Transcriber’s note: a few brief passages found in other editions, butnot in this edition, have been noted as [censored material] as havingbeen probably elided by this publisher by reason of content.
The Rainbow
by D. H. Lawrence
THE
MODERN LIBRARY
NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY D. H. LAWRENCE
Random House is the publisher of
THE MODERN LIBRARY
BENNETT A. CERF ▪ DONALD S. KLOPFER ▪ ROBERT K. HAAS
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed by Parkway Printing Company Bound by H. Wolff
TO ELSE
Contents
| Chapter I. | How Tom Brangwen Married a Polish Lady |
| Chapter II. | They Live at the Marsh |
| Chapter III. | Childhood of Anna Lensky |
| Chapter IV. | Girlhood of Anna Brangwen |
| Chapter V. | Wedding at the Marsh |
| Chapter VI. | Anna Victrix |
| Chapter VII. | The Cathedral |
| Chapter VIII. | The Child |
| Chapter IX. | The Marsh and the Flood |
| Chapter X. | The Widening Circle |
| Chapter XI. | First Love |
| Chapter XII. | Shame |
| Chapter XIII. | The Man’s World |
| Chapter XIV. | The Widening Circle |
| Chapter XV. | The Bitterness of Ecstasy |
| Chapter XVI. | The Rainbow |
Chapter I.
HOW TOM BRANGWEN MARRIED A POLISH LADY
I
The Brangwens had lived for generations on the Marsh Farm, in the meadows wherethe Erewash twisted sluggishly through alder trees, separating Derbyshire fromNottinghamshire. Two miles away, a church-tower stood on a hill, the houses ofthe little country town climbing assiduously up to it. Whenever one of theBrangwens in the fields lifted his head from his work, he saw the church-towerat Ilkeston in the empty sky. So that as he turned again to the horizontalland, he was aware of something standing above him and beyond him in thedistance.
There was a look in the eyes of the Brangwens as if they were expectingsomething unknown, about which they were eager. They had that air of readinessfor what would come to them, a kind of surety, an expectancy, the look of aninheritor.
They were fresh, blond, slow-speaking people, revealing themselves plainly, butslowly, so that one could watch the change in their eyes from laughter toanger, blue, lit-up laughter, to a hard blue-staring anger; through all theirresolute stages of the sky when the weather is changing.
Living on rich land