The Rainbow

by

D. H. Lawrence

Anton Skrebensky is the son of Baron Skrebensky, making him wealthy and well-traveled. As a young man, Anton serves in the Second Boer War. However, before deploying for the war, Anton meets and falls in love with Ursula Brangwen. Although the two share a deeply passionate relationship, they do not marry before Anton leaves for the war. While he is away, Ursula finds herself falling out of love with him. Later in life, Anton and Ursula reconnect while Ursula is attending college. Again, they engage in a passionate love affair, though Ursula rejects Anton when he asks her to marry him. Hurt, Anton stops pursuing Ursula and marries another woman instead.

Anton Skrebensky Quotes in The Rainbow

The The Rainbow quotes below are all either spoken by Anton Skrebensky or refer to Anton Skrebensky. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The Search for Meaning Theme Icon
).
Chapter 11: First Love Quotes

He seemed simply acquiescent in the fact of his own being, as if he were beyond any change or question. He was himself. There was a sense of fatality about him that fascinated her. He made no effort to prove himself to other people. Let it be accepted for what it was, his own being. In its isolation it made no excuse or explanation for itself.

So he seemed perfectly, even fatally established, he did not asked to be rendered before he could exist, before he could have relationship with another person.

This attracted Ursula very much. She was so used to unsure people who took on a new being with every new influence. Her Uncle Tom was always more or less what the other person would have him. In consequence, one never knew the real Uncle Tom, only a fluid, unsatisfactory flux with a more or less consistent appearance.

Related Characters: Ursula Brangwen, Anton Skrebensky
Page Number: 280
Explanation and Analysis:

Ursula wished she had been a nymph. She would have laughed through the window of the ark, and flicked drops of the flood at Noah, before she drifted away to people who were less important in their Proprietor and their Flood.

What was God, after all? If maggots in a dead dog be but God kissing carrion, what then is not God? She was surfeited of this God. She was weary of the Ursula Brangwen who felt troubled about God. What ever God was, He was, and there was no need for her to trouble about Him. She felt she had now all licence.

Related Characters: Ursula Brangwen, Anton Skrebensky
Page Number: 313-314
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15: The Bitterness of Ecstasy Quotes

“Why?” he asked, “why don’t you want to marry me?”

“I don’t want to be with other people,” she said. “I want to be like this. I’ll tell you if ever I want to marry you.”

“All right,” he said.

He would rather the thing was left indefinite, and that she took the responsibility.

Related Characters: Ursula Brangwen (speaker), Anton Skrebensky (speaker)
Page Number: 439
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16: The Rainbow Quotes

Strange, what a void separated him and her. She liked him now, as she liked a memory, some bygone self. He was something of the past, finite. He was that which is known. She felt a poignant affection for him, as for that which is past. But, when she looked with her face forward, he was not. Nay, when she looked ahead, into the undiscovered land before her, what was there she could recognise but a fresh glow of light and inscrutable trees going up from the earth like smoke. It was the unknown, the unexplored, the undiscovered upon whose shore she had landed, alone, after crossing the void, the darkness which washed the New World and the Old.

There would be no child: she was glad. If there had been a child, it would have made little difference, however. She would have kept the child and herself, she would not have gone to Skrebensky. Anton belonged to the past.

Related Characters: Ursula Brangwen, Anna Lensky/Anna Brangwen, Anton Skrebensky
Page Number: 479
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Rainbow LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Rainbow PDF

Anton Skrebensky Quotes in The Rainbow

The The Rainbow quotes below are all either spoken by Anton Skrebensky or refer to Anton Skrebensky. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The Search for Meaning Theme Icon
).
Chapter 11: First Love Quotes

He seemed simply acquiescent in the fact of his own being, as if he were beyond any change or question. He was himself. There was a sense of fatality about him that fascinated her. He made no effort to prove himself to other people. Let it be accepted for what it was, his own being. In its isolation it made no excuse or explanation for itself.

So he seemed perfectly, even fatally established, he did not asked to be rendered before he could exist, before he could have relationship with another person.

This attracted Ursula very much. She was so used to unsure people who took on a new being with every new influence. Her Uncle Tom was always more or less what the other person would have him. In consequence, one never knew the real Uncle Tom, only a fluid, unsatisfactory flux with a more or less consistent appearance.

Related Characters: Ursula Brangwen, Anton Skrebensky
Page Number: 280
Explanation and Analysis:

Ursula wished she had been a nymph. She would have laughed through the window of the ark, and flicked drops of the flood at Noah, before she drifted away to people who were less important in their Proprietor and their Flood.

What was God, after all? If maggots in a dead dog be but God kissing carrion, what then is not God? She was surfeited of this God. She was weary of the Ursula Brangwen who felt troubled about God. What ever God was, He was, and there was no need for her to trouble about Him. She felt she had now all licence.

Related Characters: Ursula Brangwen, Anton Skrebensky
Page Number: 313-314
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15: The Bitterness of Ecstasy Quotes

“Why?” he asked, “why don’t you want to marry me?”

“I don’t want to be with other people,” she said. “I want to be like this. I’ll tell you if ever I want to marry you.”

“All right,” he said.

He would rather the thing was left indefinite, and that she took the responsibility.

Related Characters: Ursula Brangwen (speaker), Anton Skrebensky (speaker)
Page Number: 439
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16: The Rainbow Quotes

Strange, what a void separated him and her. She liked him now, as she liked a memory, some bygone self. He was something of the past, finite. He was that which is known. She felt a poignant affection for him, as for that which is past. But, when she looked with her face forward, he was not. Nay, when she looked ahead, into the undiscovered land before her, what was there she could recognise but a fresh glow of light and inscrutable trees going up from the earth like smoke. It was the unknown, the unexplored, the undiscovered upon whose shore she had landed, alone, after crossing the void, the darkness which washed the New World and the Old.

There would be no child: she was glad. If there had been a child, it would have made little difference, however. She would have kept the child and herself, she would not have gone to Skrebensky. Anton belonged to the past.

Related Characters: Ursula Brangwen, Anna Lensky/Anna Brangwen, Anton Skrebensky
Page Number: 479
Explanation and Analysis: