Ukifune

Meanwhile Niou thought constantly of his brief meeting with the mysterious occupant of the western wing. Probably she came from some quite ordinary family; but she was certainly a delightful creature, and nothing could have been more irritating than that she should disappear after a single encounter of so tantalizing a description. As for Kozeri, he could not imagine what had come over her. It was ridiculous in any case that she should allow herself to be put out at all by such a trifle; but that she should lose her head to the extent of sending the girl away... No, it was not in the least like her. Kozeri, however, saw nothing for it but to put up with his continual scoldings and reproaches, leaving him to draw whatever conclusions he pleased. To tell him the real facts was impossible without at the same time giving him a clue as to her present whereabouts—a clue which, if she knew him, he would certainly use to the full! She would, moreover, be behaving badly towards Kaoru, who, though circumstances made it difficult for him to put the relationship on a formal footing, was evidently very much in love with the girl.

However, Niou being what he was, she could not count on her own discretion being of much avail. Again and again she had seen him succeed in tracking down girls with whom he had decided to have a brief flirtation to the most unbelievable places, and it was very unlikely that in a case of this sort where evidently something more than a passing fancy was concerned—for it was now several months since it began—it was indeed unlikely that he would fail to get hold of her. The most Kozeri could do was to keep silent. If he managed to get information elsewhere, it would not be her fault; and though if anything happened she would be very sorry on Kaoru’s behalf and Ukifune’s too, there was nothing further she could do. Where such matters were concerned Niou was completely intractable. It would have been bad enough whoever the girl was; but the fact that a sister was concerned would certainly be regarded as additionally scandalous. In any case, even if in one way or another the disaster was inevitable, Kozeri was determined that no imprudence of hers should contribute towards producing it; and despite all questions and reproaches she obstinately refused to tell him either who the girl was or what had become of her. Most people of course would have got out of the difficulty by inventing a plausible story; but to Kozeri the idea of such a course never for a moment occurred, with the result that Niou was at a loss to attribute her silence to anything save a common petty jealousy to which he would never have thought her capable of descending.

Kaoru, who found it hard to realize that other people might be less patient and reasonable than himself, had his business to attend to and was in other ways so tied that (as indeed he was sure Ukifune understood) a visit to Uji, unless some excuse happened to turn up, was more difficult for him than if “the gods themselves had prevented it.”* However, he thought constantly about her, and hoped that she was not wondering what had become of him. For the present he did not think it would be wise to move her. The best arrangement seemed to be to make her as comfortable as possible at Uji. He was sure to be going there from time to time, and it would be delightful always to find her there. Or, better still, if he could sometimes find an excuse for staying there several days, so that they could spend a little time quietly together. It was better at first to keep her secretly at Uji and let their relationship develop unobserved. For one thing it gave her a chance to overcome her shyness; and he for his part would far rather get to know her quietly, without having the feeling that everyone was asking: “Who is it that he has got hold of?” “How long has it been going on?” and so on. Moreover, by the world at large his visits to Uji had always been supposed to be of a religious^† nature, and the discovery that he had other reasons for going there would place him in a rather undignified position. What Kozeri would feel about the whole affair he did not quite know. Certainly if he brought Ukifune to the Capital and severed his connection with Uji entirely she would feel that he had forgotten Agemaki, which was not true. In fact, as was usual with him, he took far too many things into account, when on the whole it would have been better to act as the impulse of the moment prompted him to do. However, he looked forward to a time when he would be able to bring Ukifune to the Capital and even went so far as to begin making alterations in the arrangement of his palace with a view to eventually installing her. Meanwhile his new preoccupations in no way diminished his devotion to Kozeri. People to whom the history of this strange friendship was unknown were apt to regard it as something of a mystery. But as Kozeri’s knowledge of life increased she realized how extremely rare a thing such fidelity as Kaoru’s was; and regarding his attitude towards herself merely as a reflection of his feelings towards Agemaki, she was deeply touched. Sometimes—particularly when Niou’s vagaries had been unusually trying—she would even go so far as to wish that she had taken Agemaki’s advice,^‡ particularly when she saw how highly everyone spoke of Kaoru, who seemed to her indeed to have improved a great deal since she first knew him. But she was very shy of spending too much time with him. To people who did not know the whole story it must seem simply the case of a married woman continuing to receive a former suitor—a thing which she believed was sometimes tolerated in ordinary families, but which was looked upon very severely by the people among whom she had been used to move. It must indeed seem to people that she—the wife of a Royal Prince—ought to be the last to ignore such a convention. Niou still persisted in regarding their relationship with suspicion and was so tiresome about it that Kozeri found herself gradually drifting into a coldness towards Kaoru which did not at all correspond with her real feelings. Yet though his jealousy estranged her from Kaoru, Niou’s own behavior was of a kind that often made things extremely difficult for her. However, she was the mother of his only child—the boy grew lustier and handsomer every day. This gave Kozeri a great advantage over all her rivals. His relations with her were indeed on a far tenderer and more intimate footing, and as time went on her situation seemed on the whole to improve. As soon as the New Year ceremonies at Court were over, Niou hurried to the Nijo-in to celebrate the child’s safe entry into its second calendar year. He was playing with it one morning when a very young waiting-girl came tripping into the room with a tiny model of a fir-tree in a “ hairy”* basket. To the tree was attached a folded note on a large sheet of light-green tissue-paper, while she carried an ordinary, formal letter. Without a moment’s hesitation she ran straight to Kozeri and laid the things at her feet. “Hallo, where do those come from?” asked Niou. “The man who brought them said they came from Uji,” the girl replied, “and were to be given to Tayu; but as things from Uji are always for Madam I brought them straight here. Isn’t it a pretty basket? It’s made of wire really, but they’ve painted it over. And isn’t the tree cleverly made? Just look at its dear little branches...” and she chattered on, dancing up and down with excitement. “Come on now, bring it over here. It’s my turn to look at it now,” said Niou, laughing. “No, not the letters,” Kozeri called hastily. “You must take them to Tayu.” She blushed as she spoke, and it at once occurred to Niou that this was Kaoru’s secret method of communication. The present was said to come from Uji, and what more likely than that Kaoru should use the old lady there as his intermediary? He took up both the letters; but felt as soon as they were in his hands so certain they were from Kaoru that he had not the courage to open them. “There’s no harm in my opening these and having a look at them, is there?” he said, glancing up at Kozeri. “Well, I must say I think it’s going rather far,” she answered indignantly. “Private letters from one waiting-woman to another... But do as you please.” Kozeri’s expression, he decided, was not at all what it would have been if the letters were really from Kaoru. “I think I’ll have a look at them, all the same,” he said. “I’ve often wondered what sort of thing women of that kind say when they write to one another.” He opened the green note and saw at once that it was not in a man’s hand. The writing was that of a girl,* and a young one too. It was an ordinary New Year’s letter, not phrased with any particular skill. “The tree,” said a postscript, “is for the little Prince. I only wish it were something nicer.” The only interesting thing about the note was that he could not imagine who there was living at Uji nowadays that was likely to have written it. He turned with some interest to the second letter.^† This too was obviously in a woman’s hand. “I suppose you’ve all been having a gay time of it, seeing the old year out and the new year in. Just now too you’re sure to be having a fine lot of people coming to the house.^‡ Here, I must say, they do everything they can to make us comfortable; but I don’t consider it the right sort of place for my lady. I say to her sometimes that instead of sitting here all day staring in front of her, she’d far better go up to the City from time to time and stay for a little with you. But owing to what happened to her there before she can’t bear to hear the name of the place, and I’m afraid there’s not a chance of ever getting her to set foot in it again. She asks me to send these hare-sticks^§ for the little Prince, but says will you please give them to him sometime when his father and mother are not there.”

The writer did not seem to have been able to decide whether it was to be a New Year’s letter or not. If it was intended for one, the part about something disagreeable happening ought not to be there. It struck him as a curious letter, though certainly an incompetent and clumsy one. “I think it’s about time you gave up this mystification and told me who wrote these letters,” he said. “It’s quite simple,” Kozeri replied. “She’s the daughter of a woman who used to be in service with us at Uji. She is spending a little time there with her family, that’s all.” But it was evident that the first letter was not from anyone in that sort of position at all. Then again—that passage in the other letter about someone having “a disagreeable experience,” apparently at the Nijo-in. Suddenly an idea dawned on him.^¶ Yes, of course; how well it all fitted together! Those hare-sticks too were obviously the work not of a common waiting-woman but of a person of taste with plenty of time on her hands. Attached to a forked branch of the toy pine-tree he found some little balls painted to look like oranges. To the forked bough was pinned the poem: “This little tree, though newly made,* denotes the self-same wish, in timider wise, that immemorial forest pines convey.” The verse was commonplace enough, and would not have interested him in the least had he not now made up his mind that the writer of it must be no other than the girl for whom he had so long been searching. “It’s kind of her to have sent these things,” Niou said, “whoever she is. You must answer, of course. As there is obviously nothing in the least private about the letters, I cannot imagine why you were so upset at my opening them. Good-bye,” and he went off. “This ought not to have happened,” Kozeri said afterwards to one of her maids. “A little girl like that ought never to be allowed to bring things in without someone having a look first.” “I can only say that if I had seen her,” the woman answered, “I should never have let her go in. But these children are all the same. No matter what you tell them they always think they know better. When they’ve shown they’re wiser than the rest of us... till then they’d better do as they’re told.” “Poor little thing. Don’t be hard on her,” Kozeri said. The child in question had only been at the Nijo-in since the winter. She was extremely pretty, and a great favorite with Niou.

“It’s all a very queer business,” thought Niou, back in his own room. He knew of course that Kaoru had been going regularly to Uji for years past, and people said that he sometimes spent the night there. Fond though Kaoru had undoubtedly been of Agemaki, it had always been difficult to believe that he went all the way to Uji and, as it appeared, spent whole nights there, merely out of regard for her memory. Now the mystery was solved! It occurred to him that a certain Michisada, an officer in the Imperial Secretariat, whom Niou also employed to look after his books and papers, had married the daughter of one of Kaoru’s household retainers. Probably he could throw light on the subject. Niou sent for the man and asked him to look out some volumes of poetry suitable for the rhyme-covering game and put them on one of the shelves in the room where he was sitting. “I hear Kaoru is still going regularly to Uji,” he said casually. “They say the temple he has been building there is very fine. I wish I could see it.” “Yes, my father-in-law tells me it is a magnificent place,” said Michisada; “there’s a chapel of Perpetual Meditation^† and I don’t know what else besides. He planned the whole thing himself. He has been going there much more frequently in the last few months. I heard about it through one of the under-servants only the other day. The man told someone in confidence that His Excellency is keeping a woman at Uji now. It’s certainly someone he thinks a great deal of, for the people on his estates near by have orders to provide everything she needs, supply watch-men for the house, and even go secretly to the City if she fancies anything that isn’t to be had on the spot. ‘She’s lucky, of course,’ the man* said, ‘but between times she can’t find life at a place like that very amusing. It was just before New Year that he was telling someone about it.’”

“That is very interesting,” said Niou. “I suspected something of the kind, but have never heard anything definite before. I was always told that the old nun Ben no Kimi was the only person still living there.” “The nun,” said Michisada, “has retired to a side-wing. It is this lady I spoke of who occupies the part of the house he has just rebuilt. They say she has any number of gentlewomen to wait upon her—all very well dressed and so on; the whole place, it appears, is being run on the most lavish scale.” “What a queer business!” said Niou, “I wonder who she is and—for that matter—what he keeps her there for? Of course, if he were anyone else, the whole thing would be natural enough. But, as I dare say you know, he has always had the most extraordinary ideas about women. The Minister of the Left^† is becoming quite worried about it. He is certain the way Kaoru lives is doing his reputation a great deal of harm. The fact is, he says, the people don’t like a man in Kaoru’s responsible position to be too religious. No one would mind his spending an occasional night at a mountain temple; but he oughtn’t to make a habit of it. I have always been certain myself that there must be some other explanation for these constant visits to Uji. Many people believe that he went out of devotion to the memory of that elder daughter of Prince Hachi, the one that died years ago; and all the time this other affair was going on! He certainly is the most baffling creature. How can he have the face to go about pretending to be superior to all this sort of thing? Just think of the amount of time and trouble it must have cost him to arrange this business! It’s unbelievable that anyone can be such a humbug.” But there seemed no reason to disbelieve Michisada’s story, for his father-in-law Nakanobu was one of Kaoru’s most trusted retainers, and was certain to be well informed about such a matter.

Niou’s one thought was how to discover whether this girl at Uji was indeed the same as the one who had vanished from the Nijo-in. The way the establishment at Uji was being run made it certain that she was not of the ordinary waiting-woman class. If the identification were correct, it would seem as though she had some connection with Kozeri and almost as though Kozeri and Kaoru had hatched the plot between them.

The thing obsessed him. All through the great Archery Meeting and the Imperial Literary Banquet he could think of nothing else, and during the quieter period that followed, the numerous visitors who hoped to secure his support in connection with the forthcoming New Year appointments received only the most casual attention, Niou’s thoughts being almost entirely occupied with plans for a secret visit to Uji. It happened that Michisada was hoping for a new appointment and was therefore particularly anxious at the moment to ingratiate himself with his master. He noticed one day that Niou was treating him with unusual affability. “There’s something I want you to manage for me. I am afraid it may not prove to be very easy,” Niou suddenly said to him. The man made a low bow. “It’s a thing I hardly like to trouble you about,” Niou continued. “You remember our conversation the other day about that girl at Uji? I strongly suspect she is someone I know. Everything seems to fit in. My friend suddenly disappeared, and I am almost certain it was Kaoru who made off with her. There seems to be only one way of settling the question: I must go to Uji and have a look at her for myself. I am afraid it won’t be very easy; but of course there’s no need for me actually to meet her. A single glance would be enough. Naturally no one must know that I have been there. Do you think you could possibly arrange it for me?” “To begin with,” said Michisada, to whom such a commission did not at all appeal, “there’s the question of how you’re to get there. It’s right across the mountains, and there’s only a very rough road. Of course the actual distance is not very great. Suppose, for example, you left here in the afternoon; you would probably be there by midnight and could be back in the City before people were about. No one need know about it except the servants you took with you, and they of course need not be told why you were going.” “Oh, it’s not the idea of the journey that’s worrying me,” said Niou. “As a matter of fact I’ve been there several times before. The difficulty is that Their Majesties don’t like my going about on my own. They’re always thinking I shall get into a scrape of some kind and disgrace the Imperial family.” Time after time Niou decided that such an expedition would be mere folly, considering how little was to be gained by it and how exceedingly unpleasant the consequences if anything went wrong. However, he had definitely asked Michisada to arrange it and did not like to back out. He was to be attended by two or three men who had been with him to Uji before, and by a few trusted retainers, including Michisada and a young son of Niou’s old nurse, who had just been promoted to the Fifth Rank.

Michisada had previously ascertained that there was no chance of Kaoru’s being at Uji either that day or the next. Niou went in his carriage as far as the Hosoji, and there changed to horseback. It all seemed strangely familiar. Who was he with that second time? Why, of course, with Kaoru; and he became slightly uncomfortable when he remembered all the trouble his friend had taken to bring him and Kozeri together. “I am afraid he would think this rather an odd way of repaying his kindness,” Niou said to himself. Even in the Capital his position made it extremely difficult for him to amuse himself as he chose, and he was used to going about at night with the utmost secrecy. But the present occasion demanded even greater precautions. He was heavily disguised, in clothes of a most awkward and unsightly kind, and was compelled to sit for hours in the saddle—a thing he particularly disliked. But he had a vast fund of curiosity, and as they drew nearer and nearer to Uji his excitement became so intense that he hardly noticed the tedious windings of the mountain-road. How was it going to turn out? Was it so certain after all that it was his girl? However, that did not really matter. He only wanted to know. But was that all? Certainly if she proved to be someone different he would feel extremely flat on the way home.

They kept up a good pace, and it was only just after midnight when they arrived at Uji. Michisada, owing to his connections with the house, had been able to find out something about the habits of the night-watchmen. It appeared that his best chance of evading them would be to approach the house on the western side, and now, leaving Niou behind, he crept up to the hedge that surrounded that part of the house and, gently breaking it down a little at a convenient place, managed to squeeze through. It was only after a good deal of stumbling and groping that he at last found his way to the house, for though he had undertaken to act as guide he had not, as a matter of fact, ever been there before. He felt his way round to the front of the building. Even here there did not seem to be a soul astir. But at one of the windows he presently noticed a very dim light and could hear a faint hum of whispered conversation. “They don’t seem to have gone to bed yet,” he reported to Niou. “You’d better get through the hedge where I did,” and he led Niou to the lighted window. The shutters were fastened, and the light that Michisada had observed came through a fault in the wood. Niou raised himself gently onto a ledge and got as close as possible to the hole. A bamboo blind rustled as he did so, and startled him so much that he nearly lost his hold.

This part of the house had of course only just been rebuilt and everything ought to have been in perfect order. But somehow or other the overseers had passed a faulty piece of wood, and though it would have been easy enough to stop up the hole, that is the sort of thing that at quiet places like Uji no one ever bothers to do. There was a curtained couch inside; but the flaps were pinned back. Three or four women sat sewing, holding their work close to the lamp. A very pretty little girl was twisting thread into a ball. He could have sworn she was the child he met to start with that night, coming from the direction of the mysterious lady’s rooms. However, children sometimes look very much alike and he was not absolutely sure, when he heard one of the women addressed as “Ukon.” He recognized her at once as the girl who had come to close the shutters and had almost fallen over him in the dark. Last of all his eye lit upon the lady herself. There she was, her head pillowed on her arm, gazing towards the lamp. He should have known her at once, if only by the way those thick locks fell across her forehead. Surely she must be in some way connected with Prince Hachi’s family. She certainly had something of Kozeri’s distinction and charm.

“It isn’t as though you could be there today and back tomorrow,” Ukon was saying, while she plied her needle. “I wouldn’t risk it if I were in your place. The messenger who came yesterday said that he* would certainly be coming here the moment all the new appointments were published. Not later than the first^† in any case. But didn’t he say anything about it in his letter?”

The lady made no reply. She looked very depressed. “Well, I don’t know what he’ll think if he comes and finds you’ve run off like this just when he was expected,” Ukon continued. “If you’re really going you’d better write at once and let him know,” another of the women said. “You can’t be so rude as just to slip off without a word. And when the pilgrimage is over don’t let your mother take you home. I’m sure that’s what she’ll try to do. Come straight back here and try to get used to the place. I’m sure I don’t know why you should have taken against it. You must admit we could hardly be more comfortable; everyone for miles round seems to be at our beck and call. I don’t think you’d be very happy at home now you’ve got so used to having everything your own way.” “I wouldn’t go at all if I were you,” another said. “I should just stay here quietly and make the best of it. You’ll have time enough to see your mother later on, when he brings you to live in the City. I know who put this idea into your head. It’s Nurse; she’s always in such a hurry. Don’t you listen to her. They say patience brings its reward; and certainly without it no one ever yet did any good in the world.” “Nanny is getting old,” said Ukon. “It’s a pity we ever let her suggest it. She’s really becoming very tiresome.” With this judgment Niou could cordially agree. He remembered what a nuisance some old woman—no doubt the nurse they were talking of—had made of herself that night. It was all like a strange dream. Before long Ukon’s remarks became so personal as to be embarrassing. “Niou’s lady,” she said, “is getting on very nicely nowadays. Of course it seemed a great disadvantage at first that she had the Minister of the Left always fussing round and doing everything in his power to make things unpleasant for her. But it seems that now she’s got the child His Highness^‡ is treating her a lot better. That’s a lesson for you, my lady! Where do you suppose she would be now if she’d listened to the advice of old busybodies like your nanny?” “There’s no reason you shouldn’t be quite as well off before long,” another chimed in, “if you stay here quietly and don’t do anything to make your gentleman change his mind.” “How often have I asked you not to talk about me in that way?” the lady said at last, sitting up a little—“always pitting me against other people. I dislike it intensely. And please never discuss Princess Kozeri’s affairs in that way. She would have every right to be very annoyed if it got round to her.” Something in the way she spoke of Kozeri suggested that they were related. But in what way? Very closely, Niou thought, judging from the extraordinary resemblance. Of course Kozeri bore herself in a much more distinguished manner and her expression denoted a good deal more character and originality. But in actual beauty of feature this girl was quite her equal; he found her in fact extraordinarily attractive.

Even had she somewhat disappointed him, the mere fact that she had occupied his thoughts for so many weeks—and there was no longer any doubt of the identity—would have been sufficient to make him feel very disappointed if the matter went no farther. Small wonder then if, confronted at last with a creature in whom even his experienced eye could detect no flaw, he was in a torment of impatience to make her his.

He had gathered that she was starting next day on a pilgrimage, and was to be fetched by her mother. Once she had left Uji he would not have the least idea where to look for her. It was in all probability a case of tonight or never. A thousand wild schemes rushed through his head, but as though rooted to the spot he continued to stare through his hole. “I’m feeling very sleepy,” Ukon said presently. “I don’t know why I should sit up all night like this. There’ll be plenty of time to finish these things tomorrow; however early they start, the carriage* can’t be here till late in the morning.” She folded the things she had been sewing and hung them carefully across the top of the couch; then, apparently unable to keep her eyes open any longer, she sank onto a cushion and began at once to doze. The lady went and lay down on a couch in a recess at the far side of the room, and presently Ukon, waking with a start, went into the back room for a minute or two, and when she returned, settled herself for the night close behind her mistress’s bed. A moment later it was obvious that she was sound asleep. There was no point in staying where he was. In fact only two courses were open to him: either he must give the whole thing up and go home, or else get someone to open the shutter, for it was firmly barred on the inside. He knocked, gently at first and then louder. Ukon heard. “Who is it?” she asked. He coughed, not with a vulgar noise but in the discreet manner that belongs to persons of refinement. Not doubting for an instant that Kaoru had suddenly arrived, she sprang up and came to the window. “I’m locked out,” he whispered. “I’m very sorry,” she said. “But we understood you would not be coming today. And in any case it’s surely rather an odd hour to arrive?” “Nakanobu came to me tonight,” he whispered, “with some story about a pilgrimage. He said you were starting tomorrow morning, so naturally I rushed off at once—though of course it was terribly inconvenient. I’m still locked out,” he reminded her. He spoke in so low a whisper and imitated Kaoru’s tricks of speech so well that Ukon was completely taken in, and hastened to undo the catch. “I had a rather unpleasant and alarming experience* on my way here,” he explained, “and have arrived in the most extraordinary get-up. I’m not really fit to be seen, so please take away that light.” The shutters were now open, but he was still crouching outside. Ukon was deeply concerned. It must have been a terrible adventure indeed that could reduce anyone to such a plight as he described. She hastened to remove the light. “That’s right,” he said. “I would much rather no one saw me. Please don’t wake people and tell them I am here.” He was so plausible, and now he had got into the swing of it was managing to imitate Kaoru’s voice and manner so successfully that, though he was standing only a few yards away from her in the darkened room, Ukon had no suspicion that anything was amiss. From the way he had spoken of the condition he was in she was afraid he must have suffered some appalling disfigurement, and was frightened to look his way at all. But at last she plucked up courage to peep from behind a screen and was in time to see a slim figure in a soft closely fitting robe steal lithely across the room, undress and install himself at her mistress’s side. She did indeed notice a very strong perfume as he passed. This, however, was entirely consistent with supposing that the visitor was Kaoru. “Are you going to stay there?” she asked, surprised that they did not retire to their usual couch. Receiving no answer, she pushed some bed-clothes towards them and waking some gentle-women who were asleep near by, she sent them into an adjoining room. Kaoru of course always brought with him a certain number of retainers and attendants; but it occurred to no one to ask what had now become of them, for they always spent the night in the part of the house occupied by the old nun. “Just fancy his travelling all through the night like this,” said one of the gentlewomen while they were settling down, “and then she talks as though he didn’t do his duty by her! Some people are never satisfied.” “You hussy, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, talking in that way about your mistress,” Ukon protested. “And you’d better be careful what you say,” she added. “One can hear every whisper in this house at night.”

Ukifune saw at once that it was not Kaoru; but Niou was holding her fast in his arms before she could so much as utter a cry. The preliminaries, he considered, had already been got over at the Nijo-in; here he could let himself go. Had he allowed a single instant to elapse between his onslaught and the moment when she first discovered that he was not Kaoru, she might have done something to save herself. But now that the worst had happened, what use was it to cry for help? “...ever since we met in the autumn...” fragments of what he was saying drifted through her stupor. “Why were you so unkind to me that night?” she heard him ask. It was Niou! The truth had dawned upon her at last, and she was appalled. As for herself, she had ceased to care what became of her; but Kozeri... that was too horrible to think of. She burst into tears. For a very different reason Niou too was weeping; she had proved even more desirable than he expected, and he was profoundly depressed at the thought that he might never have such an opportunity again.

It was now growing light, and his attendants were calling to him. Ukon heard them, and came into the room. Niou, needless to say, would much rather have stayed where he was. It was difficult enough to escape, and having done so he would gain nothing by returning before nightfall. No doubt at the Palace a hue and cry had been raised long ago. But presumably they wished to get him back alive, and at the moment he definitely felt it would kill him to tear himself away. He sent for Ukon, no longer making any attempt to conceal his identity. “People may think what they please,” he said, “but I intend to stay here all day. You must find somewhere close at hand to hide my attendants; if anyone came they might be recognized. Tokikata* had better go to the City and say I am in retreat at a mountain temple. If he is asked any questions he can tell whatever story he pleases, so long as it hangs together.”

Ukon stared at him dumbfounded. It was an inexplicable, an appalling mistake that she had made last night, and she almost fainted at the thought of the dreadful consequences that her carelessness had entailed. But to denounce the intruder at this late stage, or indeed to make a fuss of any kind, could do no possible good; moreover, it was not for her to keep Royal Princes in order, much as they might need it. The fact that all these months after the incident at the Nijo-in he should have taken so much pains to track her down showed at any rate that Ukifune had made a deep impression on him. She consoled herself, finally, with the thought that so wild a scheme could hardly have been successful unless Fate^† had decided that they should meet, in which case human interference would have been of no avail.

“I suppose you’ve heard,” she said, “that my lady is starting on a pilgrimage today. Her mother is sending to fetch her and the carriage may be here at any moment. I am not going to say anything myself about the way you have seen fit to treat my lady. Maybe you were bound to come together anyway, and it’s no use people struggling against what’s decreed by Fate. But I am afraid that is not the view her mother will take. In fact, you’ve chosen the one morning that’s no good. Surely you had better go home now; you can come and see her quietly some other time—that’s to say, if you are still feeling inclined to. As a matter of fact, it’s the rarest thing in the world for her to be absent or engaged.”

Niou was not to be cajoled so easily. “Listen,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about her for months, day and night, the whole time—I’ve been almost out of my senses. And do you suppose that now I have found her at last I care what her mother or anyone else may think? I am in love with her, madly in love. You don’t seem to know what that means. It’s no use talking to me about what people will think or say. If I cared the least bit about that, I should never have come here at all. Besides, it’s quite easy to deal with her mother. Tell her that your mistress is under a mono-imi,* or anything else you choose—except the truth; unless indeed you are bent on making trouble for both of us.” It astounded her to hear anyone in Niou’s position talk so recklessly; she could only put it down to his being, as he himself insisted, wildly, frantically in love.

Michisada now came to her and asked if she knew when Niou would be ready. Ukon explained the situation. “I wish you’d make him see how awkward it is for us,” she said. “I think all you gentlemen are very much to blame. You know quite well that he couldn’t do any of these wild things unless you backed him up. I am sure I don’t know how you managed to get him into the grounds at all—scrambling into people’s gardens like a pack of naughty urchins! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Nice things the workmen and gardeners will say of him!”

Looking back upon it Michisada was obliged to confess to himself that the escapade had indeed been rather disgraceful. He stood looking a trifle embarrassed. “Which of you is Tokikata?” Ukon asked. He came forward, and she gave him Niou’s instructions.^† “I don’t think I should have had the courage to stay here much longer in any case,” he said laughing. “There’s nothing I dislike so much as being scolded. But, seriously—he’s got a way when he is really excited about anything of making one feel that nothing else in the world matters at all. One would give one’s life to help him... But I must make haste or the watchmen will see me go,” and he hurried off to the City.

To Ukon fell the task of concealing Niou’s presence from the rest of the household. The other gentlewomen were now getting up. “The moment I saw him,” Ukon said to them, “I noticed that he wasn’t quite as usual. He seemed not to want to show himself. No wonder, poor gentleman! He had a terrible experience on the way. He has had to send to town for fresh clothes.” There were murmurs of horror and commiseration. “Of course it’s a dreadful thing,” one lady said. “But I’ve been expecting it for a long time. That Mount Kohata has a very bad reputation. Ben no Kimi’s people tell me he didn’t bring any of his usual servants with him. I suppose he thought it would make things worse if he were recognized. Fancy his having been through all that. It’s really terrible.” “Now mind, all of you,” Ukon said, “not a word about this to any of the under-servants, or we shall have them all too scared to do their work.”

So far all seemed to be going well, but Ukon felt none too comfortable. For one thing, at any moment a messenger might arrive from Kaoru, which would be very awkward; and feeling that nothing short of a miracle could enable the imposture to be kept up safely all day, she prayed passionately to the Blessed Kwannon of Hatsuse.

The pilgrimage was to have been to Ishiyama. Her maids were to go with her and all of them had prepared themselves by fasting and prayer. It was a great disappointment to hear that the whole thing was postponed. Late in the morning Ukon went again to Ukifune’s quarters and opened the shutters, but lowered all the blinds and pasted notices upon them with the word mono-imi written in large characters. But this would not keep out Ukifune’s mother, who, though she had only premised to send a carriage, would most probably come in person, and Ukon put it about that Ukifune had had a disquieting dream.* As it was getting very late she thought she had better bring Ukifune her hot water and so on. The things were quite ordinary, but they struck Niou as exceedingly primitive. “Let me see you do it first,” he said, when Ukifune offered them to him. Kaoru always retired discreetly at such moments. It was a new and rather flattering experience to be with someone who seemed unable to tear himself away for a single second. She felt indeed that till that night she had never really known what love meant. It was a terrible position to find oneself in. Even if Kaoru never found out, there were other people—her mother, and worst of all Kozeri. What a tangle things were in!

“And all this time,” Niou said, “I have not the least idea who you are. I think it is ridiculous of you not to tell me. You know quite well I shan’t think the worse of you even if you tell me you are the lowest of the low. In fact, quite the contrary...” He asked her again and again, but to these questions she would give no reply. So soon, however, as this subject was dropped they got on famously together. She seemed to be completely at her ease with him, made some very amusing remarks, and proved indeed to be in every way the most delightful companion he had ever encountered.

The people sent to fetch her arrived towards midday. The mother was to be picked up later. There were two carriages, accompanied by the usual rough-looking horsemen. Their arrival was as embarrassing to the other ladies* as it was to Ukon. There were seven or eight of them and a wild-looking mob they seemed as they rode in, jabbering to one another all the while in their clipped, eastern jargon, and someone ran out immediately and begged them to retire to a corner where they could not be seen from the house. Ukon’s first impulse was to tell them that Kaoru was there, but she saw on reflection that this would be a very unsafe thing to do, for the goings and comings of anyone in Kaoru’s high position were sure to be pretty generally known at the Capital, and without consulting the other ladies she wrote a note for Ukifune’s mother: “Yesterday evening I am sorry to say my lady’s period came on unexpectedly,^† and during the night she had a dream of such a disquieting sort that I felt she ought to be very careful today, and have arranged for a mono-imi. Of course it’s a great pity, but I am sure it is wiser to take this precaution.” She handed the men this note, and having seen to it that they were given some food, sent them away. To Ben no Kimi she told the same story. The whole of this perfect spring day was theirs, but to Niou it seemed to be going by in a flash; and it was a strange experience for Ukifune, to whom evening after evening at this place it had seemed as though the sun would never set behind the misty hills, to find herself, with him at her side, aghast at the speed with which the shadows grew. He for his part would have been content to sit gazing at her forever. What was it about her, he wondered, that so much attracted him? She was not really as good-looking as Kozeri, and no doubt in the fashionable world to which Roku no Kimi^‡ belonged she would be entirely eclipsed; but for the moment he lost all sense of proportion, and despite his extremely varied experience it was as though he had never seen a beautiful girl before. As for Ukifune, it was beginning to occur to her that, much as she admired Kaoru, the world might after all contain other people equally handsome and charming.

Presently Niou drew the ink-slab towards him and began tracing characters with a dexterity that could not fail to fascinate a young girl. Then he drew pictures for her, a thing he was very good at. “You must look at this one sometimes when I am prevented from being here with you,” he said, showing her a pretty drawing of two lovers lying together. “If only we could always be together like this!” he sighed. “‘Always,’ I say! Yet in a world so frail even ‘tomorrow’ were a pledge that mocked the sanctity of love!” “I know it is terrible to speak of such things now; but I really do feel that if I can’t see you whenever I want to—if I can only be smuggled into the house once in a way when no one happens to be here, it will kill me. It would have been better if I had left things as they were after that first meeting and never tracked you down.” She took up the writing-brush, which was still wet, and wrote: “Were there no other thing but life itself uncertain in this world, how happy then were this our mortal state!”* Looking over her shoulder as she wrote these words he felt that she really needed his love and would mind very much indeed if he gave her up.

“How much experience have you, I should like to know, of people’s affections changing?” he asked, laughing. He was very curious to discover how her relationship with Kaoru had begun, but she refused to tell him anything about it. “You’ve done that before,” she said, rather pettishly. “Directly you see I don’t wish to talk about something, you start pestering me about it.” There were plenty of other ways he could find out, but somehow he felt that there would be a curious sort of satisfaction in hearing the story from her own lips. At nightfall Tokikata returned from the Capital. “I found a deputation from the Empress asking what had become of him,” he reported to Ukon, “and a very stiff message from the Minister of the Left:^† ‘His Highness has no business to go off like this without telling anyone. He’s too casual altogether, and inconsiderate towards me too, for when Their Majesties hear about this kind of thing it is always I who get into trouble,’ and more to the same effect. I told them that Prince Niou had gone to visit the Hermit of the Eastern Hills.” “There,” Tokikata continued, “you see now that it’s you women who are at the bottom of all the wickedness that goes on in the world. And it isn’t only their lovers they send to perdition; here am I, who don’t know the lady at all, telling lies to save her reputation.” “It was a good lie anyway,” said Ukon. “Fancy you even finding the hermit a name! So much the better for him. They say it’s no sin to be the cause of a pious lie. But tell me, has he always been like this? I was never so taken aback in my life. Not that I could have done much under the circumstances, even if I had known he was coming. One daren’t be rough with people like that, and it certainly wouldn’t have been any use trying to argue with him.” Having dealt with Tokikata, Ukon went to Niou and reported what the man had said. Niou saw that things were going to be made very unpleasant for him on his return. “How I wish I could turn into an ordinary person for a little while!” he said afterwards to Ukifune. “I am sick to death of all this fuss. You see for yourself what these people* are like; it’s absolutely impossible to hide anything from them. I’m worried about Kaoru too. Circumstances, of course, have always brought us together a great deal; but quite apart from that I am in fact very fond of him and should hate him to feel that I had treated him badly. Not that I really have—for it’s obvious that if he really cared for you he wouldn’t leave you moping here for weeks on end. But the last thing likely to occur to him is that it’s he who’s to blame. The only thing to do will be to take you to some absolutely secret place where no one will dream of looking for you. We can’t go on meeting here.” The night was almost over, and though he knew that to leave now would be like wrenching body from soul, to spend a second day in the same delightful manner was out of the question. His attendants were impatient to get him started before daybreak, and at last he rose to go. Ukifune went with him as far as the big double-doors. “How can I hope through tortuous hills to trace the unbeaten way, when even at your door so dark a veil of tears blots out the road?” Such was his poem; and she: “Would that my sleeve were wide enough^† to check my own poor tears; then might I hope to stay the parting that you dread.”

It was a dismal business, this farewell in the dim morning light, with an icy wind howling and everything soaked with dew. Even after he had mounted his horse, Tokikata and the rest had the greatest difficulty in getting him started. But things were getting beyond a joke. It was absolutely essential that he should be back in the Capital well before midday, and there was no time to lose. He was in no condition to look after himself, and until they got safely into the plain Michisada and Tokikata, who were the two officers of highest rank in the party, led his horse by the bridle, walking one on each side. At one point their path lay along a frozen river-bed, and he thought he had never heard a more melancholy sound than the ringing of the ice under his horse’s hoofs. It was this same mountain-road—the only one in fact that he knew—which in days gone by had carried him to Kozeri. It seemed as if some strange tie linked him to that obscure village.

On arriving at the Nijo-in he went and lay down in his own room. He did not feel inclined to see Kozeri, whom he felt more than ever had behaved very badly in hiding this girl^‡ away. But he could not get to sleep, and feeling badly in need of company, he was reduced at last to going to Kozeri’s rooms. She did not seem to have been at all upset at his sudden disappearance. He had indeed seldom seen her looking so well and handsome, and his first thought was that, whatever he might have felt during the infatuation of the moment, Kozeri was really a thousand times better-looking than that other girl. But the resemblance between them was so strong that being with the one only made him all the unhappier at losing the other, and, flinging himself onto Kozeri’s couch, he lay there silently brooding. Presently she came and lay by his side. “I am not at all well,” he said. “It’s worrying; I feel it may turn out to be something serious. What shall you do if I die? Of course it would really be rather convenient for you. You’d be able to do what you’ve always been wanting to.”* There was nothing in his manner to suggest that he was not speaking perfectly seriously. “You realize, don’t you,” she said, “that it would be most unpleasant for me if it got round to Kaoru that you say things like that. He would only be able to account for it by supposing that I had given you a quite untrue idea of the sort of terms we are on. And if you are joking, I can only say that I have had too many troubles in life much to appreciate jokes of that kind.” She turned over and lay with her back to him.

“If you can’t bear me to mention the subject even when you see that I am joking,” Niou said, “what would happen, I wonder, if you thought I was in earnest? After all, I have done a good deal for you—far too much, some people think.^† I have never hidden from myself the fact that you much prefer him.^‡ I can quite understand that; you seem to be made for one another.^§ All I mind is your trying to hide it from me.” “Made for one another...” When, Niou asked himself, had he last used just that phrase? Why, of course, to the girl at Uji only a few hours ago; and remembering their parting he burst into tears.

Evidently he had just heard something that had very much upset him— something apparently about herself and Kaoru. She did not attempt to reply. It was grossly unfair that, because their own relationship had begun in rather an informal way, he should regard her as completely immoral. Nor indeed was the match so very informal. Kaoru had introduced them, and the only irregularity of the proceeding consisted in the fact that he was not a parent or guardian but only a friend.^¶ It would be monstrous indeed if Niou allowed such a thing as that to lower her in his estimation. He saw that she was looking very disheartened, and felt sorry for her. He did not want, at any rate for the present, to tell her about his adventure at Uji; but she was bound to notice that something was wrong, and he had merely dragged up the subject of Kaoru in order to put her off the scent. However, he seemed so much more serious about it than usual that Kozeri was certain something definite must have happened; someone must be spreading completely untrue stories about her. It was clear that Niou believed them, and until she had got to the bottom of the matter, she felt she would rather not see him.

Presently it was announced that a letter had arrived from Her Majesty the Empress. He got up and, without any of his usual tender words to Kozeri, went off to his own rooms. “What became of you yesterday?” his mother wrote. “The Emperor was expecting you all day. He kept on asking where you were. I can see he is quite upset about it. Unless for some reason it is absolutely impossible, I should strongly advise you to come round to the Palace immediately. As for myself—I hardly dare to think how long it is since I set eyes on you...” and so on. He was sorry to have agitated them; but it was really perfectly true that he was not feeling up to appearing in society. Another day passed, and still he played truant from Court. Numerous visitors called to enquire; but he would see nobody and spent the day lying listlessly on his curtained bed. Towards nightfall, however, Kaoru was announced, and Niou asked for him to be shown in. “You’ll excuse my not getting up?” he said. “I heard you weren’t well,” Kaoru said. “That is why I came. Your mother’s rather worried about you.* You didn’t give her any idea what sort of illness it is.” But it was very difficult to get anything out of him. The truth was that at the moment he found Kaoru’s presence very agitating. But though his conscience sorely pricked him, he could not help feeling rather indignant. This, if you please, was the fellow who had managed to persuade the world that he was some sort of mountain-yogi, whose whole life was spent in prayer and fasting! And then, having purloined a charming girl, simply to deposit her miles away from anywhere and leave her to her own devices for months on end... Kaoru’s pretensions to complete indifference about women had never convinced him, and in the past he had often tried to expose them. He naturally felt strongly tempted to let Kaoru know that the time had come for him to drop once and for all this irritating veil of hypocrisy. But when it came to the point he could not bring himself to do so.

He certainly did not look at all himself, Kaoru thought. “I’m awfully sorry about this,” he said. “Of course, I’m sure it’s not really anything much; but it seems to be rather difficult to shake off. You must take great care of yourself.” “I wish I were as handsome as that,” Niou thought, as he watched the visitor depart. “I don’t see how she can help preferring him.” For he now related everything to his chances of success at Uji.

Meanwhile life, for Ukifune and her ladies, had resumed its usual monotony now that even the Ishiyama project had fallen through. Desperate letters from Niou arrived with extreme frequency. It was arranged that, as a precaution, they should be brought by a servant of Tokikata’s, who had no idea either for whom they were really intended or from whom they came. They were directed to Ukon. “It’s an old lover of mine,” she explained. “He has suddenly turned up among Kaoru’s attendants and seems anxious for us to get back onto our old terms.” She was growing so used to inventing stories of this kind that it had ceased to give her any trouble. The month drew to a close, and still Niou had not revisited Uji. Again and again he planned a secret escape; but each time, just when his arrangements were complete, he found himself prevented from leaving the City. He was not at all well. In fact, he felt that the continual worry was slowly killing him, so that to his other woes was added a constant anxiety about his own condition.

At last the pressure of public business relaxed a little, and Kaoru was able to find time for a short visit to Uji. He went first to the temple, and after performing his prostrations before the Buddha-images and other objects of veneration, listening to a recitation of the Scriptures, and distributing presents among the priests, towards evening he made his way to Ukifune’s rooms. He too, no doubt, had been obliged to come secretly, but not in disguise. On the contrary he was dressed rather smartly in eboshi* and flowing gown. And how different the manner of his entry! A feeling of constraint came over her. For some reason she felt frightened of him—frightened to submit herself to his cool, deliberate inspection, she who had fallen so easy a prey to Niou’s boisterous love-making! “Since meeting you I have lost all interest in other women and have broken with them completely, though some of them I had been seeing constantly for years.” So Niou said in one of his letters; and apparently it was no exaggeration, for she had heard from other sources that he had put it about he was unwell and could see nobody. He seemed to be constantly fussing about all sorts of rituals and ceremonies,^† which people said was very unlike him. What would he think if he knew that Kaoru was with her at this moment? Kaoru took great trouble in explaining all the reasons that had obliged him to leave her to herself for so long, and though unlike Niou he used no violent expressions about “unbearable torments,” “dying of love,” and so on, she felt that it really did very much distress him to see so little of her. It was indeed in this habit of restraint that lay the secret of his extraordinary persuasiveness, a few quiet words of his carrying far more conviction than other people’s most emphatic oaths and assurances. Viewed simply as a lover he was not, she now realized, very satisfactory; but there could be no question which of the two would in the long run make the better friend and supporter. The thought that Kaoru might at any moment discover what was happening appalled her. It was exciting, of course, to find oneself the object of love so stormy and passionate as Niou’s. But for both of them it was an escapade, no more; they would soon learn to do without one another. But to hurt Kaoru, to let him feel that she did not need him any more—no, it was unthinkable, those feelings went far too deep. Come what might, if he were to forsake her she would feel utterly alone.

She seemed, Kaoru thought, to be in rather a nervous, agitated condition. In fact she had changed a good deal since his last visit. She struck him, somehow, as far less childish and immature. But it would not do to leave her too long in this lonely place where she had nothing to do but sit and brood. It was not to be wondered at that she had fallen into rather a morbid condition; he must try to cheer her up. “I have good news for you,” he said. “The place I am finishing for you in the Capital is nearly ready. I was there only the other day. I am sure you will like it. There is a river; but it won’t frighten you as this one does—it runs quietly through flowery meadows. My mother’s palace is only a few steps away. I am longing to have you somewhere close at hand, where I can come to see you every day, and I hope if all goes well to move you in before the end of next month.”

By a strange coincidence Niou, in a letter received only yesterday, had informed her that he had succeeded in finding “a quiet little house, just the place he was looking for...” Now, quite unwittingly, Kaoru had out-bidden him. Well, this meant that to all intents and purposes her relation with Niou was at an end. That perhaps was a good thing. But suddenly his image rose up before her, she felt again his touch, the pressure of his limbs... “I am terribly unhappy,” she said, and burst into tears. Kaoru looked at her with astonishment. “I can’t understand what has come over you,” he said. “You used always to be so sensible and patient; it was a great comfort. I can only suppose someone has been telling you lies about me. All I can say is this: considering how bad the roads are and how difficult it is for anyone in a ministerial position to get away for more than a few hours, do you suppose I should ever come at all if I were not extremely fond of you?” He took her to the window to watch the new moon rise. How many times had he stood there with Agemaki! And while his thoughts wandered back to old days, hers dwelt with desperation on this new entanglement: she had seen chequered days, but other troubles had come and gone, from this there could be no imaginable escape. A mist lay over the hills and outlined against it was the figure of a heron stiffly poised on a bare ledge of rock. The bridge lay shimmering in the mist, looking a long way off. Now and again a boat would pass under it, laden with timber. “A strange, a haunting place—this Uji,” Kaoru thought. One seemed to hear and see at the very door so many things that one came across nowhere else; which made it all the harder coming back like this, to shake off the past. So many associations indeed had every bend of the river, every tree, that even had Ukifune not been who she was, it would have moved him intensely to find himself here at such an hour. Small wonder then if the company of one who resembled so strangely the lady he had loved and who, to his delight, was now fast losing the backwardness and rusticity that had at first disguised this resemblance, Kaoru lost himself in memories of the past. But do what she would, Ukifune could not check her tears, and trying in vain to console her he recited the verse: “Step lightly past the gaps. Be not afraid that Uji Bridge will fall, for long as time itself shall those stout planks endure.” “You will soon see,” he added. “Since gaps it is, naught else, that in the world of love are perilous, how can I trust the Bridge of Uji to hold fast?” Such was her answer to his verse.

He had never felt so loath to leave her, but today there were urgent reasons for his return—as indeed was likely to be the case each time he came. Fortunately, however, there seemed to be every hope of moving her from here before very long. He left at dawn, meditating as he rode. She seemed suddenly to have left childhood behind, which made her a far more interesting companion. In a way, however, he found it painful; for she was beginning now to remind him almost too much of Agemaki.

A Chinese-poetry competition was held in the Palace on the tenth day of the second month. Kaoru and Niou were both present. The proceedings opened with a concert of appropriate music. Niou sang the “Plum Tree”* so admirably that people felt there was no line in which he could not have excelled if he chose; it was a thousand pities that so much of his time was frittered away in pointless philandering. A sudden snowstorm brought the concert to an abrupt end. Niou retired to his own official apartments,^† where he was presently joined by Kaoru and other friends. After refreshments had been served they all lay down and rested. At nightfall someone went out for a moment, apparently to give a message, and remained standing by the window, his figure outlined against a sky in which the stars shone faintly through the falling snow. Niou too had woken, and even “in the darkness of the spring night” he could not fail instantly to recognize whose the figure was. What lines were those that Kaoru was murmuring to himself, there by the window, apparently with the deepest emotion? “Tonight too on half-spread cloak...”* Those were the few words he caught; but there could be no mistaking the allusion, and though Niou instantly lay back and pretended to be asleep, his mind was in reality a ferment of activity. Kaoru then did after all feel strongly about her! “I have judged him unfairly,” Niou said to himself. “I took for granted that it was only I to whom the thought of her waiting there night after night was painful.” In a way he was touched at the discovery that someone else felt exactly as he did. Yet at the same time he was in despair. For if Kaoru really cared for her seriously, what chances had he of ousting such a lover?

Next morning the snow lay so deep that it was quite difficult to get to Court. Everyone thought that when he appeared before the Throne to hand in his poem Niou was looking particularly well and handsome. Kaoru, though there was only a year or two’s difference between them, had an air of circumspection and responsibility that on these occasions always made him appear considerably Niou’s senior. It was agreed that he was the perfect pattern of aristocratic dignity and refinement; the Emperor certainly could not have made a better choice.^† It was seldom one found such erudition^‡ combined with a high degree of practical capacity.

When the poems had been read out and commented upon, the company dispersed. People crowded round Niou assuring him that his was by far the best. He had no idea what he had said, nor indeed how he had managed to produce anything at all, for his thoughts had all the time been far away. So disquieted was he by his new discovery that a few days later, throwing prudence to the winds, he set out once more for Uji.

At the Capital only a few patches of snow lingered half-heartedly, but in the mountains it was still very deep. This made the narrow path more difficult than ever to find, and his attendants, often up to their waists in snow and forced continually to retrace their steps, would have been glad indeed to be back in their beds. Michisada, besides the post he held at the Palace, was also under-secretary at the Board of Rites, and it was hardly in keeping with his dignity that he should be forced to tuck up his skirts and struggle through the snow like an ordinary coolie.

Niou had previously sent word that he was coming. But it was evident on his arrival that, owing no doubt to the very heavy snow, they were not expecting him. Moreover, the hour was extremely late. He sent in a message to Ukon who was astonished that he should even have attempted the journey under such conditions, as was also her mistress. Ukon was becoming extremely worried at the situation that had arisen and realized more than ever how fatal it would be if the secret were to get out. But she was feeling the strain of managing the whole thing alone, and tonight, though if she had had the heart to she would much rather simply have sent Niou away, she took into her confidence a girl called Jiju, a sensible creature whom she knew Ukifune liked and trusted. Jiju promised faithfully not to say a word to anybody, and between the two of them they managed to smuggle Niou into the house without attracting attention. His clothes were wringing wet, and this, when he entered the warm house, brought out their perfume more strongly than ever, which under other circumstances would have been embarrassing, but in the present case rendered deception all the easier.

He had no mind to be driven out of the house as soon as it was light, and as Ukon could not guarantee to keep him successfully hidden during the day, when secrecy was obviously much more difficult, he arranged with Tokikata that a little house on the other side of the river should be put at his disposal. Shortly before dawn Tokikata came and announced that all was ready. “I think you’ll be pleased with the place,” he said. “What new folly was this?” Ukon wondered, as blinking and yawning she was once more dragged from her bed, and while she hastily put together Ukifune’s things she found her teeth chattering like those of a tattered urchin driven out to play in the snow. “You’d better stay and look after things here. We’ll take this girl with us,” Niou said, pointing to Jiju, and without a word of explanation as to where they were going he picked up Ukifune in his arms and carried her out of the house. They seemed to be making straight for the river. Here lay the little boat that she had so often noticed from her window, wondering whether it was ever used; for it looked, she thought, very unsafe. Now they were pushing off. It seemed a terribly long way to the other shore; Niou felt her clutch at him in her alarm. It was a cloudless dawn; the; moon burnished the rippling waters that spread round them far and wide. “We will stop for a moment at the Island,” Niou said, and presently they came to a great ledge of rock that had been converted into a kind of river-garden. “They call it the Orange-Tree Island,” he said. “Isn’t it amazing that they can get them to grow even on such a perch as that? Yet once give them their shovelful of soil and they will fill the place with green, summer and winter, for a thousand years.” “Sooner shall you, O orange-tree who crown the little, island, shed your faithful leaves than this our love grow cold.” Such was his poem; but she, still counting the hazards of the voyage on which they were embarked: “Faithful from spring to spring the orange-tree may keep its vow; but whither will have drifted the Lady of the Boat?” He did not resent her distrust, still less rebuke it; such indeed was the spell of the place and moment that nothing she said or did could do otherwise than enchant him.

When at last they disembarked on the far shore, though they had some way to go, he would not let anyone else carry her; but seeing that he walked rather unsteadily under the burden Tokikata followed close behind, and sometimes gave him a helping hand. Who was this woman, the man wondered, and how came she to be at Uji—a personage apparently of such exalted rank that no one but a Royal Prince might handle her? The place they were going to was on an estate belonging to Tokikata’s uncle, the Governor of Inaba. It was simply a farm-building without fittings or furniture of any kind, save for a few rough wattled screens and other strange objects such as Niou had never seen before. It was very ill-protected against the wind. Great piles of half-melted snow blocked the courtyard, and more was falling.

The storm, however, was a short one. Soon a brilliant sun was shining, and Ukifune, sitting in the light that glinted from the icicles under the eaves, looked lovelier than he had ever seen her. Both of them were very simply dressed, for he was in the hunting-cloak that he had used on the journey as a disguise, and she, when the sun came out, had slipped off her mantle and was looking particularly slim and pretty in her plain white under dress. She was feeling, however, very disheveled and untidy, and longed to put herself to rights. But there seemed to be nowhere she could retire to, and she had to make up her mind to face him just as she was. As a matter of fact he saw nothing to criticize. He found her simple costume far more pleasing than those elaborate confections in which, down sleeve and skirt, fold chimes with fold in every imaginable harmony of texture and hue. Never would Roku no Kimi have dared to show herself to him in this guise. No, nor Kozeri either. But this girl certainly stood the test. Jiju too, he thought, was by no means bad-looking. “They haven’t told me who you are,” he said, turning to her, “which does not matter so much, as long as you don’t say who I am. She was delighted at his condescending to address her. Ukifune, however, very much wished the girl was not there. How many more people, she wondered, was Ukon going to let into the secret?

A housekeeper was on the premises. He was allowed to think that Tokikata was the master, and Niou and the rest his servants. He therefore installed Tokikata in great state in the main room, shutting it off from the place where Niou was, and it so much tickled Tokikata to hear the deferential manner in which the fellow insisted upon addressing him that he could hardly keep a straight face. “You had better know why I have come here,” he managed to say at last. “A soothsayer whom I consulted has unfortunately discovered that it would be extremely dangerous for me to remain anywhere inside the boundaries of the Capital. He said that for the present the safest thing I could do was to shut myself up and see nobody. So I must ask you to let me have the place to myself.”

The housekeeper carried out his task to perfection. Not a soul was allowed to enter, and the lovers had a wonderful day. But these caresses, these tender speeches and pretty ways—supposing it had been Kaoru who had brought her here today—would she not as gladly have lavished them on him instead? Assuredly she would, Niou told himself bitterly, and in jealous spite began telling her about Kaoru’s deferential attitude towards the Second Princess and his extreme fear of doing anything that might wound her pride. Complete candor would have obliged him also to mention the lines that he had heard Kaoru murmuring to himself that night at the Palace window. But to this episode Niou made no allusion. Tokikata had procured some fruit which he now served to them with his own hands, also bringing them some water to wash in. “You mustn’t let our friend the housekeeper see you doing this sort of thing,” said Niou, “or he will soon begin to discard some of the honorifics* I heard him heaping upon you this morning.”

Jiju too had a very happy day, for she was not the sort of girl to let time hang on her hands when there was a man about, and an officer of the Fifth Rank!^† She thought herself in luck’s way indeed.

Looking out across the river, Ukifune saw that the air was again thick with snow; only a few treetops standing out above the mist marked the spot where the Uji mansion stood. But there was sun on the peaks that seemed to hang like mirrors in the glittering sky. Niou began to tell her more of the adventurous journey that had brought him to Uji last night. “Where snow-drifts were deepest, where the ice gave under my feet, unerringly I found my way; it was only about you that I was lost.”^‡ There was a rough sort of ink-slab in the house, and sending for it he did some hand-practice,^§ choosing such lines as, “Though in the village of Kohata I could have got a horse.”^¶

“As a flake that the wind whirls skywards from the snow-drift on the frozen shore hangs in the air and vanishes, so shall I end my days,” she wrote in characters that grew fainter and fainter, so that the words “in the air”** stood out from the rest, and at once caught Niou’s eye. He colored slightly and picking up the distasteful poem tore it to shreds. But the thought that she was still wavering so far from chilling his ardor only spurred him on. Already he had wooed her, he would have thought, to some purpose; tonight he would show her what love really was.

The pretext upon which he had obtained leave of absence from Court made it unnecessary for him to be back till late next day, so they had quite a long while together and felt that this time they had really got to know one another. Certainly he had found her more delightful than ever; and he felt that she too was becoming very fond of him. Today Ukon managed to smuggle in a parcel of clothes and so on. Ukifune was able to put her hair a little to rights, and her red plum-blossom mantle, worn over a dark-purple dress, made an agreeable effect. Jiju too appeared today quite smartly dressed. She had come in an odd sort of over-wrap—the first thing that lay to hand, and Niou now put this discarded garment over Ukifune’s knees, lest her dress should be splashed while she was being washed.

What an excitement there would be even in the First Princess’s* apartments—and among her gentlewomen there were many who belonged to the greatest families in the land—if such a creature as this were suddenly to arrive. All day they played the most absurd and childish games together; sometimes Jiju hardly knew which way to look. Again and again at more serious moments he would speak of his plans for bringing her secretly to the Capital. He tried to make her swear that meanwhile she would not see Kaoru again. Her only answer was to bury her face in her hands and weep. If even when he was with her she felt like that, what hope was there—Niou asked himself—of her remaining faithful to him in the intervals? He stormed at her and even wept. But his time had run out. Already it was almost midnight, and they hastened to the boat. Again he carried her in his arms. “I am doing something for you now that he, I feel pretty sure, has never done. I hope you give me credit for that,” he said. It was true enough. She nodded, and some-how he felt reassured. Ukon met them at the double-doors and let her mistress in.

It was all over. He was back leading his usual life in the Nijo-in. He felt very ill and had no appetite at all. Day after day it was the same. Everyone noticed how thin he was getting; it was most alarming. At the Palace there was consternation; a gloom began to spread over the whole Court. At Uji a fresh complication had arisen owing to the return of the old nurse who had been away for some time attending the confinement of her married daughter. The officious old woman was devotedly attached to her mistress and never for a moment left her side, so that Ukifune had the greatest difficulty in getting a chance to read even the brief and occasional notes that Niou managed to send. Ukifune’s mother saw with satisfaction the lavish scale upon which Kaoru was enabling the establishment at Uji to be run. But she counted on the arrangement, so unsatisfactory in many ways from her daughter’s point of view, being merely a temporary one. The sooner he moved her, secretly if need be, to some place much closer at hand, the better for both of them, and she was already preparing to make herself useful in such an emergency by choosing for Ukifune a number of gentlewomen and girls of a kind suitable for a town establishment. As for Ukifune, she had loved to conjure up the vision of this quiet house in the Capital, where Kaoru was going to visit her every day; but now no sooner did she turn her thoughts towards the event which she had once so eagerly anticipated than Niou’s image—his laughter, his tears, his passionate caresses and reproaches—rose up before her. No, she could never suffer herself to be shut up in a place where he could not come to her... It was terrible; she could not now close her eyes for an instant without dreaming of him.

It had rained without stopping for days on end and the mountain-road would for the present, Niou knew, be impracticable even were he free to come and go as he chose, were not “ shut in like the silkworm in the cocoon”* by the august solicitude of the Imperial pair. He wrote to Ukifune at much greater length than for a long while. “As through the dark I peer, the clouds that hide your village soon themselves invisible will grow, so thick the air with rain.” Such was his poem. In the writing, loose and negligent though his style was, there were passages of real genius, astonishing in their freedom and audacity. She would have been strangely constituted indeed if, at her impressionable age, she had not found it a thrilling experience to receive such letters. Yet all the while she felt that Kaoru’s less impulsive character was in reality much more admirable; moreover, his was the first love that she had known. Her friendship with him had been her whole life; without it she could not imagine herself existing at all. How terrible, too, it would be for her mother, who kept on asking when Kaoru was going to bring her back. “How little parents know their own children. Certainly Mother would never have believed it of me,” Ukifune thought. Of course everyone said that Niou was utterly unreliable; but supposing in this case he really did what he had promised—set her up in the Capital and devoted all his time to her, what about Kozeri? It was unthinkable. However, it was no use supposing that in this world anything could remain secret for long, and it was certain that, even if things went on as they were, Kozeri would soon know. Had not Niou, with much less to go upon, succeeded (despite all Kaoru’s precautions) in finding out about Kaoru’s relations with her? “I could bear to lose him,” she was saying to herself, her mind returning to Kaoru, “if he wanted to be free. What I cannot bear is that my own wickedness and folly should turn him against me...” Another letter. This time from Kaoru. But Niou’s was very long and there were large parts that she still had not read. It seemed somehow better to get it done with first, and, picking it up once more, she left the second letter unopened. Ukon and Jiju exchanged significant glances. “I don’t blame her,” Jiju said afterwards, “handsome though His Excellency is. There are other things, quite apart from looks, that count; and I know what I am talking about, for I’ve seen Prince Niou when he was really letting himself go. If I were she, sooner than stay moping here, I’d take whatever job I could get in the Empress’s household. They could manage to see something of one another there, anyway.” “Well, there’s no doubt whose side you’re on,” said Ukon, “but I don’t know, I’m sure. For my part, I don’t think he’s a patch on His Excellency. Just as regards looks and so on, he may be. But when it comes to mind and character... No, I’m very sorry indeed that things have gone this way. I can’t see that any good can come of it.” But though she could not take the whole matter so lightly as Jiju, it was a comfort to her now to have someone with whom she could discuss the matter—‘someone to help her with her lies,” she called it. “I am very sorry I have not been able to come. I wish you would write more often. You know that it is not my fault...” Kaoru’s was a short letter. In the margin was the poem: “Here ceaseless rains block out the darkened world. In far-off Uji to what new mark has bounded the menace of the flood?” “I think of you more constantly than ever,” he said. It was written on a white poetry-slip and folded in formal style. There were no points of particular beauty in the writing, but it always seemed to her a distinguished and interesting hand. There was a curious contrast between the two letters; his looking so large and containing so little, Niou’s of inordinate length but folded into the minutest of love-knots. “You’d better answer the Prince’s first while no one’s about,” said Ukon. “I don’t feel like answering it today,” she said, but in her copybook she wrote: “Well do you earn your name* —what life could prove it better than mine—O village by the ford of Uji River that through Yamashiro runs.” Now and again she took out the picture that Niou had made for her. Would she ever see him again? The thing must not, could not go on, she saw that clearly enough; yet the idea of being shut away where he could not get at her was terrible. “Weary of wandering like a homeless cloud from crest to crest, would that I too might vanish in the welter of the rainy sky.” “No speck of foam would mark...”^† That was all she wrote to him. The tears started to Niou’s eyes. It touched him deeply that their parting should weigh so heavily upon her, and the picture of her sitting disconsolate in that lonely place rose vividly before him.

In answer to Kaoru’s rain-poem she wrote: “If other floods be out I know not, but the flood-mark of my tears shows that to me the world is dark indeed.” Studying it and restudying it in his leisurely way, he felt that she was going just now through a very trying time, and was sorry for her. He still had it in mind when he was with the Second Princess that night, and presently he said to her: “There is something I have been meaning to tell you about, but I was not sure how you would feel about it. However, it all happened a long while ago... Someone I used to know is now living at a remote place in the country under very unhappy circumstances, and I feel I ought to bring her to town. When I was young the life I found myself in the midst of had no attraction for me and I intended at the earliest possible moment to escape from it all—to end my days peacefully in some far-off cloister. She was fully aware of this and knew that she could not count on me. However, my marriage to you has obviously quite changed the situation. She sees that I am no longer in a position to quit the world even if I wished to do so and would, I am afraid, think it very unfeeling of me if I did not step in and do something for her.” “I cannot imagine why you supposed that I should raise any objection,” the Princess replied. “No, obviously there is no reason why you should mind,” Kaoru said. “What I am really afraid of is that the Emperor may hear some entirely misleading account of the whole affair. You know how recklessly people exaggerate. However, I don’t know that it much matters; His Majesty will soon see for himself that there is nothing to worry about.”

He was very anxious, too, that the work he was doing in the house in which he intended to settle Ukifune should attract as little attention as possible, and instead of calling in anyone from outside he put the whole business in charge of his own retainer, Nakanobu. He could not have made a more unfortunate choice, for Nakanobu’s daughter, it will be remembered, was married to Niou’s librarian, Michisada. The wife naturally heard all about the work that her father was doing, and it was not long before the whole story got round to Niou. “I understand that no professional painters are being employed,” Michisada said; “the decorations are being carried out entirely by his own people. But several of them have a taste for that kind of thing, and with His Excellency to keep an eye on them I think they are going to make a very nice job of it.” Niou instantly rushed round to a house on the outskirts of the City which he had reason to believe might soon be vacant, for it belonged to his old nurse, whose husband had secured a provincial post and would presumably soon be taking up his duties. “It is not for myself,” he explained, “but for a friend whom I am helping to hide. It is most important for me to find somewhere immediately.” Nurse’s husband did not much like the idea of handing over the house for a purpose of this kind to someone he knew nothing about. But it was obvious that Niou was desperately anxious to secure it, and considering who the request came from he could not very well refuse.

So that was settled! It was a great weight off his mind. He was promised possession on the thirtieth of the month and saw no reason why he should not move her in that very day. He wrote and told her of the plan, cautioning her not to breathe a word about it to anyone. It was useless at present to think of going to Uji. His own engagements at Court made it particularly hard for him to get away, and Ukifune wrote that her old nurse, who had now installed herself there, insisted on knowing everything that was going on and would in any case have been so extremely difficult to evade that a visit was hardly worthwhile.

Kaoru told her that he had now definitely decided on the tenth of the fourth month. So far from feeling “should a wave entice, I would go...”* Ukifune was appalled at the growing urgency of the decision that awaited her. She felt that in order to think the thing over she must get away; it was impossible here at Uji, where it had all happened, to settle anything at all. She asked if she might come to her mother for a little while. Unfortunately, however, Sakon’s wife was going to have a baby, and the place was full of priests and magic-workers. The same reason made a visit to Ishiyama impossible.^† It ended by the mother coming to Uji. She was met at the door by the old nurse, who was in raptures over the stuffs that Kaoru had sent for the gentlewomen’s new dresses. “You’d think they would want to make something pretty, wouldn’t you, after all the trouble His Excellency has taken. Of course it was not for nanny^‡ to say anything, but between you and me I thought when I looked at what they were doing that I’d never seen such a hash made of good stuff in all my life!” Little they suspected—either Nurse or her mother—that at any moment a word, a look might suddenly reveal her to Kaoru as she was. There would soon be an end then to all these cheerful preparations! But only today there had come a letter from Niou asking her whether she could promise definitely to accept the place of retreat he had offered her. “Do not think that I shall let you be lonely,” he said. “It will be quite easy for me to come to you; but were the place ten times as far away, I swear that no power on earth could prevent my getting there, even if it meant that we must live as outcasts for the rest of our lives.” Did he really mean it? If only she could make up her mind!

“I don’t think you are looking at all well,” her mother said. “I have never seen you so thin and pale.” “She’s been like this for days,” Nurse said. “There’s certainly something the matter with her. I can’t get her to eat so much as a scrap.” “You don’t think she’s picked up an evil influence of some kind, do you?” said the mother; “I am afraid it looks rather like that.” “Well, I’ve had my ideas about what it might be,” said Nurse, “but her not being able to go to Ishiyama the other day doesn’t look much like that.”* The girl colored and buried her face in her hands. It was the hour when she had crossed the river with Niou. The moon was shining brightly. It had been just such a night as this. Somehow or other she must prevent herself from crying. That was the last thing that could do any good.

The mother, wishing to hear about old times, sent for Ben no Kimi, who fell to talking about Agemaki’s last days—how terribly she took things to heart, worrying long after there was nothing more that could be done, and how agonizing it had been to stand by helpless while she fretted herself step by step into the grave. “If only she had lived,” Ben went on, “she might be in just the same sort of position today as her sister Kozeri—yes, all their sorrow might have turned to joy.” “And what about my poor girl?” the mother could not help thinking. If things went as she now had every reason to believe they would, Ukifune was well on the way to a position quite as desirable as that of Kozeri. “I have of course been very worried about this girl,” she said. “But it looks as if things would go better now. I am afraid, however, that will mean the end of these quiet talks of ours, for when my daughter has moved into the City I am not likely to be coming here again. Though it would be a great pleasure to hear a little more about those old days.” “Being what I now am,”^† said Ben, “I do not feel fit company for the rest of the world and have seen very little of Ukifune since she has been here. But I am sure that we shall all miss her. However, I am very glad for her sake that she is leaving. One is cut off from everything out here; it’s not at all the place for a young girl. I am sure Kaoru would soon make some better arrangement; he never goes back on his word. Didn’t I tell you to start with that he would never have taken her up as he did if he had not formed a very deep attachment to her? You see now that I knew what I was talking about.” “I must say that so far he has always been kindness itself,” the mother admitted. “Of course one can’t say how things will turn out later on; but I am certainly very grateful to you for bringing them together. Kozeri was very kind to her at one time, too; but there was trouble while she was staying at the Nijo-in and I had to take her away. She has had a very difficult time of it, poor girl.” “I can easily imagine what kind of trouble it was,” said Ben, smiling. “It’s a scandalous state of affairs. They’re finding it difficult to get any decent girl to stay in service there. One of Tayu’s daughters was telling me about it only the other day. ‘He’s a nice enough gentleman,” she said, “in every other way. But this sort of thing is very trying; we find it makes our relations with Madam so difficult.’” “Quite,” said Ukifune to herself, listening from her bed. Who, alas, knew the truth of this better than she? “You don’t say so,” exclaimed the mother. “What a dreadful thing! Kaoru of course is married already. But I do not see why that should make things difficult. It is not as if they were going to be in the same house. Well, we must hope for the best. I turned the matter over in my mind a great many times before venturing to make this decision. I don’t see that I could have done any better for her, and I hope she is grateful. This much I can say, that if after all the trouble I’ve taken things were to go wrong through any fault on her side—I am thinking of what happened at the Nijo-in—though it would break my heart to lose her, I don’t think I could ever bear to see the girl again.”

Ukifune heard every word and her blood ran cold. This decided it. She must do away with herself before the thing got out. But how? The roar of the flooded river was deafening. “Generally speaking I rather like the sound of running water,” the mother remarked, “but a noise like this is a very different matter. I think it’s terribly depressing, and this poor child never able to get away from it for months on end! I can quite understand his not wanting to leave her here a moment longer than is necessary.” Everyone began telling stories about the terrible swiftness of Uji River and the accidents that had happened when it was in flood: “Only the other day the bridge-keeper’s little grandson slipped when he was punting the boat and fell in. They’ve never found the body. You’d be surprised how many people that river makes away with every year.” That was the very thing. Why had she not thought of it before? No one would know what had become of her. Of course her mother and the rest would be terribly upset for a time; but they would soon get over it. Whereas if she let things drift on till he found out—no, she could not face it; that meant unending misery and shame. Whereas this way was so easy; all would be over in a moment. At last the agony of doubt and indecision was over. Her mind worked clearly now; she planned down to the last detail exactly how she would manage it all. It would be over before anyone began to look for her; nothing could possibly go wrong. Yet, it was sad to die...

Her mother continued with maddening persistence to fuss about the arrangements for the move. Presently she returned to the subject of Ukifune’s health. “I think you ought to arrange for a service on her behalf,” she said to Nurse, “and a purification* would not be a bad thing...” Little they knew that the gods had already rejected her offering!^† “I am afraid you won’t have any too many women to take with you,” the mother continued, “for I would rather you did not take any of these new girls unless you are certain that they are thoroughly suitable. I don’t doubt that the Princess herself will take a reasonable view of the matter. But if things turn out to be at all difficult, a few tactless inexperienced girls might cause no end of trouble. So without their knowing it keep an eye on them and notice how they are shaping.” “Well, I must be going,” she said at last. “I don’t like to be away from home too long just now.^‡ Would she then never see her mother again? She longed intensely to spend a few quiet hours with her before they parted and, making her health the excuse, suggested that she should go back with her now. “I feel that it would do me good,” she said, “to be at home for a little while.” “I am afraid it is out of the question at present,” her mother said. “Not only because of your sister. We’ve got all these sewing-women in the house, making things for you to wear in town. It’s all we can do to find room for them. Once you are settled in we shall see plenty of one another. And indeed if you were going to live in “Take-u which is at the land’s end”^§ I should manage somehow to come and see you, as you know very well. I only wish I were in a position to do more for you!” she said sadly as she turned to go. Another letter from Kaoru came today. He heard that Ukifune was unwell and was anxious for further news. “I was hoping to come myself,” he said, “but a lot of unexpected business has turned up at the last moment and I cannot get away. I am afraid you are passing through a very difficult, unsettling sort of time.” There was also a very long and agitated letter from Niou, to whose last note she still had not replied. He told her that she must make up her mind immediately. “This waiting to see which way the wind will blow is becoming impossible to endure.” The same two messengers who had met here the day when it rained so, found themselves once more face to face. Kaoru’s man recognized the other as a fellow he had often seen at Michisada’s house. “What brings you here so often, Liegeman?” he asked. “I have friends of my own here,” the man said. “That’s a very dainty letter you are carrying to these ‘friends of your own.’ But our liegeman* starts and hides his letter! Pray, friend, why such secrecy?” The man saw that he had betrayed himself. “The truth of the matter is,” he said, “this letter is not mine. It is from my lord Tokikata^† to one of the gentlewomen here.” Kaoru’s messenger saw no reason to believe that this story was any truer than its predecessor; but people were listening, and he did not think it wise to pursue the matter any further for the moment. However he was a capable fellow, and when both the messages had been delivered he took aside a page-boy who had accompanied him and told him to follow Niou’s man back to the City. “Keep well out of his sight,” he said. “What I want to know is whether he goes to my lord Tokikata’s house.” “It was not to Tokikata’s that he went,” the boy said when he came afterwards to report. “He went straight to Prince Niou’s and handed a letter to my lord Michisada.” Niou’s messenger had of course behaved with extraordinary indiscretion; but he was only an under-servant who knew nothing about the intrigue at Uji and had not the slightest reason to suppose that he was being watched. On going to deliver the letter that he had brought from Uji, Kaoru’s messenger found his master just leaving the house. The Empress was staying for a while at the New Palace,^‡ and he was going there to pay an informal visit. There were one or two gentlemen with him, but not the usual throng of outriders and attendants. Handing the letter to one of these gentlemen the messenger said, “I noticed something peculiar when I was out there today. I thought it was worthwhile looking into, and it seems I was not far wrong.” Kaoru overheard some of this. “What was worth while looking into?” he asked casually, as he left the house. The gentleman to whom the letter had been handed was standing close by. The man looked at him, and hesitated. “Very well, then,” said Kaoru; “some other time.” He saw that the matter was confidential.

He found the Empress very unwell. All her children were there, and the place was packed with people who had come to condole and enquire. It seemed, however, to be simply one of her usual attacks. As a member of the Imperial Secretariat Michisada had the right to be admitted to the Presence, though his turn did not come till late. Knowing that he should find Niou there, he brought the letter from Uji with him. He was told that his master was in the gentlewomen’s common-room. Niou came to the door to receive it and was standing there hastily breaking the seal when Kaoru passed by on his way back from the Empress’s room. It amused him to see the eagerness with which Niou snatched at the letter, and he halted for a moment in the corridor. Who did it come from? he wondered. Niou had so many charming friends. He could only see that it was written on thin pink paper in a very close hand. From the way Niou’s eyes were glued to the letter it was evident that this was a very serious affair indeed. “I wonder how long it will be before he notices that I am standing here,” Kaoru was thinking, when he saw Yugiri coming down the passage. He coughed, and Niou at last looked up. “The Grand Minister!” Kaoru warned him. But Yugiri was already upon them, arriving just in time to see Niou hastily stuffing the letter into the folds of his dress. He was still fastening his belt when Yugiri came up. “I am going back,” he said, “I don’t think it’s anything fresh; but it is a long time since she had an attack of this kind, and I confess I feel rather alarmed. I think a service ought to be read at the Hieizan. I must get into touch with the abbot,” and he bustled off, taking Niou with him. It was late, the visitors were all leaving. A throng of princes and courtiers followed Niou to Yugiri’s rooms. Kaoru went somewhat later. It occurred to him on the way home that the messenger who had taken his letter to Uji had apparently wanted to say something to him in private. He had better hear what it was. His attendants had stopped to light their torches. Kaoru beckoned to the messenger. “What was it?” he said. “You can tell me safely now.” The man repeated his story. “Tell me quickly,” said Kaoru aghast, “what sort of letter was it, what did it look like?” “Of course I didn’t see it myself,” the messenger said, “it was the page who saw it. But I asked him what sort of letter it was and he said it was on pink paper. ‘Reddish-colored fancy paper, and very good quality’—those were his exact words.” That settled it. The man seemed to have acted very smartly; it was, however, impossible to question him further at the moment, for the other attendants were again within earshot. But what he had heard was enough! How had Niou got into touch with her? How, for that matter, did he know of her existence? It was appalling. He had thought that at any rate out there at Uji, miles from anywhere, a girl would be safe from this sort of thing. “Though, knowing Niou as I do, it was childish of me to suppose so,” he reflected. “But if he is going to roam the country in this way, he might at least have the decency to find somewhere new. After all, it was I who introduced him there to start with. No one could have taken more trouble than I did to make things easy for him then, and this is how he repays me! I think he has behaved abominably.” How different was his own behavior with regard to Kozeri, about whom he had felt so deeply during all these years! And even if he had shown less restraint, his conduct would still have borne no resemblance whatever to that of Niou. He had known Kozeri intimately years before Niou set eyes on her, and if he chose to keep their relationship on its present footing, this was because for certain reasons it would be painful to him that it should assume any other character. Most people would think him a fool to have wasted such an opportunity.

It was difficult to see how Niou managed to conduct such a correspondence at the present moment, with his mother at home* and the whole place packed with visitors from morning to night. It was hardly conceivable that he had actually been there; Niou was not free like other people to come and go as he pleased. True, he managed to conduct an unconscionable quantity of amours—but at places it was possible to slip round to for a few hours and be back before one was missed, which was far from being the case with Uji, as Kaoru had every reason to know! However, come to think of it, Niou did sometimes disappear mysteriously. He had been missing for a whole day only a short while ago. Then there was this fuss about his health. It was not the first time that Kaoru had seen him in such a condition; he had fretted himself into just the same state years ago, when circumstances were making it difficult for him to see Kozeri. Kaoru had wondered too why Ukifune, who knew that she had only a few more weeks to get through at Uji, should be in such particularly low spirits. This of course went a long way towards explaining it. “Naturally the prospect of living at a place where I may turn up at any moment does not much appeal to her,” he thought ruefully.

How little one ever really knew about what was going on in the minds of other people! He had always thought her a singularly gentle and affectionate character, inclined perhaps to lean on him almost too much. And all the while these unpleasant cravings were going on. It was disgusting. She was obviously the sort of woman who could not exist without a lover for a single day. She had in fact the same disagreeable tendencies that were ruining Niou, and they would make an excellent pair. He felt inclined simply to break off all communications and let Niou provide for her, if he wished to. Perhaps he had better think things over before doing anything of that sort. Obviously if she had been the formal mistress of his household he could not possibly have condoned such a fault; but under the circumstances it might be wiser to give her another chance. He would certainly miss her very much if he never saw her; though of course his opinion of her had completely changed.

One thing was certain, if she had really ceased to care for him and decided definitely to throw in her lot with Niou, a terrible disillusionment awaited her. Niou had his way of dealing with such situations. There was nothing he would not do for a woman so long as she continued to attract him. What became of her after she ceased to do so he seldom troubled to enquire. At the most—and Kaoru could recall two or three instances of this kind—he got her taken on in his sister’s household as an ordinary waiting-woman. To watch this process being repeated in Ukifune’s case would be a painful experience. Whatever steps he might ultimately have to take, the first thing to do was to get into touch with her, and find out how things actually stood. He sent for his usual messenger and taking him aside asked whether my lord Michisada was still seeing Nakanobu’s daughter. The man said that so far as he knew he was.

“And you say that he is constantly sending this messenger to Uji? It looks to me,” Kaoru asserted disingenuously, “as though he had heard something from Nakanobu’s daughter about the establishment there, and were trying to get into touch with my lady, not of course knowing her to be in any way connected with me.” “And take care not to be followed,” he added. “I don’t choose to have the whole world know where my letters go to.” The man bowed. That Michisada was receiving constant information about Kaoru’s private affairs and in particular about the situation at Uji was true enough. The messenger, had he thought it his place to do so, could on the subject of this leakage have made some interesting revelations. His expression, indeed, implied as much; but Kaoru, feeling disinclined to take a mere under-servant into his confidence, refrained from questioning him further.

Another letter! Under happier circumstances Ukifune would have felt flattered by this constant stream of correspondence. Now it only served to harass and bewilder her. This one, however, was at any rate very short. It consisted simply of the verse: “Sooner, I had thought, would the sea rise up and cover the tree-tops of the hill.” In the margin were the words: “At all costs avoid scandal!” The shock staggered her. She fought for breath. To answer was impossible. Who had told him? How much did he know? To show that she understood the allusion* would seem an admission of her guilt; to avoid referring to it would seem equally suspicious. “I return this,” she wrote, “as it was apparently brought to me by mistake. I do not feel well enough to write more...” Kaoru, when the letter came back to him, could not help admiring the clever way in which she had extricated herself. He would never have credited her with such adroitness. It was irritating, of course, to be scored off in this pert manner; but somehow he found himself more amused than angry. She meanwhile was not feeling by any means so elated as he supposed. All this was no use. What purpose could such an answer serve? It would only force him to state more crudely what he had already hinted at with sufficient plainness. It was enough that he knew; life under such circumstances was inconceivable... Ukon came bustling in: “Why couldn’t you use fresh paper? Don’t you know that it’s very unlucky to send people’s letters back to them?” she asked indignantly. “I could not make head or tail of it,” Ukifune murmured, “I think it must have been brought here by mistake.” As a matter of fact Ukon, though she knew she ought not to have done so, had opened the letter before returning it to the messenger, for it struck her as very odd that it should be sent back. “I think things are going to be rather difficult for you and your Prince,” she said, “now that His Excellency is on your tracks.” The blood rushed to Ukifune’s cheeks. “Who told you?” she was on the verge of asking, for she did not know that Ukon had seen the letter and supposed that the girl was repeating some rumor that was already afoot. But she could not bring herself to discuss the matter. It was intolerable that all these people should be busying themselves with her affairs. They of course would never understand, would judge her as though the thing were of her own doing, which was not so. It happened of itself, happened because it must. All through her life it had been the same... She sank back wearily and was falling asleep, when Jiju came in. “Do you know,” Ukon said to her, “this all reminds me terribly of something that happened in Hitachi—to people of a very different rank, of course; but otherwise it was just the same. My own sister—the elder one—was going with two men. They were both madly in love with her, and she did not know which to choose. But she found that on the whole she cared more for the new one and the other, seeing this, murdered him out of jealousy. As far as my sister was concerned, she had lost both of them at a stroke; for the one that was left never came near her again. It meant a serious loss to the province. The dead man was a strong young fellow—just the sort to make a good soldier, and the other was one of the Governor’s best men. But after what had happened it was impossible to go on employing him. And, to crown all, my sister too was turned adrift; for the Governor said that in the long run it was always the woman’s fault when such things happened, and would not have her in his service. The result was that when they all came back to the City* she was left behind. I don’t suppose we shall ever see her again. Your nanny,^† Madam, still cries whenever my sister’s name is mentioned. It’s a terrible judgment on us all. You’ll think it’s a bad moment to talk of such a thing. But it’s as well to remember that when it comes to tangles of this sort it makes no difference whether it’s peasants in Hitachi or grand folk here—the risk is the same. Not that anyone’s life is in danger now. That kind of thing does not happen to people in this rank of society. But there’s their pride to be reckoned with, and things can happen which ordinary folk soon get over, but which to them are worse than death. So be quick, my lady, and make up your mind. If after all you like the Prince better than His Excellency and think he is really in earnest, tell them so. There’s nothing terrible in that. You’ll do no good anyhow by lying there fretting yourself into a decline. I can’t help thinking it’s a great mistake for your mother to make all this fuss and Nanny to rush things on the way she’s doing, when everything is still so uncertain. Who knows where you’ll be by the time His Excellency is ready? Other plans, I understand, are being made for you,* and are going along faster too.” “How can you talk like that in front of her?” said Jiju. “You’ll only frighten her. Listen, Madam. Don’t worry about other people. Just look into your own heart. You’ll know soon enough then which way to decide. If it’s to be the Prince, no one will think the worse of you. We all know it’s no use trying to force oneself, when it comes to things like that. ‘It’s as Fate wills,’ that’s what I always say. With the Prince—I hope you don’t mind my speaking of it—caring for you so deeply as I can see he does, you would be making a great mistake if you let them bustle you over this move. If I were you, I wouldn’t see His Excellency at all till you have thought the whole thing out quietly and made up your mind.” The advice was not unbiased; for Jiju herself had a great partiality for Niou.

“Well, I’m sure I hope it will all turn out for the best,” said Ukon, “I’m having prayers said for you at both Hatsuse and Ishiyama. I don’t see what more I can do. I’m afraid, though, there may be trouble very soon. The men on His Excellency’s farms round here have a way of picking quarrels, and Uji nowadays is packed with them. This man they call Udoneri, who has been put in charge here, has a lot of power. Most of the tenants on His Excellency’s estates in Yamashiro and Yamato are connected with him in one way or another. That Tayu, for example— the officer who is in charge of this house—is Udoneri’s son-in-law. Of course, as I said before, one knows that as between gentlemen like the Prince and Lord Kaoru, whatever else may happen, there’s no fear of it coming to blows. But with these men it’s different. After all, they’re only rough country fellows. They take turns to go on duty here, and each band is responsible for what happens during its watch. If the least thing goes wrong it’s they who get into trouble, and it’s not to be wondered at that they sometimes go too far. I don’t mind telling you now what a fright I was in the whole time that night he took her on the river. He hadn’t a soul with him. That of course was so as not to attract attention. But then if they’d caught him—alone like that and dressed as he was—what would they have taken him for? No, it doesn’t bear thinking about.”

These people, Ukifune thought, for some reason all took it for granted that she had in reality made up her mind long ago in favor of Niou. It was not true. Indeed, looking back on the hours she had spent with him she could not feel that they belonged to her real waking life at all. His excitement, his passionate embraces—why should someone like Niou have such feelings about her? No, it all seemed utterly unreal. It was not the thought of him that was worrying her, let her women suppose what they pleased. It was the knowledge that she had lost her helper, her one true friend, who had stood by her all this while. Well, they were right. Death was going to close the story, though not as it had closed the one Ukon told. “Ukon, dear Ukon,” she said, “I want so much to die. I am terribly unhappy; indeed I cannot think that even among the poorest and most down-trodden in the land there can often have been so wretched a life as mine.” “Come, you mustn’t say such things as that. I see I ought not to have talked as I did; I hoped it would help you to make up your mind. But I don’t know what has come over you in these days. You always used to take everything so quietly, one could hardly tell whether you minded or not; and often it would have been natural enough that you should mind. But since this business started you seem to take every little thing to heart.”

So much for those who were in the secret. To the old nurse it still seemed that everything was going splendidly and she was in high spirits. She had gathered round her the more likely-looking of the new girls and they were helping her dye stuffs. “They’re such dear little things. Won’t you have some of them in to play with you?” she said to Ukifune. “I don’t like to see you lying there like that all day. It won’t do for you to get an illness just when we’re due to start for the City.” Days passed; from Kaoru himself nothing more was heard, but one morning Udoneri, the head bailiff of whose importance Ukon had spoken with bated breath, suddenly presented himself, saying that he wished to see one of the ladies. He was an old man with a husky voice and manners that made no pretension to refinement, but with an air of authority that contrasted strangely with his coarse, undistinguished appearance. Ukon was fetched. “I have come straight here after being with His Excellency,” Udoneri said. “I got a message saying he wished to see me and went there this morning. Among other things, he talked about the arrangements for looking after this house at night. He said he thought that my people were attending to that; otherwise he would have sent special night-watchmen from the City. Someone, it appears, has told him that strangers have been getting into the house at night and carrying on with the women here. ‘If that’s so,’ he said, ‘your people must have let them through. They’re supposed to challenge everyone that comes. How do you explain it?’ I knew nothing about it whatever. ‘My health has been very bad for some time past,’ I said,* ‘and I have not been able to go on duty at night. But I chose reliable men and gave them very strict orders. If anything out of the way had happened, they would certainly have reported it.’ He said I must have the place guarded much more strictly and made it clear that if such a thing happened again the watchmen concerned would get into very serious trouble. I don’t know what it’s all about, I’m sure. But those are his orders, and they must be obeyed.”

Ukon made no reply. This was sinister^† news indeed. “What do you make of that?” she said to Ukifune. “I wasn’t far wrong, was I, when I told you that His Excellency was on your tracks. And then your not having heard from him all this while... It’s a bad business.” Nurse had overheard something about Udoneri’s visit. “I’m very glad of it indeed,” she said. “There have been a lot of burglaries round here lately. These watchmen were all right to start with. But now they have taken to going to bed themselves and sending other people to do it for them—mere riff-raff who don’t know how to manage night-rounds at all.” “Ukon is quite right,” Ukifune thought; “something terrible^‡ may happen here at any minute. I must not delay.” To her consternation there arrived at this very moment a letter from Niou expressing the most passionate desire to see her. There was only one way to save the situation. Many lives,^§ she felt, were now at stake, and if she sacrificed her own she would only be doing what other women under such circumstances had done before her, and by the same means that she proposed to use.^¶ If she lived, inevitable disaster awaited her; if she died who, in the long run, would care? Her mother of course would be upset for a time; but she had her other children to look after and would soon manage to console herself. “It would be far worse for her,” Ukifune thought, “after all that she has hoped and planned, to see me drag out a pitiable existence, homeless, ruined, and despised.”

No one seeing this gentle, frail-looking creature would have supposed her capable of framing, still less of carrying out such a plan. But in her early days she had not led the quiet and sheltered life that falls to the lot of most girls. Hitachi is a wild place; she had seen and heard much, and her childhood there had given her a degree of courage and independence that would otherwise have been surprising.

She went through her papers and tore up everything that was incriminating, burning the fragments at the lamp piece by piece, or throwing them into the river. This did not strike most of her women as in any way remarkable. She was soon going to move house, and it seemed quite natural that she should want to get rid of all the odd scraps—writing-exercises, rough drafts, and the like—that had accumulated since she was there. But Jiju recognized some of the papers she was destroying and protested violently: “I don’t like to see you doing that,” she said. “Of course one doesn’t want everyone to see letters of that sort, full of all one’s innermost feelings. The thing to do with them is to put them at the bottom of a box and have a look at them when you’re feeling inclined. It will give you a lot of pleasure in days to come. Look what handsome paper they’re written on—let alone all the lovely things he says. I can’t think how you have the heart to destroy them, I can’t indeed.” “Why must you be so tiresome? Surely I can do as I please? Supposing anything were to happen to me—and I have a feeling that I shall not live very long—it would be very unpleasant for him* if these letters were found... And in any case, whether I am alive or not, Kaoru might hear that they existed, and I should not like him to think that I had gone out of my way to keep them.”

She looked forward calmly to her fate. Only one circumstance troubled her. She had sometimes been told—though apparently on no very good authority—that to have left a parent behind was a great handicap in the world-to-come.^†

The proprietor of the house that Niou had taken was to leave for his province on the twenty-eighth of the third month. Already the twentieth had passed. He wrote to Ukifune telling her that he would fetch her on the night of the twenty-eighth: “No one but Ukon and Jiju must know; I of course shall not dream of breathing a word to anybody. Do not mistrust me.” Probably he would be turned back before he reached the house at all, driven away—by her, he would think—without so much as a word of explanation or farewell. And even if by any chance he managed to elude the guard, what point was there in his coming to the house? There was not the slightest chance, as things were now,^‡ of getting him safely to her rooms. She could not bear to think of him protesting, entreating, and at last turning sadly away... It had begun again! His image, that she had tried so hard to banish, once more rose up before her and would not go away. She loved him, loved him passionately. What use was there in denying it? And taking his letter she pressed it against her cheek, struggling in vain to check her tears. “Now, now, my own dear lady, there are people about; you mustn’t do things like that. Already they’re beginning to wonder what’s making you carry on as you do. If you sat up and answered it properly, it’s my opinion you’d be better employed. I know what it is; you’re worrying about how he’s to get you away. Don’t you think about it any more. I’ll see to all that. It would be strange indeed if we couldn’t smuggle you out somehow—a little slip of a thing like you!” “Stop, stop! I can’t bear it,” Ukifune managed to say through her tears. “I’ve never for a single moment had any intention of letting him take me away. The whole thing is mere madness. If only he would stop writing about it—always as though I had consented, when I have never done anything of the kind! I’m terrified about it. One feels one simply does not know what wild thing he may not be meaning to do.”

Niou was very much disappointed. He had felt from the start that she was not really in favor of the plan, and now that he put it before her in a definite form, she did not even reply. Probably Kaoru was on the spot again and it was not surprising that, faced with the necessity of deciding one way or the other, she should have gone over to his side, which he saw was from her point of view much the easier and safer thing to do. That she was, or at any rate had been, very much attached to him he felt sure, but no doubt during the long intervals between his visits to Uji such of her people as were in the secret did everything in their power to prejudice her against him. There was nothing to be done. He tried indeed to dismiss the whole thing from his mind. But this was impossible. He must at least know what was happening. He could not drift on in this distracted, unsettled state, unable to fix his thoughts on anything he was doing. Somehow or other, risky though it always was, he must manage to get away.

He was just about to climb through the hedge at the usual place when a chorus of rough voices challenged him. He hastily retired, and scribbling a note gave it to a servant who had constantly delivered his messages at Uji. The watchmen knew the man quite well, but to his surprise absolutely refused to let him pass. He was explaining that it was an urgent message from my lady’s mother in the City when he caught sight of a woman who worked for Ukon, and knowing her name he was able to call her to the hedge. “Dear, dear, this will never do,” Ukon said to herself when she read Niou’s note. “Forgive me for sending you away,” she wrote, “but what can I do? Tonight is absolutely out of the question.” What was the meaning of all this? Why were they keeping her from him? Niou asked himself in desperation. As a last resort there still remained Jiju. “Can’t you get at her somehow,” he said to Tokikata, “and see if she can do anything?” Tokikata was not the man to be baffled by circumstances such as these. By a cunning ruse he got past the guard and managed to get Jiju sent out to where he was waiting. “I don’t see that there’s anything I can do,” she said. “The watchmen say they have orders at present to challenge everyone who comes—apparently it’s His Excellency himself who has given these instructions—and there isn’t a chance of his getting in.* I am sure that’s what my poor lady is worrying about so. She can’t bear to think of his coming all the way out here and then being sent away. She’s making herself quite ill, she frets so about it. But tonight the guard are on the alert; they’ve turned him back once, and if they catch him trying to get in again, I’m afraid they may use violence on him. The night he comes to fetch her away, Ukon and I will arrange between us to get her out to him somehow. We’ll let him know about that later on.” She also explained to him the difficulties they had with Nurse and other busybodies in the household. “I’ve never seen him so worked up about anything as he was about coming here today. It seems dreadful just to go back and say it’s no good. Look here! It would be a great help if you’d come and help me to explain.” “I don’t like to,” she said, “it’s not me he wants to see.” But he succeeded in persuading her. It was now getting very late. Niou, who was again on horseback, had retired to some distance from the house. His attendants were not much enjoying their task. The party was approached time after time by packs of village dogs, who to judge by their barking were anything but well disposed. Moreover, they were very few in number and knew that if robbers or other undesirable characters were suddenly to appear on the scene they would have great difficulty in defending themselves.

“Faster, faster!” cried Tokikata, hurrying Jiju on. She had very long hair and finding that it hampered her had twisted it across her arms. A nice-looking girl, he thought. He had tried to put her on his horse, but to this she would not consent, so there was nothing for it but to catch hold of her by the skirt and drag her along. Finding that she was barefoot he gave her his shoes and borrowed others for himself—the oddest he had ever worn—from a country fellow who was with him. “I think Your Highness will have to dismount,” Tokikata said. They were close to a farmhouse that was surrounded by a hedge. He noticed a place that was protected by a tall clump of goose-grass, and spreading a splash-cloth there he invited Niou to sit down. “You’ll be able to talk more comfortably like that,” Tokikata told him. But there was not much to say. It was a terrible blow. Must he return empty-handed? Already the reputation that he had gained owing to adventures of this kind was such as to mar his prospects in every other direction. He felt as though the ground had been taken from under his feet. For Jiju, admiring him as she did, it was terrible to witness the tears of humiliation and disappointment which, as the result of her tidings, were now coursing down his checks. She felt indeed that had he been, as the saying goes, “the ghost of her worst enemy” instead of the sweet prince he was, her one desire would have been to help him. “Mayn’t I then even exchange one word with her?” he said, managing to control himself at last. “Why has all this business about the watchmen suddenly started? It never used to be so. But I know well enough what it is. One or the other of you has been telling tales.” “No, indeed,” she said, and told him about Udoneri’s visit and the fresh instructions to the guard. “When you come to fetch my lady,” she said, “be sure to let me know in good time. We’ll manage to get her to you somehow. I’m sure for my part I’d rather die than let you go home like this again.”

That was all very well; but how about today? He felt outraged, but though there was a great deal more he would have liked to say he saw that the night was nearly over; he must start instantly if he was to escape unseen. The dogs were still howling despite all the efforts of his people to drive them away. This commotion, heard from afar, had evidently alarmed the watchmen and the twangings of their bows, accompanied by raucous cries of “Danger, danger! ” added to the general feeling of strain and suspense that pervaded the night. The noise, the continual flurries and agitations were intolerable; his one longing now was to escape from it all. Yet as he rose to his feet, a terrible sense of foreboding suddenly came upon him, rooting him to the spot where he stood. Why ever return, why leave these cloud-capped hills? Nothing in his life down there in the City was worth going back for. “My hour of shame has come,” he wrote. “What dwelling need I now but what the fold of yonder hill supplies to those that shun the world?” “You’d better get back as fast as you can,” he said to Jiju, handing her the poem. The damp night air had brought out the perfume of the strange scent that he always wore. Her sweet, her handsome prince! She could not bear to leave him, and wept bitterly all the way to the house.

Ukifune had already received from Ukon the agitating news that they had been obliged to send Niou away, and now came Jiju with her melancholy story. She heard it in silence, not trusting herself to speak, lest her tears should again begin to flow. Already her pillow was soaked, and she knew that both Jiju and Ukon would interpret these tears in the way she least desired. Moreover her eyes were growing red with weeping, and this when the time for action came might attract inconvenient attention. She lay with her eyes shut as long as she could, and then, slipping on her belt and putting herself a little to rights, sat up and read the Scriptures, praying that if it was indeed a sin to die before her mother, the Lord Buddha might have mercy upon her.

She remembered that she had not thrown away his drawings. The one of himself and her was extraordinarily good. It made her almost feel as though that wonderful day had come back and they were still sitting together. It was terrible to think of his going back tonight without a word from her. Her memories of Kaoru were of a very different nature, just as his love for her was of quite another sort. It was strange indeed to contrast his calm, steady affection with Niou’s passionate outbursts and exaltations. But again and again Kaoru had told her that she could count on him implicitly till her dying day; and she believed that it was true. He would miss her, she was sure of that; and, what was worse, it was by no means certain that even after her death some malicious person would not tell him of her infidelity. But better that than live with the knowledge that her name had become to him a byword for fickleness and treachery. “All these my miseries one act can end. Would that I thought the waves of death could cover the slur that blots my name!” She folded the poem and slipped it under her ink-slab.

There were so many people whom she would like to have seen just once again. Her mother, of course; but everyone at home, even the ugly little brothers and sisters in whom she took, as a rule, no interest at all.

And Kozeri!

Here everyone was busy; not a corner of the house but someone was sewing, cutting out, or dyeing stuffs. She tried to shut herself off from the bustle and noise. When night came she soon gave up trying to sleep and instead occupied herself by once more rehearsing her plan. She had it all by heart, just how she would get clear of the house without being seen, which way she would take down to the water. It was indeed so long since she had slept at all that she felt sick and giddy. At dawn she rose and looked out towards the river. It was a matter of moments now; she felt “like a sheep dragged to the slaughter.”*

A letter from Niou was brought in, written after his return. It was full of the bitterest upbraidings and reproaches. To answer them was impossible. “Chide me no more, for from the world I vanish, body and soul together, lest you should say that to another was given what is yours.” That was all she wrote. She felt that it was wrong not to let Kaoru know of her resolution—would like at least to have wished him good-bye. But she knew that he saw Niou constantly. If she wrote such a letter to Kaoru he would think that Niou ought to see it. They would discuss it together. She could not bear the idea. It was better simply to disappear without telling anyone what had become of her.

Another messenger arrived, this time with a letter from her mother. “I had a terrifying dream about you last night,” she said, “and at once had prayers for your safety read at several temples. I had a very disturbed night in consequence and was obliged to rest during the morning. Again I had a dream about you in which I saw you—but it is too terrible to mention. I sat down to write this letter the moment I woke. I entreat you to be on your guard. There is a certain person,* a connection of someone whom I need not name, whose thoughts I know are harming you. There is nothing else that these dreams could mean, coming as they do at a time when you are suffering from an illness which no one can explain. I would come myself; but Sakon’s wife is still causing us all great anxiety, and if I were to leave her for so long, the Governor would never forgive me. I want you to have prayers read at the temple near by.” She enclosed a letter of instruction to the priests, and suitable offerings.

Little they mattered to her now, could her mother but know—these baleful visions and forewarnings! While the messenger was going to the temple, she sat down to answer the letter. There was much that she would have liked to say. But no, silence was best.

“Not here, but in a place by the world’s dreams and omens undefiled, doubt not that we shall meet!”

The service had begun. Listening intently she could hear where she lay, now soft, now loud, as the wind rose and died, the tolling of the temple-bell. Presently the man came back, bringing with him the kwanju,^† upon the margin of which she wrote: “Be this your message, that with the last dim echoes of the tolling bell my sorrow reached its close.” “It’s too late for me to go back now,” the man said, and keeping the kwanju she tied it to a spray of green leaves. “Something is going to happen, I know that,” said Nurse, coming in. “You should hear the way my heart’s beating! And then these bad dreams your mother has had...” And she bustled off to see to it that the night-watchmen were all at their posts.^‡

“Aren’t you going to have any supper at all?” she asked presently. “Here’s some nice broth, or if you don’t fancy it... she went on suggesting one thing after another, till it was hard indeed to keep patience with her. Yet fussy and tactless though Nurse was, Ukifune could not help feeling sorry for her. “How will she exist when I am gone?” she asked herself. For it was hard to suppose that anyone would give employment to this hideous, toothless old creature. “Would it not,” she wondered, “be kinder to prepare her—give her at least some sort of hint that I am not likely to live very long?” But she felt herself beginning to cry again before she had time to speak. Ukon now came in to sit with her for a little. “When a person goes on tormenting herself as you are doing, we all know what happens: the soul gets loose from the body and goes wandering about by itself. That’s why your mother has been having these bad dreams. There’s nothing to worry about. Just make up your mind one way or the other, and it will be all right. At least I hope so,” she said with a sigh.

Ukifune lay with the soft bed-clothes pressed tight against her face.

Footnotes

* In allusion to the poem: “If it were true that you loved me you would come, unless the gods themselves prevented it,” i.e. you would not let yourself be stopped by men.

† He had first gone there to study Buddhism with Prince Hachi.

‡ To marry Kaoru.

* With loose ends left sticking out.

* The letter was, of course, from Ukifune.

† From Ukon to Tayu.

‡ To convey the good wishes of the season.

§ Sticks used on the first Day of the Hare in the year, in the ritual of expelling demons.

¶ That it was the girl he had found in the western wing.

* Pun on mata, “fork,” and mada, “not yet.”

† A place of retreat for those who wished to enter into long periods of religious trance.

* The under-servant.

† Yugiri.

* Kaoru.

† Of the second month.

‡ Niou.

* The carnage in which Ukifune’s mother was coming to fetch her.

* Such as meeting bandits or the like.

* One of Niou’s attendants.

† Literally the karma of their previous incarnations.

* A taboo.

† To go to the City and say that Niou was at a mountain temple.

* A dream warning her against seeing her near relations.

* Who still thought that the visitor was Kaoru and that he had been kept in ignorance of the intended pilgrimage.

† Which on ritual grounds rendered the pilgrimage impossible.

‡ Daughter of Yugiri. She was Niou’s other consort.

* I.e. love is even more uncertain.

† Yugiri.

* The Empress, Yugiri, etc.

† I.e. that I were a person of sufficient importance for you to accept openly.

‡ Ukifune.

* Go off with Kaoru.

† Roku no Kimi’s supporters.

‡ Kaoru.

§ Literally: “Your relationship is decreed by previous karma ”; but the phrase, like the English equivalent I have used, had outworn its theological implications.

¶ I take the whole emphasis of the sentence to be on suzuro-naru hito, but this is not the common interpretation.

* Evidently Niou had written to the Empress giving the excuse that he was ill.

* A black bonnet, the crown of which folded back over the side.

† On behalf of his own health.

* See Part V, p. 779.

† Allotted to him in the Emperor’s Palace.

* A reference to the old poem: “Tonight too, her cloak half-spread upon her mat, will she be waiting for me, the Maiden of Uji Bridge?”

† In selecting a husband for the Second Princess.

‡ A reference to Kaoru’s Buddhist studies, etc.

* Deferential verb-endings, etc.

† Tokikata.

‡ An untranslatable poem, depending for its point on the two senses of madou (1) to lose one’s way, (2) to be madly in love.

§ Calligraphy.

¶ “….so impatient was I to see you that I came across the mountains on foot.” Cf. Manyoshu 2425 (Book XI). But there are several versions of the poem.

** To be “in the air” means to “fall between two stools.”

* Niou’s unmarried sister.

* “When I cannot see you I feel like one of the silkworms that my mother breeds—shut up in their cocoons.” By Hitomaro. Shuishu 895.

* The usual play on Uji and ushi, “wretched.”

† “So smooth the boat glides that should it be merged with the waves no speck of foam would mark the spot where we rowed,” Shinchokushu 941.

* In allusion to Komachi’s famous poem. See my Noh Plays of Japan, p. 85.

† Contact with a pregnant woman made it impossible for her to enter a temple.

‡ She refers to herself thus in the third person as mamma (“nanny”).

* It has occurred to the nurse that Ukifune may be with child; but the fact that the onset of her period prevented her from going to Ishiyama seems to dispose of this theory.

† A nun.

* In a sacred river.

† Cf. Part V, p. 947. Ukifune means that she has struggled in vain to free herself from the toils of love.

‡ Just before her younger daughter’s confinement.

§ Reference to an old song: “Blow wind, kind wind and tell my mother that to Take-u they have carried me, to the Governor’s house in Take-u which is at the land’s end.” Take-u was in the province of Echizen.

* He uses, ironically, a rather antiquated expression.

† Niou’s retainer.

‡ The Empress’s sato (private residence) as opposed to the Emperor’s Palace, which was her official residence. She inherited it from Genji. Part of it was occupied by Yugiri.

* I.e. at the New Palace.

* Kaoru’s poem which is in reality even vaguer than in my version, would be unintelligible to anyone who did not recognize it as an allusion to Kokinshu, No. 1093.

* When the Governor had completed his term of office.

† Ukon’s mother.

* The house hired by Niou would be at their disposal on the 28th of the third month. Kaoru’s on the tenth of the fourth month.

* Literally, “caused to be said,” which indicates that Udoneri was not actually admitted to Kaoru’s presence.

† Literally, “worse than an owl-hoot,” the owl being the bird of evil omen.

‡ To Niou, if he tries to visit her.

§ In particular, those of Niou’s and Kaoru’s attendants.

¶ Had drowned themselves. There are many such stories in early Japanese literature. See Manyoshu, xvi. I.

* Niou.

† The idea being that earthly ties impede the upward progress of the soul.

‡ With Nurse always on the spot, and so on.

* Niou was masked and disguised, so that they would at once have suspected him; if he had thrown off his disguise, they would at once have seen that he was someone out of the ordinary, and perhaps even recognized him.

* A stock phrase drawn from Buddhism, not from the daily life of Japan, in which sheep have played a very small part.

* Kaoru’s wife, the Second Princess. It was a fixed idea of the mother’s that this lady’s hostility constituted the one menace to Ukifune’s happiness.

† A statement rendered by a temple showing the exact “number of chapters” (kwanju) that had been recited.

‡ The nurse is still worrying about burglars.