with them. They might be lonely, but it would not be the final loneliness
of knowing they would not see him again.
"For him, the mountain path has now been cut.
How can we look on the pine we watched as we waited?"
And Nakanokimi replied:
"Away in the hills, the snow departs from the pines
But comes again. Ah, would it were so with him!"
As if to mock her, the snow came again and again.
Kaoru paid his visit late in the year. The New Year would be too busy
to allow the briefest of visits. With the snow so deep, it was unusual for
the ladies to receive even an ordinary caller. That he, a ranking courtier,
should have set out on such a journey as if he made one every day was
the measure of his kindness. They were at greater pains than usual to
receive him. They had taken out and dusted a brazier of a color gayer than
this house of mourning had been used to. Their women chattered about
how happy his visits had made the prince. Though shy, the princesses did
<P 815>
not want to seem rude or unkind. They did at length essay to address him
from behind screens. The conversation could hardly have been called
lively or intimate, but Oigimi managed to put together, for her, an uncom-
mon number of words. Kaoru was pleased and surprised. Perhaps the time
had come, he thought, for a sally. (It would seem that the best of men are
sometimes untrue to their resolves.)
"My friend Niou is irritated with me, and I have trouble understand-
ing why. It is just possible that I let something slip, or it may be that he
guessed it all--he does not miss very much. In any event, he knows about
your father's last request, and I have orders to tell you about him. Indeed,
I have already told you, and you have not been very cooperative. And so
he keeps complaining about what an incompetent messenger I am. The
charge comes as something of a surprise, considering all I have done, and
at the same time I have to admit that I have made myself his 'guide to your
seashore.' Must you be so remote and haughty?
"It is true, I know, that the gossips have given him a certain name, but
<P 816>
beneath the rakish exterior are depths that would surprise you. It is said
that he prefers not to spend his time with women who come at his beck
and call. Then there are women who take things as they are. What the
world does is what the world does, they say, and they do not care a great
deal whether they find husbands or not. If someone comes along who is
neither entirely pleasing nor entirely repulsive, well, such is life. They
make good wives, rather better than you might think. And then, as the
poet said, the bank begins to give way, and what is left is a muddy
Tatsuta. You must have heard of such cases--the last of the old love gone
down the stream.
"But there is another possibility. Supposing he finds someone who
follows him because she agrees with him, because she cannot find it in her
heart to do otherwise. I do not think that he would deal lightly with such
a one. He would make his commitments and stand by them. I know,
because I am in a position to tell you of things he has not let other people
see. Give me the signal, and I will do everything I can to help you. I will
dash back and forth between Uji and the city until my feet are stumps."
It had been an earnest discourse. Unable to think that it had reference
to herself, Oigimi wondered whether it might now be her duty to take the
place of her father. But she did not know what to say.
"Words fail me." Her reply to the discourse was a quiet laugh, which
was not at all unpleasant. "This sort of thing is, well, rather suggestive, I'm
sure you will admit, and does not simplify the hunt for an answer."
"Your own situation has nothing to do with the matter. Just take these
tidings I bring through the snowdrifts as an older sister might be expected
to. He is thinking not of you but of--someone else. I have had vague
reports that there have been letters, but there again it is hard to know the
truth. Which of you was it that answered?"
Oigimi fell silent. This last question was more embarrassing than he
could have intended it to be. It would have been nothing to answer Niou's
letters, but she had not been up to the task, even in jest; and an answer
to Kaoru's question was quite beyond her.
Presently she pushed a verse from under her curtains:
"Along the cliffs of these mountains, locked in snow,
Are the tracks of only one. That one is you."
"A sort of sophistry that does not greatly improve things.
"My pony breaks the ice of the mountain river
As I lead the way with tidings from him who follows.
<P 817>
'No such shallowness,' is it not apparent?"
More and more uncomfortable, she did not answer.
She was not remote to excess, he would have said, and on the other
hand she had none of the coyness one was accustomed to in young women.
A quiet, elegant lady, in sum--as near his ideal as any lady he could
remember having met. But whenever he became forward, however
slightly, she feigned deafness. He turned to inconsequential talk of things
long past.
His men were coughing nervously. It was late, the snow was deep, and
the sky seemed to be clouding over again.
"I can see that you have not had an easy time of it," he said as he got
up to leave. "It would please me enormously if I could prevail on you to
leave Uji behind you. I can think of places that are far more convenient
and just as quiet."
Some of the women overheard, and were delighted. How very pleas-
ant if they could move to the city!
But Nakanokimi thought otherwise. It was not to be, she said.
Fruit and sweets, most tastefully arranged, were brought out for
Kaoru, and, in equally good taste, there were wine and side dishes for his
men. Kaoru thought of the watchman, the man he had made such a
celebrity of with that perfume. Of unlovely mien, he was known as Wig-
beard. To Kaoru he seemed an uncertain support for sorely tried ladies.
"I imagine that things have been lonely since His Highness died."
A scowl spread over the man's face, and soon he was weeping. "I had
the honor of his protection for more than thirty years and now I have
nowhere to go. I could wander off into the mountains, I suppose, but'the
tree denies the fugitive its shelter.'" Tears did not improve the rough
face.
Kaoru asked Wigbeard to open the prince's chapel. The dust lay thick,
but the images, decorated as proudly as ever, gave evidence that the
princesses had not been remiss with their devotions. The prayer dais had
been taken away and the floor carefully dusted, cleaned of the marks it had
left. Long ago, the prince had promised that they would be companions in
prayer if Kaoru were to renounce the world.
"Beneath the oak I meant to search for shade.
Now it has gone, and all is vanity."
Numerous eyes were upon him as he stood leaning meditatively
<P 818>
against a pillar. The young maidservants thought they had never seen
anyone so handsome.
As it grew dark, his men sent to certain of his manors for fodder. Not
having been warned, he was much discommoded by the noisy droves of
country people the summonses brought, and tried to make it seem that he
had come to see the old woman. They must be of similar service to the
princesses in the future, he said as he left.
The New Year came, the skies were soft and bright, the ice melted
along the banks of the pond. The princesses thought how strange it was
that they should so long have survived their father. With a note saying that
he had had them gathered in the melting snow, the abbot sent cress from
the marshes and fern shoots from the mountain slopes. Country life did
have its points, said the women as they cooked the greens and arranged
them on pilgrims' trays. What fun it was, really, to watch the days and
months go by with their changing grasses and trees.
They were easily amused, thought the princesses.
"If he were here to pluck these mountain ferns,
Then might we find in them a sign of spring."
And Nakanokimi:
"Without our father, how are we to praise
The cress that sends its shoots through banks of snow?"
Such were the trifles with which they passed their days. Neither Niou
nor Kaoru missed an occasion for greetings. They came in such numbers,
indeed, as to be something of a nuisance, and with my usual carelessness
I failed to make note of them.
The cherry blossoms were now at their best. "Sprays of blossom for
my cap" : Niou thought of Uji. As if to stir his appetites, the men who
had been with him remarked upon the pity of it all, that such a pleasant
house should have awaited them in vain.
He sent off a poem to the princesses:
"Last year along the way I saw those blossoms.
This year, no mist between, I mean to have them."
They thought it rather too broadly suggestive. Still, there was little
excitement in their lives, and it would be a mistake not to give some slight
notice to a poem that had its merits.
"Our house is robed in densest mists of black.
Who undertakes to guide you to its blossoms?"
It did little to assuage his discontent. Sometimes, when it was too
much for him, he would descend upon Kaoru. Kaoru had bungled this,
made a botch of that. Amused, Kaoru would answer quite as if he had been
<P 819>
appointed the princesses' guardian. Occasionally he would take it upon
himself to chide his friend for a certain want of steadfastness.
"But it won't go on forever. It's just that I haven't found anyone I
really like."
Yu~giri had for some time wanted to arrange a match between Niou
and his daughter Rokunokimi. Niou did not seem interested. There was no
mystery, no excitement in the proposal, and besides, Yu~giri was so stiff
and proper and unbending, so quick to raise a stir over each of Niou's
venialities.
That year the Sanjo~ mansion of Kaoru's mother burned to the ground.
She moved into Genji's Rokujo~ mansion. Kaoru was too busy for a visit
to Uji. The solemn nature that set him apart from other youths urged that
he wait until Oigimi was ready for him, despite the fact that he already
thought her his own; and he would be satisfied if she took note of his
fidelity to the promise he had made to her father. He would do nothing
reckless, nothing likely to offend her.
It was a very hot summer. Suddenly one day the thought came to him
that it would be pleasant there by the river. He left the city in the cool of
morning, but by the time he reached the Uji villa the sun was blinding. He
called Wigbeard to the west room that had been the prince's. The ladies
seemed to be withdrawing to their own rooms from the room immediately
to the east of the prince's that had been his chapel. Despite their precau-
tions, for but a single thin partition separated the two rooms, he could hear,
or rather sense, the withdrawal. In great excitement, he pulled aside the
screen before the partition. He had earlier noticed a small hole beside the
latch. Alas, there was a curtain beyond. But as he drew back the wind
caught the blind at the front veranda.
"Pull them over, hold it down," said someone. "The whole world can
see us."
It was a foolish suggestion, and Kaoru was delighted. The view was
now clear. Several curtain frames, high and low, had been moved to the
veranda. The princesses were leaving through open doors at the far side
of the chapel. The first to enter his range of vision went to the veranda and
looked out at his men, who were walking up and down in front of the
house, taking the cool of the river breezes. She was wearing a dark-gray
singlet and orange trousers. Unusual and surprisingly gay, the combination
suggested subtle, careful taste. A scarf was flung loosely over her shoul-
ders and the ends of a rosary hung from a sleeve. She was slender and
graceful, and her hair, which would perhaps have fallen just short of
<P 820>
the hem of a formal robe, was thick and lustrous, with no trace of disorder
the whole of its length. Her profile was flawless, her skin fresh and un-
blemished, and there was pride and at the same time serenity in her
manner. He thought of Niou's oldest sister. He had once had a glimpse of
her, and the longing it had inspired came back afresh.
The other princess moved cautiously into view.
"That door is absolutely naked." She looked towards him, everything
about her suggesting wariness and reserve. Something in the flow of her
hair gave her even more dignity than he had seen in the other lady.
"There's a screen behind it," said a young serving woman uncon-
cernedly. "And we won't give him time for a peek."
"But how awful if he _should_ see us." She looked guardedly back as she
made her way to the far door, carrying herself with a pensive grace that
few could have imitated. She wore a singlet and a lined robe of the same
dark stuff as her sister's, set off in the same combination. Hers was a
sadder, quieter beauty which he found even more compelling. Her hair was
less luxuriant, perhaps from grief and neglect, and the ends were some-
what uneven. Yet it was very lovely, like a cluster of silken threads, and
it had the iridescence of "rainbow tresses," or the wing of a halcyon. The
hand in which she held a purple scroll was smaller and more delicate than
her sister's. The younger princess knelt at the far door and looked back
smiling. He thought her completely charming.
<W Murasaki Shikibu>{Translated by Edward G.Seidensticker}
