really frightful happened along the way."
"It must have been, I'm sure." Uncertain what to do, she put the light
at a distance.
"I don't want anyone to see me. Please don't wake them."
He was a clever mimic. Since their voices were similar, he was able to
give a convincing enough imitation of Kaoru that he was shown to the rear
of the hall. How trying for the poor man, thought Ukon, withdrawing
behind a curtain. Under rough travel guise he wore robes of a fine, soft
weave. His fragrance scarcely if at all inferior to Kaoru's, he undressed as
if he were in his own private rooms and lay down beside Ukifune.
"Why not where you usually sleep?"
He did not answer. Ukon spread a coverlet over her mistress, and,
arousing the women nearby, asked them to lie down some slight distance
away. Since it was the practice for Kaoru's men to be accommodated
elsewhere, no one sensed what was happening.
"How very sweet of him, so late at night. Doesn't she understand?"
"Oh, do be quiet." Some people understand too well, thought Ukon.
"A whisper in the middle of the night can be worse than a scream."
Ukifune was stunned. She knew that it was not Kaoru; but whoever
it was had put his hand over her mouth. (If he was capable of such excesses
at home, with everyone watching, what would he not be capable of here?)
Had she known immediately that it was not Kaoru, she might have re-
sisted, even a little; but now she was paralyzed. She had hurt him on an
earlier occasion, he said, and she had been on his mind ever since; and so
she quickly guessed who he was. Hideously embarrassed, horrified at the
thought of what was being done to her sister, she could only weep. Niou
<P 981>
too was in tears. It would not be easy to see her again. Might it have been
better not to come at all?
And so the night sped past. Outside, an attendant coughed to warn
of the approach of dawn. Ukon came out. Niou did not want to leave, for
he had had far from enough of the girl's company--and it _would_ be difficult
to come again. Very well: let them raise any sort of commotion they
wished. He would not go back today. One loved while one lived. Why go
back and die of longing?
He summoned Ukon. "You will think it unwise, I am sure, but I
propose to spend the day here. Have my men hide somewhere not too far
away, and send Tokikata to the city with good excuses--maybe he can say
I'm busy praying at a mountain temple."
Ukon was aghast. Why had she not been more careful? But she was
soon in control of herself once more. What was done was done, and there
was no point in antagonizing him. Call it fate, that he should have gone
on thinking about Ukifune after that strange, fleeting encounter. No one
was to blame.
"Her mother is sending for her today. What do you intend to do? I
know that some things have to be, and there is nothing anyone can do
about them; but you've really picked a very bad day. Suppose you come
again, if you still feel in the mood."
An able woman, thought he. "No, I've been wandering around in a
daze all these weeks. I haven't cared what they might be saying about me.
A man in my position doesn't go sneaking off into the night, you know,
if he's still worried about appearances. Just tell her mother there's been a
very unfortunate defilement, and send them back again. Don't give them
a hint that I'm here. For her sake and for mine. I don't think that's asking
a great deal, and I won't settle for less."
He did seem so infatuated with the girl that he no longer worried
about the reproaches he might call down upon himself.
Ukon went out to a man who had been nervously seeking to get Niou
on his way, and informed him of these new intentions. "Go tell him,
please, that this will not do. He is behaving outrageously. I don't care what
he may be thinking, what your men are thinking is more important. Are
you children, bringing him out into these wilds? Country people can be
unruly, you know, and they don't always respect rank."
The secretary had to agree that things might be difficult.
"And which of you is Tokikata?" She passed on Niou's orders.
"Oh, but of course," laughed Tokikata. "Any excuse to get away from
that tongue of yours. But seriously: he seems very fond of her, and I intend
to do what I can, even if it means, as you say, taking childish risks. Well,
I'm off. They'll soon be changing the guard."
Ukon was in a quandary. How was she to keep Niou's presence a
secret?
"The general seems to have had reasons for coming incognito," she
<P 982>
said when the others were up. "Something rather awful happened to him
along the way. He's having fresh clothes sent out tonight."
"Mount Kohata is a dreadful place. That's what happens when you
go around without a decent guard. How really dreadful."
"Don't shout about it, if you please. Give the servants a hint and
they'll guess everything."
Ukon did not like it at all. She was not a natural liar. And what would
she find to say if a messenger were to come from Kaoru?" Please," she
prayed, bowing in the direction of Hatsuse. "Please let this day pass like
all the others."
Ukifune and her mother were to go on a pilgrimage to Ishiyama. The
women had been through all the necessary fasting and purification. For
nothing, it now became apparent. How very unfortunate!
The sun had risen, the shutters were open. Ukon stayed near her
mistress. Blinds were lowered to darken the main hall and bills posted
announcing a retreat. Should Ukifune's mother ask to come in, Ukon
would have to say that there had been forbidding dreams in the night. She
brought water to Niou and her mistress. The morning ablutions were in
no way out of the ordinary, but it seemed infinitely strange to him that
this new girl should be waiting on him. He invited her to wash first. Used
to Kaoru's quiet ways, she now found herself with a gentleman who
proclaimed himself incapable of tolerating a moment's separation. This
must be the sort of thing people meant when they spoke of love. But what
if word of this new shift in her destinies--strangest of destinies--were to
get abroad? What, before anything, of Nakanokimi?
He still did not know who she was. "You are being very unkind, and
I can tell you that I am not at all happy. Tell me everything, everything.
There's no need to be shy. I'll only like you better, I vow it, whatever you
tell me. Tell me your family doesn't amount to a thing, and I'll still like
you better."
She remained silent despite his importunings, but on other subjects
she answered with a pleasing openness. He was delighted to see that she
was not ill disposed toward him.
The sun was high when a retinue from the city--two carriages, seven
or eight mounted warriors, rough East Country people, as always, and
numbers of foot soldiers as well--arrived to escort her back. Embarrassed
at their uncouth speech and manners, the women of the house shooed
them out of earshot. What could she possibly say to them? Ukon was
asking herself. That Kaoru was on the premises? But the lie would be
transparent. Everyone knew the whereabouts of someone so prominent.
Confiding in none of the other women, she got off a letter to the girl's
mother: "Night before last her monthly defilement came on, and, to com-
pound her unhappiness at having to cancel the pilgrimage, she had a bad
dream last night. Complete retirement has seemed necessary. We are very
sorry indeed--no doubt some evil spirit has been at work."
<P 983>
She fed the guards and sent them on their way, and, again offering the
monthly defilement as her excuse, informed the nun that they would not
after all be going to Ishiyama.
Ukifune had been living in unrelieved gloom and boredom, such as
to make her wonder, looking moodily out into the mist that clung to the
mountains, how she could go on; but today she had interesting company,
and begrudged the passage of each moment. The day sped by, a calm
spring day. There was nothing to distract Niou from present delights. Her
face, at which he gazed and did not tire, was pretty and gentle, and free
of anything that could be counted a blemish. She was not, to be sure, the
equal of his princess at Nijo~, nor was she to be compared to his lady at
Rokujo~, now in the finest glow of youth. But there did come these occa-
sions when the moment seemed sufficient unto itself, and he thought her
the most charming creature he had ever seen. She, for her part, had thought
Kaoru the handsomest of men, but here was a luster, a glow, with which
he could not compete.
Niou sent for an inkstone. He wrote beautifully, even though for his
own amusement, and he drew interesting pictures. What young person
could have resisted him?
"You must look at this and think of me when I am not able to visit
you." He sketched a most handsome couple leaning towards each other.
"If only we could be together always." And he shed a tear.
"The promise is made for all the ages to come,
"No. I am inviting bad luck. I must control myself. It will not be easy
to visit you, my dear, and the thought of not seeing you makes me want
to die. Why do you suppose I have gone to all this trouble when you were
not at all kind to me the last time we met?"
She took up the brush, still inked, and jotted down a poem of her own:
"Were life alone uncertain of the morrow,
Then might we count upon the heart of a man."
It amused him that she should be reproving him for future infidelities.
"And whose heart is it that you have found so undependable?" He smiled,
and pressed her to tell of her arrival at Uji and of the days that had
followed.
"Why must you keep asking questions that I cannot answer?" There
was an open, childlike quality about the reproach that he found enchant-
ing. He knew that the whole story would presently come out. Why then
must he have it from her lips?
Tokikata returned in the evening. "There was a message from Her
<P 984>
Majesty," he said to Ukon. "She is very angry, and so is the minister. These
secret expeditions of his suggest very bad judgment, she said, and could
have embarrassing consequences. And she said--it was quite a scolding--
that her own position would be impossible if His Majesty were to hear of
them. I said he had gone off to visit a learned, learned man in the eastern
hills." And he added: "Women are the root of it all. Here we are, the merest
bystanders, and we get pulled in, and end up telling lies."
"How kind of you to make my lady a learned, learned man. A good
deed, surely, that wipes out whatever may have been marked against you
for lying. But where _did_ he pick up his bad habits? If he had let us know
in advance, well, he is a very well-placed young gentleman, and we could
have arranged something. But she is right. He shows bad judgment."
She went to transmit Tokikata's report. True, thought Niou: they
would be worried. "It is no fun," he said to Ukifune," living in shackles.
I wish I could run about like all the others, just for a little while. But what
do you think? People will find out, whatever we do. And how will my
friend Kaoru take it? We have been close friends. That is only natural. But
actually we have been closer than close, and I hate to think what the
discovery will do to him. As they say, he may forget that he has kept you
<P 985>
waiting and blame you for everything. I wish I could hide you somewhere
from the whole world."
He could not possibly stay another day. "My soul," he whispered as
he made ready to go, "does it linger on in your sleeve?"
Wishing to be back in the city before daylight, his men were coughing
nervously. She saw him to the door, and still he could not leave her.
"What shall I do? These tears run on ahead
And plunge the road I must go into utter darkness."
She was touched.
"So narrow my sleeves, they cannot take my tears.
How then shall I make bold to keep you with me?"
A high wind roared through the trees and the dawn was heavy with
frost. Even the touch of their robes, in the moment of parting, seemed
co1d. He was smitten afresh as he mounted his horse, and turned back to
her; but his men were not prepared to wait longer. In a daze of longing,
he at length set out. The two courtiers of the Fifth Rank who had come
with him led his horse through the mountains and mounted their own only
when they had come to open country. Everything, even the clattering of
hoofs on the icy riverbank, brought melancholy thoughts. The pull of Uji
and love, and that alone, now and in the old days, had the power to bring
him through wild mountains. What strange ties he did seem to have with
that remote mountain village!
Back at Nijo~, he went to his own rooms, hoping to rest for a time. He
had another reason for wanting to be away from Nakanokimi: he was still
annoyed at her for having concealed the other girl's whereabouts. But he
could not sleep. He was lonely, and his thoughts were too much for him.
Presently he gave up and went to her wing of the house. Innocent of what
had happened, she was at her most beautiful. She was more beautiful than
the one who had made the night before such an unmixed delight. The
closeness of the resemblance brought back the full flood of his longing.
Pensively, he went into her boudoir and lay down. She followed.
<P 986>
"I am not feeling well. I wonder if it might be something serious. I
