She was not prepared to listen. He had taken advantage of her, and
there was nothing she wished to say.
"You are behaving like a selfish child. My crime has been to have
feelings which I have kept to myself but which I cannot control. I promise
you that I will do nothing without your permission. You have shattered
my heart, and am I to believe that you do not know it? I am here because
you have kept me at a distance and maintained this impossible pretense
of ignorance--because I have had no alternative. I have risked being
thought a boorish upstart because my sorrows would mean nothing if you
did not know of them. Your coldness could make me angry, but I respect
your position too much to speak of it.
It would have been easy to force the door open, but that would have
<P 681>
destroyed the impression of solemn sincerity which he had been at such
pains to create.
"How touching," he said, laughing. "This thin little line between us
seems to mean so much to you."
She was a sweet, gentle lady, in spite of everything. Perhaps it was
her worries that made her seem so tiny and fragile. Her sleeves, pleasantly
soft and rumpled--for she had not been expecting guests--gave off a
friendly sort of perfume, and indeed everything about her was gently,
quietly pleasing.
In upon a sighing wind came the sounds of the mountain night, a
humming of insects, the call of a stag, the rushing of a waterfall. It was
a scene that would have made the most sluggish and insensitive person
postpone his rest. As the moon came over the mountain ridge he was
almost in tears.
"If you wish your silence to suggest unplumbed depths you may be
assured that it is having the opposite effect. You do not seem to know that
m utterly harmless, and so without pretense that I am easily made a
victim of. People who feel free to deal in rumors laugh mightily at me. Are
you one of them? If so, I really must beg your leave to be angry. You cannot
pretend not to know about these things."
She was wretched, hating especially the hints that her experience
should direct her towards easy acceptance. She had been very unlucky, and
she wished she might simply vanish away.
"I am sure I have been guilty of errors in judgment, but nothing has
prepared me for this." Her voice, very soft, seemed on the edge of tears.
"Weeping and weeping, paraded before the world,
The one and only model of haplessness?"
She spoke hesitantly, as if to herself. He repeated the poem in a
whisper. She wished she had kept it to herself.
"I am sorry. I should not have said it.
"Had I not come inspiring all these tears,
The world would not have noticed your misfortunes?
"Come, now." She sensed that he was smiling. "A show of resolve is
what is called for."
He tried to coax her out into the moonlight, but she held stubbornly
back. He had no trouble taking her in his arms.
"Cannot this evidence of my feeling persuade you to be a little more
companionable? But you may be assured that I shall do nothing without
your permission."
Dawn was approaching. The mists had lifted and moonlight flooded
the room, finding the shallow eaves of the west veranda scarcely a hin-
drance at all. She tried to hide her face and he thought her charming. He
<P 682>
spoke briefly of Kashiwagi. Quietly, politely, he reproved her for holding
him so much the inferior of his dead friend.
She was as a matter of fact comparing them. Although Kashiwagi had
still been a minor and rather obscure official, everyone had seemed in favor
of the marriage and she too had come to accept it; and once they were
married he had shown that astonishing indifference. Now came scandalous
insinuations on the part of a man who was as good as one of the family.
How would they appear to her father-in-law--and to the world in general
--and to her own royal father? It was too awful. She might fight him off
with her last ounce of strength, but the world was not likely to give her
much credit. And to keep her mother in ignorance seemed a very grave
delinquency indeed. What a dunce her mother would think her when
presently she learned of it all!
"Do please leave before daylight." She had nothing more to say to
him.
"This is very odd. You know the interpretation which the dews are
likely to put upon a departure at this hour. You shall have your way all
the same; but please remember this: I have let you see what a fool I am,
and if you gloat over what you have done I shall not hold myself responsi-
ble for the extremes I may be driven to."
<P 683>
He was feeling very inadequate to the situation and would have liked
to persist further; but for all his inexperience he knew that he would regret
having forced himself upon her. For her sake and for his own he made his
way out under the cover of the morning mists.
"Wet by dew-laden reeds beneath your eaves,
I now push forth into the eightfold mists?
"And do you think that your own sleeves will be dry? You must pay
for your arbitrary ways."
Though she could do little about rumors, she was determined not to
face the reproaches of her own conscience.
"I think I have not heard the likes of it," she replied, more icily than
before.
"Because these dewy grasses wet your sleeves
I too shall have wet sleeves--is that your meaning?"
She was delightful. He felt sorry for her and ashamed of himself, that
having so distinguished himself in her service and her mother's he should
suddenly take advantage of her and propose a rather different sort of
relationship. Yet he would look very silly if he were to bow and withdraw.
<N 5>
He left in great uncertainty. The weed-choked path to the city resem-
bled his thoughts. These nocturnal wanderings were novel and exciting,
but they were very disturbing too. His damp sleeves would doubtless be
matter for speculation if he returned to Sanjo~, and so he went instead to
the northeast quarter at Rokujo~. Morning mists lay heavy over the garden
--and how much heavier must they be at Ono!
The women were whispering. It was not the sort of thing they ex-
pected of him. The lady of the orange blossoms always had a change of
clothing ready, fresh and elegant and in keeping with the season. When
he had had breakfast he went to see his father.
He got off a note to the princess, but she refused to look at it. She was
very upset at this sudden aggressiveness. She did not want to tell her
mother, but it would be even worse if her mother were to have vague
suspicions or to hear the story from one of the women. It was a world
which refused to keep secrets. Perhaps, after all, the best thing--it would
upset her mother of course, but that could not be helped--would be to
have her women transmit the whole story, complete and without distor-
tion. They were close even for mother and daughter, and there had not
been the smallest secret between them. The romancers tell us of daughters
who keep secrets from their parents even when the whole world knows,
but the possibility did not occur to the princess.
"There is not the slightest indication," said one of the women, "that
her mother knows anything. It is much too soon for the poor girl to begin
worrying."
<P 684>
They were beside themselves with curiosity about the unopened let-
ter.
"It will seem very odd, my lady, if you do not answer. Odd and, I
should say, rather childish." And they opened it for her.
"It was entirely my fault," said the princess. "I was not as careful as
I should have been and so he caught a glimpse of me. Yet I do think it
inconsiderate of him, shockingly so. Tell him, please, that I could not bring
myself to read it." Desperately lonely, she turned away from them.
The letter was warm but inoffensive, so much of it as they were able
to see.
"My heart is there in the sleeve of an unkind lady,
Quite without my guidance. I am helpless.
"That is nothing unique, I tell myself. We all know what happens
when a heart is left to its own devices. I do think all the same that it has
been very badly misled."
It was a long letter, but this was all the women were able to read. They
were puzzled. It did not sound like a nuptial letter, and yet--they were sad
for their lady, so visibly upset, and they were troubled and curious too.
He had been so very kind, and if she were to let him have his way he might
be disappointed in her. The future seemed far from secure.
<N 6>
The sick lady knew nothing of all this. The evil spirit continued to
torment her, though there were intervals when she was more herself.
The noontide services were over and she had only her favorite priest
beside her.
"Unless the blessed Vairocana is deceiving us," he said, overjoyed to
see that she was resting comfortably, "I have every reason to believe that
my humble efforts are succeeding. These spirits can be very stubborn, but
they are lost souls, no more, doing penance for sins in other lives." He had
a gruff voice and an abrupt manner. He added, apropos of nothing: "Gen-
eral Yu~giri--how long has he been keeping company with our princess?"
"Company? You are suggesting--but there has been nothing of the
sort. He and my late son-in-law were the closest of friends, and he has
been very kind, most astonishingly kind, and that is all. He has come to
inquire after me and I am very grateful."
"Now this is strange. I am a humble man from whom you need not
hide the truth. As I was going in for the early services I saw a very stylish
gentleman come out through the door there at the west corner. The mists
were heavy and I was not able to make out his features, but some of my
colleagues were saying that it was definitely the general. He sent his
carriage away yesterday evening, they said, and stayed the night. I did
catch a very remarkable scent. It almost made me dizzy. Yes, said I, it had
to be the general. He does have such a scent about him always. My own
feeling is that you should not be exactly overjoyed. He knows a great deal,
<P 685>
there is no doubt about that. His grandmother was kind enough to have
me read scriptures for him when he was a boy, and whenever it has been
within my humble power I have continued to be of service to him since.
I do not think that there are advantages in the match for your royal
daughter. His lady has an iron will and very great influence, and her family
is at the height of its power. She has seven or eight children. I think it most
doubtful that your daughter has much chance of supplanting her. Women
are weak creatures, born with sinful inclinations, and just such missteps
as this leave them wandering in darkness all the long night through. If she
angers the other lady she will have much to do penance for. No, my lady,
no. I cannot be held responsible." Not one to mince words, he concluded
with an emphatic shake of the head.
"It is, as you say, strange. There has been no indication, not the
slightest, of anything of the sort. The women said that he was upset to find
me so ill, and that after he had rested a little he would try to see me. Don't
you suppose that is why he stayed the night? He is the most proper and
honest of gentlemen."
She pretended to disagree, but his observations made sense. There had
from time to time been signs of an uncommon interest. But Yu~giri was such
an earnest, scholarly sort, so very attentive to the proprieties, so concerned
to avoid scandal. She had felt sure that nothing would happen without her
daughter's permission. Had he taken advantage of the fact that she was so
inadequately attended?
<N 7>
She summoned Kosho~sho~ when the priest had taken his leave. "What
did in fact happen?" she asked, describing his view of the case. "Why
didn't she tell me? But it can't really be so bad."
Though sorry for the princess, Kosho~sho~ described everything she
knew in very great detail. She told of the impression made by the letter
that morning, of what she had seen and the princess had hinted at.
"Don't you suppose he made a clean breast of his feelings? That and
no more? He showed the most extraordinary caution and left before the
sun was up. What have the others told you?"
She did not suspect Who the real informer was. The old lady was
silent, tears streaming over her face. Kosho~sho~ wished she had not been
so frank. She feared the effect of so highly charged a revelation on a lady
already dangerously ill.
"But the door was barred," she said, trying to repair the damage a
little.
"Maybe it was. But she let him see her, nothing alters that horrid fact.
She may be blameless otherwise, but if the priests and the wretched
urchins they brought with them have had something to say, can you
imagine that they will have no more? Can you expect outsiders to make
apologies for her and to protect and defend her?" And she added: "We
have such a collection of incompetents around us."
Poor, poor lady, Kosho~sho~ was thinking--in torment already, and
<P 686>
now this shocking news. She had wanted for her daughter the elegant and
courtly seclusion that becomes a princess, and just think what the world
would be saying about her!
"Please tell her," said the old lady, drying her tears, "that I am feeling
somewhat better and would like to see her. She will understand, I am sure,
why I cannot call on her, as I know I should. It seems such a very long
time."
Kosho~sho~ went for the princess, saying only that her mother wanted
to see her. The princess brushed her hair, wet from weeping, and changed
