were coming into bloom; and among them stood numbers of young men
in bright and varied travel dress. The captain, also in travel dress, was
received at the south veranda. He stood for a time admiring the garden.
Perhaps twenty-seven or twenty-eight, he seemed mature for his age. The
nun, his mother-in-law, addressed him through a curtained doorway.
"The years go by and those days seem far away. It is good of you to
remember that the darkness of our mountains awaits your radiant pres-
ence. And yet--?" There were tears in her voice. "And yet I am surprised,
I must admit, that you so favor us."
"I have not for a moment forgotten the old days; but I fear I have
rather neglected you now that you are no longer among us. I envy my
brother his mountain life and would like to visit him every day. But
crowds of people are always wanting to come with me. Today I managed
to shake them off."
"I am not at all sure that I believe you. You are saying what young
people say. But of course you have not forgotten us, and that is evidence
that you are not like the rest of them. I thank you for it, you may be sure,
every day of the year."
She had a light lunch brought for the men and offered the captain
lotus seeds and other delicacies. Since this was of course not the first time
she had been his hostess, he saw no cause for reticence. The talk of old
times might have gone on longer had a sudden shower not come up. For
the nun, regret was added to sorrow, regret that so fine a young man had
been allowed to become a stranger. Why had her daughter not left behind
a child, a keepsake? Quite lost in the nostalgia these occasional visits
induced, she sometimes said things she might better have kept to herself.
Looking out into the garden, alone once again with her thoughts, the
girl was pathetic and yet beautiful in the white singlet, a plain, coarse
garment, and drab, lusterless trousers in harmony with the subdued tones
of the nunnery. What an unhappy contrast she must be with what she had
once been! In fact, even these stiff, shapeless garments became her.
"Here we have our dead lady back, you might almost think," said one
of the women;" and here we have the captain too. It makes you want to
weep, it really does. People will marry, one way and another, and it would
be so nice if we could have him back for good. Wouldn't they make a
handsome couple, though."
No, never, the girl replied silently. She had no wish to return to the
<P 1055>
past, and the attentions of a man, any man, would inevitably pull her
towards it. She had been there, and she would have no more of it.
The nun having withdrawn, the captain sat looking apprehensively up
at the sky. He recognized the voice of the nun Sho~sho~ and called her to
him.
"I am sure that all the ladies I knew are here, but you can probably
imagine how hard it is for me to visit you. You must have concluded that
I am completely undependable."
They talked of the past, on and on, for Sho~sho~ had been in the dead
lady's service.
"Just as I was coming in from the gallery," he said, "a gust of wind
caught the blind, and I was treated to a glimpse of some really beautiful
hair. What sort of damsel do you have hidden away in your nunnery?"
He had seen the retreating figure of the girl and found her interesting.
How much more dramatic the effect would certainly be if he were to have
a good look at her. He still grieved for a lady who was much the girl's
inferior.
"Our lady was quite unable to forget her daughter, your own lady,
and nothing seemed to console her. Then quite by accident she came on
another girl, and she seems to have recovered somewhat from her grief. But
it is not at all like the girl to have let you see her."
Now this was interesting, thought the captain. Who might she be?
That single glimpse, a most tantalizing one, had assured him that she was
well favored. He questioned Sho~sho~ further, but her answers were evasive.
"Oh, everything will come out in the end. Just be patient."
It would not have been good manners to press for more.
"The rain has stopped and we do not have much more daylight," said
one of his men.
Breaking off a maiden flower below the veranda, he was heard to
murmur as he went out: "Why should our nunnery be bright with maiden
flowers?"
The older women recognized the allusion and thought it gratifying.
Even a dashing young gentleman could worry about appearances.
"He always was pleasant to look at," said the bishop's sister, "and the
years have been good to him. Yes, how nice if things could be as they were.
I am told that he has not actually been neglecting the Fujiwara councillor's
daughter, but that he's not too awfully fond of her. He spends most of
his time at home, I am told. But come: you are not being very kind, my
dear, letting your own thoughts occupy you so. Do cheer up a bit, please
do. Tell yourself that what had to be had to be. For five and six years I
grieved and I yearned, and now I have you to fill my life, and I must confess
<P 1056>
that she has quite gone out of it. Someone, somewhere, may have grieved
and yearned for you too, but whoever it is must by now have given you
up, of that I am sure. Nothing lasts, everything changes. That is the way
"I don't want to keep secrets from you," said the girl, choking with
tears. "But it is all so strange, that I am alive, that you found me where
you did, everything. It is all like clinging to something in a dream. Like
being born into a different world, I should think. If there are people who
worry about me, I cannot remember who they are. I have only you."
A smile on her face, the nun listened quietly. How beautiful the girl
was, and how unaffected!
The captain reached Yokawa. The bishop too enjoyed his visits. The
talk went on and on and presently monks of good voice were called in to
read sutras. With this and that diversion, the night went pleasantly by.
The captain remarked in the course of it: "I stopped by Ono on my
way here. It was a pleasure to see your sister again. She may have left the
world, but there aren't many who have her taste and discrimination." He
paused and continued: "The wind caught one of the blinds and I was
treated to a glimpse of a long-haired beauty. I gather that she did not want
to be seen. She was running off to another part of the house. But what I
did see struck me as most uncommon. A nunnery is an odd place for young
beauty, I must say. She sees nuns and more nuns, morning and noon and
night, and one of these days she will be looking like a nun herself. We
would not wish that to happen."
"I have heard," said his brother, "that they went to Hatsuse this
spring and found her somewhere along the way." Not himself a witness
to these events, he offered no details.
"That is very interesting, and very sad. Who might she be? Someone
in the most trying circumstances, I should think, that she should want to
hide from the world. But how very interesting. There is something a little
storybookish about it, you might almost say."
He found Ono hard to pass by on his descent to the city.
The nun was prepared this time, and so lavish with her hospitality
that he was reminded of other years. Though Sho~sho~ no longer wore the
bright robes of old, she was still a woman of taste. The bishop's sister was
in tears as she received him.
"And who," he asked nonchalantly, "is the young lady you have
hidden away?"
She was startled. But a moment's consideration told her that he had
seen the girl and that evasion would do her no good. "My sins went on
accumulating because I was unable to forget my daughter, and for several
months now I have had another girl to look after, and she has brought a
certain comfort. I do not know the details myself, but she seems to have
rather dreadful problems, and does not even want it known that she is
alive. I thought surely these mountain fastnesses would be safe from
prying eyes. How do you happen to know about her?"
<P 1057>
She had not completely satisfied his curiosity. "Even if my motives
were less than honorable, I might, I think, claim a certain measure of credit
for having braved these mountain roads. I had expected a better reward.
You are being somewhat ungenerous if you insist on hiding the facts and
treating me as if they were no concern of mine. If she serves as a substitute
for my lamented wife, then I think I may say that they are. Why is she
so set against the world? It is just possible that I might offer comfort." And
he indited a poem on a piece of notepaper he had with him:
"O maiden flower, bend not to Adashino's gales.
I came the long road to make for you a windbreak."
The bishop's sister saw the note, which he sent in through Sho~sho~.
"You must answer, you really must. He is an honest and serious young
man, and you have nothing to worry about."
But the girl would not be moved. "I write so dreadfully," she said.
Not wanting him to go off annoyed, the nun herself sent an answer.
"I have warned you that she is eccentric, and we may not reasonably
expect conventional behavior of her.
<P 1058>
"We have brought the maiden flower to a hut of grass
Away from the world, and yet the world torments it."
Concluding that nothing more was to be expected, he started for the
city. Further attempts at correspondence would seem inappropriate and
even childish. Yet he could not forget the figure of which he had had a
glimpse that afternoon. He pitied the girl, though of course he still did not
know what reasons there were for pity.
Toward the middle of the Eighth Month, on a falconing expedition,
he again visited Ono.
He called Sho~sho~ and gave her a note for the girl. "The sight of you
has left me restless and utterly at loose ends."
Since it seemed unlikely that the girl would answer, the nun sent back:
"She awaits 'I know not whom on Matsuchi Hill.'"
"You have told me that she has troubles," he said when the nun came
out to receive him. "I would like more details, if you don't mind. Few
things go as I would wish them. I often think of withdrawing to the
mountains myself; but people hold me back, and time goes by. I am of a
rather morose turn, I fear, and sunny dispositions do not particularly suit
me. Perhaps if I might talk of my troubles with someone who has troubles
too?"
He seemed very interested indeed, thought the nun. "If you are look-
ing for someone who is not very talkative, I suspect that you have come
to the right place. But her distrust of the world is almost frightening, and
she seems determined not to do as other women do. It was not easy for
me, even, to say goodbye to the world, and I have so little time ahead of
me. I do not know how a girl with everything ahead of her can even think
of it." As she bustled back and forth between girl and caller, it was as if
she had become a mother once more. "You are not being kind," she said
to the girl. "You must let him have an answer, even if it is only a word
or two. People like us should be more understanding than most."
But the girl was cold to her persuasions. "I know nothing at all, not
the way they answer these things, nothing."
"I beg your pardon?" said the captain. "No answer? That is too un-
kind. It is a lie, then, about Matsuchi Hill?
' "I wait,' said the voice from the pines; and I have come
And find myself wandering lost through dew-drenched reeds."
<P 1059>
"Do try to feel a little sorry for him," said the nun. "You must answer
at least this one time."
But the thought of even a delicate show of interest horrifled the girl,
and a response was sure to invite further challenges. She remained silent.
This evidence of apathy was not to the nun's liking. She sent an
answer herself, and her manner as she set about it suggested that she had
not always been of an ascetic bent.
"Though the dew on the autumn moors may have wet your sleeves,
You do wrong, 0 hunter, to blame our weed-grown lodgings.
"I but forward her reply to your message. As you see, it is not en-
couraging."
The nuns had warm feelings towards the captain, and of course they
could not know how deeply it distressed the girl to have word get out,
despite her own wishes, that she was still alive. They seemed intent upon
pushing her into his arms. "Just have a try at letting him talk to you when
these little chances come up. You will be surprised, I am sure you will, at
how silly you have been to hold back. No, it needn't be the usual sort of
thing. Just let him know that you don't dislike him."
They were far from as withdrawn and unworldly as she would have
wished, and the youthful zest with which they turned out bad poetry did
nothing to restore her composure. What further humiliations must she
expect?--for she still had life, unbearable burden which she had sought
to be rid of. If only they would turn her out, rejected by the whole world.
The captain heaved a sigh, perhaps because other worries had crossed
his mind. Taking out a flute, he played a muted tune upon it, and when
he had finished he intoned softly, as if to himself:"'The call of the hart
disturbs the autumn night.'" He did appear to be a man of taste. "I seem
to have come all this way just to be tormented by memories," he said,
getting up to leave, "and I fear that my new friend will not be much
comfort. No, your retreat does not seem to lie along my 'mountain path
