to take these opinions seriously? No, she was attended by crones, women
with obsessions that made no allowance for her own feelings.
As good as clutching her by the hand and dragging her off, they would
argue their various cases; and the result was that Oigimi withdrew into
increasingly gloomy disaffection. Nakanokimi, with whom she was able to
converse so freely on almost every subject, knew even less about this one
than she, and, quietly uncomprehending, had no answer. A strange, sad
fate ruled over her, Oigimi would conclude, turning away from the com-
pany.
Might she not change into robes a little more lively? pleaded her
women. She was outraged--it was as if they were intent on pushing her
into the man's arms. And indeed what was to keep them from having their
way? This tiny house, with everyone jammed in against everyone else,
offered no better a hiding place than was granted the proverbial mountain
pear. It had always been Kaoru's apparent intention to make no explicit
overtures, inviting the mediation of this or that woman, but to proceed so
quietly that people would scarcely know when he had begun. He had
thought, and indeed said, that if she was unwilling he was prepared to wait
indefinitely. But the old women were whispering noisily into one ano-
ther's deaf ears. Perhaps they had been somewhat stupid from the outset,
perhaps age had dulled their wits. Oigimi found it all very trying in either
case.
She sought to communicate something of her distress to Bennokimi.
"He _is_ different from other people, I suppose. Father always said so, and
that is why we have become so dependent on him since Father died, and
allowed him a familiarity that must seem almost improper. And now
comes a turn I had not been prepared for. He seems very angry with me,
<P 833>
and I cannot for the life of me see why. He must know that if I were in
the least interested in the usual things I would most certainly not have tried
t him off. I have always been suspicious of them, and it is a disap-
pointment that he should not seem to understand." She spoke with great
hesitation.
"But there is my sister. It would be very sad if she were to waste the
best part of her life. If I sometimes wish this house weren't quite so shabby
and cramped, it is only because of her. He says he means to honor Father's
wishes. Well, then, he should make no distinction between us. As far as
I am concerned we share a single heart, whatever the outward appearances.
I will do everything I possibly can. Do you suppose I might ask you to pass
this on to him?"
"I have known your feelings all along," said Bennokimi, deeply
moved, "and I have explained everything to him very carefully. But he
says that a man does not shift his affections at will, and he has his friend
Niou to think of; and he has offered to do what he can to arrange matters
for my younger lady. I must say I think he is behaving very well. Even
when they have parents working for them, two sisters cannot reasonably
expect to make good matches at the same time; and here you have your
chance. I may seem forward when I say so, but you _are_ alone in the world,
and I worry a great deal about you. It is true that no one can predict what
may happen years from now; but at the moment I think both of you have
very lucky stars to thank. I certainly would not want to be understood as
arguing that you should go against your father's last wishes. Surely he
meant no more than that you should not make marriages unworthy of you.
He so often said that if the young gentleman should prove willing and he
himself might see one of you happily married, then he could die in peace.
I have seen so many girl s, high and low, who have lost their parents and
gone completely to ruin, married to the most impossible men. I wonder if
there has been a time in my whole long life when it hasn't been happening
somewhere, and no one has ever found it in his heart to poke fun at them.
And here you are--a man made to order, a man of the most extraordinary
kindness and feeling, comes with a proposal anyone would jump at. If you
send him off in the name of this Buddha of yours--well, I doubt that you
will be rewarded with assumption into the heavens. You will still have the
world to live with."
She seemed prepared to talk on indefinitely. Angry and resentful,
Oigimi lay with her face pressed against a pillow. Nakanokimi led her off
to bed, with lengthy commiserations. Bennokimi's remarks had left her
feeling threatened, but it was not a house in which she could make a great
show of going into retreat. It was, indeed, a house that offered no refuge.
Spreading a clean, soft quilt over Nakanokimi, she lay down some slight
distance away, the weather still being warm.
Bennokimi told Kaoru of the conversation. What, he asked himself,
could have turned a young girl so resolutely away from the world? Was
it that she had learned too well from her saintly father the lesson of the
<P 834>
futility of things? But they were kindred spirits, he and she, and he could
most certainly not accuse her of impertinent trifling.
"And so I suppose from now on I will have trouble even getting
permission to speak to her? Take me into her room, just this one evening."
Having made up her mind to help him, Bennokimi sent most of the
other women off to bed. A few of them had been made partners in the
conspiracy.<N 7> As the night drew on, a high wind set the badly fitted shutters
to rattling. It was fortunate--not as much stealth was needed as on a
quieter night. She led him to the princesses' room. The two were sleeping
together; but they always slept together, and she could hardly have sepa-
rated them for this one night. Kaoru knew them well enough, she was sure,
to tell one from the other.
But Oigimi, still awake, sensed his approach, and slipped out through
the bed curtains. Poor Nakanokimi lay quietly sleeping. What was to be
done? Oigimi was in consternation. If only the two of them could hide
together--but she was quaking with fear, and could not bring herself to
go back. Then, in the dim light, a figure in a singlet pulled the curtains aside
and came into the room quite as if he owned it. Whatever would her
hapless sister think if she were to awaken? thought Oigimi, huddled in the
cramped space between a screen and a shabby wall. Nakanokimi had
rebelled at the very hint that there might be plans for her--and how
shocked and resentful she would be if it were to appear now that they had
all plotted against her. Oigimi was quite beside herself. It had all happened
because they had no one to protect them from a harsh world. Her sorrow
and her longing for her father were so intense that it was as if he were here
beside her now, exactly as he had made his last farewell in the evening
twilight.
Thinking that the old woman had arranged it so, Kaoru was delighted
to find a lady sleeping alone. Then he saw that it was not Oigimi. It was
a fresher, more winsome, superficially more appealing young lady.
Nakanokimi was awake now, and in utter terror. She had been no part of
a plot against him, poor girl, it was clear; but pity for her was mixed with
anger and resentment at the one who had fled. Nakanokimi was no stran-
ger, of course, but he did not take much comfort from that fact. Mixed with
the chagrin was a fear lest Oigimi think he had been less than serious.
Well, he would let the night pass, and if it should prove his fate to marry
Nakanokimi--she was not, as he had noted, a stranger. Thus composing
himself, he lay down beside her, and passed the night much as he had the
earlier one with her sister.
Their plans had worked beautifully, said the old woman. But where
might Nakanokimi be? It would be odd of her, to say the least, to spend
the night with the other two.
"Well, wherever she is, I'm sure she knows what she's doing."
"Such a fine young gentleman, making our wrinkles go away just by
glancing in our direction. He's exactly what every woman has always
asked for. Why does she have to be so standoffish?"
<P 835>
"Oh, no reason, really. Something's been at her, as they say. She's
hexed."
Some of the remarks that came from the toothless mouths were not
entirely charitable.
They did not pass unchallenged. "Hexed! Now that's a nice thing to
say, as good as asking for bad luck. No, I can tell you what it is. She had
a strange bringing up, that's all, way off here in the hills with no one to
tell her about things. Men scare her. You'll see--she'll be friendly enough
when she gets used to him. It's bound to happen."
"Let's hope it happens soon, and something good happens to us for
a change."
So they talked on as they got ready for bed, and soon there were loud
snores.
Though "the company" may not have had a great deal to do with the
matter, it seemed to Kaoru that the autumn night had been quick to end.
He was beginning to wonder which of the princesses appealed to him
more. If, at his departure, his desires were left unsatisfied, he had no one
to blame but himself.
"Remember me," he said as he left Nakanokimi, "and do not deceive
yourself that she is someone to imitate." And he vowed that they would
meet again.
It had been like a strange dream. Mustering all his self-control, for he
wanted to have another try at the icy one, he went back to the room
assigned him the night before and lay down.
Bennokimi hurried to the princesses' room. "Very, very strange," she
said, thinking Oigimi the one she saw there. "Where will my other lady
be?"
Nakanokimi lay consumed with embarrassment. What could it all
mean? She was angry, too, reading deep significance into her sister's re-
marks of the day before.
As the morning grew brighter, the cricket came from the wall.
Oigimi knew what her sister would be thinking, and the pity and the
sorrow were too much for her. Neither sister was able to speak. So the last
veil had been stripped away, thought Oigimi. One thing was clear: theirs
was a world in which not a single unguarded moment was possible.
Bennokimi went to Kaoru's room and at length learned of the uncom-
mon obstinacy of which he had been the victim. She was very sorry for
him, and she thought he had a right to be angry.
"I have put up with it all because I have thought there might be hope.
But after last night, I really feel as if I should jump in the river. The one
thing that holds me back is the memory of their father and how he hated
to leave them behind. Well, that is that. I shall not bother them again--
not, of course, that I am likely to forget the insult. I gather that Niou is
<P 836>
forging ahead without a glance to the left or the right. I can understand
how a young lady in her place might feel. A man is a man, and she might
as well aim for the highest. I think I shall not show myself again for all
of you to laugh at. My only request is that you talk about this idiocy as
little as possible."
Today there were no regretful looks backward. How sad, whispered
the women, for both of them.
<N 8>
Oigimi too was asking herself what had happened. Supposing his
anger now included her sister--what were they to do? And how awful to
have all these women with their wise airs, not one of them in fact under-
standing the slightest part of her confusion. The thoughts were still whirl-
ing through her head when a letter came from Kaoru. Surprisingly, she was
pleased, more pleased, indeed, than usual. As if he did not know the
season, he had attached a leafy branch only one sprig of which had turned
crimson. Folded in an envelope, the note was quiet and laconic, and
showed little trace of resentment.
"My mountain ladies have dyed it colors twain.
And which of the twain, please tell me, is the deeper?"
<P 837>
He apparently meant to pretend that nothing of moment had oc-
curred. Uncertainty clutched at her once more; and here were these noisy
women trying to goad her into a reply. She would have left it to her sister
but for a fear that the poor girl was already at the limits of endurance.
Finally, after many false starts, she sent back a verse:
"Whatever the'ladies' meant, the answer is clear:
The newer of these hues is far the deeper."
It had been jotted down with an appearance of unconcern, and it
pleased him. He decided that his resentment was after all finite.
Two ladies with but a single heart, Bennokimi had told him--there
had been more than one hint that Oigimi meant him to have her sister in
her place. His refusal to take the hint, it now came to him, accounted for
last night's behavior. He had been unkind. A wave of pity came over him.
If he had caused her to think him unfeeling, then his hopes would come
to nothing. And no doubt Bennokimi, who had been so good about passing
his messages on, was beginning to think him untrustworthy. Well, he had
let himself be trapped, the mistake had been his own. If people chose to
laugh at him as the sort that is constantly forsaking the world, he could
only let them laugh. It was worse than they knew. He was a laughable little
boat indeed, paddling out only to come back time and time again!
So he fretted the night away. There was a bright moon in the dawn
sky as he went to call on Niou.<N 9> Upon the burning of his mother's house
in Sanjo~, he had moved with her to Rokujo~. Niou having rooms near at
hand, he was a frequent caller, much, it would seem, to Niou's satisfac-
tion. It was the perfect place to make one forget the troubles of the world.
Even the flowers below the verandas were somehow different. The sway-
ing grasses and trees were as elsewhere--and yet they too were different.
