intimate, she had known them near
and lovely, like presences hovering upon her. What if they
should all go hard and separate again, standing back from her
terrible and distinct, and she, having known them, should be at
their mercy?

This frightened her. Always, her husband was to her the
unknown to which she was delivered up. She was a flower that has
been tempted forth into blossom, and has no retreat. He had her
nakedness in his power. And who was he, what was he? A blind
thing, a dark force, without knowledge. She wanted to preserve
herself.

Then she gathered him to herself again and was satisfied for
a moment. But as time went on, she began to realize more and
more that he did not alter, that he was something dark, alien to
herself. She had thought him just the bright reflex of herself.
As the weeks and months went by she realized that he was a dark
opposite to her, that they were opposites, not complements.

He did not alter, he remained separately himself, and he
seemed to expect her to be part of himself, the extension of his
will. She felt him trying to gain power over her, without
knowing her. What did he want? Was he going to bully her?

What did she want herself? She answered herself, that she
wanted to be happy, to be natural, like the sunlight and the
busy daytime. And, at the bottom of her soul, she felt he wanted
her to be dark, unnatural. Sometimes, when he seemed like the
darkness covering and smothering her, she revolted almost in
horror, and struck at him. She struck at him, and made him
bleed, and he became wicked. Because she dreaded him and held
him in horror, he became wicked, he wanted to destroy. And then
the fight between them was cruel.

She began to tremble. He wanted to impose himself on her. And
he began to shudder. She wanted to desert him, to leave him a
prey to the open, with the unclean dogs of the darkness setting
on to devour him. He must beat her, and make her stay with him.
Whereas she fought to keep herself free of him.

They went their ways now shadowed and stained with blood,
feeling the world far off, unable to give help. Till she began
to get tired. After a certain point, she became impassive,
detached utterly from him. He was always ready to burst out
murderously against her. Her soul got up and left him, she went
her way. Nevertheless in her apparent blitheness, that made his
soul black with opposition, she trembled as if she bled.

And ever and again, the pure