somehow it seems more graceful. I happened to be there just as he was
going out the other day, and I didn't have a chance to break off a branch.
<P 962>
He recited the poem about the fading _hagi_. I just wish you could have seen
him. You know the one." And he recited it himself.
"The beast, the craven beast," she muttered. "And what a cheap
article he did look beside the prince. I wonder how he is as a poet."
He did not seem to be wholly without accomplishments. She thought
she would put him to the test.
This was the poem she sent out:
"Of the plighted _hagi_, the upper leaves seem quiet.
What will have caused a change in the underleaves?"
It seemed to make him feel a little guilty.
"Had I known it to be of the meadow of Miyagi,
With the fragile _hagi_ I would have kept my faith.
"Perhaps we can discuss the matter sometime."
So he had learned who the girl's father was. All the old yearning to
make a decent life for her, to give her the security that was Nakanokimi's,
came back. The governor's wife wished she were not always thinking of
Kaoru. Though both of them, Niou and Kaoru, were magnificent men, she
was not so foolish as to think that Niou took her daughter seriously. And
she was incensed at what he had done. Kaoru had indicated an interest in
the girl and even made inquiries, and yet, curiously, he remained silent. If
he was so much on her mind, how much more must he be on her daugh-
ter's. Yes, she had been stupid to let her thoughts dwell upon the lieuten-
ant. They were now upon Ukifune as she examined this and that pleasant
prospect for the future. None seemed quite within reach. The princess who
was already married to this uniquely eminent and well-favored young man
must herself be superior; and truly superior another girl would have to be
to catch his fancy. It had been her experience that one's station in life made
all the difference in matters of comportment and sensibility. Not one of her
other daughters could stand comparison with Ukifune. She herself had
seen how the lieutenant, who cut such a swath in this house, shriveled to
nothing in the presence of Niou. What then of Ukifune in the presence of
a gentleman who had taken for his bride a treasured daughter of the
emperor? Her thoughts were beginning to blur and waver.
Meanwhile the girl passed monotonous days in her temporary and
unfinished lodgings. Even the grasses seemed oppressive. She heard only
coarse East Country voices and there were no flowers to comfort her. As
the days went by in a dreary procession, her thoughts turned with intense
<P 963>
nostalgia to Nakanokimi. She thought too of Niou. His behavior had been
deplorable and the memory of it still filled her with tenor; and yet, what-
ever he may have meant by them, he had said many charming things. It
seemed to her that, faintly, his fragrance was still with her.
An affectionate letter came from the governor's wife, alive to her
maternal duties as never before. The girl was sad for her mother too. She
had tried so hard, and in vain. The letter said in part: "I can imagine how
unhappy you must be in a strange house, but you must try to bear it for
a time."
"No, I am not at all unhappy," the girl sent back. "Indeed I am having
a very pleasant time.
"If I could think it a place apart from the world,
In happy procession then might pass the days."
The childlike innocence brought tears to the mother's eyes. How cruel
it was that the girl should be driven from home, robbed of all security!
"Though it be in a house apart from this gloomy world,
I pray that the best may yet be mine to see."
And so they exchanged simple, straightforward poems.
It was Kaoru's practice to visit Uji in late autumn. Every morning he
awoke to sad thoughts of Oigimi. He set out one day to inspect the new
hall, having been informed that it was finished. Many weeks had passed
since his last visit. The autumn leaves were at their best. There the new
hall was, all bright and shining, where the villa had stood. It had been a
simple place, a veritable hermitage. The thought of it brought poignant
memories. Almost regretful that he had had it moved, he was plunged into
deeper melancholy than usual. The prince's rooms had been appointed
with stern solemnity, while his daughters' had shown remarkable grace
and delicacy. Now the plaited screens and all the other austere furnishings
had been sent off to fit out cells at the monastery. No expense had been
spared to see that the new house was appointed as a mountain villa should
be, and the results were most satisfying.
He went into the garden and sat on a rock by the brook. The scene
was not an easy one to pull himself away from.
"They still flow on, these waters clear and clean.
Can they not reflect the image of those now gone?"
Brushing away a tear, he went to look in upon the nun. His sorrow
was so apparent that she too was moved to tears. He sat in the doorway
and raised the blind a few inches. She was seated behind a curtain.
"I heard the other day that the young lady was staying in Nijo~." The
<P 964>
conversation had taken a turn that accommodated the interesting subject.
"But it had seemed rather awkward to think of visiting. Perhaps you
would tell her of my feelings."
"I had a letter from the governor's wife not long ago. It seems that she
has the girl moving from house to house, trying to avoid unlucky direc-
tions. At the moment she is hidden in a shabby little cottage somewhere.
The best thing would be to leave her here with me--but the mountain
roads seem to frighten her."
"And here I am. All these years I have been coming over the roads that
frighten them so. Why should it be? What have we inherited from other
lives to account for it?" As was so often the case, there were tears in his
voice. "Send off a message, if you will, to wherever it is that she seems to
think so safe. Or might I ask you to go yourself?"
"It would be very easy to pass on a message, but I am afraid I am no
longer up to going into the city. I do not even think of visiting my lady."
"You must be bolder. If we see that no one knows, then no one will
talk. After all, even the hermits on Atago went to the city occasionally.
And you know it is a good thing to break the most solemn vow if it means
making someone else happy."
"I am not all that holy--no bridge to see the others across." She was
genuinely perplexed. "But there is sure to be unpleasant talk."
"This is the best chance you will ever have." It was not like him to
be so insistent. "I will send a carriage day after tomorrow. In the meantime
please find out where she is staying. You know very well," he concluded
with a smile," that I would not dream of making complications."
She was not so sure. What would be on his mind? He was not a
reckless or thoughtless man, however, and he had his own name to think
of.
"Very well," she finally answered. "I will do as you say. The house
is very near your own, and possibly it would be a good idea if you were
to get off a note. I wouldn't want to seem like a busybody. I am too old
to be playing the wise fox."
"I could very easily do that. But people do talk, and it will be noised
around that I have my eye on the daughter of His Eminence the governor
of Hitachi. I understand he is a very rough fellow."
She was both touched and amused.
It was dark when he left. He broke off some flowers from under the
trees and some autumn branches, which he took to his wife, the Second
Princess. She could not have been described as unhappy with her marriage,
<P 965>
but Kaoru seemed remote and somehow ill at ease. Out of the concern any
father would feel, the emperor had written to his sister, the nun at Sanjo~,
of what he sensed to be the situation. For his part, Kaoru paid his wife the
respect her place demanded; but life was complicated. To see to the needs
of a lady so doted upon by his mother and the emperor himself was no
easy task, and now had come a new affair.
Early on the morning of the appointed day he sent off a carriage,
escorted by a rather obscure courtier in whom he had great confidence and
another minor functionary. He instructed them to fill out the guard with
men from his Uji estate.
He had said that she must come, and so, bracing herself, the nun
finished her toilet and got into the carriage. The mountain scenery brought
memories. She was sunk in thought the whole of the journey. The cottage,
when she arrived, was quiet and next to deserted, and her carriage attracted
no notice. She sent in to explain why she had come. Young women whom
she recognized from Ukifune's pilgrimages came to help her in. Ukifune,
for whom the days had been an uninterrupted passage of gloom and
boredom--and it was a wretched little house--was delighted that she now
had someone with whom she could exchange reminiscences. She felt espe-
cially close to this woman who had served her father.
"You have been on my mind constantly. I have cut myself off from
the world and do not even visit my lady, but he was more stubborn than
I have ever seen him, and I knew that I would have to come."
The girl and her nurse had been pleased that Kaoru, such a fine
gentleman, should not have forgotten them; but they had not dreamed that
he would so quickly contrive to be in communication with them.
Late in the night there came a soft knocking at the gate. "Someone
from Uji," it was announced. One of Kaoru's men, thought the nun,
ordering the gate opened. She was startled to see a carriage being pulled
in.
"Show us to the nun," said a man who announced himself as the
superintendent of Kaoru's Uji manor. She went to the door. A gentle rain
was falling and a remarkable fragrance came in on the cool breeze to tell
them who in fact their visitor was, so stately a visitor that he both de-
lighted and upset them. The cottage was a poor one and he had caught
them unprepared. What could it possibly mean? they asked one another,
bustling about to receive him.
"May I perhaps speak to the lady in private?" he sent in. "I should
like to tell her of certain feelings I have scarcely been able to keep to myself
these last months."
The girl was perplexed for an answer.
"He's here, and there's nothing you can do about it," said her nurse
impatiently. "You can at least ask him to sit down. We can have someone
slip out and tell your mother. She's so near."
"Don't be silly--there's no need to tell her," said the nun. "A couple
of young people want to speak to each other, and you assume they're going
<P 966>
to fall in love on the spot? He is a quiet, thoughtful young man, not at all
the sort to force himself on a lady."
It was raining harder. The watchmen on their rounds called out in
strange East Country accents. "That spot over by the southeast corner, you
have to keep an eye on it. Get that wagon inside and close the gate. They
don't have common sense, these people."
It was all very strange and rather forbidding. Seated at the edge of a
veranda as of a rustic cottage, he whispered to himself:
"And there is no shelter at Sano.
"Are there tangles of grass to hold me back, that I wait
So long in the rain at the eaves of your eastern cottage?"
<P 967>
No doubt the perfume that came in on the breeze was a source of great
wonderment to the eastern rustics.
Concluding at length that it would be impossible to turn him away,
the girl had a cushion set out in the south room. Urged on by her women
she slid the door open a crack.
"I am not used to looking at doors and I resent even the carpenter
who makes them." And he pushed his way inside.
He did not mean, it would seem, to describe his thoughts about having
her as a substitute for her sister. "You will not have been aware of it, I am
sure, but I once had a glimpse of you through a crack in a door. You have
been very much on my mind ever since. I suppose it was meant to be, but
you have been so much on my mind that I find it a little odd."
Small and pretty, very much in control of herself, she quite lived up
to his expectations. Indeed, he was delighted with her.
Though it would soon be morning, no cocks were crowing. From the
main street, very near at hand, came the sleepy voices of peddlers offering
wares with which he was quite unfamiliar. The women among them, he
had heard, could look like veritable demons as they strode about in the
dawn with their wares balanced on their heads. It was a new experience,
passing the night in a tangle of wormwood, and he was not at all bored.
At length he heard the guards going off duty.
Ordering his carriage brought to a hinged door at a corner of the
house, he took the girl up in his arms and carried her out.
The women were in a panic. And here it was the inauspicious Ninth
Month. What _could_ he be thinking of?
Bennokimi was as startled as the rest, and as concerned for the girl;
but she also saw the need to be calm. "Don't worry. He knows what he
is doing. You say it is a bad month--but if I'm not mistaken tomorrow will
be the first day of winter."
It was the thirteenth of the month.
his time I cannot go with you," she continued. "It will not do if my
lady hears that I have slipped into town and gone back without seeing
her."
But Kaoru wanted to keep word of the escapade from Nakanokimi as
