The Rainbow

Baron Skrebensky marries an Englishwoman after his first wife dies. His new wife, Millicent Maud Pearse, is a noblewoman. Shortly after they have a son, they invite Will and Anna to visit them. Anna watches “the little Baroness” flirt with Will, and she is jealous, although her husband barely responds to the young woman. She watches the baron playing with his child and thinks about how different her life could have been; she longs to have her “own life” apart from the Brangwens. When they leave the baron’s house, Will takes Anna to see the Lincoln Cathedral nearby. Will once promised Anna they would visit all his favorite cathedrals in England. Anna expects to be unimpressed, but the cathedral’s interior is so beautiful that she cannot help but be amazed. Her feeling of awe is short-lived, as she soon becomes frustrated by Will’s religious fascination with the church—a sentiment she neither understands nor admires. Anna mocks the wood carvings, upsetting Will so much that as they leave, he feels she ruined the cathedral for him. At home, Will becomes more involved with their church and builds himself a woodshed to work on his carvings, “to restore things which were destroyed in the church” (194).