able to send him on his way, evidence, surely, that she understood and
sympathized. It was very late. She wondered what her women would be
thinking. Taking advantage of his bemusement, she slipped away to the
rear of the house. She was right to do so, of course, but he was unable to
keep back tears of chagrin and resentment. His agitation was increased by
the presence of her women. But rash action would make her unhappy and
do him no good. He fought to maintain at least a semblance of composure.
Sighing deeper sighs than usual, he made his way out.
A helpless captive of yearning, he could hope for no lessening of the
pain. How, without calling down upon himself the reproaches of the whole
world, was he to find solace? Not having known a great deal of love, he
let it lure him into fantasies that could be of no use to either of them; and
so he passed the night. She had said that this new girl resembled her dead
sister. How might he learn whether or not she was right? The girl was of
a low enough station in life that he could doubtless approach her with no
<P 918>
difficulty; but he was less than enthusiastic. Having approached her, he
might be embarrassed to find her not entirely to his taste.
Nostalgia for Uji was mounting again. The long intervals between his
visits somehow made the past withdraw more rapidly into the distance.
Toward the end of the Ninth Month he paid a visit. In the wail of the
winds, the Uji house had only the rushing waters for company. The human
presence was scarcely to be detected. His eyes clouded over at the infinite
sadness of the place. Asking for Bennokimi, he was received at a dark-blue
curtain drawn before her rooms.
"I am much honored by this visit. I am even older and uglier than
when last you saw me and would be ashamed to face you." She remained
behind her curtains.
"I can guess how sad life is for you. I have come because only you
understand certain things I long to talk about." There were tears in his
eyes. "How quickly time does go by?"
The old woman was weeping quite openly. "Here we are again at the
time of the year when my older lady was suffering so. There is no particu-
lar season for weeping, of course, but it is the autumn wind that hurts
most. And I have had dim rumors that things have turned out for my
younger lady as my older lady feared they would--that her relations with
the prince are not good. One must go on worrying, it seems."
"I suppose that everything arranges itself in the end, if only you live
long enough, but I cannot help blaming myself that her last days were so
unsettled. But you speak of the prince's recent behavior. There is nothing
in the least unusual about it, you know. It is exactly what one would have
expected. He has taken another wife, but that is no cause for your lady to
be upset. No, I fear that my own sorrow is the greater. I know that the day
will come when I too will vanish into the skies.'The dew falls soon and
late'--but that knowledge does not make the wait any easier."
Sending for the abbot, he gave instructions for memorial services.
"My visits here do me no good," he said. "What good is it to grieve? I think
we should move this house to your monastery and do it over as a memorial
hall. Something of the sort will be necessary someday, I am quite sure, and
the sooner the better."
He drew sketches and they discussed the arrangement of chapels,
galleries, and cells.
"A most admirable undertaking," said the abbot.
"Some will think it cruel, I know, to change a house that has so much
of its owner in it. But we have pious motives that would have accorded
completely with his own. His great trouble seems to have been an inability
to pursue them, out of concern for the daughters he would leave behind.
This land will have passed through his second daughter to Prince Niou,
and we are hardly in a position to make it a holy precinct, whatever our
personal wishes in the matter may be. And of course it is too near the river
<P 919>
and too open, and so I think we should move the house and have some-
thing else put up in its place."
"In every respect a most excellent plan. There once was a man who
lost his children and in his grief went for long years carrying their remains
in a kerchief around his neck. Then through the benign powers of the
Blessed One he cast them away and entered the realm of enlighten-
ment. For you this house is similarly disquieting, a barrier along the holy
way. A temple will be a source of grace in lives to come. Let us get to work
immediately. We will have the soothsayers choose a good day and find two
or three carpenters who know what they are about, and in matters of detail
we need only follow the specifications laid down by the Blessed One
himself."
Kaoru gave all the necessary instructions. Summoning men from his
manor, he told them to obey the abbot's orders while the work was in
progress. It was by then evening. He decided to stay the night. He wan-
dered here and there, knowing that this might be his last visit. The images
had already been taken to the monastery, with only a few ritual imple-
ments left behind for Bennokimi's convenience. It was a lonely life she led,
thought Kaoru. And what was to become of her now?
"There are rather urgent reasons for rebuilding the house," he ex-
plained, "and while we are about it perhaps we could ask you to make do
with this gallery. If there are things you want sent to your lady, I can ask
one of my men to deliver them."
So he busied himself with domestic details It is not the usual thing
for young men to be interested in aged women, but he called her to his side
and questioned her about old times. Since there was no danger of being
overheard, she spoke at great length of his father.
"I can see him now as he lay dying. He did so want to see the child.
And now, coming upon you at the far end of my outrageously long life,
I feel as if I were having my reward for having been with him then. I am
happy, and I am sad. And ashamed, too, for having lived all these wretched
years and seen and known all these things. My lady writes telling me to
visit her occasionally. She asks if I intend to shut myself off from her and
forget about her completely. But I cannot be seen as I am. I want to be in
attendance only upon Lord Amita~bha."
She also talked at great length of Oigimi: of her nature and conduct
over the years, of remarks she had made on this and that occasion, of the
fugitive poems she had composed when the cherries were in bloom or the
autumn leaves at their best. The old woman expressed herself well, though
her voice wavered from time to time. Kaoru was deeply moved. There had
been something mutely childlike about Oigimi, but she had been a lady
of sensibility all the same. He compared her in his mind with her sister.
Nakanokimi was the more cheerful and modern of the two, even though
she could be very cold to attentions she found unwelcome. With
<P 920>
him, however, she was evidently reluctant to seem too withdrawn. He
presently found his chance to mention the girl Nakanokimi had said
resembled her dead sister.
"I cannot be sure whether she is in the city or not," replied Bennokimi.
"I have only heard rumors. It was before the prince came to these moun-
tains to live, and shortly after he lost his wife. Among his attendants was
a woman named Chu~jo~, of good family and an amiable enough disposition.
For a very short time he favored her with his attentions. No one knew of
the affair, and presently she had a daughter. He was embarrassed, yes, even
disgusted, knowing that it might well be his. He did not want to be
troubled further and refused to see her again. It was self-loathing, I should
imagine, that turned him into the saint he became in his last years. The
woman was of course in a difficult position and soon left his service. Some
time later she married the governor of Michinoku and went off with him
to his province. Back in the capital after some years, she let it be known
that the girl was in good health. The prince told her very brusquely that
the news had nothing to do with him or this house; and so the poor woman
could only lament her inability to do anything for the girl. I heard nothing
of her for some years--I should imagine it was because she was off in
<P 921>
Hitachi, where her husband had been posted as governor. Then this
spring there was a report that she had called upon my lady. The daughter
will be about twenty, I should imagine. I did once have a long letter from
the mother saying that she was far too pretty to be wasted in the prov-
inces."
Fascinated by these remarks, Kaoru concluded that there must be a
great deal of truth in what Nakanokimi had said. "I have been telling
myself that I would go to the far corners of the earth for a glimpse of
someone who resembled your dead lady even a little. The prince may not
have counted this other girl among his children, but that she is can hardly
be denied. I suppose she will visit you here someday. When she does,
please tell her what I have said, though without seeming to make a great
point of it."
"Chu~jo~ is a niece of my ladies' mother, and so the two of us are
related; but because we worked for different families, we were never very
close. I have had a letter from Tayu~--she is in the city with my lady, you
will remember--saying that the girl would like to pay her respects at her
father's grave, and that I should be prepared for a visit; but so far she does
not seem to have thought of writing us directly. When she does come, I
shall pass your message on to her."
As he prepared to leave in the morning, he gave the abbot silks and
cottons that had been brought after him. He gave similar gifts to Ben-
nokimi and even to her women and the ordinary priests. It was a lonely
mountain dwelling, but with this steady flow of gifts she was able to
pursue the religious vocation in quiet security and in a manner befitting
her station.
The trees had been stripped bare by the cruel winds. There were no
tracks through the leaves. Hating to depart for what he feared would be
the last time, he gazed on at the melancholy scene. The ivy climbing the
twisted mountain trees still had traces of autumn color. He broke off a
sprig, thinking that even so small a gift would please Nakanokimi.
"Memories of nights beneath the ivy
Bring comfort to the traveler's lonely sleep."
This was Bennokimi's answer:
"Sad must be the memory of lodging
Beneath this rotting, ivy-covered tree."
<P 922>
Though he would not have called it a modish, up-to-date poem, it was
not without charm, and it brought consolation of a sort.
Niou chanced to be with the princess when the ivy was delivered.
"From the Sanjo~ house," said the woman nonchalantly.
So she would have to go through it all over again! Nakanokimi wished
that she could somehow hide the gift.
"Most remarkable," said Niou, his manner richly insinuating.
He took up the ivy and a letter that said in part: "Have you been better
these last few days? I paid a visit to your mountain village, and lost my
way among the clinging mountain mists. I shall tell you all about it when
I see you. The abbot and I went over plans for rebuilding the house as a
memorial hall. When I have your approval I shall see to arrangements for
moving it. Perhaps I may ask you to give Bennokimi the necessary instruc-
tions."
"Very cool and distant," said Niou." He must have known I would
be here."
There was possibly a grain of truth in it; but Nakanokimi, delighted
that the letter was so innocuous, now found herself damned by the very
innocuousness. Her irritation was visible, and so charming that he had to
forgive her everything.
"Send off an answer, now. I won't watch." He turned away.
Since a show of reluctance would only make matters worse, she took
up her brush.
"I am very envious of you, running off to the mountains. I have been
thinking that very much the disposition you suggest should be made of the
house; and I think too that, rather than seek some other'cave among the
rocks' when the time comes for me to leave the world, I would like to keep
it in repair. I shall be very pleased indeed if you remodel it as you find
appropriate."
It seemed an easy, relaxed friendship, thought Niou, that offered no
ground for jealousy; but he was suspicious all the same, knowing that he
himself would not dream of allowing everything to meet the eye. It was
not an easy situation for Nakanokimi.
Below the veranda autumn grasses beckoned, their plumes bending
and swaying over beds of withered flowers. Some, not yet headed, fragile
in the evening breeze, were flecked with dew. It was an ordinary enough
breeze, and yet it was strangely moving.
"The autumn grass is keeping something back.
Beneath the dew, it beckons and it beckons."
He had on an informal robe over a pleasantly rumpled singlet. Taking
up a lute, he tuned it to the _o~jiki_ mode. It was so charming a performance
that Nakanokimi, who knew a great deal about music, could not go on
<P 923>
being annoyed. She was a charming figure herself. Leaning against an
armrest, she peeped shyly out from behind a low curtain.
"Weakly, weakly the wind glides over the grasses.
One knows that the moor is at the end of autumn."
To her poem she added only the words: "Left alone."
Embarrassed at her inability to hold back tears, she hid her face
behind a fan. She was a delight, and he pitied her; and at the same time
he could see that precisely this appeal would make it difficult for other men
