"Now this is strange," she said in a deep, menacing voice. "What sort
of thing might you be?"
The moment had come, thought the girl. She was going to be de-
voured. When that malign being had led her off she had not resisted, for
she had not had her senses about her. But what was she to do now? They
had dragged her ignominiously back into the world, and black memories
were a constant torment; and now came a new crisis, one which she seemed
incapable of surmounting or even facing. Yet perhaps if she had had her
way, if she had died, she would this moment be facing a crisis still more
terrible. Sleepless, she thought back over her life, which seemed utterly
bleak. She had not known her father and she had divided all those years
between the capital and the remote provinces. And then she had come
upon her sister. For a time she had been happy and secure; but that
untoward incident had separated them. Some relief from her misfortunes
had seemed in prospect when a gentleman declared himself ready to offer
her a respectable position, and she had responded to his attentions with
that hideous blunder. It had been wrong to permit even the smallest flutter
of affection for Niou. The memory of her ultimate disgrace, brought on by
his attentions, revolted her. What idiocy, to have been moved by his
pledge and that Islet of Oranges and the pretty poem it had inspired! Her
<P 1066>
mind moved from incident to incident, and longing flowed over her for the
other gentleman. He had not exactly burned with ardor, but he had seemed
calm and dependable. From him above all she wanted to keep news of her
whereabouts and circumstances. Would she be allowed another glimpse of
him, even from a distance? But she sternly dismissed the thought. It was
wrong. She must not harbor it for a moment.
After what had seemed an endless night, she heard a cock crowing.
It was an immense relief--but how much greater a delight had it been her
mother's voice awakening her! Komoki was still absent from her post. The
girl lay in bed, exhausted. The early snorers were also early risers, it
seemed. They were noisily at work on gruel and other unappetizing dishes.
Someone offered her a helping, but the donor was ugly and the food
strange and unappetizing. She was not feeling well, she said, not venturing
an open refusal. The old women did not sense that their hospitality was
unwelcome.
Several monks of low rank came up to the nunnery. "The bishop will
be calling on you today."
"What brings him so suddenly?"
"An evil spirit of some sort has been after the First Princess. The
archbishop has been doing what he can, but two messengers came yester-
day to say that only His Reverence offers real hope." They delivered these
tidings in proud voices. "Then late last night the lieutenant came, the son
of the Minister of the Left, you know. He had a message from Her
Majesty herself. And so His Reverence will be coming down the moun-
tain."
She must summon up her courage, thought the girl, and have the
bishop administer final vows. Today there were no meddling women to
gainsay them. "I fear I am very ill," she said, rousing herself, "and when
he comes I hope I may ask him to let me take my vows. Would you tell
him so, please?"
The old nun nodded vaguely.
The girl went back to her room. She did not like the thought of having
anyone except the bishop's sister touch her hair, and she could not dress
it without help. She loosened the cords that had bound it up for the night.
Though of course she had no one but herself to blame for what was about
to happen, she was sad that her mother would not see her again in lay
dress. She had feared that her hair might be thinner because of her illness,
but could detect no evidence that it was. Remarkably thick, indeed, it was
a good six feet long, soft and smooth and beautifully even at the edges.
"I cannot think," she whispered to herself, "that she would have
wished it thus."
<P 1067>
The bishop arrived in the evening. The south room had been readied
for him. Suddenly full of shaven heads, it was an even less inviting room
than usual. The bishop went to look in on his mother.
"And how have you been these last months? I am told that my good
sister is off on a pilgrimage. And is the girl still with you?"
"Oh, yes. She didn't go along. She says, let me see, she's not feeling
well. She'd like to take her vows, she says, and she'd like you to give them
to her."
"I see." He went to the girl's room and addressed her through curtains.
Shyly, she came forward.
"I have felt that only a bond from a previous life could explain the
curious way we met, and I have been praying my hardest for you. But I
am afraid that as a correspondent I have not been very satisfactory. You
will understand, I am sure, that we clerics are supposed to deny ourselves
such pleasures unless we have very good reasons. And how have you been?
It is not an easy life women lead when they turn their backs on the world."
"You will remember that I had no wish to live on, and my strange
survival has only brought me grief. But of course I am grateful, in my poor
way, for all you have done. Do, please, let me take my vows. I do not think
I am capable of the sort of life other women lead. Even if I were to stay
among them, I do not think I could follow their example."
"What can have brought you to such a conclusion, when you have
your whole life ahead of you? No, it would be a grave sin. The decision
may at the time seem a firm one, but women are irresolute creatures, and
time goes by."
"I have never been happy, not since I was very young, and my mother
often thought of putting me in a nunnery. And when I began to understand
things a little better I could see that I was different from other people, and
must seek my happiness in another world." She was weeping. "Perhaps it
is because I am so near the end of it all--I feel as if everything were slipping
away. Please, reverend sir, let me take my vows."
The bishop was puzzled. Why should so gentle a surface conceal such
a strange, bitter resolve? But he remembered that malign spirit and knew
that she would not be talking nonsense. It was remarkable that she was
still alive. A terrible thing, a truly hideous thing, to be accosted by forces
so evil.
"Your wish can only have gained for you the smiling approval of the
powers above. It is not for me to deter you. Nothing could be simpler than
administering vows. But I have come down on most pressing business, and
must tonight be at the princess's side. The services begin tomorrow. In a
week they will be over, and I shall see that your petition is granted."
But by then the younger nun would have come back, and she would
surely object. It must be made to appear that the crisis was immediate.
"Perhaps I have not explained how unwell I am. I fear that vows will
do me little good if I am beyond accepting them wholeheartedly. Please.
I see my chance today, the only one I shall be blessed with."
<P 1068>
Her weeping had touched his saintly heart. "It is very late. I used to
have no trouble at all climbing up and down the mountain, but I am old,
and matters are no longer so simple. I had thought to rest here awhile and
then go on to the city. If you are in such a hurry, I shall see to your wishes
immediately."
Delighted, the girl pushed scissors and a comb box towards him.
"Have the others come here, please." The two monks who had been
with him that strange night at Uji were with him again tonight. "Cut the
young lady's hair, if you will."
It was a most proper thing they were doing, they agreed. Given the
perilous situation in which they had found her, they knew that she could
have been meant for no ordinary life. But the bishop's favored disciple
hesitated even as he raised the scissors. The pair pushed forward between
the curtains was altogether too beautiful.
The nun Sho~sho~ was off in another wing with her brother, a prefect
who had come with the bishop. Saemon too was having a chat with a
friend in the party; and such modest entertainment as they were capable
of providing for these rare and most welcome visitors occupied most of the
household.
<P 1069>
Only Komoki was present. She scampered off to tell Sho~sho~ what was
in progress. A dismayed Sho~sho~ rushed in just as the bishop was going
through the form of bestowing his own robe and surplice upon the girl.
"You must now make obeisance, if you will, in the direction of your
father and mother."
The girl was in tears, for she did not know in which direction that
would be.
"And what, may I ask, are you doing? You are being utterly irrespon-
sible. I cannot think what our lady will have to say when she gets back."
But the proceedings were at a point beyond which expressions of
doubt could only disturb the girl. Sho~sho~ said no more.
"... as we wander the three worlds," intoned the bishop.
So, at length, came release. Yet the girl felt a twinge of sorrow: there
had in fact been no bonds to break.
The bishop's assistant was having trouble with her hair. "Oh, well.
The others will have time to trim it for you."
"You must admit no regrets for the step you have taken," said the
bishop, himself cutting the hair at her forehead. He added other noble
admonitions.
She was happy now. They had all advised deliberation, and she had
had her way. She could claim this one sign of the Buddha's favor, her single
reward for having lived on in this dark world.
The visitors left, all was quiet. "We had thought that for you at least?"
said her companions, to the moaning of the night wind, "this lonely life
need not go on. We had looked forward to seeing you happy again. And
this has happened. Have you thought of all the years that lie ahead of you?
It is not easy for even an old woman to tell herself that life as most people
know it has ended."
But the girl was serene. "Life as most people know it" --she need no
longer think about that. Waves of peace flowed over her.
But the next morning she avoided their eyes, for she had acted
selfishly and taken no account of their wishes. Her hair seemed to scatter
wildly at the ends, and no one was prepared to dress it for her in charitable
silence. She kept her curtains drawn.
She had never been an articulate girl, and she had no confidante with
whom to discuss the rights and wrongs of what had happened. She seated
herself at her inkstone and turned to the one pursuit in which she could
lose herself when her thoughts were more than she could bear, her writing
practice.
"A world I once renounced, for they and I
Had come to nothing, I now renounce again.
"Finally, this time, I have done it."
<P 1070>
The poem moved her to set down another:
"I thought that I should see the world no more,
And now, once more"no more' is my resolve."
As she sat jotting down poem after poem, all very much alike, a letter
came from the captain. In the midst of the uproar, someone had sent word
of what Ukifune had done. He was of course much distressed. There was
a consistency in it all, her determination accounting for her coldness and
her reluctance to embark upon even the beginning of a correspondence.
Still it was very disheartening. He had begged the other night to be granted
a closer look at the rich hair that had so interested him, and the nuns had
told him that his time would come. He sent off a bitter reply by return
messenger:
"What would you have me say?
"Make haste, make haste, lest I be left behind.
The fisher boat even now rows far from the shore."
The girl surprised them by showing an interest in the letter. It was a
time for sadness, and she was touched by this sign that he had finally lost
hope. Whatever she may have had in mind, she took up a rough scrap of
paper and wrote this poem on a corner of it:
"My soul may have left the shores of this gloomy world.
But on driftwood it floats, who knows to what far shore?"
In her usual fashion, she jotted it down as if in writing practice.
Someone folded it in a cover and sent it off to the captain.
"You could at least have recopied it."
"I did not want to risk miscopying."
The girl's answer came as a surprise, and added to the regrets.
The younger nun returned from her pilgrimage. She was aghast at the
news that awaited her.
"I have taken vows myself, and I had thought that I should encourage
you in your wishes. But what do you propose to do with the years you
have ahead of you? I may tell you now why I went on that pilgrimage. I
cannot be sure whether I shall be alive tomorrow, and I wanted to pray to
Our Lady of Hatsuse to watch over you."
So great was her agitation that she took to her bed. The girl was sorry
for her, of course, but even sorrier for her own mother, who must have
carried on even thus over a daughter who had disappeared and left no
earthly remains to mourn over. Silent as always, the girl was extraor-
dinarily young and pretty as she sat turned away from the company.
"What a useless little person I do seem to have taken in." The bishop's
sister soon recovered sufficiently to order a nun's habit for the girl. It was
a garb they were very familiar with, and soon the girl was wearing a dull
<P 1071>
gray robe and surplice. The other nuns, helping her into them, could not
rind strong enough words with which to condemn the bishop's reckless-
