Domestic fiction; Family -- England -- Midlands -- Fiction; Midlands (England) -- Fiction
Their coming together now, after two years of married life, was much
more wonderful to them than it had been before. It was the entry into
another circle of existence, it was the baptism to another life, it was
the complete confirmation. Their feet trod strange ground of knowledge,
their footsteps were lit-up with discovery. Wherever they walked, it
was well, the world re-echoed round them in discovery. They went gladly
and forgetful. Everything was lost, and everything was found. The new
world was discovered, it remained only to be explored.
They had passed through the doorway into the further space, where
movement was so big, that it contained bonds and constraints and
labours, and still was complete liberty. She was the doorway to him, he
to her. At last they had thrown open the doors, each to the other, and
had stood in the doorways facing each other, whilst the light flooded
out from behind on to each of their faces, it was the transfiguration,
glorification, the admission.
And always the light of the transfiguration burned on in their hearts.
He went his way, as before, she went her way, to the rest of the world
there seemed no change. But to the two of them, there was the perpetual
wonder of the transfiguration.
He did not know her any better, any more precisely, now that he knew
her altogether. Poland, her husband, the war—he understood no more of
this in her. He did not understand her foreign nature, half German,
half Polish, nor her foreign speech. But he knew her, he knew her
meaning, without understanding. What she said, what she spoke, this was
a blind gesture on her part. In herself she walked strong and clear, he
knew her, he saluted her, was with her. What was memory after all, but
the recording of a number of possibilities which had never been
fulfilled? What was Paul Lensky to her, but an unfulfilled possibility
to which he, Brangwen, was the reality and the fulfilment? What did it
matter, that Anna Lensky was born of Lydia and Paul? God was her father
and her mother. He had passed through the married pair without fully
making Himself known to them.
Now He was declared to Brangwen and to Lydia Brangwen, as they stood
together. When at last they had joined hands, the house was finished,
and the Lord took up his abode. And they were glad.
The days went on as before, Brangwen went out to his work, his wife
nursed her child and attended in some measure to the farm. They did not
think of each other—why should they? Only when she touched him, he knew
her instantly, that she was with him, near him, that she was the
gateway and the way out, that she was beyond, and that he was
travelling in her through the beyond. Whither?—What does it matter? He
responded always. When she called, he answered, when he asked, her
response came at once, or at length.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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