeding sensitive\nreceptivity.\n\nAt the end of the first year Ursula got through her\nIntermediate Arts examination, and there came a lull in her\neager activities. She slackened off, she relaxed altogether.\nWorn nervous and inflammable by the excitement of the\npreparation for the examination, and by the sort of exaltation\nwhich carried her through the crisis itself, she now fell into a\nquivering passivity, her will all loosened.\n\nThe family went to Scarborough for a month. Gudrun and the\nfather were busy at the handicraft holiday school there, Ursula\nwas left a good deal with the children. But when she could, she\nwent off by herself.\n\nShe stood and looked out over the shining sea. It was very\nbeautiful to her. The tears rose hot in her heart.\n\nOut of the far, far space there drifted slowly in to her a\npassionate, unborn yearning. \"There are so many dawns that have\nnot yet risen.\" It seemed as if, from over the edge of the sea,\nall the unrisen dawns were appealing to her, all her unborn soul\nwas crying for the unrisen dawns.\n\nAs she sat looking out at the tender sea, with its lovely,\nswift glimmer, the sob rose in her breast, till she caught her\nlip suddenly under her teeth, and the tears were forcing\nthemselves from her. And in her very sob, she laughed. Why did\nshe cry? She did not want to cry. It was so beautiful that she\nlaughed. It was so beautiful that she cried.\n\nShe glanced apprehensively round, hoping no one would see her\nin this state.\n\nThen came a time when the sea was rough. She watched the\nwater travelling in to the coast, she watched a big wave running\nunnoticed, to burst in a shock of foam against a rock,\nenveloping all in a great white beauty, to pour away again,\nleaving the rock emerged black and teeming. Oh, and if, when the\nwave burst into whiteness, it were only set free!\n\nSometimes she loitered along the harbour, looking at the\nsea-browned sailors, who, in their close blue jerseys, lounged\non the harbour-wall, and laughed at her with impudent,\ncommunicative eyes.\n\nThere was established a little relation between her and them.\nShe never would speak to them or know any more of them. Yet as\nshe walked by and they leaned on the sea-wall, there was\nsomething between her and them, something keen and delightful\nand painful. She liked best the young one whose fair, salty hair\ntumbled over his blue eyes. He was so new and fresh and salt and\nnot of this world.\n\nFrom Scarborough she went to her Uncle Tom's. Winifred had a\nsmall baby, born at the end of the summer. She had become\nstrange and alien to Ursula. There was an unmentionable reserve\nbetween the two women. Tom Brangwen was an attentive father, a\nvery domestic husband. But there was something spurious about\nhis domesticity, Ursula did not like him any more. Something\nugly, blatant in his nature had come out now, making him shift\neverything over to a sentimental basis. A materialistic\nunbeliever, he carried it all off by becoming full of human\nfeeling, a warm, attentive host, a generous husband, a model\ncitizen. And he was clever enough to rouse admiration\neverywhere, and to take in his wife sufficiently. She did not\nlove him. She was glad to live in a state of complacent\nself-deception with him, she worked according to him.\n\nUrsula was relieved to go home. She had still two peaceful\nyears before her. Her future was settled for two years. She\nreturned to college to prepare for her final examination.\n\nBut during this year the glamour began to depart from\ncollege. The professors were not priests initiated into the deep\nmysteries of life and knowledge. After all, they were only\nmiddle-men handling wares they had become so accustomed to that\nthey were oblivious of them. What was Latin?--So much dry\ngoods of knowledge. What was the Latin class altogether but a\nsort of second-hand curio shop, where one bought curios and\nlearned the market-value of curios; dull curios too, on the\nwhole. She was as bored by the Latin curiosities as she was by\nChinese and Japanese curiosities in the antique shops.\n\"Antiques\"--the very word made her soul fall flat and\ndead.\n\nThe life went out of her studies, why, she did not know. But\nthe whole thing seemed sham, spurious; spurious Gothic arches,\nspurious peace, spurious Latinity, spurious dignity of France,\nspurious naivete of Chaucer. It was a second-hand dealer's shop,\nand one bought an equipment for an examination. This was only a\nlittle side-show to the factories of the town. Gradually the\nperception stole into her. This was no religious retreat, no\nperception of pure learning. It was a little apprentice-shop\nwhere one was further equipped for making money. The college\nitself was a little, slovenly laboratory for the factory.\n\nA harsh and ugly disillusion came over her again, the same\ndarkness and bitter gloom from which she was never safe now, the\nrealization of the permanent substratum of ugliness under\neverything. As she came to the college in the afternoon, the\nlawns were frothed with daisies, the lime trees hung tender and\nsunlit and green; and oh, the deep, white froth of the daisies\nwas anguish to see.\n\nFor inside, inside the college, she knew she must enter the\nsham workshop. All the while, it was a sham store, a sham\nwarehouse, with a single motive of material gain, and no\nproductivity. It pretended to exist by the religious virtue of\nknowledge. But the religious virtue of knowledge was become a\nflunkey to the god of material success.\n\nA sort of inertia came over her. Mechanically, from habit,\nshe went on with her studies. But it was almost hopeless. She\ncould scarcely attend to anything. At the Anglo-Saxon lecture in\nthe afternoon, she sat looking down, out of the window, hearing\nno word, of Beowulf or of anything else. Down below, in the\nstreet, the sunny grey pavement went beside the palisade. A\nwoman in a pink frock, with a scarlet sunshade, crossed the\nroad, a little white dog running like a fleck of light about\nher. The woman with the scarlet sunshade came over the road, a\nlilt in her walk, a little shadow attending her. Ursula watched\nspell-bound. The woman with the scarlet sunshade and the\nflickering terrier was gone--and whither? Whither?\n\nIn what world of reality was the woman in the pink dress\nwalking? To what warehouse of dead unreality was she herself\nconfined?\n\nWhat good was this place, this college? What good was\nAnglo-Saxon, when one only learned it in order to answer\nexamination questions, in order that one should have a higher\ncommercial value later on? She was sick with this long service\nat the inner commercial shrine. Yet what else was there? Was\nlife all this, and this only? Everywhere, everything was debased\nto the same service. Everything went to produce vulgar things,\nto encumber material life.\n\nSuddenly she threw over French. She would take honours in\nbotany. This was the one study that lived for her. She had\nentered into the lives of the plants. She was fascinated by the\nstrange laws of the vegetable world. She had here a glimpse of\nsomething working entirely apart from the purpose of the human\nworld.\n\nCollege was barren, cheap, a temple converted to the most\nvulgar, petty commerce. Had she not gone to hear the echo of\nlearning pulsing back to the source of the mystery?--The\nsource of mystery! And barrenly, the professors in their gowns\noffered commercial commodity that could be turned to good\naccount in the examination room; ready-made stuff too, and not\nreally worth the money it was intended to fetch; which they all\nknew.\n\nAll the time in the college now, save when she was labouring\nin her botany laboratory, for there the mystery still glimmered,\nshe felt she was degrading herself in a kind of trade of sham\njewjaws.\n\nAngry and stiff, she went through her last term. She would\nrather be out again earning her own living. Even Brinsley Street\nand Mr. Harby seemed real in comparison. Her violent hatred of\nthe Ilkeston School was nothing compared with the sterile\ndegradation of college. But she was not going back to Brinsley\nStreet either. She would take her B.A., and become a mistress in\nsome Grammar School for a time.\n\nThe last year of her college career was wheeling slowly\nround. She could see ahead her examination and her departure.\nShe had the ash of disillusion gritting under her teeth. Would\nthe next move turn out the same? Always the shining doorway\nahead; and then, upon approach, always the shining doorway was a\ngate into another ugly yard, dirty and active and dead. Always\nthe crest of the hill gleaming ahead under heaven: and then,\nfrom the top of the hill only another sordid valley full of\namorphous, squalid activity.\n\nNo matter! Every hill-top was a little different, every\nvalley was somehow new. Cossethay and her childhood with her\nfather; the Marsh and the little Church school near the Marsh,\nand her grandmother and her uncles; the High School at\nNottingham and Anton Skrebensky; Anton Skrebensky and the dance\nin the moonlight between the fires; then the time she could not\nthink of without being blasted, Winifred Inger, and the months\nbefore becoming a school-teacher; then the horrors of Brinsley\nStreet, lapsing into comparative peacefulness, Maggie, and\nMaggie's brother, whose influence she could still feel in her\nveins, when she conjured him up; then college, and Dorothy\nRussell, who was now in France, then the next move into the\nworld again!\n\nAlready it was a history. In every phase she was so\ndifferent. Yet she was always Ursula Brangwen. But what did it\nmean, Ursula Brangwen? She did not know what she was. Only she\nwas full of rejection, of refusal. Always, always she was\nspitting out of her mouth the ash and grit of disillusion, of\nfalsity. She could only stiffen in rejection, in rejection. She\nseemed always negative in her action.\n\nThat which she was, positively, was dark and unrevealed, it\ncould not come forth. It was like a seed buried in dry ash. This\nworld in which she lived was like a circle lighted by a lamp.\nThis lighted area, lit up by man's completest consciousness, she\nthought was all the world: that here all was disclosed for ever.\nYet all the time, within the darkness she had been aware of\npoints of light, like the eyes of wild beasts, gleaming,\npenetrating, vanishing. And her soul had acknowledged in a great\nheave of terror only the outer darkness. This inner circle of\nlight in which she lived and moved, wherein the trains rushed\nand the factories ground out their machine-produce and the\nplants and the animals worked by the light of science and\nknowledge, suddenly it seemed like the area under an arc-lamp,\nwherein the moths and children played in the security of\nblinding light, not even knowing there was any darkness, because\nthey stayed in the light.\n\nBut she could see the glimmer of dark movement just out of\nrange, she saw the eyes of the wild beast gleaming from the\ndarkness, watching the vanity of the camp fire and the sleepers;\nshe felt the strange, foolish vanity of the camp, which said\n\"Beyond our light and our order there is nothing,\" turning their\nfaces always inward towards the sinking fire of illuminating\nconsciousness, which comprised sun and stars, and the Creator,\nand the System of Righteousness, ignoring always the vast\ndarkness that wheeled round about, with half-revealed shapes\nlurking on the edge.\n\nYea, and no man dared even throw a firebrand into the\ndarkness. For if he did he was jeered to death by the others,\nwho cried \"Fool, anti-social knave, why would you disturb us\nwith bogeys? There is no darkness. We move and live and\nhave our being within the light, and unto us is given the\neternal light of knowledge, we comprise and comprehend the\ninnermost core and issue of knowledge. Fool and knave, how dare\nyou belittle us with the darkness?\"\n\nNevertheless the darkness wheeled round about, with grey\nshadow-shapes of wild beasts, and also with dark shadow-shapes\nof the angels, whom the light fenced out, as it fenced out the\nmore familiar beasts of darkness. And some, having for a moment\nseen the darkness, saw it bristling with the tufts of the hyena\nand the wolf; and some having given up their vanity of the\nlight, having died in their own conceit, saw the gleam in the\neyes of the wolf and the hyena, that it was the flash of the\nsword of angels, flashing at the door to come in, that the\nangels in the darkness were lordly and terrible and not to be\ndenied, like the flash of fangs.\n\nIt was a little while before Easter, in her last year of\ncollege, when Ursula was twenty-two years old, that she heard\nagain from Skrebensky. He had written to her once or twice from\nSouth Africa, during the first months of his service out there\nin the war, and since had sent her a post-card every now and\nthen, at ever longer intervals. He had become a first\nlieutenant, and had stayed out in Africa. She had not heard of\nhim now for more than two years.\n\nOften her thoughts returned to him. He seemed like the\ngleaming dawn, yellow, radiant, of a long, grey, ashy day. The\nmemory of him was like the thought of the first radiant hours of\nmorning. And here was the blank grey ashiness of later daytime.\nAh, if he had only remained true to her, she might have known\nthe sunshine, without all this toil and hurt and degradation of\na spoiled day. He would have been her angel. He held the keys of\nthe sunshine. Still he held them. He could open to her the gates\nof succeeding freedom and delight. Nay, if he had remained true\nto her, he would have been the doorway to her, into the\nboundless sky of happiness and plunging, inexhaustible freedom\nwhich was the paradise of her soul. Ah, the great range he would\nhave opened to her, the illimitable endless space for\nself-realization and delight for ever.\n\nThe one thing she believed in was in the love she had held\nfor him. It remained shining and complete, a thing to hark back\nto. And she said to herself, when present things seemed a\nfailure:\n\n\"Ah, I was fond of him,\" as if with him the leading\nflower of her life had died.\n\nNow she heard from him again. The chief effect was pain. The\npleasure, the spontaneous joy was not there any longer. But her\nwill rejoiced. Her will had fixed itself to him. And the\nold excitement of her dreams stirred and woke up. He was come,\nthe man with the wondrous lips that could send the kiss wavering\nto the very end of all space. Was he come back to her? She did\nnot believe.\n\nMy dear Ursula, I am back in England again for a few\nmonths before going out again, this time to India. I wonder if\nyou still keep the memory of our times together. I have still\ngot the little photograph of you. You must be changed since\nthen, for it is about six years ago. I am fully six years\nolder,--I have lived through another life since I knew you\nat Cossethay. I wonder if you would care to see me. I shall come\nup to Derby next week, and I would call in Nottingham, and we\nmight have tea together. Will you let me know? I shall look for\nyour answer.\n\n Anton Skrebensky\n\nUrsula had taken this letter from the rack in the hall at\ncollege, and torn it open as she crossed to the Women's room.\nThe world seemed to dissolve away from around her, she stood\nalone in clear air.\n\nWhere could she go, to be alone? She fled away, upstairs, and\nthrough the private way to the reference library. Seizing a\nbook, she sat down and pondered the letter. Her heart beat, her\nlimbs trembled. As in a dream, she heard one gong sound in the\ncollege, then, strangely, another. The first lecture had gone\nby.\n\nHurriedly she took one of her note-books and began to\nwrite.\n\n\"Dear Anton, Yes, I still have the ring. I should be very\nglad to see you again. You can come here to college for me, or I\nwill meet you somewhere in the town. Will you let me know? Your\nsincere friend----\"\n\nTrembling, she asked the librarian, who was her friend, if he\nwould give her an envelope. She sealed and addressed her letter,\nand went out, bare-headed, to post it. When it was dropped into\nthe pillar-box, the world became a very still, pale place,\nwithout confines. She wandered back to college, to her pale\ndream, like a first wan light of dawn.\n\nSkrebensky came one afternoon the following week. Day after\nday, she had hurried swiftly to the letter-rack on her arrival\nat college in the morning, and during the intervals between\nlectures. Several times, swiftly, with secretive fingers, she\nhad plucked his letter down from its public prominence, and fled\nacross the hall holding it fast and hidden. She read her letters\nin the botany laboratory, where her corner was always reserved\nto her.\n\nSeveral letters, and then he was coming. It was Friday\nafternoon he appointed. She worked over her microscope with\nfeverish activity, able to give only half her attention, yet\nworking closely and rapidly. She had on her slide some special\nstuff come up from London that day, and the professor was fussy\nand excited about it. At the same time, as she focused the light\non her field, and saw the plant-animal lying shadowy in a\nboundless light, she was fretting over a conversation she had\nhad a few days ago with Dr. Frankstone, who was a woman doctor\nof physics in the college.\n\n\"No, really,\" Dr. Frankstone had said, \"I don't see why we\nshould attribute some special mystery to life--do you? We\ndon't understand it as we understand electricity, even, but that\ndoesn't warrant our saying it is something special, something\ndifferent in kind and distinct from everything else in the\nuniverse--do you think it does? May it not be that life\nconsists in a complexity of physical and chemical activities, of\nthe same order as the activities we already know in science? I\ndon't see, really, why we should imagine there is a special\norder of life, and life alone----\"\n\nThe conversation had ended on a note of uncertainty,\nindefinite, wistful. But the purpose, what was the purpose?\nElectricity had no soul, light and heat had no soul. Was she\nherself an impersonal force, or conjunction of forces, like one\nof these? She looked still at the unicellular shadow that lay\nwithin the field of light, under her microscope. It was alive.\nShe saw it move--she saw the bright mist of its ciliary\nactivity, she saw the gleam of its nucleus, as it slid across\nthe plane of light. What then was its will? If it was a\nconjunction of forces, physical and chemical, what held these\nforces unified, and for what purpose were they unified?\n\nFor what purpose were the incalculable physical and chemical\nactivities nodalized in this shadowy, moving speck under her\nmicroscope? What was the will which nodalized them and created\nthe one thing she saw? What was its intention? To be itself? Was\nits purpose just mechanical and limited to itself?\n\nIt intended to be itself. But what self? Suddenly in her mind\nthe world gleamed strangely, with an intense light, like the\nnucleus of the creature under the microscope. Suddenly she had\npassed away into an intensely-gleaming light of knowledge. She\ncould not understand what it all was. She only knew that it was\nnot limited mechanical energy, nor mere purpose of\nself-preservation and self-assertion. It was a consummation, a\nbeing infinite. Self was a oneness with the infinite. To be\noneself was a supreme, gleaming triumph of infinity.\n\nUrsula sat abstracted over her microscope, in suspense. Her\nsoul was busy, infinitely busy, in the new world. In the new\nworld, Skrebensky was waiting for her--he would be waiting\nfor her. She could not go yet, because her soul was engaged.\nSoon she would go.\n\nA stillness, like passing away, took hold of her. Far off,\ndown the corridors, she heard the gong booming five o'clock. She\nmust go. Yet she sat still.\n\nThe other students were pushing back their stools and putting\ntheir microscopes away. Everything broke into turmoil. She saw,\nthrough the window, students going down the steps, with books\nunder their arms, talking, all talking.\n\nA great craving to depart came upon her. She wanted also to\nbe gone. She was in dread of the material world, and in dread of\nher own transfiguration. She wanted to run to meet\nSkrebensky--the new life, the reality.\n\nVery rapidly she wiped her slides and put them back, cleared\nher place at the bench, active, active, active. She wanted to\nrun to meet Skrebensky, hasten--hasten. She did not know\nwhat she was to meet. But it would be a new beginning. She must\nhurry.\n\nShe flitted down the corridor on swift feet, her razor and\nnote-books and pencil in one hand, her pinafore over her arm.\nHer face was lifted and tense with eagerness. He might not be\nthere.\n\nIssuing from the corridor, she saw him at once. She knew him\nat once. Yet he was so strange. He stood with the curious\nself-effacing diffidence which so frightened her in well-bred\nyoung men whom she knew. He stood as if he wished to be unseen.\nHe was very well-dressed. She would not admit to herself the\nchill like a sunshine of frost that came over her. This was he,\nthe key, the nucleus to the new world.\n\nHe saw her coming swiftly across the hall, a slim girl in a\nwhite flannel blouse and dark skirt, with some of the\nabstraction and gleam of the unknown upon her, and he started,\nexcited. He was very nervous. Other students were loitering\nabout the hall.\n\nShe laughed, with a blind, dazzled face, as she gave him her\nhand. He too could not perceive her.\n\nIn a moment she was gone, to get her outdoor things. Then\nagain, as when she had been at school, they walked out into the\ntown to tea. And they went to the same tea-shop.\n\nShe knew a great difference in him. The kinship was there,\nthe old kinship, but he had belonged to a different world from\nhers. It was as if they had cried a state of truce between him\nand her, and in this truce they had met. She knew, vaguely, in\nthe first minute, that they were enemies come together in a\ntruce. Every movement and word of his was alien to her\nbeing.\n\nYet still she loved the fine texture of his face, of his\nskin. He was rather browner, physically stronger. He was a man\nnow. She thought his manliness made the strangeness in him. When\nhe was only a youth, fluid, he was nearer to her. She thought a\nman must inevitably set into this strange separateness, cold\notherness of being. He talked, but not to her. She tried to\nspeak to him, but she could not reach him.\n\nHe seemed so balanced and sure, he made such a confident\npresence. He was a great rider, so there was about him some of a\nhorseman's sureness and habitual definiteness of decision, also\nsome of the horseman's animal darkness. Yet his soul was only\nthe more wavering, vague. He seemed made up of a set of habitual\nactions and decisions. The vulnerable, variable quick of the man\nwas inaccessible. She knew nothing of it. She could only feel\nthe dark, heavy fixity of his animal desire.\n\nThis dumb desire on his part had brought him to her? She was\npuzzled, hurt by some hopeless fixity in him, that terrified her\nwith a cold feeling of despair. What did he want? His desires\nwere so underground. Why did he not admit himself? What did he\nwant? He wanted something that should be nameless. She shrank in\nfear.\n\nYet she flashed with excitement. In his dark, subterranean\nmale soul, he was kneeling before her, darkly exposing himself.\nShe quivered, the dark flame ran over her. He was waiting at her\nfeet. He was helpless, at her mercy. She could take or reject.\nIf she rejected him, something would die in him. For him it was\nlife or death. And yet, all must be kept so dark, the\nconsciousness must admit nothing.\n\n\"How long,\" she said, \"are you staying in England?\"\n\n\"I am not sure--but not later than July, I believe.\"\n\nThen they were both silent. He was here, in England, for six\nmonths. They had a space of six months between them. He waited.\nThe same iron rigidity, as if the world were made of steel,\npossessed her again. It was no use turning with flesh and blood\nto this arrangement of forged metal.\n\nQuickly, her imagination adjusted itself to the\nsituation.\n\n\"Have you an appointment in India?\" she asked.\n\n\"Yes--I have just the six months' leave.\"\n\n\"Will you like being out there?\"\n\n\"I think so--there's a good deal of social life, and\nplenty going on--hunting, polo--and always a good\nhorse--and plenty of work, any amount of work.\"\n\nHe was always side-tracking, always side-tracking his own\nsoul. She could see him so well out there, in India--one of\nthe governing class, superimposed upon an old civilization, lord\nand master of a clumsier civilization than his own. It was his\nchoice. He would become again an aristocrat, invested with\nauthority and responsibility, having a great helpless populace\nbeneath him. One of the ruling class, his whole being would be\ngiven over to the fulfilling and the executing of the better\nidea of the state. And in India, there would be real work to do.\nThe country did need the civilization which he himself\nrepresented: it did need his roads and bridges, and the\nenlightenment of which he was part. He would go to India. But\nthat was not her road.\n\nYet she loved him, the body of him, whatever his decisions\nmight be. He seemed to want something of her. He was waiting for\nher to decide of him. It had been decided in her long ago, when\nhe had kissed her first. He was her lover, though good and evil\nshould cease. Her will never relaxed, though her heart and soul\nmust be imprisoned and silenced. He waited upon her, and she\naccepted him. For he had come back to her.\n\nA glow came into his face, into his fine, smooth skin, his\neyes, gold-grey, glowed intimately to her. He burned up, he\ncaught fire and became splendid, royal, something like a tiger.\nShe caught his brilliant, burnished glamour. Her heart and her\nsoul were shut away fast down below, hidden. She was free of\nthem. She was to have her satisfaction.\n\nShe became proud and erect, like a flower, putting itself\nforth in its proper strength. His warmth invigorated her. His\nbeauty of form, which seemed to glow out in contrast with the\nrest of people, made her proud. It was like deference to her,\nand made her feel as if she represented before him all the grace\nand flower of humanity. She was no mere Ursula Brangwen. She was\nWoman, she was the whole of Woman in the human order.\nAll-containing, universal, how should she be limited to\nindividuality?\n\nShe was exhilarated, she did not want to go away from him.\nShe had her place by him. Who should take her away?\n\nThey came out of the cafe.\n\n\"Is there anything you would like to do?\" he said. \"Is there\nanything we can do?\"\n\nIt was a dark, windy night in March.\n\n\"There is nothing to do,\" she said.\n\nWhich was the answer he wanted.\n\n\"Let us walk then--where shall we walk?\" he asked.\n\n\"Shall we go to the river?\" she suggested, timidly.\n\nIn a moment they were on the tram, going down to Trent\nBridge. She was so glad. The thought of walking in the dark,\nfar-reaching water-meadows, beside the full river, transported\nher. Dark water flowing in silence through the big, restless\nnight made her feel wild.\n\nThey crossed the bridge, descended, and went away from the\nlights. In an instant, in the darkness, he took her hand and\nthey went in silence, with subtle feet treading the darkness.\nThe town fumed away on their left, there were strange lights and\nsounds, the wind rushed against the trees, and under the bridge.\nThey walked close together, powerful in unison. He drew her very\nclose, held her with a subtle, stealthy, powerful passion, as if\nthey had a secret agreement which held good in the profound\ndarkness. The profound darkness was their universe.\n\n\"It is like it was before,\" she said.\n\nYet it was not in the least as it was before. Nevertheless\nhis heart was perfectly in accord with her. They thought one\nthought.\n\n\"I knew I should come back,\" he said at length.\n\nShe quivered.\n\n\"Did you always love me?\" she asked.\n\nThe directness of the question overcame him, submerged him\nfor a moment. The darkness travelled massively along.\n\n\"I had to come back to you,\" he said, as if hypnotized. \"You\nwere always at the back of everything.\"\n\nShe was silent with triumph, like fate.\n\n\"I loved you,\" she said, \"always.\"\n\nThe dark flame leaped up in him. He must give her himself. He\nmust give her the very foundations of himself. He drew her very\nclose, and they went on in silence.\n\nShe started violently, hearing voices. They were near a stile\nacross the dark meadows.\n\n\"It's only lovers,\" he said to her, softly.\n\nShe looked to see the dark figures against the fence,\nwondering that the darkness was inhabited.\n\n\"Only lovers will walk here to-night,\" he said.\n\nThen in a low, vibrating voice he told her about Africa, the\nstrange darkness, the strange, blood fear.\n\n\"I am not afraid of the darkness in England,\" he said. \"It is\nsoft, and natural to me, it is my medium, especially when you\nare here. But in Africa it seems massive and fluid with\nterror--not fear of anything--just fear. One breathes\nit, like the smell of blood. The blacks know it. They worship\nit, really, the darkness. One almost likes it--the\nfear--something sensual.\"\n\nShe thrilled again to him. He was to her a voice out of the\ndarkness. He talked to her all the while, in low tones, about\nAfrica, conveying something strange and sensual to her: the\nnegro, with his loose, soft passion that could envelop one like\na bath. Gradually he transferred to her the hot, fecund darkness\nthat possessed his own blood. He was strangely secret. The whole\nworld must be abolished. He maddened her with his soft,\ncajoling, vibrating tones. He wanted her to answer, to\nunderstand. A turgid, teeming night, heavy with fecundity in\nwhich every molecule of matter grew big with increase, secretly\nurgent with fecund desire, seemed to come to pass. She quivered,\ntaut and vibrating, almost pained. And gradually, he ceased\ntelling her of Africa, there came a silence, whilst they walked\nthe darkness beside the massive river. Her limbs were rich and\ntense, she felt they must be vibrating with a low, profound\nvibration. She could scarcely walk. The deep vibration of the\ndarkness could only be felt, not heard.\n\nSuddenly, as they walked, she turned to him and held him\nfast, as if she were turned to steel.\n\n\"Do you love me?\" she cried in anguish.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, in a curious, lapping voice, unlike himself.\n\"Yes, I love you.\"\n\nHe seemed like the living darkness upon her, she was in the\nembrace of the strong darkness. He held her enclosed, soft,\nunutterably soft, and with the unrelaxing softness of fate, the\nrelentless softness of fecundity. She quivered, and quivered,\nlike a tense thing that is struck. But he held her all the time,\nsoft, unending, like darkness closed upon her, omnipresent as\nthe night. He kissed her, and she quivered as if she were being\ndestroyed, shattered. The lighted vessel vibrated, and broke in\nher soul, the light fell, struggled, and went dark. She was all\ndark, will-less, having only the receptive will.\n\nHe kissed her, with his soft, enveloping kisses, and she\nresponded to them completely, her mind, her soul gone out.\nDarkness cleaving to darkness, she hung close to him, pressed\nherself into soft flow of his kiss, pressed herself down, down\nto the source and core of his kiss, herself covered and\nenveloped in the warm, fecund flow of his kiss, that travelled\nover her, flowed over her, covered her, flowed over the last\nfibre of her, so they were one stream, one dark fecundity, and\nshe clung at the core of him, with her lips holding open the\nvery bottommost source of him.\n\nSo they stood in the utter, dark kiss, that triumphed over\nthem both, subjected them, knitted them into one fecund nucleus\nof the fluid darkness.\n\nIt was bliss, it was the nucleolating of the fecund darkness.\nOnce the vessel had vibrated till it was shattered, the light of\nconsciousness gone, then the darkness reigned, and the\nunutterable satisfaction.\n\nThey stood enjoying the unmitigated kiss, taking it, giving\nto it endlessly, and still it was not exhausted. Their veins\nfluttered, their blood ran together as one stream.\n\nTill gradually a sleep, a heaviness settled on them, a\ndrowse, and out of the drowse, a small light of consciousness\nwoke up. Ursula became aware of the night around her, the water\nlapping and running full just near, the trees roaring and\nsoughing in gusts of wind.\n\nShe kept near to him, in contact with him, but she became\never more and more herself. And she knew she must go to catch\nher train. But she did not want to draw away from contact with\nhim.\n\nAt length they roused and set out. No longer they existed in\nthe unblemished darkness. There was the glitter of a bridge, the\ntwinkle of lights across the river, the big flare of the town in\nfront and on their right.\n\nBut still, dark and soft and incontestable, their bodies\nwalked untouched by the lights, darkness supreme and\narrogant.\n\n\"The stupid lights,\" Ursula said to herself, in her dark\nsensual arrogance. \"The stupid, artificial, exaggerated town,\nfuming its lights. It does not exist really. It rests upon the\nunlimited darkness, like a gleam of coloured oil on dark water,\nbut what is it?--nothing, just nothing.\"\n\nIn the tram, in the train, she felt the same. The lights, the\ncivic uniform was a trick played, the people as they moved or\nsat were only dummies exposed. She could see, beneath their\npale, wooden pretence of composure and civic purposefulness, the\ndark stream that contained them all. They were like little paper\nships in their motion. But in reality each one was a dark,\nblind, eager wave urging blindly forward, dark with the same\nhomogeneous desire. And all their talk and all their behaviour\nwas sham, they were dressed-up creatures. She was reminded of\nthe Invisible Man, who was a piece of darkness made visible only\nby his clothes.\n\nDuring the next weeks, all the time she went about in the\nsame dark richness, her eyes dilated and shining like the eyes\nof a wild animal, a curious half-smile which seemed to be gibing\nat the civic pretence of all the human life about her.\n\n\"What are you, you pale citizens?\" her face seemed to say,\ngleaming. \"You subdued beast in sheep's clothing, you primeval\ndarkness falsified to a social mechanism.\"\n\nShe went about in the sensual sub-consciousness all the time,\nmocking at the ready-made, artificial daylight of the rest.\n\n\"They assume selves as they assume suits of clothing,\" she\nsaid to herself, looking in mocking contempt at the stiffened,\nneutralized men. \"They think it better to be clerks or\nprofessors than to be the dark, fertile beings that exist in the\npotential darkness. What do you think you are?\" her soul asked\nof the professor as she sat opposite him in class. \"What do you\nthink you are, as you sit there in your gown and your\nspectacles? You are a lurking, blood-sniffing creature with eyes\npeering out of the jungle darkness, snuffing for your desires.\nThat is what you are, though nobody would believe it, and\nyou would be the very last to allow it.\"\n\nHer soul mocked at all this pretence. Herself, she kept on\npretending. She dressed herself and made herself fine, she\nattended her lectures and scribbled her notes. But all in a mood\nof superficial, mocking facility. She understood well enough\ntheir two-and-two-make-four tricks. She was as clever as they\nwere. But care!--did she care about their monkey tricks of\nknowledge or learning or civic deportment? She did not care in\nthe least.\n\nThere was Skrebensky, there was her dark, vital self. Outside\nthe college, the outer darkness, Skrebensky was waiting. On the\nedge of the night, he was attentive. Did he care?\n\nShe was free as a leopard that sends up its raucous cry in\nthe night. She had the potent, dark stream of her own blood, she\nhad the glimmering core of fecundity, she had her mate, her\ncomplement, her sharer in fruition. So, she had all,\neverything.\n\nSkrebensky was staying in Nottingham all the time. He too was\nfree. He knew no one in this town, he had no civic self to\nmaintain. He was free. Their trams and markets and theatres and\npublic meetings were a shaken kaleidoscope to him, he watched as\na lion or a tiger may lie with narrowed eyes watching the people\npass before its cage, the kaleidoscopic unreality of people, or\na leopard lie blinking, watching the incomprehensible feats of\nthe keepers. He despised it all--it was all non-existent.\nTheir good professors, their good clergymen, their good\npolitical speakers, their good, earnest women--all the time\nhe felt his soul was grinning, grinning at the sight of them. So\nmany performing puppets, all wood and rag for the\nperformance!\n\nHe watched the citizen, a pillar of society, a model, saw the\nstiff goat's legs, which have become almost stiffened to wood in\nthe desire to make them puppet in their action, he saw the\ntrousers formed to the puppet-action: man's legs, but man's legs\nbecome rigid and deformed, ugly, mechanical.\n\nHe was curiously happy, being alone, now. The glimmering grin\nwas on his face. He had no longer any necessity to take part in\nthe performing tricks of the rest. He had discovered the clue to\nhimself, he had escaped from the show, like a wild beast escaped\nstraight back into its jungle. Having a room in a quiet hotel,\nhe hired a horse and rode out into the country, staying\nsometimes for the night in some village, and returning the next\nday.\n\nHe felt rich and abundant in himself. Everything he did was a\nvoluptuous pleasure to him--either to ride on horseback, or\nto walk, or to lie in the sun, or to drink in a public-house. He\nhad no use for people, nor for words. He had an amused pleasure\nin everything, a great sense of voluptuous richness in himself,\nand of the fecundity of the universal night he inhabited. The\npuppet shapes of people, their wood-mechanical voices, he was\nremote from them.\n\nFor there were always his meetings with Ursula. Very often,\nshe did not go to college in the afternoon, but walked with him\ninstead. Or he took a motor-car or a dog-cart and they drove\ninto the country, leaving the car and going away by themselves\ninto the woods. He had not taken her yet. With subtle,\ninstinctive economy, they went to the end of each kiss, each\nembrace, each pleasure in intimate contact, knowing\nsubconsciously that the last was coming. It was to be their\nfinal entry into the source of creation.\n\nShe took him home, and he stayed a week-end at Beldover with\nher family. She loved having him in the house. Strange how he\nseemed to come into the atmosphere of her family, with his\nlaughing, insidious grace. They all loved him, he was kin to\nthem. His raillery, his warm, voluptuous mocking presence was\nmeat and joy to the Brangwen household. For this house was\nalways quivering with darkness, they put off their puppet form\nwhen they came home, to lie and drowse in the sun.\n\nThere was a sense of freedom amongst them all, of the\nundercurrent of darkness among them all. Yet here, at home,\nUrsula resented it. It became distasteful to her. And she knew\nthat if they understood the real relationship between her and\nSkrebensky, her parents, her father in particular, would go mad\nwith rage. So subtly, she seemed to be like any other girl who\nis more or less courted by a man. And she was like any other\ngirl. But in her, the antagonism to the social imposition was\nfor the time complete and final.\n\nShe waited, every moment of the day, for his next kiss. She\nadmitted it to herself in shame and bliss. Almost consciously,\nshe waited. He waited, but, until the time came, more\nunconsciously. When the time came that he should kiss her again,\na prevention was an annihilation to him. He felt his flesh go\ngrey, he was heavy with a corpse-like inanition, he did not\nexist, if the time passed unfulfilled.\n\nHe came to her finally in a superb consummation. It was very\ndark, and again a windy, heavy night. They had come down the\nlane towards Beldover, down to the valley. They were at the end\nof their kisses, and there was the silence between them. They\nstood as at the edge of a cliff, with a great darkness\nbeneath.\n\nComing out of the lane along the darkness, with the dark\nspace spreading down to the wind, and the twinkling lights of\nthe station below, the far-off windy chuff of a shunting train,\nthe tiny clink-clink-clink of the wagons blown between the wind,\nthe light of Beldover-edge twinkling upon the blackness of the\nhill opposite, the glow of the furnaces along the railway to the\nright, their steps began to falter. They would soon come out of\nthe darkness into the lights. It was like turning back. It was\nunfulfilment. Two quivering, unwilling creatures, they lingered\non the edge of the darkness, peering out at the lights and the\nmachine-glimmer beyond. They could not turn back to the\nworld--they could not.\n\nSo lingering along, they came to a great oak tree by the\npath. In all its budding mass it roared to the wind, and its\ntrunk vibrated in every fibre, powerful, indomitable.\n\n\"We will sit down,\" he said.\n\nAnd in the roaring circle under the tree, that was almost\ninvisible yet whose powerful presence received them, they lay a\nmoment looking at the twinkling lights on the darkness opposite,\nsaw the sweeping brand of a train past the edge of their\ndarkened field.\n\nThen he turned and kissed her, and she waited for him. The\npain to her was the pain she wanted, the agony was the agony she\nwanted. She was caught up, entangled in the powerful vibration\nof the night. The man, what was he?--a dark, powerful\nvibration that encompassed her. She passed away as on a dark\nwind, far, far away, into the pristine darkness of paradise,\ninto the original immortality. She entered the dark fields of\nimmortality.\n\nWhen she rose, she felt strangely free, strong. She was not\nashamed,--why should she be? He was walking beside her, the\nman who had been with her. She had taken him, they had been\ntogether. Whither they had gone, she did not know. But it was as\nif she had received another nature. She belonged to the eternal,\nchangeless place into which they had leapt together.\n\nHer soul was sure and indifferent of the opinion of the world\nof artificial light. As they went up the steps of the\nfoot-bridge over the railway, and met the train-passengers, she\nfelt herself belonging to another world, she walked past them\nimmune, a whole darkness dividing her from them. When she went\ninto the lighted dining-room at home, she was impervious to the\nlights and the eyes of her parents. Her everyday self was just\nthe same. She merely had another, stronger self that knew the\ndarkness.\n\nThis curious separate strength, that existed in darkness and\npride of night, never forsook her. She had never been more\nherself. It could not occur to her that anybody, not even the\nyoung man of the world, Skrebensky, should have anything at all\nto do with her permanent self. As for her temporal, social self,\nshe let it look after itself.\n\nHer whole soul was implicated with Skrebensky--not the\nyoung man of the world, but the undifferentiated man he was. She\nwas perfectly sure of herself, perfectly strong, stronger than\nall the world. The world was not strong--she was strong.\nThe world existed only in a secondary sense:--she existed\nsupremely.\n\nShe continued at college, in her ordinary routine, merely as\na cover to her dark, powerful under-life. The fact of herself,\nand with her Skrebensky, was so powerful, that she took rest in\nthe other. She went to college in the morning, and attended her\nclasses, flowering, and remote.\n\nShe had lunch with him in his hotel; every evening she spent\nwith him, either in town, at his rooms, or in the country. She\nmade the excuse at home of evening study for her degree. But she\npaid not the slightest attention to her study.\n\nThey were both absolute and happy and calm. The fact of their\nown consummate being made everything else so entirely\nsubordinate that they were free. The only thing they wanted, as\nthe days went by, was more time to themselves. They wanted the\ntime to be absolutely their own.\n\nThe Easter vacation was approaching. They agreed to go right\naway. It would not matter if they did not come back. They were\nindifferent to the actual facts.\n\n\"I suppose we ought to get married,\" he said, rather\nwistfully. It was so magnificently free and in a deeper\nworld, as it was. To make public their connection would be to\nput it in range with all the things which nullified him, and\nfrom which he was for the moment entirely dissociated. If he\nmarried he would have to assume his social self. And the thought\nof assuming his social self made him at once diffident and\nabstract. If she were his social wife, if she were part of that\ncomplication of dead reality, then what had his under-life to do\nwith her? One's social wife was almost a material symbol.\nWhereas now she was something more vivid to him than anything in\nconventional life could be. She gave the complete lie to all\nconventional life, he and she stood together, dark, fluid,\ninfinitely potent, giving the living lie to the dead whole which\ncontained them.\n\nHe watched her pensive, puzzled face.\n\n\"I don't think I want to marry you,\" she said, her brow\nclouded.\n\nIt piqued him rather.\n\n\"Why not?\" he asked.\n\n\"Let's think about it afterwards, shall we?\" she said.\n\nHe was crossed, yet he loved her violently.\n\n\"You've got a museau, not a face,\" he said.\n\n\"Have I?\" she cried, her face lighting up like a pure flame.\nShe thought she had escaped. Yet he returned--he was not\nsatisfied.\n\n\"Why?\" he asked, \"why don't you want to marry me?\"\n\n\"I don't want to be with other people,\" she said. \"I want to\nbe like this. I'll tell you if ever I want to marry you.\"\n\n\"All right,\" he said.\n\nHe would rather the thing was left indefinite, and that she\ntook the responsibility.\n\nThey talked of the Easter vacation. She thought only of\ncomplete enjoyment.\n\nThey went to an hotel in Piccadilly. She was supposed to be\nhis wife. They bought a wedding-ring for a shilling, from a shop\nin a poor quarter.\n\nThey had revoked altogether the ordinary mortal world. Their\nconfidence was like a possession upon them. They were possessed.\nPerfectly and supremely free they felt, proud beyond all\nquestion, and surpassing mortal conditions.\n\nThey were perfect, therefore nothing else existed. The world\nwas a world of servants whom one civilly ignored. Wherever they\nwent, they were the sensuous aristocrats, warm, bright, glancing\nwith pure pride of the senses.\n\nThe effect upon other people was extraordinary. The glamour\nwas cast from the young couple upon all they came into contact\nwith, waiters or chance acquaintances.\n\n\"Oui, Monsieur le baron,\" she would reply with a\nmocking courtesy to her husband.\n\nSo they came to be treated as titled people. He was an\nofficer in the engineers. They were just married, going to India\nimmediately.\n\nThus a tissue of romance was round them. She believed she was\na young wife of a titled husband on the eve of departure for\nIndia. This, the social fact, was a delicious make-belief. The\nliving fact was that he and she were man and woman, absolute and\nbeyond all limitation.\n\nThe days went by--they were to have three weeks\ntogether--in perfect success. All the time, they themselves\nwere reality, all outside was tribute to them. They were quite\ncareless about money, but they did nothing very extravagant. He\nwas rather surprised when he found that he had spent twenty\npounds in a little under a week, but it was only the irritation\nof having to go to the bank. The machinery of the old system\nlasted for him, not the system. The money simply did not\nexist.\n\nNeither did any of the old obligations. They came home from\nthe theatre, had supper, then flitted about in their\ndressing-gowns. They had a large bedroom and a corner\nsitting-room high up, remote and very cosy. They ate all their\nmeals in their own rooms, attended by a young German called\nHans, who thought them both wonderful, and answered\nassiduously:\n\n\"Gewiss, Herr Baron--bitte sehr, Frau\nBaronin.\"\n\nOften, they saw the pink of dawn away across the park. The\ntower of Westminster Cathedral was emerging, the lamps of\nPiccadilly, stringing away beside the trees of the park, were\nbecoming pale and moth-like, the morning traffic was\nclock-clocking down the shadowy road, which had gleamed all\nnight like metal, down below, running far ahead into the night,\nbeneath the lamps, and which was now vague, as in a mist,\nbecause of the dawn.\n\nThen, as the flush of dawn became stronger, they opened the\nglass doors and went on to the giddy balcony, feeling triumphant\nas two angels in bliss, looking down at the still sleeping\nworld, which would wake to a dutiful, rumbling, sluggish turmoil\nof unreality.\n\n[But the air was cold. They went into their bedroom, and bathed before\ngoing to bed, leaving the partition doors of the bathroom open, so that\nthe vapour came into the bedroom and faintly dimmed the mirror. She was\nalways in bed first. She watched him as he bathed, his quick, unconscious\nmovements, the electric light glinting on his wet shoulders. He stood out\nof the bath, his hair all washed flat over his forehead, and pressed the\nwater out of his eyes. He was slender, and, to her, perfect, a clean,\nstraight-cut youth, without a grain of superfluous body. The brown hair on\nhis body was soft and fine and adorable, he was all beautifully flushed,\nas he stood in the white bath-apartment.\n\nHe saw her warm, dark, lit-up face watching him from the pillow--yet\nhe did not see it--it was always present, and was to him as his own\neyes. He was never aware of the separate being of her. She was like his\nown eyes and his own heart beating to him.\n\nSo he went across to her, to get his sleeping suit. It was always a\nperfect adventure to go near to her. She put her arms round him, and\nsnuffed his warm, softened skin.\n\n\"Scent,\" she said.\n\n\"Soap,\" he answered.\n\n\"Soap,\" she repeated, looking up with bright eyes. They were both\nlaughing, always laughing.]\n\nSoon they were fast asleep, asleep till midday, close\ntogether, sleeping one sleep. Then they awoke to the\never-changing reality of their state. They alone inhabited the\nworld of reality. All the rest lived on a lower sphere.\n\nWhatever they wanted to do, they did. They saw a few\npeople--Dorothy, whose guest she was supposed to be, and a\ncouple of friends of Skrebensky, young Oxford men, who called\nher Mrs. Skrebensky with entire simplicity. They treated her,\nindeed, with such respect, that she began to think she was\nreally quite of the whole universe, of the old world as well as\nof the new. She forgot she was outside the pale of the old\nworld. She thought she had brought it under the spell of her\nown, real world. And so she had.\n\nIn such ever-changing reality the weeks went by. All the\ntime, they were an unknown world to each other. Every movement\nmade by the one was a reality and an adventure to the other.\nThey did not want outside excitements. They went to very few\ntheatres, they were often in their sitting-room high up over\nPiccadilly, with windows open on two sides, and the door open on\nto the balcony, looking over the Green Park, or down upon the\nminute travelling of the traffic.\n\nThen suddenly, looking at a sunset, she wanted to go. She\nmust be gone. She must be gone at once. And in two hours' time\nthey were at Charing Cross taking train for Paris. Paris was his\nsuggestion. She did not care where it was. The great joy was in\nsetting out. And for a few days she was happy in the novelty of\nParis.\n\nThen, for some reason, she must call in Rouen on the way back\nto London. He had an instinctive mistrust of her desire for the\nplace. But, perversely, she wanted to go there. It was as if she\nwanted to try its effect upon her.\n\nFor the first time, in Rouen, he had a cold feeling of death;\nnot afraid of any other man, but of her. She seemed to leave\nhim. She followed after something that was not him. She did not\nwant him. The old streets, the cathedral, the age and the\nmonumental peace of the town took her away from him. She turned\nto it as if to something she had forgotten, and wanted. This was\nnow the reality; this great stone cathedral slumbering there in\nits mass, which knew no transience nor heard any denial. It was\nmajestic in its stability, its splendid absoluteness.\n\nHer soul began to run by itself. He did not realize, nor did\nshe. Yet in Rouen he had the first deadly anguish, the first\nsense of the death towards which they were wandering. And she\nfelt the first heavy yearning, heavy, heavy hopeless warning,\nalmost like a deep, uneasy sinking into apathy,\nhopelessness.\n\nThey returned to London. But still they had two days. He\nbegan to tremble, he grew feverish with the fear of her\ndeparture. She had in her some fatal prescience, that made her\ncalm. What would be, would be.\n\nHe remained fairly easy, however, still in his state of\nheightened glamour, till she had gone, and he had turned away\nfrom St. Pancras, and sat on the tram-car going up Pimlico to\nthe \"Angel\", to Moorgate Street on Sunday evening.\n\nThen the cold horror gradually soaked into him. He saw the\nhorror of the City Road, he realized the ghastly cold sordidness\nof the tram-car in which he sat. Cold, stark, ashen sterility\nhad him surrounded. Where then was the luminous, wonderful world\nhe belonged to by rights? How did he come to be thrown on this\nrefuse-heap where he was?\n\nHe was as if mad. The horror of the brick buildings, of the\ntram-car, of the ashen-grey people in the street made him\nreeling and blind as if drunk. He went mad. He had lived with\nher in a close, living, pulsing world, where everything pulsed\nwith rich being. Now he found himself struggling amid an\nashen-dry, cold world of rigidity, dead walls and mechanical\ntraffic, and creeping, spectre-like people. The life was\nextinct, only ash moved and stirred or stood rigid, there was a\nhorrible, clattering activity, a rattle like the falling of dry\nslag, cold and sterile. It was as if the sunshine that fell were\nunnatural light exposing the ash of the town, as if the lights\nat night were the sinister gleam of decomposition.\n\nQuite mad, beside himself, he went to his club and sat with a\nglass of whisky, motionless, as if turned to clay. He felt like\na corpse that is inhabited with just enough life to make it\nappear as any other of the spectral, unliving beings which we\ncall people in our dead language. Her absence was worse than\npain to him. It destroyed his being.\n\nDead, he went on from lunch to tea. His face was all the time\nfixed and stiff and colourless, his life was a dry, mechanical\nmovement. Yet even he wondered slightly at the awful misery that\nhad overcome him. How could he be so ashlike and extinct? He\nwrote her a letter.\n\nI have been thinking that we must get married before long. My\npay will be more when I get out to India, we shall be able to\nget along. Or if you don't want to go to India, I could very\nprobably stay here in England. But I think you would like India.\nYou could ride, and you would know just everybody out there.\nPerhaps if you stay on to take your degree, we might marry\nimmediately after that. I will write to your father as soon as I\nhear from you----\n\nHe went on, disposing of her. If only he could be with her!\nAll he wanted now was to marry her, to be sure of her. Yet all\nthe time he was perfectly, perfectly hopeless, cold, extinct,\nwithout emotion or connection.\n\nHe felt as if his life were dead. His soul was extinct. The\nwhole being of him had become sterile, he was a spectre,\ndivorced from life. He had no fullness, he was just a flat\nshape. Day by day the madness accumulated in him. The horror of\nnot-being possessed him.\n\nHe went here, there, and everywhere. But whatever he did, he\nknew that only the cipher of him was there, nothing was filled\nin. He went to the theatre; what he heard and saw fell upon a\ncold surface of consciousness, which was now all that he was,\nthere was nothing behind it, he could have no experience of any\nsort. Mechanical registering took place in him, no more. He had\nno being, no contents. Neither had the people he came into\ncontact with. They were mere permutations of known quantities.\nThere was no roundness or fullness in this world he now\ninhabited, everything was a dead shape mental arrangement,\nwithout life or being.\n\nMuch of the time, he was with friends and comrades. Then he\nforgot everything. Their activities made up for his own\nnegation, they engaged his negative horror.\n\nHe only became happy when he drank, and he drank a good deal.\nThen he was just the opposite to what he had been. He became a\nwarm, diffuse, glowing cloud, in a warm, diffuse formless\nfashion. Everything melted down into a rosy glow, and he was the\nglow, and everything was the glow, everybody else was the glow,\nand it was very nice, very nice. He would sing songs, it was so\nnice.\n\nUrsula went back to Beldover shut and firm. She loved\nSkrebensky, of that she was resolved. She would allow nothing\nelse.\n\nShe read his long, obsessed letter about getting married and\ngoing to India, without any particular response. She seemed to\nignore what he said about marriage. It did not come home to her.\nHe seemed, throughout the greater part of his letter, to be\ntalking without much meaning.\n\nShe replied to him pleasantly and easily. She rarely wrote\nlong letters.\n\nIndia sounds lovely. I can just see myself on an elephant\nswaying between lanes of obsequious natives. But I don't know if\nfather would let me go. We must see.\n\nI keep living over again the lovely times we have had. But I\ndon't think you liked me quite so much towards the end, did you?\nYou did not like me when we left Paris. Why didn't you?\n\nI love you very much. I love your body. It is so clear and\nfine. I am glad you do not go naked, or all the women would fall\nin love with you. I am very jealous of it, I love it so\nmuch.\n\nHe was more or less satisfied with this letter. But day after\nday he was walking about, dead, non-existent.\n\nHe could not come again to Nottingham until the end of April.\nThen he persuaded her to go with him for a week-end to a\nfriend's house near Oxford. By this time they were engaged. He\nhad written to her father, and the thing was settled. He brought\nher an emerald ring, of which she was very proud.\n\nHer people treated her now with a little distance, as if she\nhad already left them. They left her very much alone.\n\nShe went with him for the three days in the country house\nnear Oxford. It was delicious, and she was very happy. But the\nthing she remembered most was when, getting up in the morning\nafter he had gone back quietly to his own room, having spent the\nnight with her, she found herself very rich in being alone, and\nenjoying to the full her solitary room, she drew up her blind\nand saw the plum trees in the garden below all glittering and\nsnowy and delighted with the sunshine, in full bloom under a\nblue sky. They threw out their blossom, they flung it out under\nthe blue heavens, the whitest blossom! How excited it made\nher.\n\nShe had to hurry through her dressing to go and walk in the\ngarden under the plum trees, before anyone should come and talk\nto her. Out she slipped, and paced like a queen in fairy\npleasaunces. The blossom was silver-shadowy when she looked up\nfrom under the tree at the blue sky. There was a faint scent, a\nfaint noise of bees, a wonderful quickness of happy morning.\n\nShe heard the breakfast gong and went indoors.\n\n\"Where have you been?\" asked the others.\n\n\"I had to go out under the plum trees,\" she said, her face\nglowing like a flower. \"It is so lovely.\"\n\nA shadow of anger crossed Skrebensky's soul. She had not\nwanted him to be there. He hardened his will.\n\nAt night there was a moon, and the blossom glistened ghostly,\nthey went together to look at it. She saw the moonlight on his\nface as he waited near her, and his features were like silver\nand his eyes in shadow were unfathomable. She was in love with\nhim. He was very quiet.\n\nThey went indoors and she pretended to be tired. So she went\nquickly to bed.\n\n\"Don't be long coming to me,\" she whispered, as she was\nsupposed to be kissing him good night.\n\nAnd he waited, intent, obsessed, for the moment when he could\ncome to her.\n\nShe enjoyed him, she made much of him. She liked to put her\nfingers on the soft skin of his sides, or on the softness of his\nback, when he made the muscles hard underneath, the muscles\ndeveloped very strong through riding; and she had a great thrill\nof excitement and passion, because of the unimpressible hardness\nof his body, that was so soft and smooth under her fingers, that\ncame to her with such absolute service.\n\nShe owned his body and enjoyed it with all the delight and\ncarelessness of a possessor. But he had become gradually afraid\nof her body. He wanted her, he wanted her endlessly. But there\nhad come a tension into his desire, a constraint which prevented\nhis enjoying the delicious approach and the lovable close of the\nendless embrace. He was afraid. His will was always tense,\nfixed.\n\nHer final examination was at midsummer. She insisted on\nsitting for it, although she had neglected her work during the\npast months. He also wanted her to go in for the degree. Then,\nhe thought, she would be satisfied. Secretly he hoped she would\nfail, so that she would be more glad of him.\n\n\"Would you rather live in India or in England when we are\nmarried?\" he asked her.\n\n\"Oh, in India, by far,\" she said, with a careless lack of\nconsideration which annoyed him.\n\nOnce she said, with heat:\n\n\"I shall be glad to leave England. Everything is so meagre\nand paltry, it is so unspiritual--I hate democracy.\"\n\nHe became angry to hear her talk like this, he did not know\nwhy. Somehow, he could not bear it, when she attacked things. It\nwas as if she were attacking him.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" he asked her, hostile. \"Why do you hate\ndemocracy?\"\n\n\"Only the greedy and ugly people come to the top in a\ndemocracy,\" she said, \"because they're the only people who will\npush themselves there. Only degenerate races are\ndemocratic.\"\n\n\"What do you want then--an aristocracy?\" he asked,\nsecretly moved. He always felt that by rights he belonged to the\nruling aristocracy. Yet to hear her speak for his class pained\nhim with a curious, painful pleasure. He felt he was acquiescing\nin something illegal, taking to himself some wrong,\nreprehensible advantages.\n\n\"I do want an aristocracy,\" she cried. \"And I'd far\nrather have an aristocracy of birth than of money. Who are the\naristocrats now--who are chosen as the best to rule? Those\nwho have money and the brains for money. It doesn't matter what\nelse they have: but they must have money-brains,--because\nthey are ruling in the name of money.\"\n\n\"The people elect the government,\" he said.\n\n\"I know they do. But what are the people? Each one of them is\na money-interest. I hate it, that anybody is my equal who has\nthe same amount of money as I have. I know I am better\nthan all of them. I hate them. They are not my equals. I hate\nequality on a money basis. It is the equality of dirt.\"\n\nHer eyes blazed at him, he felt as if she wanted to destroy\nhim. She had gripped him and was trying to break him. His anger\nsprang up, against her. At least he would fight for his\nexistence with her. A hard, blind resistance possessed him.\n\n\"I don't care about money,\" he said, \"neither do I\nwant to put my finger in the pie. I am too sensitive about my\nfinger.\"\n\n\"What is your finger to me?\" she cried, in a passion. \"You\nwith your dainty fingers, and your going to India because you\nwill be one of the somebodies there! It's a mere dodge, your\ngoing to India.\"\n\n\"In what way a dodge?\" he cried, white with anger and\nfear.\n\n\"You think the Indians are simpler than us, and so you'll\nenjoy being near them and being a lord over them,\" she said.\n\"And you'll feel so righteous, governing them for their own\ngood. Who are you, to feel righteous? What are you righteous\nabout, in your governing? Your governing stinks. What do you\ngovern for, but to make things there as dead and mean as they\nare here!\"\n\n\"I don't feel righteous in the least,\" he said.\n\n\"Then what do you feel? It's all such a nothingness,\nwhat you feel and what you don't feel.\"\n\n\"What do you feel yourself?\" he said. \"Aren't you righteous\nin your own mind?\"\n\n\"Yes, I am, because I'm against you, and all your old, dead\nthings,\" she cried.\n\nShe seemed, with the last words, uttered in hard knowledge,\nto strike down the flag that he kept flying. He felt cut off at\nthe knees, a figure made worthless. A horrible sickness gripped\nhim, as if his legs were really cut away, and he could not move,\nbut remained a crippled trunk, dependent, worthless. The ghastly\nsense of helplessness, as if he were a mere figure that did not\nexist vitally, made him mad, beside himself.\n\nNow, even whilst he was with her, this death of himself came\nover him, when he walked about like a body from which all\nindividual life is gone. In this state he neither heard nor saw\nnor felt, only the mechanism of his life continued.\n\nHe hated her, as far as, in this state, he could hate. His\ncunning suggested to him all the ways of making her esteem him.\nFor she did not esteem him. He left her and did not write to\nher. He flirted with other women, with Gudrun.\n\nThis last made her very fierce. She was still fiercely\njealous of his body. In passionate anger she upbraided him\nbecause, not being man enough to satisfy one woman, he hung\nround others.\n\n[\"Don't I satisfy you?\" he asked of her, again going white to the throat.\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"You've never satisfied me since the first week in London.\nYou never satisfy me now. What does it mean to me, your having me--\"]\nShe lifted her shoulders and turned aside her face in a motion of cold,\nindifferent worthlessness. He felt he would kill her.\n\nWhen she had roused him to a pitch of madness, when she saw\nhis eyes all dark and mad with suffering, then a great suffering\novercame her soul, a great, inconquerable suffering. And she\nloved him. For, oh, she wanted to love him. Stronger than life\nor death was her craving to be able to love him.\n\nAnd at such moments, when he was made with her destroying\nhim, when all his complacency was destroyed, all his everyday\nself was broken, and only the stripped, rudimentary, primal man\nremained, demented with torture, her passion to love him became\nlove, she took him again, they came together in an overwhelming\npassion, in which he knew he satisfied her.\n\nBut it all contained a developing germ of death. After each\ncontact, her anguished desire for him or for that which she\nnever had from him was stronger, her love was more hopeless.\nAfter each contact his mad dependence on her was deepened, his\nhope of standing strong and taking her in his own strength was\nweakened. He felt himself a mere attribute of her.\n\nWhitsuntide came, just before her examination. She was to\nhave a few days of rest. Dorothy had inherited her patrimony,\nand had taken a cottage in Sussex. She invited them to stay with\nher.\n\nThey went down to Dorothy's neat, low cottage at the foot of\nthe downs. Here they could do as they liked. Ursula was always\nyearning to go to the top of the downs. The white track wound up\nto the rounded summit. And she must go.\n\nUp there, she could see the Channel a few miles away, the sea\nraised up and faintly glittering in the sky, the Isle of Wight a\nshadow lifted in the far distance, the river winding bright\nthrough the patterned plain to seaward, Arundel Castle a shadowy\nbulk, and then the rolling of the high, smooth downs, making a\nhigh, smooth land under heaven, acknowledging only the heavens\nin their great, sun-glowing strength, and suffering only a few\nbushes to trespass on the intercourse between their great,\nunabateable body and the changeful body of the sky.\n\nBelow she saw the villages and the woods of the weald, and\nthe train running bravely, a gallant little thing, running with\nall the importance of the world over the water meadows and into\nthe gap of the downs, waving its white steam, yet all the while\nso little. So little, yet its courage carried it from end to end\nof the earth, till there was no place where it did not go. Yet\nthe downs, in magnificent indifference, bearing limbs and body\nto the sun, drinking sunshine and sea-wind and sea-wet cloud\ninto its golden skin, with superb stillness and calm of being,\nwas not the downs still more wonderful? The blind, pathetic,\nenergetic courage of the train as it steamed tinily away through\nthe patterned levels to the sea's dimness, so fast and so\nenergetic, made her weep. Where was it going? It was going\nnowhere, it was just going. So blind, so without goal or aim,\nyet so hasty! She sat on an old prehistoric earth-work and\ncried, and the tears ran down her face. The train had tunnelled\nall the earth, blindly, and uglily.\n\nAnd she lay face downwards on the downs, that were so strong,\nthat cared only for their intercourse with the everlasting\nskies, and she wished she could become a strong mound smooth\nunder the sky, bosom and limbs bared to all winds and clouds and\nbursts of sunshine.\n\nBut she must get up again and look down from her foothold of\nsunshine, down and away at the patterned, level earth, with its\nvillages and its smoke and its energy. So shortsighted the train\nseemed, running to the distance, so terrifying in their\nlittleness the villages, with such pettiness in their\nactivity.\n\nSkrebensky wandered dazed, not knowing where he was or what\nhe was doing with her. All her passion seemed to be to wander up\nthere on the downs, and when she must descend to earth, she was\nheavy. Up there she was exhilarated and free.\n\nShe would not love him in a house any more. She said she\nhated houses, and particularly she hated beds. There was\nsomething distasteful in his coming to her bed.\n\nShe would stay the night on the downs, up there, he with her.\nIt was midsummer, the days were glamorously long. At about\nhalf-past ten, when the bluey-black darkness had at last fallen,\nthey took rugs and climbed the steep track to the summit of the\ndowns, he and she.\n\nUp there, the stars were big, the earth below was gone into\ndarkness. She was free up there with the stars. Far out they saw\ntiny yellow lights--but it was very far out, at sea, or on\nland. She was free up among the stars.\n\nShe took off her clothes, and made him take off all his, and\nthey ran over the smooth, moonless turf, a long way, more than a\nmile from where they had left their clothing, running in the\ndark, soft wind, utterly naked, as naked as the downs\nthemselves. Her hair was loose and blew about her shoulders, she\nran swiftly, wearing sandals when she set off on the long run to\nthe dew-pond.\n\nIn the round dew-pond the stars were untroubled. She ventured\nsoftly into the water, grasping at the stars with her hands.\n\nAnd then suddenly she started back, running swiftly. He was\nthere, beside her, but only on sufferance. He was a screen for\nher fears. He served her. She took him, she clasped him,\nclenched him close, but her eyes were open looking at the stars,\nit was as if the stars were lying with her and entering the\nunfathomable darkness of her womb, fathoming her at last. It was\nnot him.\n\nThe dawn came. They stood together on a high place, an\nearthwork of the stone-age men, watching for the light. It came\nover the land. But the land was dark. She watched a pale rim on\nthe sky, away against the darkened land. The darkness became\nbluer. A little wind was running in from the sea behind. It\nseemed to be running to the pale rift of the dawn. And she and\nhe darkly, on an outpost of the darkness, stood watching for the\ndawn.\n\nThe light grew stronger, gushing up against the dark sapphire\nof the transparent night. The light grew stronger, whiter, then\nover it hovered a flush of rose. A flush of rose, and then\nyellow, pale, new-created yellow, the whole quivering and\npoising momentarily over the fountain on the sky's rim.\n\nThe rose hovered and quivered, burned, fused to flame, to a\ntransient red, while the yellow urged out in great waves, thrown\nfrom the ever-increasing fountain, great waves of yellow\nflinging into the sky, scattering its spray over the darkness,\nwhich became bluer and bluer, paler, till soon it would itself\nbe a radiance, which had been darkness.\n\nThe sun was coming. There was a quivering, a powerful\nterrifying swim of molten light. Then the molten source itself\nsurged forth, revealing itself. The sun was in the sky, too\npowerful to look at.\n\nAnd the ground beneath lay so still, so peaceful. Only now\nand again a cock crew. Otherwise, from the distant yellow hills\nto the pine trees at the foot of the downs, everything was newly\nwashed into being, in a flood of new, golden creation.\n\nIt was so unutterably still and perfect with promise, the\ngolden-lighted, distinct land, that Ursula's soul rocked and\nwept. Suddenly he glanced at her. The tears were running over\nher cheeks, her mouth was working strangely.\n\n\"What is the matter?\" he asked.\n\nAfter a moment's struggle with her voice.\n\n\"It is so beautiful,\" she said, looking at the glowing,\nbeautiful land. It was so beautiful, so perfect, and so\nunsullied.\n\nHe too realized what England would be in a few hours'\ntime--a blind, sordid, strenuous activity, all for nothing,\nfuming with dirty smoke and running trains and groping in the\nbowels of the earth, all for nothing. A ghastliness came over\nhim.\n\nHe looked at Ursula. Her face was wet with tears, very\nbright, like a transfiguration in the refulgent light. Nor was\nhis the hand to wipe away the burning, bright tears. He stood\napart, overcome by a cruel ineffectuality.\n\nGradually a great, helpless sorrow was rising in him. But as\nyet he was fighting it away, he was struggling for his own life.\nHe became very quiet and unaware of the things about him,\nawaiting, as it were, her judgment on him.\n\nThey returned to Nottingham, the time of her examination\ncame. She must go to London. But she would not stay with him in\nan hotel. She would go to a quiet little pension near the\nBritish Museum.\n\nThose quiet residential squares of London made a great\nimpression on her mind. They were very complete. Her mind seemed\nimprisoned in their quietness. Who was going to liberate\nher?\n\nIn the evening, her practical examinations being over, he\nwent with her to dinner at one of the hotels down the river,\nnear Richmond. It was golden and beautiful, with yellow water\nand white and scarlet-striped boat-awnings, and blue shadows\nunder the trees.\n\n\"When shall we be married?\" he asked her, quietly, simply, as\nif it were a mere question of comfort.\n\nShe watched the changing pleasure-traffic of the river. He\nlooked at her golden, puzzled museau. The knot gathered\nin his throat.\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said.\n\nA hot grief gripped his throat.\n\n\"Why don't you know--don't you want to be married?\" he\nasked her.\n\nHer head turned slowly, her face, puzzled, like a boy's face,\nexpressionless because she was trying to think, looked towards\nhis face. She did not see him, because she was pre-occupied. She\ndid not quite know what she was going to say.\n\n\"I don't think I want to be married,\" she said, and her\nnaive, troubled, puzzled eyes rested a moment on his, then\ntravelled away, pre-occupied.\n\n\"Do you mean never, or not just yet?\" he asked.\n\nThe knot in his throat grew harder, his face was drawn as if\nhe were being strangled.\n\n\"I mean never,\" she said, out of some far self which spoke\nfor once beyond her.\n\nHis drawn, strangled face watched her blankly for a few\nmoments, then a strange sound took place in his throat. She\nstarted, came to herself, and, horrified, saw him. His head made\na queer motion, the chin jerked back against the throat, the\ncurious, crowing, hiccupping sound came again, his face twisted\nlike insanity, and he was crying, crying blind and twisted as if\nsomething were broken which kept him in control.\n\n\"Tony--don't,\" she cried, starting up.\n\nIt tore every one of her nerves to see him. He made groping\nmovements to get out of his chair. But he was crying\nuncontrollably, noiselessly, with his face twisted like a mask,\ncontorted and the tears running down the amazing grooves in his\ncheeks. Blindly, his face always this horrible working mask, he\ngroped for his hat, for his way down from the terrace. It was\neight o'clock, but still brightly light. The other people were\nstaring. In great agitation, part of which was exasperation, she\nstayed behind, paid the waiter with a half-sovereign, took her\nyellow silk coat, then followed Skrebensky.\n\nShe saw him walking with brittle, blind steps along the path\nby the river. She could tell by the strange stiffness and\nbrittleness of his figure that he was still crying. Hurrying\nafter him, running, she took his arm.\n\n\"Tony,\" she cried, \"don't! Why are you like this? What are\nyou doing this for? Don't. It's not necessary.\"\n\nHe heard, and his manhood was cruelly, coldly defaced. Yet it\nwas no good. He could not gain control of his face. His face,\nhis breast, were weeping violently, as if automatically. His\nwill, his knowledge had nothing to do with it. He simply could\nnot stop.\n\nShe walked holding his arm, silent with exasperation and\nperplexity and pain. He took the uncertain steps of a blind man,\nbecause his mind was blind with weeping.\n\n\"Shall we go home? Shall we have a taxi?\" she said.\n\nHe could pay no attention. Very flustered, very agitated, she\nsignalled indefinitely to a taxi-cab that was going slowly by.\nThe driver saluted and drew up. She opened the door and pushed\nSkrebensky in, then took her own place. Her face was uplifted,\nthe mouth closed down, she looked hard and cold and ashamed. She\nwinced as the driver's dark red face was thrust round upon her,\na full-blooded, animal face with black eyebrows and a thick,\nshort-cut moustache.\n\n\"Where to, lady?\" he said, his white teeth showing. Again for\na moment she was flustered.\n\n\"Forty, Rutland Square,\" she said.\n\nHe touched his cap and stolidly set the car in motion. He\nseemed to have a league with her to ignore Skrebensky.\n\nThe latter sat as if trapped within the taxi-cab, his face\nstill working, whilst occasionally he made quick slight\nmovements of the head, to shake away his tears. He never moved\nhis hands. She could not bear to look at him. She sat with face\nuplifted and averted to the window.\n\nAt length, when she had regained some control over herself,\nshe turned again to him. He was much quieter. His face was wet,\nand twitched occasionally, his hands still lay motionless. But\nhis eyes were quite still, like a washed sky after rain, full of\na wan light, and quite steady, almost ghost-like.\n\nA pain flamed in her womb, for him.\n\n\"I didn't think I should hurt you,\" she said, laying her hand\nvery lightly, tentatively, on his arm. \"The words came without\nmy knowing. They didn't mean anything, really.\"\n\nHe remained quite still, hearing, but washed all wan and\nwithout feeling. She waited, looking at him, as if he were some\ncurious, not-understandable creature.\n\n\"You won't cry again, will you, Tony?\"\n\nSome shame and bitterness against her burned him in the\nquestion. She noticed how his moustache was soddened wet with\ntears. Taking her handkerchief, she wiped his face. The driver's\nheavy, stolid back remained always turned to them, as if\nconscious but indifferent. Skrebensky sat motionless whilst\nUrsula wiped his face, softly, carefully, and yet clumsily, not\nas well as he would have wiped it himself.\n\nHer handkerchief was too small. It was soon wet through. She\ngroped in his pocket for his own. Then, with its more ample\ncapacity, she carefully dried his face. He remained motionless\nall the while. Then she drew his cheek to hers and kissed him.\nHis face was cold. Her heart was hurt. She saw the tears welling\nquickly to his eyes again. As if he were a child, she again\nwiped away his tears. By now she herself was on the point of\nweeping. Her underlip was caught between her teeth.\n\nSo she sat still, for fear of her own tears, sitting close by\nhim, holding his hand warm and close and loving. Meanwhile the\ncar ran on, and a soft, midsummer dusk began to gather. For a\nlong while they sat motionless. Only now and again her hand\nclosed more closely, lovingly, over his hand, then gradually\nrelaxed.\n\nThe dusk began to fall. One or two lights appeared. The\ndriver drew up to light his lamps. Skrebensky moved for the\nfirst time, leaning forward to watch the driver. His face had\nalways the same still, clarified, almost childlike look,\nimpersonal.\n\nThey saw the driver's strange, full, dark face peering into\nthe lamps under drawn brows. Ursula shuddered. It was the face\nalmost of an animal yet of a quick, strong, wary animal that had\nthem within its knowledge, almost within its power. She clung\ncloser to Krebensky.\n\n\"My love?\" she said to him, questioningly, when the car was\nagain running in full motion.\n\nHe made no movement or sound. He let her hold his hand, he\nlet her reach forward, in the gathering darkness, and kiss his\nstill cheek. The crying had gone by--he would not cry any\nmore. He was whole and himself again.\n\n\"My love,\" she repeated, trying to make him notice her. But\nas yet he could not.\n\nHe watched the road. They were running by Kensington Gardens.\nFor the first time his lips opened.\n\n\"Shall we get out and go into the park,\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, quietly, not sure what was coming.\n\nAfter a moment he took the tube from its peg. She saw the\nstout, strong, self-contained driver lean his head.\n\n\"Stop at Hyde Park Corner.\"\n\nThe dark head nodded, the car ran on just the same.\n\nPresently they pulled up. Skrebensky paid the man. Ursula\nstood back. She saw the driver salute as he received his tip,\nand then, before he set the car in motion, turn and look at her,\nwith his quick, powerful, animal's look, his eyes very\nconcentrated and the whites of his eyes flickering. Then he\ndrove away into the crowd. He had let her go. She had been\nafraid.\n\nSkrebensky turned with her into the park. A band was still\nplaying and the place was thronged with people. They listened to\nthe ebbing music, then went aside to a dark seat, where they sat\nclosely, hand in hand.\n\nThen at length, as out of the silence, she said to him,\nwondering:\n\n\"What hurt you so?\"\n\nShe really did not know, at this moment.\n\n\"When you said you wanted never to marry me,\" he replied,\nwith a childish simplicity.\n\n\"But why did that hurt you so?\" she said. \"You needn't mind\neverything I say so particularly.\"\n\n\"I don't know--I didn't want to do it,\" he said, humbly,\nashamed.\n\nShe pressed his hand warmly. They sat close together,\nwatching the soldiers go by with their sweethearts, the lights\ntrailing in myriads down the great thoroughfares that beat on\nthe edge of the park.\n\n\"I didn't know you cared so much,\" she said, also humbly.\n\n\"I didn't,\" he said. \"I was knocked over myself.--But I\ncare--all the world.\"\n\nHis voice was so quiet and colourless, it made her heart go\npale with fear.\n\n\"My love!\" she said, drawing near to him. But she spoke out\nof fear, not out of love.\n\n\"I care all the world--I care for nothing\nelse--neither in life nor in death,\" he said, in the same\nsteady, colourless voice of essential truth.\n\n\"Than for what?\" she murmured duskily.\n\n\"Than for you--to be with me.\"\n\nAnd again she was afraid. Was she to be conquered by this?\nShe cowered close to him, very close to him. They sat perfectly\nstill, listening to the great, heavy, beating sound of the town,\nthe murmur of lovers going by, the footsteps of soldiers.\n\nShe shivered against him.\n\n\"You are cold?\" he said.\n\n\"A little.\"\n\n\"We will go and have some supper.\"\n\nHe was now always quiet and decided and remote, very\nbeautiful. He seemed to have some strange, cold power over\nher.\n\nThey went to a restaurant, and drank chianti. But his pale,\nwan look did not go away.\n\n\"Don't leave me to-night,\" he said at length, looking at her,\npleading. He was so strange and impersonal, she was afraid.\n\n\"But the people of my place,\" she said, quivering.\n\n\"I will explain to them--they know we are engaged.\"\n\nShe sat pale and mute. He waited.\n\n\"Shall we go?\" he said at length.\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"To an hotel.\"\n\nHer heart was hardened. Without answering, she rose to\nacquiesce. But she was now cold and unreal. Yet she could not\nrefuse him. It seemed like fate, a fate she did not want.\n\nThey went to an Italian hotel somewhere, and had a sombre\nbedroom with a very large bed, clean, but sombre. The ceiling\nwas painted with a bunch of flowers in a big medallion over the\nbed. She thought it was pretty.\n\nHe came to her, and cleaved to her very close, like steel\ncleaving and clinching on to her. Her passion was roused, it was\nfierce but cold. But it was fierce, and extreme, and good, their\npassion this night. He slept with her fast in his arms. All\nnight long he held her fast against him. She was passive,\nacquiscent. But her sleep was not very deep nor very real.\n\nShe woke in the morning to a sound of water dashed on a\ncourtyard, to sunlight streaming through a lattice. She thought\nshe was in a foreign country. And Skrebensky was there an\nincubus upon her.\n\nShe lay still, thinking, whilst his arm was round her, his\nhead against her shoulders, his body against hers, just behind\nher. He was still asleep.\n\nShe watched the sunshine coming in bars through the\npersiennes, and her immediate surroundings again melted\naway.\n\nShe was in some other land, some other world, where the old\nrestraints had dissolved and vanished, where one moved freely,\nnot afraid of one's fellow men, nor wary, nor on the defensive,\nbut calm, indifferent, at one's ease. Vaguely, in a sort of\nsilver light, she wandered at large and at ease. The bonds of\nthe world were broken. This world of England had vanished away.\nShe heard a voice in the yard below calling:\n\n\"O Giovann'--O'-O'-O'-Giovann'----!\"\n\nAnd she knew she was in a new country, in a new life. It was\nvery delicious to lie thus still, with one's soul wandering\nfreely and simply in the silver light of some other, simpler,\nmore finely natural world.\n\nBut always there was a foreboding waiting to command her. She\nbecame more aware of Skrebensky. She knew he was waking up. She\nmust modify her soul, depart from her further world, for\nhim.\n\nShe knew he was awake. He lay still, with a concrete\nstillness, not as when he slept. Then his arm tightened almost\nconvulsively upon her, and he said, half timidly:\n\n\"Did you sleep well?\"\n\n\"Very well.\"\n\n\"So did I.\"\n\nThere was a pause.\n\n\"And do you love me?\" he asked.\n\nShe turned and looked at him searchingly. He seemed outside\nher.\n\n\"I do,\" she said.\n\nBut she said it out of complacency and a desire not to be\nharried. There was a curious breach of silence between them,\nwhich frightened him.\n\nThey lay rather late, then he rang for breakfast. She wanted\nto be able to go straight downstairs and away from the place,\nwhen she got up. She was happy in this room, but the thought of\nthe publicity of the hall downstairs rather troubled her.\n\nA young Italian, a Sicilian, dark and slightly pock-marked,\nbuttoned up in a sort of grey tunic, appeared with the tray. His\nface had an almost African imperturbability, impassive,\nincomprehensible.\n\n\"One might be in Italy,\" Skrebensky said to him, genially. A\nvacant look, almost like fear, came on the fellow's face. He did\nnot understand.\n\n\"This is like Italy,\" Skrebensky explained.\n\nThe face of the Italian flashed with a non-comprehending\nsmile, he finished setting out the tray, and was gone. He did\nnot understand: he would understand nothing: he disappeared from\nthe door like a half-domesticated wild animal. It made Ursula\nshudder slightly, the quick, sharp-sighted, intent animality of\nthe man.\n\nSkrebensky was beautiful to her this morning, his face\nsoftened and transfused with suffering and with love, his\nmovements very still and gentle. He was beautiful to her, but\nshe was detached from him by a chill distance. Always she seemed\nto be bearing up against the distance that separated them. But\nhe was unaware. This morning he was transfused and beautiful.\nShe admired his movements, the way he spread honey on his roll,\nor poured out the coffee.\n\nWhen breakfast was over, she lay still again on the pillows,\nwhilst he went through his toilet. She watched him, as he\nsponged himself, and quickly dried himself with the towel. His\nbody was beautiful, his movements intent and quick, she admired\nhim and she appreciated him without reserve. He seemed completed\nnow. He aroused no fruitful fecundity in her. He seemed added\nup, finished. She knew him all round, not on any side did he\nlead into the unknown. Poignant, almost passionate appreciation\nshe felt for him, but none of the dreadful wonder, none of the\nrich fear, the connection with the unknown, or the reverence of\nlove. He was, however, unaware this morning. His body was quiet\nand fulfilled, his veins complete with satisfaction, he was\nhappy, finished.\n\nAgain she went home. But this time he went with her. He\nwanted to stay by her. He wanted her to marry him. It was\nalready July. In early September he must sail for India. He\ncould not bear to think of going alone. She must come with him.\nNervously, he kept beside her.\n\nHer examination was finished, her college career was over.\nThere remained for her now to marry or to work again. She\napplied for no post. It was concluded she would marry. India\ntempted her--the strange, strange land. But with the\nthought of Calcutta, or Bombay, or of Simla, and of the European\npopulation, India was no more attractive to her than\nNottingham.\n\nShe had failed in her examination: she had gone down: she had\nnot taken her degree. It was a blow to her. It hardened her\nsoul.\n\n\"It doesn't matter,\" he said. \"What are the odds, whether you\nare a Bachelor of Arts or not, according to the London\nUniversity? All you know, you know, and if you are Mrs.\nSkrebensky, the B.A. is meaningless.\"\n\nInstead of consoling her, this made her harder, more\nruthless. She was now up against her own fate. It was for her to\nchoose between being Mrs. Skrebensky, even Baroness Skrebensky,\nwife of a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, the Sappers, as he\ncalled them, living with the European population in\nIndia--or being Ursula Brangwen, spinster, school-mistress.\nShe was qualified by her Intermediate Arts examination. She\nwould probably even now get a post quite easily as assistant in\none of the higher grade schools, or even in Willey Green School.\nWhich was she to do?\n\nShe hated most of all entering the bondage of teaching once\nmore. Very heartily she detested it. Yet at the thought of\nmarriage and living with Skrebensky amid the European population\nin India, her soul was locked and would not budge. She had very\nlittle feeling about it: only there was a deadlock.\n\nSkrebensky waited, she waited, everybody waited for the\ndecision. When Anton talked to her, and seemed insidiously to\nsuggest himself as a husband to her, she knew how utterly locked\nout he was. On the other hand, when she saw Dorothy, and\ndiscussed the matter, she felt she would marry him promptly, at\nonce, as a sharp disavowal of adherence with Dorothy's\nviews.\n\nThe situation was almost ridiculous.\n\n\"But do you love him?\" asked Dorothy.\n\n\"It isn't a question of loving him,\" said Ursula. \"I love him\nwell enough--certainly more than I love anybody else in the\nworld. And I shall never love anybody else the same again. We\nhave had the flower of each other. But I don't care about love.\nI don't value it. I don't care whether I love or whether I\ndon't, whether I have love or whether I haven't. What is it to\nme?\"\n\nAnd she shrugged her shoulders in fierce, angry contempt.\n\nDorothy pondered, rather angry and afraid.\n\n\"Then what do you care about?\" she asked,\nexasperated.\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Ursula. \"But something impersonal.\nLove--love--love--what does it mean--what\ndoes it amount to? So much personal gratification. It doesn't\nlead anywhere.\"\n\n\"It isn't supposed to lead anywhere, is it?\" said Dorothy,\nsatirically. \"I thought it was the one thing which is an end in\nitself.\"\n\n\"Then what does it matter to me?\" cried Ursula. \"As an end in\nitself, I could love a hundred men, one after the other. Why\nshould I end with a Skrebensky? Why should I not go on, and love\nall the types I fancy, one after another, if love is an end in\nitself? There are plenty of men who aren't Anton, whom I could\nlove--whom I would like to love.\"\n\n\"Then you don't love him,\" said Dorothy.\n\n\"I tell you I do;--quite as much, and perhaps more than\nI should love any of the others. Only there are plenty of things\nthat aren't in Anton that I would love in the other men.\"\n\n\"What, for instance?\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter. But a sort of strong understanding, in\nsome men, and then a dignity, a directness, something\nunquestioned that there is in working men, and then a jolly,\nreckless passionateness that you see--a man who could\nreally let go----\"\n\nDorothy could feel that Ursula was already hankering after\nsomething else, something that this man did not give her.\n\n\"The question is, what do you want,\" propounded\nDorothy. \"Is it just other men?\"\n\nUrsula was silenced. This was her own dread. Was she just\npromiscuous?\n\n\"Because if it is,\" continued Dorothy, \"you'd better marry\nAnton. The other can only end badly.\"\n\nSo out of fear of herself Ursula was to marry Skrebensky.\n\nHe was very busy now, preparing to go to India. He must visit\nrelatives and contract business. He was almost sure of Ursula\nnow. She seemed to have given in. And he seemed to become again\nan important, self-assured man.\n\nIt was the first week in August, and he was one of a large\nparty in a bungalow on the Lincolnshire coast. It was a tennis,\ngolf, motor-car, motor-boat party, given by his great-aunt, a\nlady of social pretensions. Ursula was invited to spend the week\nwith the party.\n\nShe went rather reluctantly. Her marriage was more or less\nfixed for the twenty-eighth of the month. They were to sail for\nIndia on September the fifth. One thing she knew, in her\nsubconsciousness, and that was, she would never sail for\nIndia.\n\nShe and Anton, being important guests on account of the\ncoming marriage, had rooms in the large bungalow. It was a big\nplace, with a great central hall, two smaller writing-rooms, and\nthen two corridors from which opened eight or nine bedrooms.\nSkrebensky was put on one corridor, Ursula on the other. They\nfelt very lost, in the crowd.\n\nBeing lovers, however, they were allowed to be out alone\ntogether as much as they liked. Yet she felt very strange, in\nthis crowd of strange people, uneasy, as if she had no privacy.\nShe was not used to these homogeneous crowds. She was\nafraid.\n\nShe felt different from the rest of them, with their hard,\neasy, shallow intimacy, that seemed to cost them so little. She\nfelt she was not pronounced enough. It was a kind of\nhold-your-own unconventional atmosphere.\n\nShe did not like it. In crowds, in assemblies of people, she\nliked formality. She felt she did not produce the right effect.\nShe was not effective: she was not beautiful: she was nothing.\nEven before Skrebensky she felt unimportant, almost inferior. He\ncould take his part very well with the rest.\n\nHe and she went out into the night. There was a moon behind\nclouds, shedding a diffused light, gleaming now and again in\nbits of smoky mother-of-pearl. So they walked together on the\nwet, ribbed sands near the sea, hearing the run of the long,\nheavy waves, that made a ghostly whiteness and a whisper.\n\nHe was sure of himself. As she walked, the soft silk of her\ndress--she wore a blue shantung, full-skirted--blew\naway from the sea and flapped and clung to her legs. She wished\nit would not. Everything seemed to give her away, and she could\nnot rouse herself to deny, she was so confused.\n\nHe would lead her away to a pocket in the sand-hills, secret\namid the grey thorn-bushes and the grey, glassy grass. He held\nher close against him, felt all her firm, unutterably desirable\nmould of body through the fine fibre of the silk that fell about\nher limbs. The silk, slipping fierily on the hidden, yet\nrevealed roundness and firmness of her body, her loins, seemed\nto run in him like fire, make his brain burn like brimstone. She\nliked it, the electric fire of the silk under his hands upon her\nlimbs, the fire flew over her, as he drew nearer and nearer to\ndiscovery. She vibrated like a jet of electric, firm fluid in\nresponse. Yet she did not feel beautiful. All the time, she felt\nshe was not beautiful to him, only exciting. [She let him take her,\nand he seemed mad, mad with excited passion. But she, as she lay\nafterwards on the cold, soft sand, looking up at the blotted,\nfaintly luminous sky, felt that she was as cold now as she\nhad been before. Yet he, breathing heavily, seemed almost savagely\nsatisfied. He seemed revenged.\n\nA little wind wafted the sea grass and passed over her face. Where was the\nsupreme fulfilment she would never enjoy? Why was she so cold, so\nunroused, so indifferent?\n\nAs they went home, and she saw the many, hateful lights of the bungalow,\nof several bungalows in a group, he said softly:\n\n\"Don't lock your door.\"\n\n\"I'd rather, here,\" she said.\n\n\"No, don't. We belong to each other. Don't let us deny it.\"\n\nShe did not answer. He took her silence for consent.\n\nHe shared his room with another man.\n\n\"I suppose,\" he said, \"it won't alarm the house if I go across to happier\nregions.\"\n\n\"So long as you don't make a great row going, and don't try the wrong\ndoor,\" said the other man, turning in to sleep.\n\nSkrebensky went out in his wide-striped sleeping suit. He crossed the big\ndining hall, whose low firelight smelled of cigars and whisky and coffee,\nentered the other corridor and found Ursula's room. She was lying awake,\nwide-eyed and suffering. She was glad he had come, if only for\nconsolation. It was consolation to be held in his arms, to feel his body\nagainst hers. Yet how foreign his arms and body were! Yet still, not so\nhorribly foreign and hostile as the rest of the house felt to her.\n\nShe did not know how she suffered in this house. She was\nhealthy and exorbitantly full of interest. So she played tennis\nand learned golf, she rowed out and swam in the deep sea, and\nenjoyed it very much indeed, full of zest. Yet all the time,\namong those others, she felt shocked and wincing, as if her\nviolently-sensitive nakedness were exposed to the hard, brutal,\nmaterial impact of the rest of the people.\n\nThe days went by unmarked, in a full, almost strenuous\nenjoyment of one's own physique. Skrebensky was one among the\nothers, till evening came, and he took her for himself. She was\nallowed a great deal of freedom and was treated with a good deal\nof respect, as a girl on the eve of marriage, about to depart\nfor another continent.\n\nThe trouble began at evening. Then a yearning for something\nunknown came over her, a passion for something she knew not\nwhat. She would walk the foreshore alone after dusk, expecting,\nexpecting something, as if she had gone to a rendezvous. The\nsalt, bitter passion of the sea, its indifference to the earth,\nits swinging, definite motion, its strength, its attack, and its\nsalt burning, seemed to provoke her to a pitch of madness,\ntantalizing her with vast suggestions of fulfilment. And then,\nfor personification, would come Skrebensky, Skrebensky, whom she\nknew, whom she was fond of, who was attractive, but whose soul\ncould not contain her in its waves of strength, nor his breast\ncompel her in burning, salty passion.\n\nOne evening they went out after dinner, across the low golf\nlinks to the dunes and the sea. The sky had small, faint stars,\nall was still and faintly dark. They walked together in silence,\nthen ploughed, labouring, through the heavy loose sand of the\ngap between the dunes. They went in silence under the even,\nfaint darkness, in the darker shadow of the sandhills.\n\nSuddenly, cresting the heavy, sandy pass, Ursula lifted her\nhead, and shrank back, momentarily frightened. There was a great\nwhiteness confronting her, the moon was incandescent as a round\nfurnace door, out of which came the high blast of moonlight,\nover the seaward half of the world, a dazzling, terrifying glare\nof white light. They shrank back for a moment into shadow,\nuttering a cry. He felt his chest laid bare, where the secret\nwas heavily hidden. He felt himself fusing down to nothingness,\nlike a bead that rapidly disappears in an incandescent\nflame.\n\n\"How wonderful!\" cried Ursula, in low, calling tones. \"How\nwonderful!\"\n\nAnd she went forward, plunging into it. He followed behind.\nShe too seemed to melt into the glare, towards the moon.\n\nThe sands were as ground silver, the sea moved in solid\nbrightness, coming towards them, and she went to meet the\nadvance of the flashing, buoyant water. [She gave her breast\nto the moon, her belly to the flashing, heaving water.] He stood\nbehind, encompassed, a shadow ever dissolving.\n\nShe stood on the edge of the water, at the edge of the solid,\nflashing body of the sea, and the wave rushed over her feet.\n\n\"I want to go,\" she cried, in a strong, dominant voice. \"I\nwant to go.\"\n\nHe saw the moonlight on her face, so she was like metal, he\nheard her ringing, metallic voice, like the voice of a harpy to\nhim.\n\nShe prowled, ranging on the edge of the water like a\npossessed creature, and he followed her. He saw the froth of the\nwave followed by the hard, bright water swirl over her feet and\nher ankles, she swung out her arms, to balance, he expected\nevery moment to see her walk into the sea, dressed as she was,\nand be carried swimming out.\n\nBut she turned, she walked to him.\n\n\"I want to go,\" she cried again, in the high, hard voice,\nlike the scream of gulls.\n\n\"Where?\" he asked.\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\nAnd she seized hold of his arm, held him fast, as if captive,\nand walked him a little way by the edge of the dazzling, dazing\nwater.\n\nThen there in the great flare of light, she clinched hold of\nhim, hard, as if suddenly she had the strength of destruction,\nshe fastened her arms round him and tightened him in her grip,\nwhilst her mouth sought his in a hard, rending, ever-increasing\nkiss, till his body was powerless in her grip, his heart melted\nin fear from the fierce, beaked, harpy's kiss. The water washed\nagain over their feet, but she took no notice. She seemed\nunaware, she seemed to be pressing in her beaked mouth till she\nhad the heart of him. Then, at last, she drew away and looked at\nhim--looked at him. He knew what she wanted. He took her by\nthe hand and led her across the foreshore, back to the\nsandhills. She went silently. He felt as if the ordeal of proof\nwas upon him, for life or death. He led her to a dark\nhollow.\n\n\"No, here,\" she said, going out to the slope full under the\nmoonshine. She lay motionless, with wide-open eyes looking at\nthe moon. He came direct to her, without preliminaries. She held\nhim pinned down at the chest, awful. The fight, the struggle for\nconsummation was terrible. It lasted till it was agony to his\nsoul, till he succumbed, till he gave way as if dead, lay with\nhis face buried, partly in her hair, partly in the sand,\nmotionless, as if he would be motionless now for ever, hidden\naway in the dark, buried, only buried, he only wanted to be\nburied in the goodly darkness, only that, and no more.\n\nHe seemed to swoon. It was a long time before he came to\nhimself. He was aware of an unusual motion of her breast. He\nlooked up. Her face lay like an image in the moonlight, the eyes\nwide open, rigid. But out of the eyes, slowly, there rolled a\ntear, that glittered in the moonlight as it ran down her\ncheek.\n\nHe felt as if as the knife were being pushed into his already\ndead body. With head strained back, he watched, drawn tense, for\nsome minutes, watched the unaltering, rigid face like metal in\nthe moonlight, the fixed, unseeing eye, in which slowly the\nwater gathered, shook with glittering moonlight, then\nsurcharged, brimmed over and ran trickling, a tear with its\nburden of moonlight, into the darkness, to fall in the sand.\n\nHe drew gradually away as if afraid, drew away--she did\nnot move. He glanced at her--she lay the same. Could he\nbreak away? He turned, saw the open foreshore, clear in front of\nhim, and he plunged away, on and on, ever farther from the\nhorrible figure that lay stretched in the moonlight on the sands\nwith the tears gathering and travelling on the motionless,\neternal face.\n\nHe felt, if ever he must see her again, his bones must be\nbroken, his body crushed, obliterated for ever. And as yet, he\nhad the love of his own living body. He wandered on a long, long\nway, till his brain drew dark and he was unconscious with\nweariness. Then he curled in the deepest darkness he could find,\nunder the sea-grass, and lay there without consciousness.\n\nShe broke from her tense cramp of agony gradually, though\neach movement was a goad of heavy pain. Gradually, she lifted\nher dead body from the sands, and rose at last. There was now no\nmoon for her, no sea. All had passed away. She trailed her dead\nbody to the house, to her room, where she lay down inert.\n\nMorning brought her a new access of superficial life. But all\nwithin her was cold, dead, inert. Skrebensky appeared at\nbreakfast. He was white and obliterated. They did not look at\neach other nor speak to each other. Apart from the ordinary,\ntrivial talk of civil people, they were separate, they did not\nspeak of what was between them during the remaining two days of\ntheir stay. They were like two dead people who dare not\nrecognize, dare not see each other.\n\nThen she packed her bag and put on her things. There were\nseveral guests leaving together, for the same train. He would\nhave no opportunity to speak to her.\n\nHe tapped at her bedroom door at the last minute. She stood\nwith her umbrella in her hand. He closed the door. He did not\nknow what to say.\n\n\"Have you done with me?\" he asked her at length, lifting his\nhead.\n\n\"It isn't me,\" she said. \"You have done with me--we have\ndone with each other.\"\n\nHe looked at her, at the closed face, which he thought so\ncruel. And he knew he could never touch her again. His will was\nbroken, he was seared, but he clung to the life of his body.\n\n\"Well, what have I done?\" he asked, in a rather querulous\nvoice.\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said, in the same dull, feelingless\nvoice. \"It is finished. It had been a failure.\"\n\nHe was silent. The words still burned his bowels.\n\n\"Is it my fault?\" he said, looking up at length, challenging\nthe last stroke.\n\n\"You couldn't----\" she began. But she broke\ndown.\n\nHe turned away, afraid to hear more. She began to gather her\nbag, her handkerchief, her umbrella. She must be gone now. He\nwas waiting for her to be gone.\n\nAt length the carriage came and she drove away with the rest.\nWhen she was out of sight, a great relief came over him, a\npleasant banality. In an instant, everything was obliterated. He\nwas childishly amiable and companionable all the day long. He\nwas astonished that life could be so nice. It was better than it\nhad been before. What a simple thing it was to be rid of her!\nHow friendly and simple everything felt to him. What false thing\nhad she been forcing on him?\n\nBut at night he dared not be alone. His room-mate had gone,\nand the hours of darkness were an agony to him. He watched the\nwindow in suffering and terror. When would this horrible\ndarkness be lifted off him? Setting all his nerves, he endured\nit. He went to sleep with the dawn.\n\nHe never thought of her. Only his terror of the hours of\nnight grew on him, obsessed him like a mania. He slept fitfully,\nwith constant wakings of anguish. The fear wore away the core of\nhim.\n\nHis plan was to sit up very late: drink in company until one\nor half-past one in the morning; then he would get three hours\nof sleep, of oblivion. It was light by five o'clock. But he was\nshocked almost to madness if he opened his eyes on the\ndarkness.\n\nIn the daytime he was all right, always occupied with the\nthing of the moment, adhering to the trivial present, which\nseemed to him ample and satisfying. No matter how little and\nfutile his occupations were, he gave himself to them entirely,\nand felt normal and fulfilled. He was always active, cheerful,\ngay, charming, trivial. Only he dreaded the darkness and silence\nof his own bedroom, when the darkness should challenge him upon\nhis own soul. That he could not bear, as he could not bear to\nthink about Ursula. He had no soul, no background. He never\nthought of Ursula, not once, he gave her no sign. She was the\ndarkness, the challenge, the horror. He turned to immediate\nthings. He wanted to marry quickly, to screen himself from the\ndarkness, the challenge of his own soul. He would marry his\nColonel's daughter. Quickly, without hesitation, pursued by his\nobsession for activity, he wrote to this girl, telling her his\nengagement was broken--it had been a temporary infatuation\nwhich he less than any one else could understand now it was\nover--and could he see his very dear friend soon? He would\nnot be happy till he had an answer.\n\nHe received a rather surprised reply from the girl, but she\nwould be glad to see him. She was living with her aunt. He went\ndown to her at once, and proposed to her the first evening. He\nwas accepted. The marriage took place quietly within fourteen\ndays' time. Ursula was not notified of the event. In another\nweek, Skrebensky sailed with his new wife to India.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nTHE RAINBOW\n\nUrsula went home to Beldover faint, dim, closed up. She could\nscarcely speak or notice. It was as if her energy were frozen.\nHer people asked her what was the matter. She told them she had\nbroken off the engagement with Skrebensky. They looked blank and\nangry. But she could not feel any more.\n\nThe weeks crawled by in apathy. He would have sailed for\nIndia now. She was scarcely interested. She was inert, without\nstrength or interest.\n\nSuddenly a shock ran through her, so violent that she thought\nshe was struck down. Was she with child? She had been so\nstricken under the pain of herself and of him, this had never\noccurred to her. Now like a flame it took hold of her limbs and\nbody. Was she with child?\n\nIn the first flaming hours of wonder, she did not know what\nshe felt. She was as if tied to the stake. The flames were\nlicking her and devouring her. But the flames were also good.\nThey seemed to wear her away to rest. What she felt in her heart\nand her womb she did not know. It was a kind of swoon.\n\nThen gradually the heaviness of her heart pressed and pressed\ninto consciousness. What was she doing? Was she bearing a child?\nBearing a child? To what?\n\nHer flesh thrilled, but her soul was sick. It seemed, this\nchild, like the seal set on her own nullity. Yet she was glad in\nher flesh that she was with child. She began to think, that she\nwould write to Skrebensky, that she would go out to him, and\nmarry him, and live simply as a good wife to him. What did the\nself, the form of life matter? Only the living from day to day\nmattered, the beloved existence in the body, rich, peaceful,\ncomplete, with no beyond, no further trouble, no further\ncomplication. She had been wrong, she had been arrogant and\nwicked, wanting that other thing, that fantastic freedom, that\nillusory, conceited fulfilment which she had imagined she could\nnot have with Skrebensky. Who was she to be wanting some\nfantastic fulfilment in her life? Was it not enough that she had\nher man, her children, her place of shelter under the sun? Was\nit not enough for her, as it had been enough for her mother? She\nwould marry and love her husband and fill her place simply. That\nwas the ideal.\n\nSuddenly she saw her mother in a just and true light. Her\nmother was simple and radically true. She had taken the life\nthat was given. She had not, in her arrogant conceit, insisted\non creating life to fit herself. Her mother was right,\nprofoundly right, and she herself had been false, trashy,\nconceited.\n\nA great mood of humility came over her, and in this humility\na bondaged sort of peace. She gave her limbs to the bondage, she\nloved the bondage, she called it peace. In this state she sat\ndown to write to Skrebensky.\n\nSince you left me I have suffered a great deal, and so have\ncome to myself. I cannot tell you the remorse I feel for my\nwicked, perverse behaviour. It was given to me to love you, and\nto know your love for me. But instead of thankfully, on my\nknees, taking what God had given me, I must have the moon in my\nkeeping, I must insist on having the moon for my own. Because I\ncould not have it, everything else must go.\n\nI do not know if you can ever forgive me. I could die with\nshame to think of my behaviour with you during our last times,\nand I don't know if I could ever bear to look you in the face\nagain. Truly the best thing would be for me to die, and cover my\nfantasies for ever. But I find I am with child, so that cannot\nbe.\n\nIt is your child, and for that reason I must revere it and\nsubmit my body entirely to its welfare, entertaining no thought\nof death, which once more is largely conceit. Therefore, because\nyou once loved me, and because this child is your child, I ask\nyou to have me back. If you will cable me one word, I will come\nto you as soon as I can. I swear to you to be a dutiful wife,\nand to serve you in all things. For now I only hate myself and\nmy own conceited foolishness. I love you--I love the\nthought of you--you were natural and decent all through,\nwhilst I was so false. Once I am with you again, I shall ask no\nmore than to rest in your shelter all my life----\n\nThis letter she wrote, sentence by sentence, as if from her\ndeepest, sincerest heart. She felt that now, now, she was at the\ndepths of herself. This was her true self, forever. With this\ndocument she would appear before God at the Judgment Day.\n\nFor what had a woman but to submit? What was her flesh but\nfor childbearing, her strength for her children and her husband,\nthe giver of life? At last she was a woman.\n\nShe posted her letter to his club, to be forwarded to him in\nCalcutta. He would receive it soon after his arrival in\nIndia--within three weeks of his arrival there. In a\nmonth's time she would receive word from him. Then she would\ngo.\n\nShe was quite sure of him. She thought only of preparing her\ngarments and of living quietly, peacefully, till the time when\nshe should join him again and her history would be concluded for\never. The peace held like an unnatural calm for a long time. She\nwas aware, however, of a gathering restiveness, a tumult\nimpending within her. She tried to run away from it. She wished\nshe could hear from Skrebensky, in answer to her letter, so that\nher course should be resolved, she should be engaged in\nfulfilling her fate. It was this inactivity which made her\nliable to the revulsion she dreaded.\n\nIt was curious how little she cared about his not having\nwritten to her before. It was enough that she had sent her\nletter. She would get the required answer, that was all.\n\nOne afternoon in early October, feeling the seething rising\nto madness within her, she slipped out in the rain, to walk\nabroad, lest the house should suffocate her. Everywhere was\ndrenched wet and deserted, the grimed houses glowed dull red,\nthe butt houses burned scarlet in a gleam of light, under the\nglistening, blackish purple slates. Ursula went on towards\nWilley Green. She lifted her face and walked swiftly, seeing the\npassage of light across the shallow valley, seeing the colliery\nand its clouds of steam for a moment visionary in dim\nbrilliance, away in the chaos of rain. Then the veils closed\nagain. She was glad of the rain's privacy and intimacy.\n\nMaking on towards the wood, she saw the pale gleam of Willey\nWater through the cloud below, she walked the open space where\nhawthorn trees streamed like hair on the wind and round bushes\nwere presences slowing through the atmosphere. It was very\nsplendid, free and chaotic.\n\nYet she hurried to the wood for shelter. There, the vast\nbooming overhead vibrated down and encircled her, tree-trunks\nspanned the circle of tremendous sound, myriads of tree-trunks,\nenormous and streaked black with water, thrust like stanchions\nupright between the roaring overhead and the sweeping of the\ncircle underfoot. She glided between the tree-trunks, afraid of\nthem. They might turn and shut her in as she went through their\nmartialled silence.\n\nSo she flitted along, keeping an illusion that she was\nunnoticed. She felt like a bird that has flown in through the\nwindow of a hall where vast warriors sit at the board. Between\ntheir grave, booming ranks she was hastening, assuming she was\nunnoticed, till she emerged, with beating heart, through the far\nwindow and out into the open, upon the vivid green, marshy\nmeadow.\n\nShe turned under the shelter of the common, seeing the great\nveils of rain swinging with slow, floating waves across the\nlandscape. She was very wet and a long way from home, far\nenveloped in the rain and the waving landscape. She must beat\nher way back through all this fluctuation, back to stability and\nsecurity.\n\nA solitary thing, she took the track straight across the\nwilderness, going back. The path was a narrow groove in the turf\nbetween high, sere, tussocky grass; it was scarcely more than a\nrabbit run. So she moved swiftly along, watching her footing,\ngoing like a bird on the wind, with no thought, contained in\nmotion. But her heart had a small, living seed of fear, as she\nwent through the wash of hollow space.\n\nSuddenly she knew there was something else. Some horses were\nlooming in the rain, not near yet. But they were going to be\nnear. She continued her path, inevitably. They were horses in\nthe lee of a clump of trees beyond, above her. She pursued her\nway with bent head. She did not want to lift her face to them.\nShe did not want to know they were there. She went on in the\nwild track.\n\nShe knew the heaviness on her heart. It was the weight of the\nhorses. But she would circumvent them. She would bear the weight\nsteadily, and so escape. She would go straight on, and on, and\nbe gone by.\n\nSuddenly the weight deepened and her heart grew tense to bear\nit. Her breathing was laboured. But this weight also she could\nbear. She knew without looking that the horses were moving\nnearer. What were they? She felt the thud of their heavy hoofs\non the ground. What was it that was drawing near her, what\nweight oppressing her heart? She did not know, she did not\nlook.\n\nYet now her way was cut off. They were blocking her back. She\nknew they had gathered on a log bridge over the sedgy dike, a\ndark, heavy, powerfully heavy knot. Yet her feet went on and on.\nThey would burst before her. They would burst before her. Her\nfeet went on and on. And tense, and more tense became her nerves\nand her veins, they ran hot, they ran white hot, they must fuse\nand she must die.\n\nBut the horses had burst before her. In a sort of lightning\nof knowledge their movement travelled through her, the quiver\nand strain and thrust of their powerful flanks, as they burst\nbefore her and drew on, beyond.\n\nShe knew they had not gone, she knew they awaited her still.\nBut she went on over the log bridge that their hoofs had churned\nand drummed, she went on, knowing things about them. She was\naware of their breasts gripped, clenched narrow in a hold that\nnever relaxed, she was aware of their red nostrils flaming with\nlong endurance, and of their haunches, so rounded, so massive,\npressing, pressing, pressing to burst the grip upon their\nbreasts, pressing for ever till they went mad, running against\nthe walls of time, and never bursting free. Their great haunches\nwere smoothed and darkened with rain. But the darkness and\nwetness of rain could not put out the hard, urgent, massive fire\nthat was locked within these flanks, never, never.\n\nShe went on, drawing near. She was aware of the great flash\nof hoofs, a bluish, iridescent flash surrounding a hollow of\ndarkness. Large, large seemed the bluish, incandescent flash of\nthe hoof-iron, large as a halo of lightning round the knotted\ndarkness of the flanks. Like circles of lightning came the flash\nof hoofs from out of the powerful flanks.\n\nThey were awaiting her again. They had gathered under an oak\ntree, knotting their awful, blind, triumphing flanks together,\nand waiting, waiting. They were waiting for her approach. As if\nfrom a far distance she was drawing near, towards the line of\ntwiggy oak trees where they made their intense darkness,\ngathered on a single bank.\n\nShe must draw near. But they broke away, they cantered round,\nmaking a wide circle to avoid noticing her, and cantered back\ninto the open hillside behind her.\n\nThey were behind her. The way was open before her, to the\ngate in the high hedge in the near distance, so she could pass\ninto the smaller, cultivated field, and so out to the high-road\nand the ordered world of man. Her way was clear. She lulled her\nheart. Yet her heart was couched with fear, couched with fear\nall along.\n\nSuddenly she hesitated as if seized by lightning. She seemed\nto fall, yet found herself faltering forward with small steps.\nThe thunder of horses galloping down the path behind her shook\nher, the weight came down upon her, down, to the moment of\nextinction. She could not look round, so the horses thundered\nupon her.\n\nCruelly, they swerved and crashed by on her left hand. She\nsaw the fierce flanks crinkled and as yet inadequate, the great\nhoofs flashing bright as yet only brandished about her, and one\nby one the horses crashed by, intent, working themselves up.\n\nThey had gone by, brandishing themselves thunderously about\nher, enclosing her. They slackened their burst transport, they\nslowed down, and cantered together into a knot once more, in the\ncorner by the gate and the trees ahead of her. They stirred,\nthey moved uneasily, they settled their uneasy flanks into one\ngroup, one purpose. They were up against her.\n\nHer heart was gone, she had no more heart. She knew she dare\nnot draw near. That concentrated, knitted flank of the\nhorse-group had conquered. It stirred uneasily, awaiting her,\nknowing its triumph. It stirred uneasily, with the uneasiness of\nawaited triumph. Her heart was gone, her limbs were dissolved,\nshe was dissolved like water. All the hardness and looming power\nwas in the massive body of the horse-group.\n\nHer feet faltered, she came to a standstill. It was the\ncrisis. The horses stirred their flanks uneasily. She looked\naway, failing. On her left, two hundred yards down the slope,\nthe thick hedge ran parallel. At one point there was an oak\ntree. She might climb into the boughs of that oak tree, and so\nround and drop on the other side of the hedge.\n\nShuddering, with limbs like water, dreading every moment to\nfall, she began to work her way as if making a wide detour round\nthe horse-mass. The horses stirred their flanks in a knot\nagainst her. She trembled forward as if in a trance.\n\nThen suddenly, in a flame of agony, she darted, seized the\nrugged knots of the oak tree and began to climb. Her body was\nweak but her hands were as hard as steel. She knew she was\nstrong. She struggled in a great effort till she hung on the\nbough. She knew the horses were aware. She gained her foot-hold\non the bough. The horses were loosening their knot, stirring,\ntrying to realize. She was working her way round to the other\nside of the tree. As they started to canter towards her, she\nfell in a heap on the other side of the hedge.\n\nFor some moments she could not move. Then she saw through the\nrabbit-cleared bottom of the hedge the great, working hoofs of\nthe horses as they cantered near. She could not bear it. She\nrose and walked swiftly, diagonally across the field. The horses\ngalloped along the other side of the hedge to the corner, where\nthey were held up. She could feel them there in their huddled\ngroup all the while she hastened across the bare field. They\nwere almost pathetic, now. Her will alone carried her, till,\ntrembling, she climbed the fence under a leaning thorn tree that\noverhung the grass by the high-road. The use went from her, she\nsat on the fence leaning back against the trunk of the thorn\ntree, motionless.\n\nAs she sat there, spent, time and the flux of change passed\naway from her, she lay as if unconscious upon the bed of the\nstream, like a stone, unconscious, unchanging, unchangeable,\nwhilst everything rolled by in transience, leaving her there, a\nstone at rest on the bed of the stream, inalterable and passive,\nsunk to the bottom of all change.\n\nShe lay still a long time, with her back against the thorn\ntree trunk, in her final isolation. Some colliers passed,\ntramping heavily up the wet road, their voices sounding out,\ntheir shoulders up to their ears, their figures blotched and\nspectral in the rain. Some did not see her. She opened her eyes\nlanguidly as they passed by. Then one man going alone saw her.\nThe whites of his eyes showed in his black face as he looked in\nwonderment at her. He hesitated in his walk, as if to speak to\nher, out of frightened concern for her. How she dreaded his\nspeaking to her, dreaded his questioning her.\n\nShe slipped from her seat and went vaguely along the\npath--vaguely. It was a long way home. She had an idea that\nshe must walk for the rest of her life, wearily, wearily. Step\nafter step, step after step, and always along the wet, rainy\nroad between the hedges. Step after step, step after step, the\nmonotony produced a deep, cold sense of nausea in her. How\nprofound was her cold nausea, how profound! That too plumbed the\nbottom. She seemed destined to find the bottom of all things\nto-day: the bottom of all things. Well, at any rate she was\nwalking along the bottom-most bed--she was quite safe:\nquite safe, if she had to go on and on for ever, seeing this was\nthe very bottom, and there was nothing deeper. There was nothing\ndeeper, you see, so one could not but feel certain, passive.\n\nShe arrived home at last. The climb up the hill to Beldover\nhad been very trying. Why must one climb the hill? Why must one\nclimb? Why not stay below? Why force one's way up the slope? Why\nforce one's way up and up, when one is at the bottom? Oh, it was\nvery trying, very wearying, very burdensome. Always burdens,\nalways, always burdens. Still, she must get to the top and go\nhome to bed. She must go to bed.\n\nShe got in and went upstairs in the dusk without its being\nnoticed she was in such a sodden condition. She was too tired to\ngo downstairs again. She got into bed and lay shuddering with\ncold, yet too apathetic to get up or call for relief. Then\ngradually she became more ill.\n\nShe was very ill for a fortnight, delirious, shaken and\nracked. But always, amid the ache of delirium, she had a dull\nfirmness of being, a sense of permanency. She was in some way\nlike the stone at the bottom of the river, inviolable and\nunalterable, no matter what storm raged in her body. Her soul\nlay still and permanent, full of pain, but itself for ever.\nUnder all her illness, persisted a deep, inalterable\nknowledge.\n\nShe knew, and she cared no more. Throughout her illness,\ndistorted into vague forms, persisted the question of herself\nand Skrebensky, like a gnawing ache that was still superficial,\nand did not touch her isolated, impregnable core of reality. But\nthe corrosion of him burned in her till it burned itself\nout.\n\nMust she belong to him, must she adhere to him? Something\ncompelled her, and yet it was not real. Always the ache, the\nache of unreality, of her belonging to Skrebensky. What bound\nher to him when she was not bound to him? Why did the falsity\npersist? Why did the falsity gnaw, gnaw, gnaw at her, why could\nshe not wake up to clarity, to reality. If she could but wake\nup, if she could but wake up, the falsity of the dream, of her\nconnection with Skrebensky, would be gone. But the sleep, the\ndelirium pinned her down. Even when she was calm and sober she\nwas in its spell.\n\nYet she was never in its spell. What extraneous thing bound\nher to him? There was some bond put upon her. Why could she not\nbreak it through? What was it? What was it?\n\nIn her delirium she beat and beat at the question. And at\nlast her weariness gave her the answer--it was the child.\nThe child bound her to him. The child was like a bond round her\nbrain, tightened on her brain. It bound her to Skrebensky.\n\nBut why, why did it bind her to Skrebensky? Could she not\nhave a child of herself? Was not the child her own affair? all\nher own affair? What had it to do with him? Why must she be\nbound, aching and cramped with the bondage, to Skrebensky and\nSkrebensky's world? Anton's world: it became in her feverish\nbrain a compression which enclosed her. If she could not get out\nof the compression she would go mad. The compression was Anton\nand Anton's world, not the Anton she possessed, but the Anton\nshe did not possess, that which was owned by some other\ninfluence, by the world.\n\nShe fought and fought and fought all through her illness to\nbe free of him and his world, to put it aside, to put it aside,\ninto its place. Yet ever anew it gained ascendency over her, it\nlaid new hold on her. Oh, the unutterable weariness of her\nflesh, which she could not cast off, nor yet extricate. If she\ncould but extricate herself, if she could but disengage herself\nfrom feeling, from her body, from all the vast encumbrances of\nthe world that was in contact with her, from her father, and her\nmother, and her lover, and all her acquaintance.\n\nRepeatedly, in an ache of utter weariness she repeated: \"I\nhave no father nor mother nor lover, I have no allocated place\nin the world of things, I do not belong to Beldover nor to\nNottingham nor to England nor to this world, they none of them\nexist, I am trammelled and entangled in them, but they are all\nunreal. I must break out of it, like a nut from its shell which\nis an unreality.\"\n\nAnd again, to her feverish brain, came the vivid reality of\nacorns in February lying on the floor of a wood with their\nshells burst and discarded and the kernel issued naked to put\nitself forth. She was the naked, clear kernel thrusting forth\nthe clear, powerful shoot, and the world was a bygone winter,\ndiscarded, her mother and father and Anton, and college and all\nher friends, all cast off like a year that has gone by, whilst\nthe kernel was free and naked and striving to take new root, to\ncreate a new knowledge of Eternity in the flux of Time. And the\nkernel was the only reality; the rest was cast off into\noblivion.\n\nThis grew and grew upon her. When she opened her eyes in the\nafternoon and saw the window of her room and the faint, smoky\nlandscape beyond, this was all husk and shell lying by, all husk\nand shell, she could see nothing else, she was enclosed still,\nbut loosely enclosed. There was a space between her and the\nshell. It was burst, there was a rift in it. Soon she would have\nher root fixed in a new Day, her nakedness would take itself the\nbed of a new sky and a new air, this old, decaying, fibrous husk\nwould be gone.\n\nGradually she began really to sleep. She slept in the\nconfidence of her new reality. She slept breathing with her soul\nthe new air of a new world. The peace was very deep and\nenrichening. She had her root in new ground, she was gradually\nabsorbed into growth.\n\nWhen she woke at last it seemed as if a new day had come on\nthe earth. How long, how long had she fought through the dust\nand obscurity, for this new dawn? How frail and fine and clear\nshe felt, like the most fragile flower that opens in the end of\nwinter. But the pole of night was turned and the dawn was coming\nin.\n\nVery far off was her old experience--Skrebensky, her\nparting with him--very far off. Some things were real;\nthose first glamorous weeks. Before, these had seemed like\nhallucination. Now they seemed like common reality. The rest was\nunreal. She knew that Skrebensky had never become finally real.\nIn the weeks of passionate ecstasy he had been with her in her\ndesire, she had created him for the time being. But in the end\nhe had failed and broken down.\n\nStrange, what a void separated him and her. She liked him\nnow, as she liked a memory, some bygone self. He was something\nof the past, finite. He was that which is known. She felt a\npoignant affection for him, as for that which is past. But, when\nshe looked with her face forward, he was not. Nay, when she\nlooked ahead, into the undiscovered land before her, what was\nthere she could recognize but a fresh glow of light and\ninscrutable trees going up from the earth like smoke. It was the\nunknown, the unexplored, the undiscovered upon whose shore she\nhad landed, alone, after crossing the void, the darkness which\nwashed the New World and the Old.\n\nThere would be no child: she was glad. If there had been a\nchild, it would have made little difference, however. She would\nhave kept the child and herself, she would not have gone to\nSkrebensky. Anton belonged to the past.\n\nThere came the cablegram from Skrebensky: \"I am married.\" An\nold pain and anger and contempt stirred in her. Did he belong so\nutterly to the cast-off past? She repudiated him. He was as he\nwas. It was good that he was as he was. Who was she to have a\nman according to her own desire? It was not for her to create,\nbut to recognize a man created by God. The man should come from\nthe Infinite and she should hail him. She was glad she could not\ncreate her man. She was glad she had nothing to do with his\ncreation. She was glad that this lay within the scope of that\nvaster power in which she rested at last. The man would come out\nof Eternity to which she herself belonged.\n\nAs she grew better, she sat to watch a new creation. As she\nsat at her window, she saw the people go by in the street below,\ncolliers, women, children, walking each in the husk of an old\nfruition, but visible through the husk, the swelling and the\nheaving contour of the new germination. In the still, silenced\nforms of the colliers she saw a sort of suspense, a waiting in\npain for the new liberation; she saw the same in the false hard\nconfidence of the women. The confidence of the women was\nbrittle. It would break quickly to reveal the strength and\npatient effort of the new germination.\n\nIn everything she saw she grasped and groped to find the\ncreation of the living God, instead of the old, hard barren form\nof bygone living. Sometimes great terror possessed her.\nSometimes she lost touch, she lost her feeling, she could only\nknow the old horror of the husk which bound in her and all\nmankind. They were all in prison, they were all going mad.\n\nShe saw the stiffened bodies of the colliers, which seemed\nalready enclosed in a coffin, she saw their unchanging eyes, the\neyes of those who are buried alive: she saw the hard, cutting\nedges of the new houses, which seemed to spread over the\nhillside in their insentient triumph, the triumph of horrible,\namorphous angles and straight lines, the expression of\ncorruption triumphant and unopposed, corruption so pure that it\nis hard and brittle: she saw the dun atmosphere over the\nblackened hills opposite, the dark blotches of houses, slate\nroofed and amorphous, the old church-tower standing up in\nhideous obsoleteness above raw new houses on the crest of the\nhill, the amorphous, brittle, hard edged new houses advancing\nfrom Beldover to meet the corrupt new houses from Lethley, the\nhouses of Lethley advancing to mix with the houses of Hainor, a\ndry, brittle, terrible corruption spreading over the face of the\nland, and she was sick with a nausea so deep that she perished\nas she sat. And then, in the blowing clouds, she saw a band of\nfaint iridescence colouring in faint colours a portion of the\nhill. And forgetting, startled, she looked for the hovering\ncolour and saw a rainbow forming itself. In one place it gleamed\nfiercely, and, her heart anguished with hope, she sought the\nshadow of iris where the bow should be. Steadily the colour\ngathered, mysteriously, from nowhere, it took presence upon\nitself, there was a faint, vast rainbow. The arc bended and\nstrengthened itself till it arched indomitable, making great\narchitecture of light and colour and the space of heaven, its\npedestals luminous in the corruption of new houses on the low\nhill, its arch the top of heaven.\n\nAnd the rainbow stood on the earth. She knew that the sordid\npeople who crept hard-scaled and separate on the face of the\nworld's corruption were living still, that the rainbow was\narched in their blood and would quiver to life in their spirit,\nthat they would cast off their horny covering of disintegration,\nthat new, clean, naked bodies would issue to a new germination,\nto a new growth, rising to the light and the wind and the clean\nrain of heaven. She saw in the rainbow the earth's new\narchitecture, the old, brittle corruption of houses and\nfactories swept away, the world built up in a living fabric of\nTruth, fitting to the over-arching heaven."