t
satisfied him? He had satisfied her. She was satisfied, at
peace, innocent round the doors of her own paradise.

And he was unsatisfied, unfulfilled, he raged in torment,
wanting, wanting. It was for her to satisfy him: then let her do
it. Let her not come with flowery handfuls of innocent love. He
would throw these aside and trample the flowers to nothing. He
would destroy her flowery, innocent bliss. Was he not entitled
to satisfaction from her, and was not his heart all raging
desire, his soul a black torment of unfulfilment. Let it be
fulfilled in him, then, as it was fulfilled in her. He had given
her her fulfilment. Let her rise up and do her part.

He was cruel to her. But all the time he was ashamed. And
being ashamed, he was more cruel. For he was ashamed that he
could not come to fulfilment without her. And he could not. And
she would not heed him. He was shackled and in darkness of
torment.

She beseeched him to work again, to do his wood-carving. But
his soul was too black. He had destroyed his panel of Adam and
Eve. He could not begin again, least of all now, whilst he was
in this condition.

For her there was no final release, since he could not be
liberated from himself. Strange and amorphous, she must go
yearning on through the trouble, like a warm, glowing cloud
blown in the middle of a storm. She felt so rich, in her warm
vagueness, that her soul cried out on him, because he harried
her and wanted to destroy her.

She had her moments of exaltation still, re-births of old
exaltations. As she sat by her bedroom window, watching the
steady rain, her spirit was somewhere far off.

She sat in pride and curious pleasure. When there was no one
to exult with, and the unsatisfied soul must dance and play,
then one danced before the Unknown.

Suddenly she realized that this was what she wanted to do.
Big with child as she was, she danced there in the bedroom by
herself, lifting her hands and her body to the Unseen, to the
unseen Creator who had chosen her, to Whom she belonged.

She would not have had anyone know. She danced in secret, and
her soul rose in bliss. She danced in secret before the Creator,
she took off her clothes and danced in the pride of her
bigness.

It surprised her, when it was over. She was shrinking and
afraid. To what was she now exposed? She half wanted to tell her
husband. Yet she shrank from him.

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