She crept to bed, and cried. But she was going to be married
to Will Brangwen, and then she need not bother any more.
Brangwen went to bed with a hard, cold heart, and cursed
himself. He looked at his wife. She was still his wife. Her dark
hair was threaded with grey, her face was beautiful in its
gathering age. She was just fifty. How poignantly he saw her!
And he wanted to cut out some of his own heart, which was
incontinent, and demanded still to share the rapid life of
youth. How he hated himself.
His wife was so poignant and timely. She was still young and
naive, with some girl's freshness. But she did not want any more
the fight, the battle, the control, as he, in his incontinence,
still did. She was so natural, and he was ugly, unnatural, in
his inability to yield place. How hideous, this greedy
middle-age, which must stand in the way of life, like a large
demon.
What was missing in his life, that, in his ravening soul, he
was not satisfied? He had had that friend at school, his mother,
his wife, and Anna? What had he done? He had failed with his
friend, he had been a poor son; but he had known satisfaction
with his wife, let it be enough; he loathed himself for the
state he was in over Anna. Yet he was not satisfied. It was
agony to know it.
Was his life nothing? Had he nothing to show, no work? He did
not count his work, anybody could have done it. What had he
known, but the long, marital embrace with his wife! Curious,
that this was what his life amounted to! At any rate, it was
something, it was eternal. He would say so to anybody, and be
proud of it. He lay with his wife in his arms, and she was still
his fulfilment, just the same as ever. And that was the be-all
and the end-all. Yes, and he was proud of it.
But the bitterness, underneath, that there still remained an
unsatisfied Tom Brangwen, who suffered agony because a girl
cared nothing for him. He loved his sons--he had them also.
But it was the further, the creative life with the girl, he
wanted as well. Oh, and he was ashamed. He trampled himself to
extinguish himself.
What weariness! There was no peace, however old one grew! One
was never right, never decent, never master of oneself. It was
as if his hope had been in the girl.
Anna quickly lapsed again into her love for the youth. Will
Brangwen had fixed his marriage for the Saturday before
Christmas. And he waited for her, in his bright, unquestioning
fashion, until then. He wanted her, she was his, he suspended
his being till the day should come. The wedding day, December
the twenty-third, had come into being for him as an absolute
thing. He lived in it.