was, weeping and wringing her hands, quite beside herself. He would have
to wait until consent came of its own accord. Distressed at her distress, he
sought to comfort her as best he could.
"I have allowed an almost indecent familiarity, and I have had no idea
of what was going through your mind; and I may say that you have not
shown a great deal of consideration, forcing me to display myself in these
unbecoming colors. But I am at fault too. I am not up to what has to be
done, and I am sorry for us both." It was too humiliating, that the lamp-
light should have caught her in somber, shabby gray.
"Yes, I have been inconsiderate, and I am ashamed and sorry. They
give you a good excuse, those robes of mourning. But don't you think you
might just possibly be making too much of them? You have seen some-
thing of me over the years, and I doubt if mourning gives you a right to
act as if we had just been introduced. It is clever of you but not altogether
convincing."
He told her of the many things he had found it so hard to keep to
himself, beginning with that glimpse of the two princesses in the autumn
<P 828>
dawn. She was in an agony of embarrassment. So he had had this store of
secrets all along, and had managed to feign openness and indifference!
He now pulled a low curtain between them and the altar and lay down
beside her. The smell of the holy incense, the particularly strong scent of
anise, stabbed at his conscience, for he was more susceptible in matters of
belief than most people. He told himself that it would be ill considered in
the extreme, now of all times, when she was in mourning, to succumb to
temptation; and he would be going against his own wishes if he failed to
control himself. He must wait until she had come out of mourning. Then,
difficult though she was, there would surely be some slight easing of the
tensions.
Autumn nights are sad in the most ordinary of places. How much
sadder in wailing mountain tempests, with the calls of insects sounding
through the hedges. As he talked on of life's uncertain turns, she occasion-
ally essayed an answer. He was touched and pleased. Her women, who had
spread their bedclothes not far away, sensed that a happy arrangement had
been struck up and withdrew to inner apartments. She thought of her
father's admonitions. Strange and awful things can happen, she saw, to a
lady who lives too long. It was as if she were adding her tears to the rushing
torrent outside.
<N 4>
The dawn came on, bringing an end to nothing. His men were cough-
ing and clearing their throats, there was a neighing of horses--everything
made him think of descriptions he had read of nights on the road. He slid
back the door to the east, where dawn was in the sky, and the two of them
looked out at the shifting colors. She had come out towards the veranda.
The dew on the ferns at the shallow eaves was beginning to catch the light.
They would have made a very striking pair, had anyone been there to see
them.
"Do you know what _I_ would like? To be as we are now. To look out
at the flowers and the moon, and be with you. To spend our days together,
talking of things that do not matter."
His manner was so unassertive that her fears had finally left her. "And
do you know what I would like? A little privacy. Here I am quite exposed,
and a screen might bring us closer."
The sky was red, there was a whirring of wings close by as flocks of
birds left their roosts. As if from deep in the night, the matin bells came
to them faintly.
"Please go," she said with great earnestness. "It is almost daylight, and
I do not want you to see me."
"You can't be telling me to push my way back through the morning
mists? What would that suggest to people? No, make it look, if you will,
as if we were among the proper married couples of the world, and we can
go on being the curiosities we in fact seem to be. I promise you that I will
do nothing to upset you; but perhaps I might trouble you to imagine, just
a little, how genuine my feelings are."
<P 829>
"If what you say is true," she replied, her agitation growing as it
became evident that he was in no hurry to leave, "then I am sure you will
have your way in the future. But please, this morning, let me have _my_
way." She had to admit that there was little she could do.
"So you really are going to send me off into the dawn? Knowing that
it is'new to me,' and that I am sure to lose my way?"
The crowing of a cock was like a summons back to the city.
"The things by which one knows the mountain village
Are brought together in these voices of dawn."
She replied:
"Deserted mountain depths where no birds sing,
I would have thought. But sorrow has come to visit."
Seeing her as far as the door to the inner apartments, he returned by
the way he had come the evening before, and lay down; but he was not
able to sleep. The memories and regrets were too strong. Had his emotions
earlier been toward her as they were now, he would not have been as
passive over the months. The prospect of going back to the city was too
dreary to face.
<N 5>
Oigimi, in agony at the thought of what her women would have made
of it all, found sleep as elusive. A very harsh trial it was, going through
life with no one to turn to; and as if that huge uncertainty were not enough,
there were these women with all their impossible suggestions. They as
good as formed a queue, coming to her with proposals that had nothing
to recommend them but the expediency of the moment; and if in a fit of
inattention she were to accede to one of them, she would have shame and
humiliation to look forward to. Kaoru did not at all displease her. The
Eighth Prince had said more than once that if Kaoru should be inclined to
ask her hand, he would not disapprove. But no. She wanted to go on as
she was. It was her sister, now in the full bloom of youth, who must live
a normal life. If the prince's thoughts in the matter could be applied to her
sister, she herself would do everything she could by way of support. But
who was to be her own support? She had only Kaoru, and, strangely,
things might have been easier had she found herself in superficial dalliance
with an ordinary man. They had known each other for rather a long time,
and she might have been tempted to let him have his way. His obvious
superiority and his aloofness, coupled with a very low view of herself, had
left her prey to shyness. In timid retreat, it seemed, she would end her days.
She was near prostration, having spent most of the night weeping. She
lay down in the far recesses of the room where her sister was sleeping.
Nakanokimi was delighted, for she had been disturbed by that odd whis-
pering among the women. She pulled back the coverlet and spread it over
<P 830>
Oigimi. She caught the scent of her sister's robes. It was unmistakable,
exactly the scent by which poor Wigbeard had been so sorely discom-
moded. Guessing what Oigimi would be going through, Nakanokimi pre-
tended to be asleep.
Kaoru summoned Bennokimi and had a long talk with her. He permit-
ted no suggestion of the romantic in the note he left for Oigimi.
She would happily have disappeared. There had been that silly little
exchange about the trefoil knots. Would her sister think that she had
meant by it to beckon him to within "two arms' lengths" ? Pleading
illness, she spent the day alone
"But the services are almost on us," said the women, "and there is no
one but you to tend to all these details. Why did you have to pick this
particular moment to come down with something?"
Nakanokimi went on preparing the braids; but when it came to the
rosettes of gold and silver thread, she had to admit incompetence. She did
not even know where to begin. Then night came, and, under cover of
darkness, Oigimi emerged, and the two sisters worked together on the
intricacies of the rosettes.
A note came from Kaoru, but she sent back that she had been indis-
posed since morning. A most unseemly and childish way to behave, mut-
tered her women.
<N 6>
And so they emerged from mourning. They had not wanted to think
that they would outlive their father, and, so quickly, a whole year of
months and days had passed. How strange, they sighed--and their women
had to sigh too--how bleak and grim, that they should have lived on. But
the robes of deepest mourning to which they had grown accustomed over
the months were changed for lighter colors, and a freshness as of new life
came over the house. Nakanokimi, at the best time of life, was the more
immediately appealing of the two. Personally seeing to it that her hair was
washed and brushed, Oigimi thought her so delightful that all the cares
of these last months seemed to vanish. If only her hopes might be realized,
if only Kaoru could be persuaded to look after the girl. Despite his evident
reluctance, he was not, if pointed in the girl's direction, likely to find her
a disappointment. There being no one else whom she could even consider,
and therefore nothing more for her to do, she busied herself with minister-
ing to her sister's needs, quite as if they were mother and daughter.
Kaoru paid a sudden visit. The Ninth Month, when the mourning
robes toward which he had been so deferential would surely have been put
away, still seemed an unacceptable distance in the future. He sent in word
that he hoped as before to be favored with an interview. Oigimi sent back
that she had not been well, and must ask to be excused.
He sent in again: "I had not been prepared for this obstinacy. And
what sort of interpretation do you think your women are likely to put
upon it?"
<P 831>
"You will understand, I am sure, that when a person comes out of
mourning the grief floods back with more force than ever. I really must ask
you to excuse me."
He called Bennokimi and went over the list of his complaints. Since
he had all along seemed to the women their one hope in this impossible
darkness, they had been telling one another how very nice it would be if
he were to answer their prayers and set their lady up in a more becoming
establishment. They had plotted ways of admitting him to her boudoir.
Though not aware of the details, Oigimi had certain suspicions: given
Kaoru's remarkable fondness for Bennokimi, and indeed their apparent
fondness for each other, the old woman might have acquired sinister ideas,
and because in old romances wellborn ladies _never_ threw themselves at men
without benefit of intermediary, her women presented the weakest point
in her defenses.
Kaoru was apparently embittered by her own reception of his over-
tures, and so perhaps the time had come to put her sister decisively forward
as a substitute. He did not seem to be one who, properly introduced and
encouraged, would incline toward unkindness even when he found him-
self in the presence of an ill-favored woman; and once he had had a
glimpse of the beauty her sister was, he was sure to fall helplessly in love.
No man, of course, would want to spring forward at the first gesture, quite
as if he had been waiting for an invitation. This apparent reluctance was
no doubt partly from a fear of being thought flighty and too susceptible.
Thus she turned the possibilities over in her mind. But would it not
be a serious disservice to give Nakanokimi no hint of what she was think-
ing? In her sister's place, she could see she would be very much hurt
indeed. So, in great detail, she offered her view of the matter.
"You will remember of course what Father said. We might be lonely
for the rest of our lives, but we were not to demean ourselves and make
ourselves ridiculous. We have a great deal to atone for, I think. It was we
who kept him from making his peace at the end, and I have no reservations
about a single word of his advice. And so loneliness does not worry me
at all. But there are these noisy women, not giving me a minute's relief.
They chatter on and on about my obstinacy. I must admit that they have
a point. I must admit that it would be a tragedy for you to spend the rest
of your days alone. If I could only do something for you, my dear--if I only
could make a decent match for you--then I could tell myself I had done
my duty, and it would not bother me in the least to be alone."
Nakanokimi replied with some bitterness. Whatever could her sister
have in mind? "Do you really think Father was talking about you? No, I
was the one he was worried about. I am the useless one, and he knew what
a shambles I would make of things. You are missing the point completely:
the point is that we will not be lonely as long as we have each other."
It was true, thought Oigimi, a wave of affection sweeping over her.
"I'm sorry. I was upset and didn't think. These people say I am so difficult.
That is the whole trouble." And she fell silent.
<P 832>
It was growing dark and Kaoru still had not left. Oigimi was more and
more apprehensive. Bennokimi came in and talked on at great length of his
perfectly understandable resentment. Oigimi did not answer. She could
only sigh helplessly, and ask herself what possible recourse she had. If only
she had someone to look to for advice! A father or a mother could have
made a match for her, and she would have accepted it as the way of the
world. She might have been unable herself to say yes or no, but that was
the nature of things. She would have concealed the unfortunate facts from
a world so ready to laugh. But these women--they were old and thought
themselves wise. Much pleased with each new discovery, they came to her
one after another to tell her how fine a match it promised to be. Was she
