第 28 页

evanescent on the meadows. She was full of a rich drowsiness and

loneliness. How happy she was, how gorgeous it was to live: to

have known herself, her husband, the passion of love and

begetting; and to know that all this lived and waited and burned

on around her, a terrible purifying fire, through which she had

passed for once to come to this peace of golden radiance, when

she was with child, and innocent, and in love with her husband

and with all the many angels hand in hand. She lifted her throat

to the breeze that came across the fields, and she felt it

handling her like sisters fondling her, she drank it in perfume

of cowslips and of apple-blossoms.

And in all the happiness a black shadow, shy, wild, a beast

of prey, roamed and vanished from sight, and like strands of

gossamer blown across her eyes, there was a dread for her.

She was afraid when he came home at night. As yet, her fear

never spoke, the shadow never rushed upon her. He was gentle,

humble, he kept himself withheld. His hands were delicate upon

her, and she loved them. But there ran through her the thrill,

crisp as pain, for she felt the darkness and other-world still

in his soft, sheathed hands.

But the summer drifted in with the silence of a miracle, she

was almost always alone. All the while, went on the long, lovely

drowsiness, the maidenblush roses in the garden were all shed,

washed away in a pouring rain, summer drifted into autumn, and

the long, vague, golden days began to close. Crimson clouds

fumed about the west, and as night came on, all the sky was

fuming and steaming, and the moon, far above the swiftness of

vapours, was white, bleared, the night was uneasy. Suddenly the

moon would appear at a clear window in the sky, looking down

from far above, like a captive. And Anna did not sleep. There

was a strange, dark tension about her husband.

She became aware that he was trying to force his will upon

her, something, there was something he wanted, as he lay there

dark and tense. And her soul sighed in weariness.

Everything was so vague and lovely, and he wanted to wake her

up to the hard, hostile reality. She drew back in resistance.

Still he said nothing. But she felt his power persisting on her,

till she became aware of the strain, she cried out against the

exhaustion. He was forcing her, he was forcing her. And she

wanted so much the joy and the vagueness and the innocence of

her pregnancy. She did not want his bitter-corrosive love, she

did not want it poured into her, to burn her. Why must she have

it? Why, oh, why was he not content, contained?

She sat many hours by the window, in those days when he drove

her most with the black constraint of his will, and she watched

the rain falling on the yew trees. She was not sad, only

wistful, blanched. The child under her heart was a perpetual

warmth. And she was sure. The pressure was only upon her from

the outside, her soul had no stripes.

Yet in her heart itself was always this same strain, tense,

anxious. She was not safe, she was always exposed, she was

always attacked. There was a yearning in her for a fulness of

peace and blessedness. What a heavy yearning it was--so

heavy.

She knew, vaguely, that all the time he was not satisfied,

all the time he was trying to force something from her. Ah, how

she wished she could succeed with him, in her own way! He was

there, so inevitable. She lived in him also. And how she wanted

to be at peace with him, at peace. She loved him. She would give

him love, pure love. With a strange, rapt look in her face, she

awaited his homecoming that night.

Then, when he came, she rose with her hands full of love, as

of flowers, radiant, innocent. A dark spasm crossed his face. As

she watched, her face shining and flower-like with innocent

love, his face grew dark and tense, the cruelty gathered in his

brows, his eyes turned aside, she saw the whites of his eyes as

he looked aside from her. She waited, touching him with her

hands. But from his body through her hands came the

bitter-corrosive shock of his passion upon her, destroying her

in blossom. She shrank. She rose from her knees and went away

from him, to preserve herself. And it was great pain to her.

To him also it was agony. He saw the glistening, flower-like

love in her face, and his heart was black because he did not

want it. Not this--not this. He did not want flowery

innocence. He was unsatisfied. The rage and storm of

unsatisfaction tormented him ceaselessly. Why had she not

satisfied him? He had satisfied her. She was satisfied, at

peace, innocent round the doors of her own paradise.

And he was unsatisfied, unfulfilled, he raged in torment,

wanting, wanting. It was for her to satisfy him: then let her do

it. Let her not come with flowery handfuls of innocent love. He

would throw these aside and trample the flowers to nothing. He

would destroy her flowery, innocent bliss. Was he not entitled

to satisfaction from her, and was not his heart all raging

desire, his soul a black torment of unfulfilment. Let it be

fulfilled in him, then, as it was fulfilled in her. He had given

her her fulfilment. Let her rise up and do her part.

He was cruel to her. But all the time he was ashamed. And

being ashamed, he was more cruel. For he was ashamed that he

could not come to fulfilment without her. And he could not. And

she would not heed him. He was shackled and in darkness of

torment.

She beseeched him to work again, to do his wood-carving. But

his soul was too black. He had destroyed his panel of Adam and

Eve. He could not begin again, least of all now, whilst he was

in this condition.

For her there was no final release, since he could not be

liberated from himself. Strange and amorphous, she must go

yearning on through the trouble, like a warm, glowing cloud

blown in the middle of a storm. She felt so rich, in her warm

vagueness, that her soul cried out on him, because he harried

her and wanted to destroy her.

She had her moments of exaltation still, re-births of old

exaltations. As she sat by her bedroom window, watching the

steady rain, her spirit was somewhere far off.

She sat in pride and curious pleasure. When there was no one

to exult with, and the unsatisfied soul must dance and play,

then one danced before the Unknown.

Suddenly she realized that this was what she wanted to do.

Big with child as she was, she danced there in the bedroom by

herself, lifting her hands and her body to the Unseen, to the

unseen Creator who had chosen her, to Whom she belonged.

She would not have had anyone know. She danced in secret, and

her soul rose in bliss. She danced in secret before the Creator,

she took off her clothes and danced in the pride of her

bigness.

It surprised her, when it was over. She was shrinking and

afraid. To what was she now exposed? She half wanted to tell her

husband. Yet she shrank from him.

All the time she ran on by herself. She liked the story of

David, who danced before the Lord, and uncovered himself

exultingly. Why should he uncover himself to Michal, a common

woman? He uncovered himself to the Lord.

"Thou comest to me with a sword and a spear and a shield, but

I come to thee in the name of the Lord:--for the battle is

the Lord's, and he will give you into our hands."

Her heart rang to the words. She walked in her pride. And her

battle was her own Lord's, her husband was delivered over.

In these days she was oblivious of him. Who was he, to come

against her? No, he was not even the Philistine, the Giant. He

was like Saul proclaiming his own kingship. She laughed in her

heart. Who was he, proclaiming his kingship? She laughed in her

heart with pride.

And she had to dance in exultation beyond him. Because he was

in the house, she had to dance before her Creator in exemption

from the man. On a Saturday afternoon, when she had a fire in

the bedroom, again she took off her things and danced, lifting

her knees and her hands in a slow, rhythmic exulting. He was in

the house, so her pride was fiercer. She would dance his

nullification, she would dance to her unseen Lord. She was

exalted over him, before the Lord.

She heard him coming up the stairs, and she flinched. She

stood with the firelight on her ankles and feet, naked in the

shadowy, late afternoon, fastening up her hair. He was startled.

He stood in the doorway, his brows black and lowering.

"What are you doing?" he said, gratingly. "You'll catch a

cold."

And she lifted her hands and danced again, to annul him, the

light glanced on her knees as she made her slow, fine movements

down the far side of the room, across the firelight. He stood

away near the door in blackness of shadow, watching, transfixed.

And with slow, heavy movements she swayed backwards and

forwards, like a full ear of corn, pale in the dusky afternoon,

threading before the firelight, dancing his non-existence,

dancing herself to the Lord, to exultation.

He watched, and his soul burned in him. He turned aside, he

could not look, it hurt his eyes. Her fine limbs lifted and

lifted, her hair was sticking out all fierce, and her belly,

big, strange, terrifying, uplifted to the Lord. Her face was

rapt and beautiful, she danced exulting before her Lord, and

knew no man.

It hurt him as he watched as if he were at the stake. He felt

he was being burned alive. The strangeness, the power of her in

her dancing consumed him, he was burned, he could not grasp, he

could not understand. He waited obliterated. Then his eyes

became blind to her, he saw her no more. And through the

unseeing veil between them he called to her, in his jarring

voice:

"What are you doing that for?"

"Go away," she said. "Let me dance by myself."

"That isn't dancing," he said harshly. "What do you want to

do that for?"

"I don't do it for you," she said. "You go away."

Her strange, lifted belly, big with his child! Had he no

right to be there? He felt his presence a violation. Yet he had

his right to be there. He went and sat on the bed.

She stopped dancing, and confronted him, again lifting her

slim arms and twisting at her hair. Her nakedness hurt her,

opposed to him.

"I can do as I like in my bedroom," she cried. "Why do you

interfere with me?"

And she slipped on a dressing-gown and crouched before the

fire. He was more at ease now she was covered up. The vision of

her tormented him all the days of his life, as she had been

then, a strange, exalted thing having no relation to

himself.

After this day, the door seemed to shut on his mind. His brow

shut and became impervious. His eyes ceased to see, his hands

were suspended. Within himself his will was coiled like a beast,

hidden under the darkness, but always potent, working.

At first she went on blithely enough with him shut down

beside her. But then his spell began to take hold of her. The

dark, seething potency of him, the power of a creature that lies

hidden and exerts its will to the destruction of the

free-running creature, as the tiger lying in the darkness of the

leaves steadily enforces the fall and death of the light

creatures that drink by the waterside in the morning, gradually

began to take effect on her. Though he lay there in his darkness

and did not move, yet she knew he lay waiting for her. She felt

his will fastening on her and pulling her down, even whilst he

was silent and obscure.

She found that, in all her outgoings and her incomings, he

prevented her. Gradually she realized that she was being borne

down by him, borne down by the clinging, heavy weight of him,

that he was pulling her down as a leopard clings to a wild cow

and exhausts her and pulls her down.

Gradually she realized that her life, her freedom, was

sinking under the silent grip of his physical will. He wanted

her in his power. He wanted to devour her at leisure, to have

her. At length she realized that her sleep was a long ache and a

weariness and exhaustion, because of his will fastened upon her,

as he lay there beside her, during the night.

She realized it all, and there came a momentous pause, a

pause in her swift running, a moment's suspension in her life,

when she was lost.

Then she turned fiercely on him, and fought him. He was not

to do this to her, it was monstrous. What horrible hold did he

want to have over her body? Why did he want to drag her down,

and kill her spirit? Why did he want to deny her spirit? Why did

he deny her spirituality, hold her for a body only? And was he

to claim her carcase?

Some vast, hideous darkness he seemed to represent to

her.

"What do you do to me?" she cried. "What beastly thing do you

do to me? You put a horrible pressure on my head, you don't let

me sleep, you don't let me live. Every moment of your life you

are doing something to me, something horrible, that destroys me.

There is something horrible in you, something dark and beastly

in your will. What do you want of me? What do you want to do to

me?"

All the blood in his body went black and powerful and

corrosive as he heard her. Black and blind with hatred of her he

was. He was in a very black hell, and could not escape.

He hated her for what she said. Did he not give her

everything, was she not everything to him? And the shame was a

bitter fire in him, that she was everything to him, that he had

nothing but her. And then that she should taunt him with it,

that he could not escape! The fire went black in his veins. For

try as he might, he could not escape. She was everything to him,

she was his life and his derivation. He depended on her. If she

were taken away, he would collapse as a house from which the

central pillar is removed.

And she hated him, because he depended on her so utterly. He

was horrible to her. She wanted to thrust him off, to set him

apart. It was horrible that he should cleave to her, so close,

so close, like leopard that had leapt on her, and fastened.