 Chapter 15 Part 3 of the Rainbow. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence. Chapter 15 Part 3. They were possessed, perfectly and supremely free, they felt, proud beyond all question and surpassing mortal conditions. They were perfect, therefore nothing else existed. The world was a world of servants whom one civilly ignored. Wherever they went, they were the sensuous aristocrats, warm, bright, glancing with pure pride of the senses. The effect upon other people was extraordinary. The glamour was cast from the young couple upon all they came into contact with. Waiters or chance acquaintances. Oui Monsieur Libérant, she would reply with a mocking courtesy to her husband. So they came to be treated as titled people. He was an officer in the engineers. They were just married, going to India immediately. Thus a tissue of romance was round them. She believed she was a young wife of a titled husband on the eve of departure for India. This, the social fact, was a delicious make-belief. The living fact was that he and she were man and woman, absolute and beyond all limitation. The days went by. They were to have three weeks together in perfect success. All the time they themselves were reality. All outside was tribute to them. They were quite careless about money, but they did nothing very extravagant. He was rather surprised when he found that he had spent twenty pounds in a little under a week, but it was only the irritation of having to go to the bank. The machinery of the old system lasted for him, not the system. The money simply did not exist. Neither did any of the old obligations. They came home from the theater, had supper, then flitted about in their dressing gowns. They had a large bedroom and a corner sitting room, high up, remote and very cozy. They ate all their meals in their own rooms, attended by a young German called Hans, who thought them both wonderful and answered assiduously, Gouis Heberon, Beetzer Fraberonin. Often they saw the pink of dawn away across the park. The tower of Westminster Cathedral was emerging. The lamps of Piccadilly, stringing away beside the trees of the park, were becoming pale and moth-like. The morning traffic was clock-clocking down the shadowy road, which had gleamed all night like metal down below, running far ahead into the night beneath the lamps, and which was now vague as in a mist because of the dawn. Then, as the flush of dawn became stronger, they opened the glass doors and went on to the giddy balcony, feeling triumphant as two angels in bliss, looking down at the still sleeping world, which would wake to a dutiful, rumbling sluggish turmoil of unreality. But the air was cold. They went into their bedroom and bathed before going to bed, leaving the partition doors of the bathroom open so that the vapor came into the bedroom and faintly dimmed the mirror. She was always in bed first. She watched him as he bathed, his quick unconscious movements, the electric light glinting on his wet shoulders. He stood out of the bath, his hair all washed flat over his forehead, and pressed the water out of his eyes. He was slender and, to her, perfect, a clean, straight-cut youth without a grain of superfluous body. The brown hair on his body was soft and fine and adorable. He was all beautifully flushed as he stood in the white bath apartment. He saw her warm, dark, lit-up face watching him from the pillow, yet he did not see it. It was always present and was to him as his own eyes. He was never aware of the separate being of her. She was like his own eyes and his own heart beating to him. So he went across to her to get his sleeping suit. It was always a perfect adventure to go near to her. She put her arms round him and snuffed his warm, softened skin. Scent, she said. Soap, he answered. Soap, she repeated, looking up with bright eyes. They were both laughing, always laughing. Soon they were fast asleep. A sleep till midday, close together, sleeping one sleep. Then they awoke to the ever-changing reality of their state. They alone inhabited the world of reality. All the rest lived on a lower sphere. Whatever they wanted to do, they did. They saw a few people, Dorothy, whose guest she was supposed to be, and a couple of friends of Skrebensky, young Oxford men, who called her Mrs. Skrebensky with entire simplicity. They treated her, indeed, with such respect that she began to think she was really quite of the whole universe of the old world as well as of the new. She forgot she was outside the pale of the old world. She thought she had brought it under the spell of her own real world, and so she had. In such ever-changing reality, the weeks went by. All the time they were an unknown world to each other. Every movement made by the one was a reality and an adventure to the other. They did not want outside excitements. They went to very few theatres. They were often in their sitting room, high up over Piccadilly, with windows open on two sides and the door open onto the balcony, looking over the green park or down upon the minute traveling of the traffic. Then suddenly, looking at a sunset, she wanted to go. She must be gone. She must be gone at once, and in two hours' time they were at Charing Cross, taking train for Paris. Paris was his suggestion. She did not care where it was. The great joy was in setting out, and for a few days she was happy in the novelty of Paris. Then for some reason she must call in Ruin on the way back to London. He had an instinctive mistrust of her desire for the place, but perversely she wanted to go there. It was as if she wanted to try its effect upon her. For the first time in Ruin, he had a cold feeling of death. Not afraid of any other man but of her. She seemed to leave him. She followed after something that was not him. She did not want him. The old streets, the cathedral, the age and the monumental piece of the town took her away from him. She turned to it as if to something she had forgotten and wanted. This was now the reality, this great stone cathedral slumbering there in its mass which knew no transience nor heard any denial. It was majestic in its stability, its splendid absoluteness. Her soul began to run by itself. He did not realize, nor did she. Yet in Ruin he had the first deadly anguish, the first sense of the death towards which they were wandering, and she felt the first heavy yearning, heavy, heavy, hopeless warning, almost like a deep, uneasy sinking into apathy, hopelessness. They returned to London, but still they had two days. He began to tremble. He grew feverish with the fear of her departure. She had in her some fatal prescience that made her calm. What would be would be. He remained fairly easy, however, still in his state of heightened glamour till she had gone, and he had turned away from St. Pancras and sat on the tram-car going up Pimlico to the Angel to Moorgate Street on Sunday evening. Then the cold horror gradually soaked into him. He saw the horror of the city road. He realized the ghastly cold-sortedness of the tram-car in which he sat. Cold, stark, ashen sterility had him surrounded. Where, then, was the luminous, wonderful world he belonged to by rights? How did he come to be thrown on this refuse heap where he was? He was, as if mad. The horror of the brick buildings of the tram-car of the ashen-grey people in the street made him reeling and blind as if drunk. He went mad. He had lived with her in a close, living, pulsing world where everything pulsed with rich being. Now he found himself struggling amid an ashen-dry, cold world of rigidity, dead walls and mechanical traffic, and creeping specter-like people. The life was extinct. Only ash moved and stirred or stood rigid. There was a horrible clattering activity, a rattle like the falling of dry slag, cold and sterile. It was as if the sunshine that fell were unnatural light exposing the ash of the town as if the lights at night were the sinister gleam of decomposition. Quite mad, beside himself, he went to his club and sat with a glass of whiskey, motionless, as if turned to clay. He felt like a corpse that is inhabited with just enough life to make it appear as any other of the spectral, unliving beings which we call people in our dead language. Her absence was worse than pain to him. It destroyed his being. Dead he went on from lunch to tea. His face was all the time fixed and stiff and colorless. His life was a dry mechanical movement. Yet even he wondered slightly at the awful misery that had overcome him. How could he be so ash-like and extinct? He wrote her a letter. I had been thinking that we must get married before long. The pay will be more when I get out to India. We shall be able to get along. Or if you don't want to go to India I could very probably stay here in England. But I think you would like India. You could ride and you would know just everybody out there. Perhaps if you stay on to take your degree we might marry immediately after that. I will write to your father as soon as I hear from you. He went on disposing of her. If only he could be with her. He wanted now was to marry her, to be sure of her. Yet all the time he was perfectly, perfectly hopeless, cold, extinct, without emotion or connection. He felt as if his life were dead. His soul was extinct. The whole being of him had become sterile. He was a specter, divorced from life. He had no fullness. He was just a flat shape. Day by day the madness accumulated in him. The horror of not being possessed him. He went here, there and everywhere. But whatever he did he knew that only the cipher of him was there. Nothing was filled in. He went to the theater. What he heard and saw fell upon a cold surface of consciousness which was now all that he was. There was nothing behind it. He could have no experience of any sort. Mechanical registering took place in him, no more. He had no being, no contents. Neither had the people he came into contact with. There were mere permutations of known quantities. There was no roundness or fullness in this world he now inhabited. Everything was a dead shaped mental arrangement without life or being. Much of the time he was with friends and comrades. Then he forgot everything. Their activities made up for his own negation. Then he got engaged to his negative horror. He only became happy when he drank and he drank a good deal. Then he was just the opposite to what he had been. He became a warm diffuse glowing cloud in a warm diffuse formless fashion. Everything melted down into a rosy glow and he was the glow and everything was the glow. Everybody else was the glow and it was very nice, very nice. He would sing songs, it was so nice. Ursula went back to Beldover, shut and firm. She loved Skrebensky, of that she was resolved. She would allow nothing else. She read his long obsessed letter about getting married and going to India without any particular response. She seemed to ignore what he said about marriage. It did not come home to her. He seemed throughout the greater part of his letter to be talking without much meaning. She replied to him pleasantly and easily. She rarely wrote long letters. India sounds lovely. I can just see myself on an elephant swaying between lanes of obsequious natives but I don't know if father would let me go, we must see. I keep living over again the lovely times we have had but I don't think you liked me quite so much towards the end, did you? You did not like me when we left Paris. Why didn't you? I love you very much. I love your body. It is so clear and fine. I am glad you did not go naked or all the women would fall in love with you. I am very jealous of it. I love it so much. He was more or less satisfied with this letter but day after day he was walking about dead, nonexistent. He could not come again to Nottingham until the end of April. Then he persuaded her to go with him for a weekend to a friend's house near Oxford. By this time they were engaged. He had written to her father and the thing was settled. He brought her an emerald ring of which she was very proud. Her people treated her now with a little distance as if she had already left them. They left her very much alone. She went with him for the three days in the country house near Oxford. It was delicious and she was very happy. But the thing she remembered most was when, getting up in the morning after he had gone back quietly to his own room having spent the night with her, she found herself very rich in being alone and enjoying to the full her solitary room she drew up her blind and saw the plum trees in the garden below all glittering and snowy and delighted with the sunshine in full bloom under a blue sky. They threw out their blossom. They flung it out under the blue heavens, the whitest blossom. How excited it made her. She had to hurry through her dressing to go and walk in the garden under the plum trees before anyone should come and talk to her. Out she slipped and paced like a queen and fairy playa-senses. The blossom was silvery shadowy when she looked up from under the tree at the blue sky. There was a faint scent, a faint noise of bees, a wonderful quickness of happy morning. She heard the breakfast gong and went indoors. Where have you been? asked the others. I had to go out under the plum trees, she said, her face glowing like a flower. It is so lovely. A shadow of anger crossed Scrivensky's soul. She had not wanted him to be there. He hardened his will. At night there was a moon and the blossom glistened ghostly. They went together to look at it. She saw the moonlight on his face as he waited near her and his features were like silver and his eyes and shadow were unfathomable. She was in love with him. He was very quiet. They went indoors and she pretended to be tired so she went quickly to bed. Don't be long coming to me, she whispered as she was supposed to be kissing him good night and he waited intent, obsessed for the moment when he could come to her. She enjoyed him, she made much of him. She liked to put her fingers on the soft skin of his sides or on the softness of his back when he made the muscles hard underneath. The muscles developed very strong through riding and she had a great thrill of excitement and passion because of the unimpressable hardness of his body that was so soft and smooth under her fingers that came to her with such absolute service. She owned his body and enjoyed it with all the delight and carelessness of a possessor but he had become gradually afraid of her body. He wanted her, he wanted her endlessly but there had come a tension into his desire a constraint which prevented his enjoying the delicious approach and the lovable clothes of the endless embrace. He was afraid, his will was always tense, fixed. Her final examination was at mid-summer. She insisted on sitting for it although she had neglected her work during the past months. He also wanted her to go in for the degree then he thought she would be satisfied. Secretly he hoped she would fail so that she would be more glad of him. Would you rather live in India or in England when we are married? he asked her. Oh, in India by far, she said, with a careless lack of consideration which annoyed him. Once she said with heat I shall be glad to leave England. Everything is so meager and paltry it is so unspiritual. I hate democracy. He became angry to hear her talk like this. He did not know why. Somehow he could not bear it when she attacked things. It was as if she were attacking him. What do you mean? he asked her hostile. Why do you hate democracy? Only the greedy and ugly people come to the top in a democracy, she said because they're the only people who will push themselves there to generate races or democratic. What do you want then in aristocracy? He asked, secretly moved. He always felt that by rights he belonged to the ruling aristocracy. Yet to hear her speak for his class pained him with a curious painful pleasure. He felt he was acquiescing in something illegal taking to himself some wrong reprehensible advantages. I do want an aristocracy, she cried and I'd far rather have an aristocracy of birth than of money. Who are the aristocrats now? Who are chosen as the best to rule? Those who have money and the brains for money. It doesn't matter what else they have but they must have money, brains because they are ruling in the name of money. The people elect the government, he said. I know they do but what are the people? Each one of them is a money interest. I hate it that anybody is my equal who has the same amount of money as I have. I know I am better than all of them. I hate them, they are not my equals. I hate equality on a money basis. It is the equality of dirt. Her eyes blazed at him. He felt as if she wanted to destroy him. She had gripped him and was trying to break him. His anger sprang up against her. At least he would fight for his existence with her. A hard blind resistance possessed him. I don't care about money, he said. Neither do I want to put my finger in the pie. I am too sensitive about my finger. What is your finger to me? She cried in a passion. You with your dainty fingers and you are going to India because you will be one of the somebody's there. It's a mere dodge you are going to India. In what way a dodge? He cried, white with anger and fear. You think the Indians are simpler than us and so you will enjoy being near them and being a lord over them, she said. And you'll feel so righteous governing them for their own good. Who are you to feel righteous? What are you righteous about in your governing? Your governing stinks. What do you govern for but to make things there as dead and mean as they are here? I don't feel righteous in the least, he said. Then what do you feel? It's all such a nothingness. What you feel and what you don't feel. What do you feel yourself, he said. Aren't you righteous in your own mind? Yes I am because I'm against you and all your old dead things, she cried. She seemed with the last words uttered in hard knowledge to strike down the flag that he kept flying. He felt cut off at the knees, a figure made worthless. A horrible sickness gripped him as if his legs were really cut away and he could not move but remained a crippled trump, dependent, worthless. The ghastly sense of helplessness as if he were a mere figure that did not exist vitally made him mad beside himself. Now even whilst he was with her this death of himself came over him when he walked about like a body from which all individual life is gone. In this state he neither heard nor saw nor felt only the mechanism of his life continued. He hated her as far as in this state he could hate. His cunning suggested to him all the ways of making her esteem him for she did not esteem him. He left her and did not write to her. He flirted with other women, with Goodrin. This last made her very fierce. She was still fiercely jealous of his body. In passionate anger she uprated him because not being man enough to satisfy one woman he hung round others. Don't I satisfy you? He asked of her again going white to the throat. No, she said, you've never satisfied me since the first week in London. You never satisfy me now. What does it mean to me you're having me? She lifted her shoulders and turned aside her face in a motion of cold and different worthlessness. He felt he would kill her. When she had roused him to a pitch of madness when she saw his eyes all dark and mad with suffering then a great suffering overcame her soul, a great, incongruable suffering, and she loved him. For oh, she wanted to love him. Stronger than life or death was her craving to be able to love him. And at such moments, when he was made with her destroying him, when all his complacency was destroyed, all his everyday self was broken and only the stripped, rudimentary primal man remained demented with torture, her passion to love him became love. She took him again. They came together in an overwhelming passion in which he knew he satisfied her. But it all contained a developing germ of death. After each contact, her anguished desire for him or for that which she never had from him was stronger. Her love was more hopeless. After each contact, his mad dependence on her was deepened, his hope of standing strong and taking her in his own strength was weakened. He felt himself a mere attribute of her. Whitsentide came just before her examination. She was to have a few days of rest. Dorothy had inherited her patrimony and had taken a cottage in Sussex. She invited them to stay with her. They went down to Dorothy's neat, low cottage at the foot of the Downs. Here they could do as they liked. Ursula was always yearning to go to the bottom of the Downs. The white track wound up to the rounded summit and she must go. Up there she could see the channel a few miles away. The sea raised up and faintly glittering in the sky. The Isle of White, a shadow lifted in the far distance. The river winding bright through the patterned plain to Seaward, a rundle castle, a shadowy bulk. And then the rolling of the high smooth Downs making a high smooth land under heaven acknowledging only the heavens in their great sun-blowing strength and suffering only a few bushes to trespass on the intercourse between their great unabatable body and the changeful body of the sky. Below she saw the villages and the woods of the wield and the train running bravely, a gallant little thing running with all the importance of the world over the water meadows and into the gap of the Downs, waving its white steam, yet all the while so little. So little yet its courage carried it from end to end of the earth till there was no place where it did not go. Yet the Downs in magnificent indifference bearing limbs and body to the sun, drinking sunshine and sea wind and seawet cloud into its golden skin with superb stillness and calm of being was not the Downs still more wonderful? The blind pathetic energetic courage of the train as it steamed tidally away through the patterned levels to the sea's dimness so fast and so energetic made her weep. Where was it going? It was going nowhere, it was just going. So blind, so without goal or aim, yet so hasty. She sat on an old prehistoric earthwork and cried and the tears ran down her face. The train had tunneled all the earth blindly and uglily and she lay face downwards on the Downs that were so strong that cared only for their intercourse with the everlasting skies and she wished she could become a strong mound smooth under the sky, bosom and limbs bared to all winds and clouds and bursts of sunshine. But she must get up again and look down from her foothold of sunshine down and away at the patterned level earth with its villages and its smoke and its energy so short-sighted the train seemed running to the distance so terrifying in their littleness the villages with such pettiness in their activity. Skrubensky wandered days not knowing where he was or what he was doing with her. All her passions seemed to be to wander up there on the Downs and when she must descend to earth she was heavy. Up there she was exhilarated and free. She would not love him in a house anymore. She said she hated houses and particularly she hated beds. There was something distasteful in his coming to her bed. She would stay the night on the Downs, up there, he with her. It was mid-summer, the days were glamorously long. At about half past ten when the bluey-black darkness had it last fallen they took rugs and climbed the steep track to the summit of the Downs, he and she. Up there the stars were big the earth below was gone into darkness. She was free up there with the stars. Far out they saw tiny yellow lights but it was very far out, at sea or on land. She was free up among the stars. She took off her clothes and made him take off all his and they ran over the smooth moonless turf a long way, more than a mile from where they had left their clothing running in the dark soft wind naked, as naked as the Downs themselves. Her hair was loose and blew about her shoulders she ran swiftly wearing sandals when she set off on the long run to the Dupond. In the round Dupond the stars were untroubled she ventured softly into the water grasping at the stars with her hands and then suddenly she started back running swiftly. He was there beside her but only on sufferance he was a screen for her fears, he served her. She took him, she clasped him, clenched him close but her eyes were open looking at the stars it was as if the stars were lying with her and entering the unfathomable darkness of her womb fathoming her at last it was not him. The Dawn came, they stood together on a high place an earthwork of the stone age men watching for the light. It came over the land but the land was dark. She watched a pale rim on the sky away against the darkened land the darkness became bluer a little wind was running in from the sea behind it seemed to be running to the pale rift of the Dawn and she and he, darkly on an outpost of the darkness stood watching for the Dawn the light grew stronger gushing up against the dark sapphire of the transparent night the light grew stronger, whiter then over it hovered a flush of rose a flush of rose and then yellow pale new created yellow the whole quivering and poisoning momentarily over the fountain on the sky's rim the rose hovered and quivered burned fused to flame to a transient red while the yellow urged out in great waves thrown from the ever increasing fountain waves of yellow flinging into the sky scattering its spray over the darkness which became bluer and bluer paler till soon it would itself be a radiance which had been darkness the sun was coming there was a quivering a powerful terrifying swim of molten light then the molten source itself surged forth revealing itself the sun was in the sky too powerful to look at and the ground beneath lay so still so peaceful only now and again a cock crew otherwise from the distant yellow hills to the pine trees at the foot of the Downs everything was newly washed into being in a flood of new golden creation it was so unutterably still and perfect with promise the golden lighted distinct land that Ursula's soul rocked and wept suddenly he glanced at her tears were running over her cheeks her mouth was working strangely what is the matter he asked after a moment's struggle with her voice it is so beautiful she said looking at the glowing beautiful land it was so beautiful so perfect and so unsullied he too realized what England would be in a few hours time a blind sorted strenuous activity all for nothing fuming with dirty smoke and running trains and groping in the bowels of the earth all for nothing a ghastliness came over him he looked at Ursula her face was wet with tears very bright like a transfiguration in the refulgent light nor was his the hand to wipe away the burning bright tears he stood apart overcome by a cruel ineffectuality gradually a great helpless sorrow was rising in him but as yet he was fighting it away he was struggling for his own life he became very quiet and unaware of the things about him awaiting as it were her judgment on him end of chapter 15 part 3 chapter 15 part 4 of the rainbow this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence chapter 15 part 4 they returned to Nottingham the time of her examination came she must go to London but she would not stay with him in a hotel she would go to a quiet little pension near the British Museum those quiet residential squares of London made a great impression on her mind they were very complete her mind seemed imprisoned in their quietness who was going to liberate her in the evening her practical examinations being over he went with her to dinner at one of the hotels down the river near Richmond it was golden and beautiful with yellow water and white and scarlet striped boat awnings and blue shadows under the trees when shall we be married he asked her quietly simply as if it were a mere question of comfort she watched the changing pleasure traffic of the river he looked at her golden puzzled musul the knot gathered in his throat I don't know she said a hot grief gripped his throat why don't you know don't you want to be married? he asked her her head turned slowly her face puzzled like a boy's face expressionless because she was trying to think looked towards his face she did not see him because she was preoccupied she did not quite know what she was going to say I don't think I want to be married she said and her naive troubled puzzled eyes rested a moment on his then traveled away preoccupied do you mean never or not just yet? he asked the knot in his throat grew harder his face was drawn as if he were being strangled I mean never she said out of some far self which spoke for once beyond her his drawn strangled face watched her blankly for a few moments then a strange sound took place in his throat she started came to herself and horrified saw him his head made a queer motion the chin jerked back against the throat the curious crowing hiccuping sound came again his face twisted like insanity and he was crying crying blind and twisted as if something were broken which kept him in control Tony don't she cried starting up it tore every one of her nerves to see him he made groping movements to get out of his chair but he was crying uncontrollably, noiselessly with his face twisted like a mask contorted and the tears running down the amazing grooves in his cheeks blindly his face always this horrible working mask he groped for his hat for his way down from the terrace it was eight o'clock but still brightly light the other people were staring in great agitation part of which was exasperation she stayed behind paid the waiter with a half sovereign took her yellow silk coat and followed Scrivenski she saw him walking with brittle blind steps along the path by the river she could tell by the strange stiffness and brittleness of his figure that he was still crying hurrying after him running she took his arm Tony she cried don't why are you like this what are you doing this for don't it's not necessary he heard and his manhood was cruelly coldly defaced yet it was no good he could not gain control of his face his face his breasts were weeping violently as if automatically his will his knowledge had nothing to do with it he simply could not stop she walked holding his arm silent with exasperation and perplexity and pain he took the uncertain steps of a blind man because his mind was blind with weeping shall we go home shall we have a taxi she said he could pay no attention very flustered very agitated she signaled indefinitely to a taxi cab that was going slowly by the driver saluted and drew up she opened the door and pushed Scrivenski in then took her own place her face was uplifted the mouth closed down she looked hard and cold and ashamed she winced as the driver's dark red face was thrust round upon her a full-blooded animal face with black eyebrows and a thick short cut mustache where to lady he said his white teeth showing again for a moment she was flustered forty Rutland Square she said he touched his cap slowly set the car in motion he seemed to have a league with her to ignore Scrivenski the latter sad as if trapped within the taxi cab his face still working whilst occasionally he made quick slight movements of the head to shake away his tears he never moved his hands she could not bear to look at him she sat with face uplifted and averted to the window at length when she had regained some control over herself and again to him he was much quieter his face was wet and twitched occasionally his hands still lay motionless but his eyes were quite still like a washed sky after rain full of a wan light and quite steady almost ghost light a pain flamed in her womb for him I didn't think I should hurt you she said laying her hand very lightly tentatively on his arm words came without my knowing they didn't mean anything really he remained quite still hearing but washed all wan and without feeling she waited looking at him as if he were some curious not understandable creature you won't cry again will you Tony some shame and bitterness against her burned him in the question she noticed how his mustache was sodden wet with tears taking her handkerchief wiped his face the driver's heavy stolid back remained always turned to them as if conscious but indifferent Skrebensky sat motionless whilst Ursula wiped his face softly carefully and yet clumsily not as well as he would have wiped it himself her handkerchief was too small it was soon wet through she groped in his pocket for his own then with its more ample capacity she carefully dried his face he remained motionless all the while then she drew his cheek to hers and kissed him his face was cold her heart was hurt she saw the tears welling quickly to his eyes again as if he were a child she again wiped away his tears by now she herself was on the point of weeping her underlip was caught between her teeth so she sat still for fear of her own tears sitting close by him holding his hand warm and close and loving meanwhile the car ran on and a soft midsummer dusk began to gather for a long while they sat motionless only now and again her hand closed more closely lovingly over his hand then gradually relaxed the dusk began to fall one or two lights appeared the driver drew up to light his lamps Skrebensky moved for the first time leaning forward to watch the driver his face had always the same still clarified almost childlike look impersonal they saw the driver's strange full dark face peering into the lamps under drawn brows Ursula shuddered it was the face almost of an animal yet of a quick strong wary animal that had them within its knowledge almost within its power she clung closer to Skrebensky my love, she said to him questioningly when the car was again running in full motion he made no movement or sound he let her hold his hand he let her reach forward in the gathering darkness and kiss his still cheek the crying had gone by he would not cry anymore he was whole and himself again my love, she repeated trying to make him notice her but as yet he could not he watched the road they were running by Kensington Gardens for the first time his lips opened shall we get out and go into the park, he asked yes, she said quietly not sure what was coming after a moment he took the tube from its peg she saw the stout strong self-contained driver lean his head stop at Hyde Park Corner the dark head nodded the car ran on just the same presently they pulled up Skrebensky paid the man Ursula stood back she saw the driver salute as he received his tip and then before he set the car in motion turn and look at her with his quick, powerful animals look his eyes very concentrated and the whites of his eyes flickering then he drove away into the crowd he had let her go she had been afraid Skrebensky turned with her into the park a band was still playing and the place was throng with people they listened to the ebbing music then went aside to a dark seat where they sat closely hand in hand then at length as out of the silence she said to him, wondering what hurt you so? she really did not know at this moment when you said you wanted never to marry me he replied with a childish simplicity but why did that hurt you so? she said, you needn't mind everything I say so particularly I don't know I didn't want to do it he said humbly, ashamed she pressed his hand warmly they sat close together watching the soldiers go by with their sweethearts the lights trailing in myriads down the great thoroughfares that beat on the edge of the park I didn't know you cared so much she said, also humbly I didn't, he said I was knocked over myself but I care all the world his voice was so quiet and colorless it made her heart go pale with fear my love, she said drawing near to him but she spoke out of fear, not out of love I care all the world I care for nothing else neither in life nor in death he said in the same steady colorless voice of essential truth then for what? she murmured duskily then for you to be with me and again she was afraid was she to be conquered by this? she cowered close to him very close to him they sat perfectly still listening to the great heavy beating sound of the town the murmur of lovers going by the footsteps of soldiers she shivered against him you are cold? he said a little we will go and have some supper he was now always quiet and decided and remote very beautiful he seemed to have some strange cold power over her they went to a restaurant and drank chianti but his pale, wan look did not go away don't leave me tonight he said at length looking at her pleading so strange and impersonal she was afraid but the people of my place I will explain to them they know we are engaged she sat pale and mute he waited shall we go? he said at length where? to an hotel her heart was hardened without answering she rose to acquiesce but she was now cold and unreal yet she could not refuse him it seemed like fate a fate she did not want they went to an Italian hotel somewhere and had a somber bedroom with a very large bed clean but somber the ceiling was painted with a bunch of flowers and a big mandalion over the bed she thought it was pretty he came to her and cleaved to her very close like steel cleaving and clinching onto her her passion was roused she was fierce but cold but it was fierce and extreme and good their passion this night he slept with her fast in his arms all night long he held her fast against him she was passive, acquiescent but her sleep was not very deep nor very real she woke in the morning to a sound of water dashed on a courtyard to sunlight streaming through a lattice she thought she was in a foreign country and Skrebensky was there an incubus upon her she lay still thinking whilst his arm was round her his head against her shoulders his body against hers just behind her he was still asleep she watched the sunshine coming in bars through the persians and her immediate surroundings again melted away she was in some other land some other world where the old restraints had dissolved and vanished moved freely not afraid of one's fellow men nor wary nor on the defensive but calm indifferent at one's ease vaguely in a sort of silver light she wandered at large and at ease the bonds of the world were broken this world of England had vanished away she heard a voice in the yard below calling oh Giovanna oh oh oh Giovanna and she knew she was in a new country in a new life it was very delicious to lie thus still with one's soul wandering freely and simply in the silver light of some other simpler more finely natural world but always there was a foreboding waiting to command her she became more aware of Skrebensky she knew he was waking up she must modify her soul depart from her further world for him she knew he was awake he lay still with a concrete stillness not as when he slept then his arm tightened almost convulsively upon her and he said half timidly did you sleep well? very well so did I there was a pause and do you love me? he asked she turned and looked at him searchingly he seemed outside her I do, she said but she said it out of complacency and a desire not to be harried there was a curious breach of silence between them which frightened him they lay rather late then he rang for breakfast she wanted to be able to go straight downstairs and away from the place when she got up she was happy in this room but the thought of the publicity of the hall downstairs rather troubled her a young Italian, a Sicilian dark and slightly pockmarked buttoned up in a sort of grey tunic appeared with the tray his face had an almost African imperturbability impassive, incomprehensible one might be in Italy Skrebensky said to him genially a vacant look almost like fear came on the fellow's face he did not understand this is like Italy Skrebensky explained how the Italian flashed with a non-comprehending smile he finished setting out the tray and was gone he did not understand he would understand nothing he disappeared from the door like a half domesticated wild animal it made Ursula shudder slightly the quick, sharp-sided intent animality of the man Skrebensky was beautiful to her this morning his face softened and transfused with love his movements very still and gentle he was beautiful to her but she was detached from him by a chill distance always she seemed to be bearing up against the distances separated them but he was unaware this morning he was transfused and beautiful she admired his movements the way he spread honey on his roll or poured out the coffee when breakfast was over he went through his toilette she watched him as he sponged himself and quickly dried himself with the towel his body was beautiful his movements intent and quick she admired him and she appreciated him without reserve he seemed completed now he aroused no fruitful fecundity in her he seemed added up finished she knew him all round not on any side did he lead into the unknown almost passionate appreciation she felt for him but none of the dreadful wonder none of the rich fear the connection with the unknown or the reverence of love he was however unaware this morning his body was quiet and fulfilled his veins complete with satisfaction he was happy finished again she went home but this time he went with her he wanted to stay by her it was already july in early september he must sail for india he could not bear to think of going alone she must come with him nervously he kept beside her her examination was finished her college career was over there remained for her now to marry or to work again she applied for no post it was concluded she would marry india attempted her marriage land but with the thought of calcutta or bombay or of simla and of the european population india was no more attractive to her than nottingham she had failed in her examination she had gone down she had not taken her degree it was a blow to her it hardened her soul it doesn't matter he said what are the odds whether you are a bachelor of arts or not according to the london university all you know you know and if you are mrs skrebensky the b.a. is meaningless instead of consoling her this made her harder more ruthless she was now up against her own fate it was for her to choose between being mrs skrebensky even baroness skrebensky wife of a lieutenant and the royal engineers the sappers as he called them living with the european population at spinster school mistress she was qualified by her intermediate arts examination she would probably even now get a post quite easily as assistant in one of the higher grade schools or even in willie green school which was she to do she hated most of all entering the bondage of teaching once more very heartily she detested it yet at the thought of marriage and living with skrebensky amid the european population in india her soul was locked and would not budge she had very little feeling about it only there was a deadlock skrebensky waited she waited everybody waited for the decision when anton talked to her and seemed insidiously to suggest himself as a husband to her she knew how utterly locked out he was on the other hand when she saw dorothy and discussed the matter she would marry him promptly at once as a sharp disavowal of adherence with dorothy's views the situation was almost ridiculous but do you love him asked dorothy it isn't a question of loving him said ursula i love him well enough certainly more than i love anybody else in the world and i shall never love anybody else the same again we have had the flower of each other but i don't care about love i value it i don't care whether i love or whether i don't whether i have love or whether i haven't what is it to me and she shrugged her shoulders in fierce angry contempt dorothy pondered rather angry and afraid then what do you care about she asked exasperated i don't know said ursula but something impersonal love love love what does it mean it doesn't come out to so much personal gratification it doesn't lead anywhere it isn't supposed to lead anywhere is it said dorothy satirically i thought it was the one thing which is an end in itself then what does it matter to me cried ursula as an end in itself i could love a hundred men one after the other why should i end with a skrebensky why should i not go on and love all the types i fancy if love is an end in itself there are plenty of men who aren't anton whom i could love whom i would like to love then you don't love him said dorothy i tell you i do quite as much and perhaps more than i should love any of the others only there are plenty of things that aren't in anton that i would love in the other men what for instance it doesn't matter what's standing in some men and then a dignity a directness something unquestioned that there is in working men and then a jolly reckless passionateness that you see a man who could really let go dorothy could feel that ursula was already hankering after something else something that this man did not give her the question is what do you want propounded dorothy is it just other men ursula was silenced this was her own dread was she just promiscuous because if it is continued dorothy you'd better marry anton the other can only end badly so out of fear of herself ursula was to marry skrebensky he was very busy now preparing to go to india he must visit relatives and contract business he was almost sure of ursula now she seemed to have given in and he seemed to become again an important self-assured man it was the first week in august and he was one of a large party in a bungalow on the lincolnshire coast it was a tennis golf motorcar motorboat party given by his great aunt a lady of social pretensions ursula was invited to spend the week with the party she went rather reluctantly her marriage was more or less fixed for the 28th of the month they were to sail for india on september the 5th one thing she knew in her subconsciousness and that was she would never sail for india she and anton being important guests on account of the coming marriage had rooms in the large bungalow it was a big place with a great central hall two smaller writing rooms and then two corridors skrubensky was put on one corridor ursula on the other they felt very lost in the crowd being lovers however they were allowed to be out alone together as much as they liked yet she felt very strange in this crowd of strange people uneasy as if she had no privacy she was not used to these homogeneous crowds she was afraid she felt different from the rest of them the intimacy that seemed to cost them so little she felt she was not pronounced enough it was a kind of hold your own unconventional atmosphere she did not like it in crowds in assemblies of people she liked formality she felt she did not produce the right effect she was not effective she was not beautiful she was nothing even before skrubensky he could take his part very well with the rest he and she went out into the night there was a moon behind clouds shedding at a fused light gleaming now and again in bits of smoky mother of pearl so they walked together on the wet ribbed sands near the sea hearing the run of the long heavy waves that made a ghostly whiteness and a whisper he was sure of himself as she walked the soft silk of her dress she wore a blue shantung blew away from the sea and flapped and clung to her legs she wished it would not everything seemed to give her away and she could not rouse herself to deny she was so confused he would lead her away to a pocket in the sandhills secret amid the grey thorn bushes and the grey glassy grass he held her close against him all her firm unutterably desirable mold of body through the fine fiber of the silk that fell about her limbs the silk slipping fireily on the hidden yet revealed roundness and firmness of her body her loins seemed to run in him like fire make his brain burn like brimstone she liked it the electric fire of the silk under his hands upon her limbs the fire flew over her to discovery she vibrated like a jet of electric firm fluid in response yet she did not feel beautiful all the time she felt she was not beautiful to him only exciting she let him take her and he seemed mad mad was excited passion but she as she lay afterwards on the cold soft sand looking up at the blotted faintly luminous sky felt that she was as cold now than before yet he breathing heavily seemed almost savagely satisfied he seemed revenged a little wind wafted the seagrass and passed over her face where was the supreme fulfillment she would never enjoy why was she so cold so unroused so indifferent as they went home and she saw the many hateful lights of the bungalow softly don't lock your door I'd rather hear she said no don't we belong to each other don't let us deny it she did not answer he took her silence for consent he shared his room with another man I suppose he said it won't alarm the house if I go across to happier regions so long as you don't make a great row going and don't try the wrong door another man turning into sleep Skrubensky went out in his wide-striped sleeping suit he crossed the big dining hall whose low-firelight smelled of cigars and whiskey and coffee entered the other corridor and found Ursula's room she was lying awake wide-eyed and suffering she was glad he had come if only for consolation it was consolation to be held in his arms to feel his body against hers yet how foreign his arms and body were yet still not so horribly foreign and hostile as the rest of the house felt to her she did not know how she suffered in this house she was healthy and exorbitantly full of interest so she played tennis and learned golf she rode out and swam in the deep sea and enjoyed it very much indeed full of zest yet all the time among those others she felt shocked and wincing as if her violently sensitive nakedness were exposed to the hard brutal material impact of the rest of the people the days went by unmarked in a full almost strenuous enjoyment of one's own physique Skrubensky was one among the others till evening came and he took her for himself she was allowed a great deal of freedom and was treated with a good deal of respect as a girl on the eve of marriage for another continent the trouble began at evening then a yearning for something unknown came over her a passion for something she knew not what she would walk the foreshore alone after dusk expecting something as if she had gone to a rendezvous the salt bitter passion of the sea its indifference to the earth its swinging definite motion its strength, its attack the salt burning seemed to provoke her to a pitch of madness tantalizing her with vast suggestions of fulfillment and then for personification would come Skrubensky Skrubensky whom she knew whom she was fond of who was attractive but whose soul could not contain her in its waves of strength nor his breast compel her in burning salty passion one evening they went out after dinner they went to the sea the sky had small faint stars all was still and faintly dark they walked together in silence then plowed laboring through the heavy loose sand of the gap between the dunes they went in silence under the even faint darkness in the darker shadow of the sand hills suddenly cresting the heavy sandy pass Ursula lifted her head and shrank back momentarily frightened there was a great whiteness confronting her the moon was incandescent as a round furnace door out of which came the high blast of moonlight over the seaward half of the world a dazzling terrifying glare of white light they shrank back for a moment into shadow uttering a cry he felt his chest laid bare where the secret was heavily hidden he felt himself fusing down like a bead that rapidly disappears in an incandescent flame how wonderful cried Ursula in low calling tones how wonderful and she went forward plunging into it he followed behind she too seemed to melt into the glare towards the moon the sands were as ground silver the sea moved in solid brightness coming towards them and she went to meet the advance water she gave her breast to the moon her belly to the flashing heaving water he stood behind and compassed a shadow ever dissolving she stood on the edge of the water at the edge of the solid flashing body of the sea and the wave rushed over her feet I want to go she cried in a strong dominant voice I want to go he saw the moonlight on her face so she was like metal and heard her ringing metallic voice like the voice of a harpy to him she prowled ranging on the edge of the water like a possessed creature and he followed her he saw the froth of the wave followed by the hard bright water swirl over her feet and her ankles she swung out her arms to balance he expected every moment to see her walk into the sea dressed as she was and be carried swimming out I want to go she cried again in the high hard voice like the scream of gulls where he asked I don't know and she seized hold of his arm held him fast as if captive and walked him a little way by the edge of the dazzling dazing water then there in the great flare of light she clenched hold of him hard as if suddenly she had the strength of destruction she grasped her arms around him and tightened him in her grip whilst her mouth sought his in a hard-rending ever-increasing kiss till his body was powerless in her grip his heart melted in fear from the fierce beaked harpy's kiss the water washed again over their feet but she took no notice she seemed unaware she seemed to be pressing in her beaked mouth till she had the heart of him then at last she drew away and looked at him he knew what she wanted he took her by the hand and led her across the foreshore back to the sandhills she went silently he felt as if the ordeal of proof was upon him for life or death he led her to a dark hollow no here she said going out to the slope full under the moonshine she lay motionless with wide open eyes looking at the moon direct to her without preliminaries she held him pinned down at the chest awful the fight, the struggle for consummation was terrible it lasted till it was agony to his soul till he succumbed till he gave way as if dead lay with his face buried partly in her hair, partly in the sand motionless as if he would be motionless now forever hidden away in the dark buried only buried in the goodly darkness only that and no more he seemed to swoon it was a long time before he came to himself he was aware of an unusual motion of her breast he looked up her face lay like an image in the moonlight the eyes wide open, rigid but out of the eyes slowly there rolled a tear that glittered in the moonlight as it ran down her cheek he felt as if the knife were being pushed into his already dead body with head strained back he watched, drawn tense for some minutes watching the unaltering rigid face like metal in the moonlight the fixed unseeing eye in which slowly the water gathered shook with glittering moonlight then surcharged, brimmed over and ran trickling a tear with its burden of moonlight into the darkness to fall in the sand he drew gradually away as if afraid drew away, she did not move he glanced at her she lay the same could he break away he turned, saw the open foreshore clear in front of him and he plunged away on and on, ever farther from the horrible figure that lay stretched in the moonlight on the sands with the tears gathering and traveling on the motionless eternal face he felt as if ever he must see her again he must be broken his body crushed, obliterated forever and as yet he had the love of his own living body he wandered on a long, long way till his brain drew dark and he was unconscious with weariness then he curled in the deepest darkness he could find under the sea grass and lay there without consciousness she broke from her tense cramp of agony gradually, though each movement was a goat of heavy pain gradually, she lifted her dead body from the sands and rose at last there was now no moon for her no sea all had passed away she trailed her dead body to the house to her room where she lay down inert morning brought her a new access of superficial life but all within her was cold dead inert Skrebensky appeared at breakfast he was white and obliterated they did not look at each other nor speak to each other apart from the ordinary trivial talk of civil people, they were separate they did not speak of what was between them during the remaining two days of their stay they were like two dead people who dare not recognize dare not see each other then she packed her bag and put on her things there were several guests leaving together for the same train he would have no opportunity to speak to her he tapped at her bedroom door at the last minute she stood with her umbrella in her hand he closed the door he did not know what to say have you done with me he asked her at length lifting his head it isn't me she said you have done with me we have done with each other he looked at her at the closed face which he thought so cruel and he knew he could never touch her again he was broken he was seared but he clung to the life of his body well what have I done he asked in a rather querulous voice I don't know she said in the same dull feelingless voice it is finished it had been a failure he was silent the words still burned in his bowels is it my fault he said looking up at length challenging the last stroke he couldn't she began but she broke down he turned away afraid to hear more she began to gather her bag her handkerchief, her umbrella she must be gone now he was waiting for her to be gone at length the carriage came and she drove away with the rest when she was out of sight a great relief came over him a pleasant banality in an instant everything was obliterated so incompanionable all the day long he was astonished that life could be so nice it was better than it had been before what a simple thing it was to be rid of her how friendly and simple everything felt to him what false thing had she been forcing on him but at night he dared not be alone his roommate had gone and the hours of darkness were an agony to him he watched the window in suffering and terror when would this horrible darkness be lifted off him setting all his nerves he endured it he went to sleep with the dawn he never thought of her only his terror of the hours of night grew on him obsessed him like a mania he slept fitfully with constant wakings of anguish the fear wore away the core of him his plan was to sit up very late drinking company until one or half past one in the morning then he would get three hours of sleep of oblivion it was light by five o'clock but he was shocked almost to madness if he opened his eyes on the darkness in the daytime he was all right always occupied with the thing of the moment adhering to the trivial present which seemed to him ample and satisfying no matter how little and futile his occupations were he gave himself to them entirely and felt normal and fulfilled he was always active cheerful gay charming trivial only he dreaded the darkness and silence of his own bedroom when the darkness should challenge him upon his own soul that he could not bear as he could not bear to think about Ursula he had no soul no background he never thought of Ursula not once he gave her no sign she was the darkness the challenge the horror he turned to immediate things he wanted to marry quickly to screen himself from the darkness the challenge of his own soul he would marry his colonel's daughter quickly without hesitation pursued by his obsession for activity he wrote to this girl telling her his engagement was broken it had been a temporary infatuation which he less than anyone else could understand now it was over and could he see his very dear friend soon he would not be happy till he had an answer he received a rather surprised reply from the girl but she would be glad to see him she was living with her aunt he went down to her at once and proposed to her the first evening he was accepted the marriage took place quietly within fourteen days time Ursula was not notified of the event in another week Skromensky sailed with his new wife to India End of Chapter 15 Chapter 16 of the Rainbow this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence Chapter 16 The Rainbow Ursula went home to belled over faint, dim, closed up she could scarcely speak or notice it was as if her energy were frozen her people asked her what was the matter she told them she had broken off the engagement with Skromensky they looked blank and angry but she could not feel anymore the weeks crawled by in apathy he would have sailed for India now she was scarcely interested she was inert without strength or interest suddenly a shock ran through her so violent that she thought she was struck down was she with child she had been so stricken under the pain of herself and of him this had never occurred to her now like a flame it took hold of her limbs and body was she with child in the first flaming hours of wonder she did not know what she felt she was as if tied to the stake the flames were licking her and devouring her but the flames were also good they seemed to wear her away to rest what she felt in her heart and her womb she did not know it was a kind of swoon then gradually the heaviness of her heart pressed and pressed into consciousness what was she doing was she bearing a child bearing a child to what her flesh thrilled but her soul was sick it seemed this child like the seal said on her own nullity yet she was glad in her flesh that she was with child she began to think that she would write to Skrebensky that she would go out to him and marry him and live simply as a good wife to him what did the self the form of life matter only the living from day to day mattered the beloved existence in the body was rich, peaceful, complete with no beyond no further trouble no further complication she had been wrong she had been arrogant and wicked wanting that other thing that fantastic freedom that illusory conceded fulfillment which she had imagined she could not have with Skrebensky who was she to be wanting some fantastic fulfillment in her life was it not enough that she had her man, her children her place of shelter under the sun was it not enough for her as it had been enough for her mother she would marry and love her husband and fill her place simply that was the ideal suddenly she saw her mother in a just and true light her mother was simple and radically true she had taken the life that was given she had not in her arrogant conceit existed on creating life to fit herself her mother was right profoundly right and she herself had been false trashy conceded a great mood of humility came over her and in this humility a bondage sort of peace she gave her limbs to the bondage she loved the bondage she called it peace in this state she sat down to write to Skrebensky since you left me I have suffered a great deal and so have come to myself I cannot tell you the remorse I feel for my wicked perverse behavior it was given to me to love you and to know your love for me but instead of thankfully on my knees taking what God had given me I must have the moon in my keeping I must insist on having the moon for my own because I could not have it and now else must go I do not know if you can ever forgive me I could die with shame to think of my behavior with you during our last times and I don't know if I could ever bear to look you in the face again truly the best thing would be for me to die and cover my fantasies forever but I find I am with child so that cannot be it is your child and for that reason I must wait and submit my body entirely to its welfare entertaining no thought of death which once more is largely conceit therefore because you once loved me and because this child is your child I ask you to have me back if you will cable me one word I will come to you as soon as I can I swear to you to be a dutiful wife and to serve you in all things for now I only hate myself for my conceited foolishness I love you I love the thought of you you were natural and decent all through whilst I was so false once I am with you again I shall ask no more than to rest in your shelter all my life this letter she wrote sentence by sentence as if from her deepest sincerest heart she felt that now she was at the depths of herself this was her true self forever with this document she would appear before God at the judgment day for what had a woman but to submit what was her flesh but for child bearing her strength for her children and her husband the giver of life at last she was a woman she posted her letter to his club to be forwarded to him in Calcutta he would receive it soon after his arrival in India within three weeks of his arrival there in a month's time she would receive word from him then she would go she was quite sure of him she thought only of preparing her garments and of living quietly peacefully till the time when she should join him again and her history would be concluded forever the peace held like an unnatural calm at this time she was aware however of a gathering restiveness a tumult impending within her she tried to run away from it she wished she could hear from Skrebensky and answer to her letter so that her course should be resolved she should be engaged in fulfilling her fate it was this inactivity which made her liable to the revulsion she dreaded it was curious how little about his not having written to her before it was enough that she had sent her letter she would get the required answer that was all one afternoon in early October feeling the seething rising to madness within her she slipped out in the rain to walk abroad lest the house should suffocate her everywhere was drenched wet and deserted the grime houses glowed dull red the but houses burned scarlet in a gleam of light under the glistening blackish purple slates Ursula went on towards Willie Green she lifted her face and walked swiftly seeing the passage of light across the shallow valley seeing the colliery and its clouds of steam for a moment visionary and dim brilliance away in the chaos of rain then the veils closed again she was glad of the rain's privacy and intimacy naking on towards the wood she saw the pale gleam of willy water through the cloud below she walked to the open space where hawthorne trees streamed like hair on the wind and round bushes were presences slowing through the atmosphere it was very splendid free and chaotic yet she hurried to the wood for shelter there the vast booming overhead vibrated down and encircled her tree trunks spanned the circle of tremendous sounds myriads of tree trunks enormous and streaked black with water thrust like stanchions upright between the roaring overhead and the sweeping of the circle underfoot she glided between the tree trunks afraid of them they might turn and shut her in through their marshaled silence so she flitted along keeping an illusion that she was unnoticed she felt like a bird that has flown in through the window of a hall where vast warriors sit at the board between their grave booming ranks she was hastening assuming she was unnoticed till she emerged with beating heart through the far window and out into the open upon the vivid green she meadow she turned under the shelter of the common seeing the great veils of rain swinging with slow floating waves across the landscape she was very wet and a long way from home far enveloped in the rain and the waving landscape she must beat her way back through all this fluctuation back to stability and security a solitary thing with the track straight across the wilderness going back the path was a narrow groove in the turf between high, sear, tussocky grass it was scarcely more than a rabbit run so she moved swiftly along watching her footing going like a bird on the wind with no thought contained in motion but her heart had a small living seed of fear as she went through the wash of hollow space suddenly she knew there was something else some horses were looming in the rain not near yet but they were going to be near she continued her path inevitably they were horses in the lee of a clump of trees beyond above her she pursued her way with bent head she did not want to lift her face to them she did not want to know they were there she went on in the wild track she knew the heaviness on her heart it was the weight of the horses but she would circumvent them she would bear the weight steadily and so escape she would go straight on and on and be gone by suddenly the weight deepened and her heart grew tense to bear it her breathing was labored but this weight also she could bear she knew without looking that the horses were moving nearer what were they she felt the thud of their heavy hoofs on the ground what was it that was drawing near her what weight oppressing her heart she did not know she did not look yet now her way was cut off they were blocking her back she knew they had gathered on a log bridge over the sedgy dike a dark heavy powerfully heavy knot yet her feet went on and on they would burst before her they would burst before her her feet went on and on and tense and more tense became her nerves and her veins they ran hot they ran white hot they must fuse and she must die but the horses had burst before her in a sort of lightning of knowledge their movement traveled through her the quiver and strain and thrust of their powerful flanks as they burst before her and drew on beyond she knew they had not gone she knew they awaited her still but she went on over the log bridge that their hoofs had churned and drummed she went on knowing things about them she was aware of their breasts gripped, clenched narrow in a hole that never relaxed she was aware of their red nostrils flaming with long endurance and of their haunches so rounded, so massive pressing, pressing pressing to burst the grip upon their breasts pressing forever till they went mad running against the walls of time and never bursting free their great haunches were smooth and darkened with rain but the darkness and wetness of rain could not put out the hard urgent massive fire that was locked within these flanks never, never never she went on drawing near she was aware of the great flash of hoofs a bluish iridescent flash surrounding a hollow of darkness large, large seemed the bluish incandescent flash of the hoof iron large as a halo of lightning round the knotted darkness of the flanks like circles of lightning came the flash of hoofs from out of the powerful flanks they were awaiting her again they had gathered under an oak tree knotting their awful, blind triumphing flanks together and waiting, waiting they were waiting for her approach as if from a far distance she was drawing near towards the line of twiggy oak trees where they made their intense darkness gathered on a single bank she must draw near but they broke away they cantered round making a wide circle to avoid noticing her and cantered back into the open hillside behind her they were behind her the way was open before her to the gate and the high hedge in the near distance so she could pass into the smaller cultivated field and so out to the high road and the ordered world of man her way was clear she called her heart yet her heart was couched with fear couched with fear all along suddenly she hesitated as if seized by lightning she seemed to fall yet found herself faltering forward with small steps the thunder of horses galloping down the path behind her shook her the weight came down upon her down to the moment of extinction she could not look round so the horses thundered upon her cruelly they swerved and crashed by on her left hand she saw the fierce flanks crinkled and as yet inadequate the great hoofs flashing bright as yet only brandished about her and one by one the horses crashed by intent working themselves up they had gone by brandishing themselves thunderously about her and closing her they slackened their burst transport they slowed down and cantered together into a knot once more in the corner by the gate and the trees ahead of her they stirred they moved uneasily they settled their uneasy flanks into one group one purpose they were up against her her heart was gone she had no more heart she knew she dare not draw near that concentrated knitted flank of the horse group had conquered it stirred uneasily awaiting her knowing its triumph it stirred uneasily with the uneasiness of a weighted triumph her heart was gone her limbs were dissolved she was dissolved like water all the hardness and looming power was in the massive body of the horse group her feet faltered she came to a stand still it was the crisis the horses stirred their flanks uneasily she looked away, failing on her left, two hundred yards down the slope, the thick hedge ran parallel at one point there was an oak tree she might climb into the boughs of that oak tree and so round and drop on the other side of the hedge shuddering with limbs like water dreading every moment to fall she began to work her way as if making a wide detour round the horse mass the horses stirred their flanks in a knot against her she trembled forward as if in a trance then suddenly in a flame of agony she darted seized the rugged knots of the oak tree and began to climb her body was weak but her hands were as hard as steel she knew she was strong she struggled in a great effort and hung on the bow she knew the horses were aware she gained her foothold on the bow the horses were loosening their knot stirring, trying to realize she was working her way round to the other side of the tree as they started to canter towards her she fell in a heap on the other side of the hedge for some moments she could not move then she saw through the rabbit cleared bottom of the hedge the great working hoofs of the horses as they cantered near she could not bear it she rose and walked swiftly diagonally across the field the horses galloped along the other side of the hedge to the corner where they were held up she could feel them there in their huddled group all the while she hastened across the bare field they were almost pathetic now her will alone carried her till trembling she climbed to the fence under a leaning thorn tree that over hung the grass by the high road the use went from her she sat on the fence leaning back against the trunk of the thorn tree motionless as she sat there spent time and the flux of change passed away from her she lay as if unconscious upon the bed of the stream like a stone unconscious, unchanging unchangeable whilst everything rolled by in tranceance leaving her there a stone at rest on the bed of the stream in alterable and passive sunk to the bottom of all change she lay still a long time with her back against the thorn tree trunk in her final isolation some colliers passed tramping heavily up the wet road their voices sounding out their shoulders up to their ears their figures blotched and spectral in the rain some did not see her she opened her eyes languidly as they passed by then one man going alone saw her the whites of his eyes showed in his black face as he looked in wonderment at her he hesitated in his walk as if to speak to her out of frightened concern for her how she dreaded his speaking to her dreaded his questioning her she slipped from her seat and went vaguely along the path vaguely it was a long way home she had an idea that she must walk for the rest of her life wearily, wearily step after step step after step and always along the wet rainy road between the hedges step after step step after step the monotony produced a deep cold sense of nausea in her how profound was her cold nausea how profound that too plumbed to the bottom she seemed destined to find the bottom of all things today the bottom of all things well at any rate she was walking along the bottom most bed she was quite safe quite safe if she had to go on and on forever seeing this was the very bottom and there was nothing deeper there was nothing deeper you see so one could not but feel certain, passive she arrived home at last to climb up the hill to beldover had been very trying why must one climb the hill why must one climb why not stay below why force one's way up the slope why force one's way up and up when one is at the bottom oh it was very trying very wearying very burdensome always burdened always always burdened still she must get to the top and go home to bed she must go to bed she got in and went upstairs in the dust without it being noticed she was in such a sad condition she was too tired to go downstairs again she got into bed and lay shuddering with cold yet too apathetic to get up or call for relief then gradually she became more ill she was very ill for a fortnight delirious shaken and wracked but always amid the ache of delirium she had a dull firmness of being a sense of permanency she was in some way like the stone at the bottom of the river inviolable and unalterable no matter what storm raged in her body her soul lay still and permanent full of pain but itself forever under all her illness persisted a deep inalterable knowledge she knew and she cared no more throughout her illness distorted into vague forms persisted the question of herself like a gnawing ache that was still superficial and did not touch her isolated impregnable core of reality but the corrosion of him burned in her till it burned itself out must she belong to him must she adhere to him something compelled her and yet it was not real always the ache the ache of unreality of her belonging to Skrebensky what bound her to him when she was not bound to him why did the falsity persist why did the falsity gnaw gnaw gnaw at her why could she not wake up to clarity to reality if she could but wake up if she could but wake up the falsity of the dream of her connection with Skrebensky would be gone but the sleep the delirium pinned her down even when she was calm and sober she was in its spell yet she was never in its spell what extraneous thing bound her to him there was some bond put upon her why could she not break it through what was it what was it and her delirium she beat and beat at the question and at last her weariness gave her the answer it was the child the child bound her to him the child was like a bond round her brain tightened on her brain it bound her to Skrebensky but why why did it bind her to Skrebensky could she not have a child of herself was not the child her own affair all her own affair what had it to do with him why must she be bound achy and cramped with the bondage to Skrebensky and Skrebensky's world Anton's world it became in her feverish brain a compression which enclosed her if she could not get out of the compression she would go mad the compression was Anton in Anton's world not the Anton she possessed but the Anton she did not possess that which was owned by some other influence by the world she fought and fought and fought all through her illness to be free of him Anton's world to put it aside to put it aside into its place yet ever anew it gained ascendancy over her it laid new hold on her oh the unutterable weariness of her flesh which she could not cast off nor yet extricate if she could but extricate herself if she could but disengage herself from feeling from her body from all the vast encumbrances with her from her father and her mother and her lover and all her acquaintance repeatedly in an ache of utter weariness she repeated I have no father nor mother no lover I have no allocated place in the world of things I do not belong to Beldover nor to Nottingham nor to England nor to this world they none of them exist they are real they must break out of it like a nut from its shell which is an unreality and again to her feverish brain came the vivid reality of acorns in February lying on the floor of a wood with their shells burst and discarded and the colonel issued naked to put itself forth she was the naked clear colonel thrusting forth the clear powerful shoot and the world was a bygone winter carted her mother and father and Anton and college and all her friends all cast off like a year that has gone by whilst the colonel was free and naked and striving to take new root to create a new knowledge of eternity and the flux of time and the colonel was the only reality the rest was cast off into oblivion this grew and grew upon her when she opened her eyes in the afternoon and saw the window of her room and the faint smoky landscape beyond this was all husk and shell lying by all husk and shell she could see nothing else she was enclosed still but loosely enclosed there was a space between her and the shell it was burst there was a rift in it soon she would have her root fixed in a new day her nakedness would take itself the bed of a new sky and a new air this old decaying fibrous husk would be gone gradually she began really to sleep she slept in the confidence of her new reality she slept breathing with her soul the new air of a new world the peace was very deep and enriching she had her root in new ground she was gradually absorbed into growth when she woke at last it seemed as if a new day had come on the earth how long had she fought through the dust and obscurity for this new dawn how frail and fine and clear she felt like the most fragile flower that opens in the end of winter but the pole of night was turned and the dawn was coming in very far off was her old experience Skrebensky her parting with him very far off some things were real those first glamorous weeks before these had seemed like hallucination now they seemed like common reality the rest was unreal she knew that Skrebensky had never become finally real in the weeks of passionate ecstasy he had been with her in her desire for him for the time being but in the end he had failed and broken down strange what a void separated him and her she liked him now as she liked a memory some bygone self he was something of the past finite he was that which is known she felt a poignant affection for him as for that which is past but when she looked not nay when she looked ahead into the undiscovered land before her what was there she could recognize but a fresh glow of light and inscrutable trees going up from the earth like smoke it was the unknown the unexplored the undiscovered upon whose shore she had landed alone after crossing the void the darkness which washed the new world and the old there would be no child she was glad if there had been a child it would have made little difference however she would have kept the child and herself she would not have gone to Skrebensky and time belonged to the past there came the cablegram from Skrebensky I am married an old pain and anger and contempt stirred in her did he belong so utterly to the past? she repudiated him he was as he was it was good that he was as he was who was she to have a man according to her own desire it was not for her to create but to recognize a man created by God the man should come from the infinite and she should hail him she was glad she could not create her man she was glad she had nothing to do with his creation she was glad that this lay the hope of that vaster power in which she rested at last the man would come out of eternity to which she herself belonged as she grew better she sat to watch a new creation as she sat at her window she saw the people go by in the street below colliers, women, children walking each in the husk of an old fruition but visible through the husk the swelling and the heaving contour of the new germination in the still silenced forms of the colliers she saw a sort of suspense awaiting in pain for the new liberation she saw the same in the false hard confidence of the women the confidence of the women was brittle it would break quickly to reveal the strength and patient effort of the new germination in everything she saw she grasped and groped to find the creation of the living God instead of the old hard barren form of bygone living sometimes great terror possessed her sometimes she lost touch she lost her feeling she could only know the old horror of the husk which bound in her and all mankind they were all in prison they were all going mad she saw the stiffened bodies of the colliers already enclosed in a coffin she saw their unchanging eyes the eyes of those who are buried alive she saw the hard cutting edges of the new houses which seemed to spread over the hillside in their insentient triumph the triumph of horrible amorphous angles and straight lines the expression of corruption triumphant and unopposed corruption so pure that it is hard and brittle she saw the done atmosphere over the blackened hills opposite the dark blotches of houses slate roofed and amorphous the old church tower standing up in hideous obsoleteness above raw new houses on the crest of the hill the amorphous, brittle hard edged new houses advancing from belldover to meet the corrupt new houses from lethley advancing to mix with the houses of hayenor a dry brittle terrible corruption spreading over the face of the land and she was sick with the nausea so deep that she perished as she sat and then in the blowing clouds she saw a band of faint iridescence coloring and faint colors a portion of the hill and forgetting startled she looked for the hovering color of the rainbow forming itself in one place it gleamed fiercely and her heart anguished with hope she sought the shadow of iris where the bow should be steadily the color gathered mysteriously from nowhere it took presence upon itself there was a faint vast rainbow the ark banded and strengthened itself till it arched indomitable making great architecture in the space of heaven its pedestals luminous in the corruption of new houses on the low hill it's arched the top of heaven and the rainbow stood on the earth she knew that the sordid people who crept hard scaled and separate on the face of the world's corruption were living still that the rainbow was arched in their blood and would quiver to life in their spirit of disintegration that new clean naked bodies would issue to a new germination to a new growth rising to the light and the wind and the clean rain of heaven she saw in the rainbow the earth's new architecture the old brittle corruption of houses and factories swept away the world built up in a living fabric of truth fitting to the overarching heaven End of Chapter 16 End of The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence