complicated, and what had happened had to happen sooner or later. The
world had chosen to single him out, even among princes of the blood, and
no one could have reproved him for taking as many wives as he wished;
and so no one need think Nakanokimi's situation a notably cruel one.
Quite the reverse: it was the general view that she was lucky, swept into
an embrace so ardent and at the same time so estimable. To Nakanokimi
herself, this sudden event was the more shocking for the fact that she had
begun to take his affection for granted. She had wondered, reading old
romances, why women were always fretting at such length over these little
problems. They had seemed very remote. Now she saw that the pain could
be real.
"And this refusal to eat--it is not at all good for you, you know," he
said gently, with every indication of real concern. He ordered her favorite
fruits immediately, and put his most famous cook to work on other dishes
he thought might tempt her; but her thoughts were elsewhere. It was all
very disturbing.
Toward evening he withdrew to the main hall. The breeze was cool,
and it was a time of the year when the skies had a particular fascination.
Very much the man of fashion, he today presented an even more elegant
figure than usual; but for Nakanokimi the very care that he gave to his
dress deepened gloom that was already next to unbearable. The song of
the evening locust made her yearn for "the mountain shadows."
"My sorrows would have their limits, were I yet there.
The locust's call this autumn eve--I hate it?"
He was on his way while the evening was still young. She heard his
outrunners withdrawing into the distance, and an angler might have
wanted to have a try at the waters by her pillow. Even as she wept, she
rebuked herself for having surrendered so weakly to jealousy. Why should
she be wounded afresh, when he had been inconsiderate from the start?
Matters were of course complicated by her pregnancy. What did the future
have in store for her? She came from short-lived stock, and might herself
be marked for an early death. Though she had no great wish to live on,
the thought of death saddened her, and the sin would be great if she left
behind a motherless child. She passed a sleepless night.
The empress being indisposed, Niou went to the palace the next day.
He found the whole court assembled. She proved to be suffering from no
more than a slight cold, however, and Yu~giri, as he left, invited Kaoru to
share a carriage with him. He wanted the evening's ceremonies to be of
<P 903>
unprecedented brilliance, though of course there is a limit beyond which
not even the wealthiest of commoners is expected to go. He felt somewhat
uncomfortable with Kaoru. Yet among his near relatives there was no one
whom he thought it so necessary to have at these last nuptial ceremonies.
No one could more gracefully do honor to the occasion. But at the same
time Yu~giri was annoyed. Kaoru had left court with unwonted alacrity,
and he showed not the smallest sign of regret that Rokunokimi had gone
to another; and now he threw himself into the preparations as if he were
one of her brothers.
It was after dark when Niou made his appearance. A room had been
prepared for him at the southeast corner of the main hall. The prescribed
silver dishes were laid out most grandly on eight stands, and there were
two smaller stands as well, and the ceremonial rice cakes were brought on
trays with the festoon-shaped legs so much in style. But enough: why
should I describe arrangements with which everyone is perfectly familiar?
Arriving at the banquet, Yu~giri pointed out to Niou, who had not yet
emerged from the bridal chambers, that it was growing very late and his
company was much missed. But Niou still loitered among the ladies, whose
company he was enjoying enormously. In attendance upon him were Yu~-
<P 904>
giri's brothers-in-law, a guards commander and a councillor. Finally the
bridegroom emerged, a very spruce figure indeed. Yu~giri's son the captain
was acting as master of ceremonies and pressed wine upon Niou. The cups
were emptied a second time and a third, and Niou smiled at Kaoru's
diligence in seeing that they were refilled. No doubt he was remembering
his own complaints about this excessively proper household. But Kaoru
was all solemnity, and pretended not to notice. Niou's retinue, which
included numbers of ranking and honored courtiers, was meanwhile being
entertained in the east wing. For six men of the Fourth Rank there were
ladies' robes and cloaks, and for ten men of the Fifth Rank double-lined
Chinese robes and trains in several colors for the several stations. Four men
of the Sixth Rank received trousers and brocade cloaks. Chafing at the
limits imposed upon even the most illustrious statesman, Yu~giri had ex-
hausted his ingenuity in seeing that the dyeing and cutting were of the
finest, and some might have thought the gifts for the handymen and
grooms rather excessive. Why is it--because the pleasures the eye takes in
are the best, perhaps--that old romances seem to give these lively events
first priority? But we are always being told that not even they manage to
get in all the details.
Some of Kaoru's outrunners, victims of the darkness, seem not to have
been noticed when the wine was passed out. "Now why couldn't he have
married her himself, like a good boy?" they grumbled as they saw his
carriage in through the garden gate. "He may enjoy his bachelor's life, but
we don't."
Kaoru smiled. It was late and they were sleepy. Niou's men would be
sprawled about here and there happily sleeping off the wine. But what a
strained affair it had been, he thought as he went in and lay down. The
father of the bride, a close enough relative of the groom too, had come
in with such portentous ceremony. The lights turned up high, this person
and that had pressed drinks upon the groom, who had responded with
unexceptionable poise and dignity. It had been a performance the very
memory of which brought pleasure. If he had had a well-endowed daugh-
ter of his own, thought Kaoru, he would have found it hard to pass over
Niou even in favor of an emperor. Yet he knew that in all the court not
one father of an eligible daughter failed to think of Kaoru himself even as
he thought of Niou. No, his was not a name they scoffed at. A touch of
self-congratulation creeping into his soliloquy, he thought what a pity it
was that he should be a crabbed old recluse. Supposing the emperor, and
there certainly were hints enough, was having thoughts about the Second
Princess and Kaoru. It would not do to give too withdrawn and self-
contained an impression. Prestige the match would certainly bring, and yet
he wondered. And all that aside, what sort of lady would she be? Might
she just possibly resemble Oigimi? It would seem that he was not, after
all, wholly uninterested in the Second Princess.
<P 905>
Troubled once more with insomnia, he went to the room of a certain
Azechi, a woman of his mother's who was his favorite, in some measure,
over the others, and there passed the night. No one could have reproved
him for sleeping late, but he jumped from bed as if duty were calling.
Azechi was evidently annoyed:
"Clandestine my rendezvous at Barrier River.
No good this sudden departure will do for my name."
He had to admit that he was not being kind:
"Viewed from above, its waters may seem shallow.
But deep is Barrier River, its flow unceasing."
Even "deep" had a doubtful ring to it; and "shallow," one can imagine,
did little to dispel Azechi's bitterness.
"Do come for a look at this sky." He opened the side door. "How can
you lie there as if it didn't exist? I would not wish to seem affected, but
the dawn after one of these long nights does fill a person with thoughts
about this world and the next." Spreading confusion behind him, he made
his departure.
<P 906>
Although he did not have a large repertory of pretty speeches, he was
a man of taste, thought by most people to be not entirely without warmth.
Women with whom he had exchanged little pleasantries hoped for more.
And this household of a princess no longer a part of the world was a target
for properly introduced serving women, and each, after her rank and
fashion, could no doubt have told stories to which one might listen with
interest and sympathy.
Seeing his bride for the first time in daylight, Niou was pleased. She
was of moderate height and attractive proportions, her face was well
molded, and her hair flowed in a heavy cascade over her shoulders. It was
a proud, noble face, the skin almost too delicate, the eyes such as to make
a rival feel somehow defective. Not a flaw detracted from her beauty, he
could say quite without reservation. He might have feared a certain im-
maturity, but, in her early twenties, she was no longer a child. A flower
at its best, product of the most careful nurturing, so adequate an object of
attention as to make a father forget that he had other duties. But of course
there was a different kind of beauty, a more winsome kind, and here the
honors had to go to Niou's lady at Nijo~. Rokunokimi was not forward, but
she did not fail to make herself understood. And so, in sum, the new wife
had much to recommend her, and her more apparent charms seemed to
have intelligence and cultivation behind them. In her retinue were thirty
carefully chosen young women and six little girls, all of more than ordinary
comeliness. Each could indeed have been described as a real beauty, and
not one showed less than the best taste in dress and grooming. Yu~giri knew
that he had a demanding son-in-law to please, and his ingenuity in seeing
that every detail was the best of its kind was astonishing (appalling, some
might have said). Not even when his oldest daughter, by Kumoinokari
herself, had become the bride of the crown prince had he taken such pains
--evidence, no doubt, of his hopes for this other prince.
Niou was not able to spend as much of his time at Nijo~ as he would
have wished. Princes of the blood did not set forth casually in the middle
of the day. He had taken up residence again in the southeast quarter at
Rokujo~, where he had lived as a child, and he could not, when night came,
slip calmly past his new wife and set out for Nijo~.
And so Nakanokimi was kept waiting. She had tried to prepare herself
for this turn of events, but of course one is never prepared. Now that it
had come she was left asking herself how love could fade so quickly. She
had acted precipitately. Sensible people did not forget their own insignifi-
cance and seek to enter the grand world. She must have been quite bereft
of her senses when she let herself be brought down the mountain path
from Uji. She longed to go back, not in grand defiance, but simply to rest,
to regain her composure. He should not mind, if she made it clear that she
was not trying to teach him a lesson.
Shyly, her thoughts at length too much for her, she sent off a letter
to Kaoru." The abbot has told me in detail of your attentions the other day.
<P 907>
I cannot tell you how great a consolation your kindness in remembering
has been. I am deeply grateful, and would like if possible to offer my
thanks in person."
It was written quietly on plain Michinoku paper, most touching in its
directness. The sincerity of her gratitude for the memorial services, which
had been conducted with unpretentious solemnity, was apparent, though
stated without exaggeration or rhetorical flourish. There had always been
something stiff, reserved, hesitant, in what should have been the most
casual of notes from her. And now she wanted to see him! Niou, so quick
to jump from this fad and that infatuation to the next, was clearly neglect-
ing her. Almost in tears, Kaoru read the simple note over and over again.
His answer, on matter-of-fact white paper, was, he hoped, equally
direct. "Thank ou for your letter. I set off by myself the other day, as
silently as a monk, because there seemed to be reasons for not informing
you. I resent very slightly your choice of the word'remembering,' because
it implies that forgetfulness might have been possible. But we must talk
of all this when I see you. In the meantime, please be assured of my very
great esteem."
The next evening he made his visit. His heart a tangle of secret emo-
tions, he gave more than usual attention to his dress. The perfume burnt
into his soft robe blended with his own and that of his cloves-dyed fan
to be if anything too subtle. And so he set forth, a figure of incomparable
dignity.
Nakanokimi had not of course forgotten their strange evening
together. Witness once more to his kindness, so at odds with what she now
judged to be the ordinary, she might even have had regrets, one may
imagine, for not having become his wife. She was mature enough by now
to compare him with the man who had wronged her, and could think of
no scale on which he was not to be marked the higher. It would be a pity
to keep him at a distance. She invited him inside her anteroom and ad-
dressed him from her parlor, through a blind and a curtain.
"You did not mean to honor me with a special invitation, I know, but
I was delighted at this indication--the very first, I believe--that you would
not object to my presence, and wanted to come immediately. Then I was
told that the prince would be with you, and so I waited until now. Here
I am inside the first barrier--dare I congratulate myself that after all these
years I am being rewarded?"
She still had great trouble finding words; but at length, faint and
hesitant from deep in the room, he caught her reply: "I am so mute and
frozen always, I was wondering how I might let you know even a little of
