第 29 页

He went on from day to day in a blackness of rage and shame

and frustration. How he tortured himself, to be able to get away

from her. But he could not. She was as the rock on which he

stood, with deep, heaving water all round, and he was unable to

swim. He must take his stand on her, he must depend on

her.

What had he in life, save her? Nothing. The rest was a great

heaving flood. The terror of the night of heaving, overwhelming

flood, which was his vision of life without her, was too much

for him. He clung to her fiercely and abjectly.

And she beat him off, she beat him off. Where could he turn,

like a swimmer in a dark sea, beaten off from his hold, whither

could he turn? He wanted to leave her, he wanted to be able to

leave her. For his soul's sake, for his manhood's sake, he must

be able to leave her.

But for what? She was the ark, and the rest of the world was

flood. The only tangible, secure thing was the woman. He could

leave her only for another woman. And where was the other woman,

and who was the other woman? Besides, he would be just in the

same state. Another woman would be woman, the case would be the

same.

Why was she the all, the everything, why must he live only

through her, why must he sink if he were detached from her? Why

must he cleave to her in a frenzy as for his very life?

The only other way to leave her was to die. The only straight

way to leave her was to die. His dark, raging soul knew that.

But he had no desire for death.

Why could he not leave her? Why could he not throw himself

into the hidden water to live or die, as might be? He could not,

he could not. But supposing he went away, right away, and found

work, and had a lodging again. He could be again as he had been

before.

But he knew he could not. A woman, he must have a woman. And

having a woman, he must be free of her. It would be the same

position. For he could not be free of her.

For how can a man stand, unless he have something sure under

his feet. Can a man tread the unstable water all his life, and

call that standing? Better give in and drown at once.

And upon what could he stand, save upon a woman? Was he then

like the old man of the seas, impotent to move save upon the

back of another life? Was he impotent, or a cripple, or a

defective, or a fragment?

It was black, mad, shameful torture, the frenzy of fear, the

frenzy of desire, and the horrible, grasping back-wash of

shame.

What was he afraid of? Why did life, without Anna, seem to

him just a horrible welter, everything jostling in a

meaningless, dark, fathomless flood? Why, if Anna left him even

for a week, did he seem to be clinging like a madman to the edge

of reality, and slipping surely, surely into the flood of

unreality that would drown him. This horrible slipping into

unreality drove him mad, his soul screamed with fear and

agony.

Yet she was pushing him off from her, pushing him away,

breaking his fingers from their hold on her, persistently,

ruthlessly. He wanted her to have pity. And sometimes for a

moment she had pity. But she always began again, thrusting him

off, into the deep water, into the frenzy and agony of

uncertainty.

She became like a fury to him, without any sense of him. Her

eyes were bright with a cold, unmoving hatred. Then his heart

seemed to die in its last fear. She might push him off into the

deeps.

She would not sleep with him any more. She said he destroyed

her sleep. Up started all his frenzy and madness of fear and

suffering. She drove him away. Like a cowed, lurking devil he

was driven off, his mind working cunningly against her, devising

evil for her. But she drove him off. In his moments of intense

suffering, she seemed to him inconceivable, a monster, the

principle of cruelty.

However her pity might give way for moments, she was hard and

cold as a jewel. He must be put off from her, she must sleep

alone. She made him a bed in the small room.

And he lay there whipped, his soul whipped almost to death,

yet unchanged. He lay in agony of suffering, thrown back into

unreality, like a man thrown overboard into a sea, to swim till

he sinks, because there is no hold, only a wide, weltering

sea.

He did not sleep, save for the white sleep when a thin veil

is drawn over the mind. It was not sleep. He was awake, and he

was not awake. He could not be alone. He needed to be able to

put his arms round her. He could not bear the empty space

against his breast, where she used to be. He could not bear it.

He felt as if he were suspended in space, held there by the grip

of his will. If he relaxed his will would fall, fall through

endless space, into the bottomless pit, always falling,

will-less, helpless, non-existent, just dropping to extinction,

falling till the fire of friction had burned out, like a falling

star, then nothing, nothing, complete nothing.

He rose in the morning grey and unreal. And she seemed fond

of him again, she seemed to make up to him a little.

"I slept well," she said, with her slightly false brightness.

"Did you?"

"All right," he answered.

He would never tell her.

For three or four nights he lay alone through the white

sleep, his will unchanged, unchanged, still tense, fixed in its

grip. Then, as if she were revived and free to be fond of him

again, deluded by his silence and seeming acquiescence, moved

also by pity, she took him back again.

Each night, in spite of all the shame, he had waited with

agony for bedtime, to see if she would shut him out. And each

night, as, in her false brightness, she said Good night, he felt

he must kill her or himself. But she asked for her kiss, so

pathetically, so prettily. So he kissed her, whilst his heart

was ice.

And sometimes he went out. Once he sat for a long time in the

church porch, before going in to bed. It was dark with a wind

blowing. He sat in the church porch and felt some shelter, some

security. But it grew cold, and he must go in to bed.

Then came the night when she said, putting her arms round him

and kissing him fondly:

"Stay with me to-night, will you?"

And he had stayed without demur. But his will had not

altered. He would have her fixed to him.

So that soon she told him again she must be alone.

"I don't want to send you away. I want to sleep

with you. But I can't sleep, you don't let me sleep."

His blood turned black in his veins.

"What do you mean by such a thing? It's an arrant lie. I

don't let you sleep----"

"But you don't. I sleep so well when I'm alone. And I can't

sleep when you're there. You do something to me, you put a

pressure on my head. And I must sleep, now the child is

coming."

"It's something in yourself," he replied, "something wrong in

you."

Horrible in the extreme were these nocturnal combats, when

all the world was asleep, and they two were alone, alone in the

world, and repelling each other. It was hardly to be borne.

He went and lay down alone. And at length, after a grey and

livid and ghastly period, he relaxed, something gave way in him.

He let go, he did not care what became of him. Strange and dim

he became to himself, to her, to everybody. A vagueness had come

over everything, like a drowning. And it was an infinite relief

to drown, a relief, a great, great relief.

He would insist no more, he would force her no more. He would

force himself upon her no more. He would let go, relax, lapse,

and what would be, should be.

Yet he wanted her still, he always, always wanted her. In his

soul, he was desolate as a child, he was so helpless. Like a

child on its mother, he depended on her for his living. He knew

it, and he knew he could hardly help it.

Yet he must be able to be alone. He must be able to lie down

alongside the empty space, and let be. He must be able to leave

himself to the flood, to sink or live as might be. For he

recognized at length his own limitation, and the limitation of

his power. He had to give in.

There was a stillness, a wanness between them. Half at least

of the battle was over. Sometimes she wept as she went about,

her heart was very heavy. But the child was always warm in her

womb.

They were friends again, new, subdued friends. But there was

a wanness between them. They slept together once more, very

quietly, and distinct, not one together as before. And she was

intimate with him as at first. But he was very quiet, and not

intimate. He was glad in his soul, but for the time being he was

not alive.

He could sleep with her, and let her be. He could be alone

now. He had just learned what it was to be able to be alone. It

was right and peaceful. She had given him a new, deeper freedom.

The world might be a welter of uncertainty, but he was himself

now. He had come into his own existence. He was born for a

second time, born at last unto himself, out of the vast body of

humanity. Now at last he had a separate identity, he existed

alone, even if he were not quite alone. Before he had only

existed in so far as he had relations with another being. Now he

had an absolute self--as well as a relative self.

But it was a very dumb, weak, helpless self, a crawling

nursling. He went about very quiet, and in a way, submissive. He

had an unalterable self at last, free, separate,

independent.

She was relieved, she was free of him. She had given him to

himself. She wept sometimes with tiredness and helplessness. But

he was a husband. And she seemed, in the child that was coming,

to forget. It seemed to make her warm and drowsy. She lapsed

into a long muse, indistinct, warm, vague, unwilling to be taken

out of her vagueness. And she rested on him also.

Sometimes she came to him with a strange light in her eyes,

poignant, pathetic, as if she were asking for something. He

looked and he could not understand. She was so beautiful, so

visionary, the rays seemed to go out of his breast to her, like

a shining. He was there for her, all for her. And she would hold

his breast, and kiss it, and kiss it, kneeling beside him, she

who was waiting for the hour of her delivery. And he would lie

looking down at his breast, till it seemed that his breast was

not himself, that he had left it lying there. Yet it was himself

also, and beautiful and bright with her kisses. He was glad with

a strange, radiant pain. Whilst she kneeled beside him, and

kissed his breast with a slow, rapt, half-devotional

movement.

He knew she wanted something, his heart yearned to give it

her. His heart yearned over her. And as she lifted her face,

that was radiant and rosy as a little cloud, his heart still

yearned over her, and, now from the distance, adored her. She

had a flower-like presence which he adored as he stood far off,

a stranger.

The weeks passed on, the time drew near, they were very

gentle, and delicately happy. The insistent, passionate, dark

soul, the powerful unsatisfaction in him seemed stilled and

tamed, the lion lay down with the lamb in him.

She loved him very much indeed, and he waited near her. She

was a precious, remote thing to him at this time, as she waited

for her child. Her soul was glad with an ecstasy because of the

coming infant. She wanted a boy: oh, very much she wanted a

boy.

But she seemed so young and so frail. She was indeed only a

girl. As she stood by the fire washing herself--she was

proud to wash herself at this time--and he looked at her,

his heart was full of extreme tenderness for her. Such fine,

fine limbs, her slim, round arms like chasing lights, and her

legs so simple and childish, yet so very proud. Oh, she stood on

proud legs, with a lovely reckless balance of her full belly,

and the adorable little roundnesses, and the breasts becoming

important. Above it all, her face was like a rosy cloud

shining.

How proud she was, what a lovely proud thing her young body!

And she loved him to put his hand on her ripe fullness, so that

he should thrill also with the stir and the quickening there. He

was afraid and silent, but she flung her arms round his neck

with proud, impudent joy.

The pains came on, and Oh--how she cried! She would have

him stay with her. And after her long cries she would look at

him, with tears in her eyes and a sobbing laugh on her face,

saying:

"I don't mind it really."

It was bad enough. But to her it was never deathly. Even the

fierce, tearing pain was exhilarating. She screamed and

suffered, but was all the time curiously alive and vital. She

felt so powerfully alive and in the hands of such a masterly

force of life, that her bottom-most feeling was one of

exhilaration. She knew she was winning, winning, she was always

winning, with each onset of pain she was nearer to victory.

Probably he suffered more than she did. He was not shocked or

horrified. But he was screwed very tight in the vise of

suffering.

It was a girl. The second of silence on her face when they

said so showed him she was disappointed. And a great blazing

passion of resentment and protest sprang up in his heart. In

that moment he claimed the child.

But when the milk came, and the infant sucked her breast, she

seemed to be leaping with extravagant bliss.

"It sucks me, it sucks me, it likes me--oh, it loves

it!" she cried, holding the child to her breast with her two

hands covering it, passionately.

And in a few moments, as she became used to her bliss, she

looked at the youth with glowing, unseeing eyes, and said:

"Anna Victrix."

He went away, trembling, and slept. To her, her pains were

the wound-smart of a victor, she was the prouder.

When she was well again she was very happy. She called the

baby Ursula. Both Anna and her husband felt they must have a

name that gave them private satisfaction. The baby was tawny

skinned, it had a curious downy skin, and wisps of bronze hair,

and the yellow grey eyes that wavered, and then became