interesting things in life."
At Uji, Oigimi had been the first to succumb. Could she turn him
away on no better grounds than that he was not the suitor she had had
in mind for her sister? The house was badly equipped for decking out a
nuptial chamber, but she managed to make do rather well with the rustic
furnishings at hand. In control of herself once more, she was pleased that
<P 843>
Niou should come hurrying down the long road to Uji, and at the same
time she could not help wondering that her plans had gone so wildly
astray. Nakanokimi, still in a daze, gave herself up to the women who had
undertaken to dress her for the night. The sleeves of her crimson robe were
damp with tears.
The more composed of the sisters was also in tears. "I cannot believe
I have much longer to live, and I think only of you. These people have
worn my ears out telling me what a fine match it is. Well, I have said to
myself, they are older and more experienced, and probably they are right,
at least as the world sees things. And so I put together a small amount of
resolve--not that I pretend to know a great deal--and told myself that I
was _not_ going to leave you unprotected. But I never dreamed that things
could go so horribly awry. People talk about matches that are fated to be,
and I suppose this is one of them. I am as upset as you are, you must believe
me. When you have calmed yourself a little I shall try to prove that I knew
nothing at all about it. Please don't be angry with me. The time will come
when you will be sorry if you are."
She stroked her sister's hair as she spoke. Nakanokimi did not answer.
Her mind was jumping from thought to thought. If her sister was so
worried about her now, it did not seem likely that she had behaved with
any sort of deliberate malice. She herself was only making things worse.
They were fools for the world to laugh at, both of them, and there was no
point in adding to her sister's unhappiness.
Even in a state of something near shock she had been very beautiful.
Tonight, more in possession of herself, she was still more of a delight.
Niou's heart ached at the thought of how long, and for him how strewn
with obstacles, the road to Uji was. He made promise after promise.
Nakanokimi was neither pleased nor moved. She was merely bewildered
--men were quite beyond her. All maidens are shy; but shyness has its
limits when a maiden, however pampered and sheltered, has lived in a
house with brothers. Our princess, though scarcely pampered, had grown
up in these secluded mountains, far from the greater world; and the timid-
ity brought on by this unexpected event made it difficult for her to force
her way through the tiniest answer. He would think her in every respect
queer and countrified, entirely unlike other ladies of his acquaintance; and
she was, in every respect, the quicker and more accomplished of the two
sisters.
The women reminded them of the rice cakes that are customary on
the third night. Yes--it was a form that must be observed, thought Oigimi.
She put her sister to work. Nakanokimi was of course a novice in such
matters, and Oigimi too, doing her best to play the part of the older sister,
felt herself flushing scarlet. How ridiculous they must seem to these
women! But in fact the women were entranced. This calm elegance, they
thought, was what one expected of an eldest daughter, and at the same
time it testified to her concern and affection for her sister.
<P 844>
A letter came from Kaoru, written in a careful cursive hand on rather
ordinary Michinoku paper. "I thought of calling last night, but it is clear
that my humble efforts are bringing no rewards. I must confess a certain
resentment. I know that there will be all manner of errands to see to this
evening, but the memory of the other night leaves me squirming. And so
I shall bide my time."
In several boxes he sent Bennokimi numerous bolts of cloth, for the
women, he said. It would seem that, relying on what his mother happened
to have at hand, he had not been as lavish as he would have wished to be.
Lengths of undyed silk, plain and figured, were hidden beneath two taste-
fully finished robes and singlets. At the sleeve of a singlet was a poem,
somewhat old-fashioned, it might have seemed:
"We did not share a bed, I hear you say.
But we _were_ together, that I must insist."
How very threatening. And yet, in some discomfiture, Oigimi had to
grant his point: neither she nor her sister had any defenses left. Some of
the messengers ran off while she was still puzzling over her answer. She
detained the lowest-ranking among them until she had a poem to give him.
"No barrier, perhaps, between our hearts;
But say not that our sleeves caress each other."
It was an ordinary poem, showing, however, traces of her agitation.
He was touched. He thought he could see in it honest and unaffected
feelings.
Meanwhile Niou was beside himself. He was at the palace and there
seemed no chance of escaping. His mother had taken advantage of his
presence to chide him for his lengthy absences. "Here you are still single,
and people tell me that you are already beginning to acquire a name for
yourself as a lover. I do not like it at all. Do not, if you please, make a career
of it. Your father is no happier than I am."
Niou withdrew to his private chambers. Kaoru came upon him sunk
in thought, having finished a letter to Uji. The visit delighted him. Here
was someone who understood.
"What am I to do? It is already dark, and--really, what am I to do?"
Kaoru saw a chance to explore his friend's intentions. "We haven't
been seeing much of you lately, and your mother will not be at all happy
if you go running off again. The ladies have been handing little rumors
around. I can already hear the scolding I've let myself in for."
"Yes, there is the problem of my good mother. She has just an-
nihilated me, as a matter of fact. Those women must be lying to her. What
have I done, after all, that the whole world should be criticizing me? Life
is not easy when your father wears a crown, that I can tell you." His sighs
did suggest that he found his wellborn lot a sad one.
<P 845>
Kaoru was beginning to feel sorry for him. "Well, you will have a
scene on your hands whether you go or whether you stay. If there is to
be carnage, I am prepared to immolate myself. Suppose we think of a horse
for getting over Mount Kohata. It will attract attention, of course."
The night was blacker and blacker, Niou more and more nervous; but
finally he made his departure, on horseback, as Kaoru had suggested.
"I think," said Kaoru, seeing him off, "that it would be better for me
to stay behind and do what I can to cover the rear." He went from Niou's
apartments to the empress's audience chamber.
"So he has run off again," said she. "I cannot understand him. Has he
no notion of what people will be thinking? I am the one who will suffer
when his father hears of it and concludes that someone has been remiss."
She was the mother of a considerable band of grown children, and she
only seemed younger as the years went by. No doubt her oldest daughter,
the First Princess, was very much like her. He thought it a great pity that
the occasion had been denied him to approach the daughter, if only to hear
her voice, as he was now approaching the mother. It was probably in such
a situation, he mused--when the lady was neither distant nor yet near
enough to come at a summons--that the amorously inclined young men
of the world tended to have improper thoughts. Was there anyone as
eccentric as he? And yet even he, once his affections had been engaged,
found it impossible to detach them. Here among the empress's attendants
was not a single lady who could be called wanting in sensitivity or ele-
gance. Each had her own merits, and several were outstandingly beautiful.
But he was propriety itself towards all of them, determined that none
should excite him--and this despite the fact that several had made ad-
vances. Since the empress held court with such quiet dignity, nothing was
allowed to appear on the surface; but women have their ways, and there
were those in her retinue who let slip hints that they found him interesting.
He for his part was sometimes amused and sometimes touched, and
through all these trifling encounters there ran an awareness of evanes-
cence.
Oigimi was in despair. Kaoru had made such a thing of the night
before them. The hours passed, and then came his letter. So Niou's fickle-
ness and thoughtlessness were exactly as the world had proclaimed them
to be. Then, at about midnight, he came in upon a rising wind, a most
pleasing figure enveloped in a rich perfume. How could she be angry with
him? And the bride herself--unbending a little now, she seemed to under-
stand somewhat better what was expected of her. She was at her most
beautiful. He even thought her, carefully groomed for the occasion, an
<P 846>
improvement over the night before. Far from disappointing to one who
was always surrounded by beauties, her face, her bearing, everything
about her seemed more delightful on close inspection--and how could she
fail to have these toothless rustic faces wreathed in smiles? She was lovely,
the women said to one another, and it would have been a terrible pity had
some ordinary man come for her. Fate had finally done them a good turn.
And they grumbled that their other lady should still be so unconscionably
aloof in her treatment of the other young gentleman. Observing how these
persons well past their prime sewed and embroidered bright, flowery
things that did not serve their venerable years, how there was not one
among them who could escape charges of decking herself out in grotesque
brilliance, Oigimi feared that she too was passing her prime. Each day she
saw a more emaciated face in her mirror. Who among her women thought
herself uncomely? Each of them brushed thin hair over her forehead,
unable to observe the strange prospect she afforded from the rear. Each
painted herself over with bright cosmetics. Oigimi lay gazing vacantly out
at the garden. Was she prey to self-deception when she told herself that
she had not decayed to any alarming degree, that her face was still not too
sadly changed and wasted? The ordeal of appearing before a fine young
gentleman would be worse as time went by, the ravages would be all too
evident in a year or two. Youth--how very fleeting and uncertain it was!
She looked at her thin hands and wrists, and thought of him and the world
and gazed sadly out at the garden.
It had not been easy to win even this small measure of freedom, sighed
Niou; and he could expect even less in the future. He told Nakanokimi of
his mother's sharp words." There may be times when I will not be able to
come, however much I may want to, and you are not to let them worry
you. Would I have gone to such trouble if I had the slightest intention of
neglecting you? I literally threw myself to the winds tonight, and that was
because I did not want you to come to the wrong conclusions. Things will
not always be this complicated. I will find a way, somehow, to bring you
nearer."
So he said, with apparent sincerity. But here he was already thinking
of times, rather extended periods, evidently, when he would not be able
to come. Did she not already have a sign that reports about him were true?
She was deeply troubled, by his words and by an awareness of how weak
her own position was. As dawn began to come over the sky, he opened a
side door and invited her out. The layers of mist delighted him even more
than in a familiar setting. As always, the little faggot boats rowed out into
the mists, leaving faint white traces behind them. The strangeness of the
scene spoke strongly to his refined sensibilities. The sky was lighter at the
mountain ridge. The most coddled and pampered of ladies, he thought,
<P 847>
could scarcely be the superior of the princess beside him. Perhaps it was
family pride that made him think of his own sister, the First Princess. The
night, over so quickly, had left him longing to explore these gentle charms
more carefully. The roar of the waters was loud, and as the mists cleared
from the moldering old bridge the riverbank seemed wilder, more wasted.
How had they been able to pass the years in such a place?
Nakanokimi was apologizing inwardly for her rustic dwelling. What
had happened was beyond her maddest dreams: before her was every
young lady's notion of the ideal prince; and he had made his vows for this
life and all the lives to come. Strangely, she felt more at ease with Niou,
though she was dazzled, than she had with Kaoru, the only other young
man she had known. Kaoru was a chilly young man whose thoughts
always seemed to be elsewhere. She had thought Niou unapproachable
because of the difference in their stations, and she had had difficulty
answering even the briefest and most casual of his notes. How strange that
she should be upset at the prospect of not seeing him again for some days!
His attendants were noisily coughing and clearing their throats in an
effort to hasten him on his way. He too was in rather a hurry, for he did
not want to arrive home in the middle of the busy day. He told her over
and over again how he hated the thought that he would not see her on each
of the nights to come.
Turning back in the doorway, he handed her a farewell poem:
"The lady at the bridge may steep her sleeves
In lonely midnight tears--but not for long."
This was the reply:
"That you will come again I do believe.
But must I wait for visits far between?"
Although she did not complain, her very apparent distress quite
stabbed at his heart. He was such a fine figure in the morning sunlight that
