Niou had not for a moment forgotten the dim evening light in which he had seen the girl. She would not appear to have been of the highest rank, and yet her clean grace left him deeply dissatisfied (for he was very susceptible) that he had not had his way. He managed to work up considerable resentment at Nakanokimi.

“I would not have expected it of you,” he said, so frequently that she began to wonder whether she ought not to tell him the whole story.

But no. The girl had attracted the notice of someone who — though he did not, it seemed, mean to make her his principal wife — was so taken with her that he had hidden her away. It was not for Nakanokimi to reveal secrets. Besides, Niou could not be expected to sit idly by once he had learned the truth. Let him embark upon some fleeting dalliance with one of the women around him, and temptation would promptly lead him off to places where a prince ought not to go. The case of the girl who had been so on his mind over the days and weeks was almost certain to be troublesome. Nakanokimi could do nothing, of course, if he were to learn the facts from someone else. It would be sad for both Kaoru and Ukifune, but he would not be held back by the most persuasive arguments. And the effect upon Nakanokimi herself would be far more painful than the effect of all his other intrigues combined. Well, she would in any case make sure that she herself was guilty of no carelessness. This sulking was not easy to live with, but she would say nothing. Incapable of clever fabrication, she kept her peace and let him think her just another jealous woman.

Kaoru’s self-control, meanwhile, approached the unbelievable. The girl would be expecting him, he knew, but a man in his position had to have good excuses for such a journey. The road was more forbidding than if it had been proscribed by the gods. He would in the end do his duty by her. She would be his companion in that mountain village. He would invent some pretext for spending a few quiet days with her, but for the time being she must remain out of sight. When she was somewhat more settled and composed, he would arrange an acceptable sort of liaison, one that would not damage his good name. He did not want people to be asking what this sudden development meant, and who the girl might be, and when it had all begun; his aim in visiting Uji was certainly not to attract attention. And on the other hand he would not wish Nakanokimi to think that he had turned his back on a place so rich in memories and left the past behind. With his usual care and deliberation, he turned the arguments over in his mind.

Not that he was wholly inactive: he had commenced work on the house to which he would presently bring the girl. He was a busy man, but he continued to visit Nakanokimi regularly. Though some of her women thought it all rather odd, Nakanokimi herself, more familiar now with the ways of the world, was much moved. Here was a man who did not forget, whose affections did not wear thin with the passage of time. The years seemed to improve him, even as the hopes the world had for him rose. Seeing, by contrast, how deplorably capricious and unreliable her husband was, she could only sigh at the strange, sad fate that seemed to be hers. Oigimi’s plans for her had come to nothing, and she had found herself married to a man whose chief contribution to her life was gloomy foreboding.

Yet it was difficult to receive Kaoru with the warmth she really felt. The Uji years were receding into the distance. People of the lower classes might presume upon such a relationship, muttered some of her women, unfamiliar with happenings at Uji, but it certainly was most irregular for grandchildren of emperors. In the natural course of events, then, she began to seem more distant, even though her feelings for him were as they had always been. Niou might upset her from time to time with his erratic ways, but the little prince was growing up, more of a delight each day. Thinking it unlikely that another lady would favor him with so pretty a child, he lavished great affection upon her, affection, indeed, such as the lady at Rokujō did not enjoy. In spite of everything, Nakanokimi was feeling more sure of herself.

At about noon one day early in the New Year, when Niou was playing with the child, now in its second year, a little girl came bounding in and handed the princess a rather fat letter in a fine, cream-colored envelope. With it were a small “whiskered basket” attached to an artificial seedling pine, and a second letter, more formally folded.

“And where might they be from?” asked Niou.

“The man said from Uji, for Madame Tayū. I didn’t know what to do with them, and I thought my lady might like to see them. She always does.” The girl was confused. “Just look at this basket, will you. Metal, and it’s colored all over. And look at this pine. Look at the branches. You might think it was real.”

She smiled, and Niou smiled back. “Yes, do let me have a look at it.”

“Take them to Tayū immediately.” Nakanokimi flushed. She did not want him to read the letters.

Would they be from Kaoru? They did look like women’s letters, but he could easily have disguised them, and Uji would have been an apt choice for their source. He took one of them up. But he too was confused. He hoped that his suspicions would not prove correct.

“I’m going to open it. Will you be angry with me?”

“It’s not good manners to look at private notes between women.” Nakanokimi managed to seem unconcerned.

“You really must let me see them. What might it be like, I wonder, a letter from one woman to another?”

“I have been very remiss about writing, and here we are, going into the New Year. Our gloomy mountains offer no break in the winter mists.” The hand was that of a very young woman.” These are cheap trinkets, but give them to the little prince, if you will.”

There was nothing remarkable about the letter. But he was curious to know who the writer might be. He took up the other. It too was, as she had said, in a woman’s hand.

“And how will our lady be, now that the New Year has come? I have no doubt that you yourself have a long list of blessings to count over. This is a beautiful house and we are well taken care of, and yet it seems a pity that the young lady should be shut away in the mountains. I have been telling her that she must stop brooding, that she must pick herself up and visit you from time to time; but she refuses because of that awful thing and goes on brooding. She is sending streamers to decorate the little prince’s room. Please show them to him when his father is away.”

It was not a very pleasing letter. It was wordy and complaining and not at all in keeping with the happy season. Puzzled, he read it again.

“You must tell me everything. Who is it from?”

“I am told that the daughter of a woman who was in service with us at Uji has been obliged to go back there.”

But it did not seem the hand of an ordinary maidservant, and the mention of “that awful thing” was a valuable hint. The streamers were charming, obviously the work of someone with a great deal of spare time, perhaps, indeed, too much. A branch at a fork in the pine had been strung with artificial red berries, and a poem attached to it:

“Our seedling pine has not known many years.

I see for it, withal, a pine’s long life.”

It was not a particularly distinguished poem. Yet he continued to read it over, sensing that it would be from a lady who had been much on his mind.

“Send off an answer. You must not be rude, and I see no need for secrecy.” He turned to go. “I have no choice but to leave you when you are in one of your moods.”

The princess summoned her women. “A great pity,” she said softly. “You had to let them fall into the hands of an infant, did you?”

“You surely don’t think we wanted it that way! No, that child is cheeky and forward and not as bright as she might be. It doesn’t take long to sort out the ones with possibilities. The quiet ones are the ones to watch.”

“Oh, don’t be angry with her,” said Nakanokimi. “She’s so young.”

The child had been put into Nakanokimi’s service the winter before. She was a pretty little thing and Niou was fond of her.

All very strange, thought Niou, back in his own rooms. Having had reports that Kaoru continued to visit Uji, and a further report that he occasionally spent the night there, he had smiled and said to himself that his friend had strange ways, even granting the associations that Uji had for him. So a lady was hidden there!

Niou remembered a certain official, a privy secretary, who had been of service to him in scholarly matters and who had close friends among Niou’s retainers. He asked the man to bring anthologies for a game of rhyme guessing.

“Just leave them in the cabinet over there, if you will. By the way: they tell me that the general is still making trips to Uji. His monastery must be very splendid — I only wish I could go have a look at it.”

“Very splendid indeed, I understand, very dignified. Especially the Chapel of the Holy Name, people tell me. I understand that he has been going more often since last fall, and his men have been spreading rumors about a lady there, someone he does not find at all unattractive, I’m sure. He’s told the people at his manor to do everything they can for her, and they post guards every night, and then he keeps sending out secret supply wagons from town. A very lucky lady — but she must be lonely and bored off there in the mountains. That’s what they say, or were saying along towards the end of last year.”

What a delightful piece of intelligence!” They haven’t said who she might be? I’ve heard that he visits a nun who’s lived there for a very long time.”

“The nun lives in a gallery. The lady herself is in the main hall, the new one. She gets by comfortably, I believe, with acceptable enough women to wait on her.”

“Very, very interesting. What plans might he have for her? And what sort of woman is she? He has his ways, you know, not at all like yours and mine. I hear that his good brother is always after him for overdoing the religious thing and spending his nights off in mountain temples. And people say that he could find plenty of other places to be religious in if he had to, and needn’t go sneaking off to Uji. It has to be because of the late princess, people say. So here we are. Interesting, do you not think? The saint who is so much better than the rest of us does have his little secrets.”

It was very interesting. The secretary was the son-in-law of Kaoru’s steward and so was apprised of very intimate matters. Niou wondered how to go about learning for certain whether it was the girl he had seen at Nijō. She must in any case be unusual if she had caught Kaoru’s eye. And why should she be close to Nakanokimi? It so irritated him that he could think of nothing else, the quite evident fact that Kaoru and Nakanokimi had spirited the girl away.

The archery meet and the literary banquet were over and there were no great demands on his time. The provincial appointments that created such a stir on certain levels were no concern of his. He could think only of slipping off to Uji. The secretary from whom he had learned Kaoru’s secret had certain ambitions, and was adept at currying favor. Niou did nothing to discourage him.

“Suppose I were to ask something really difficult of you,” he said one day. “Would you do it for me?”

The man bowed deeply.

“Well, here we are then, and I hope I won’t shock you. I’ve learned that the lady at Uji might be someone I knew for a very little while a long time ago. She disappeared, and I’ve had reports that the general may have taken her away. I can’t be really sure. I’d like to do a bit of sleuthing. Do you think something might be arranged without attracting notice?”

This would be difficult, thought the man. Still he could not refuse. “The road leads through wild mountains, but not so very far, really. If you leave in the evening you should be there by a little after ten. And it might be best to be home by dawn. No one needs to know except the men who go with you, and not even they need to know everything.

“My feelings exactly. I’ve made the trip before — but do try to keep it secret. There are always gossips who seem to think that people like me should stay at home.”

Though he knew that he was being reckless, it was now too late to withdraw. He took along two or three men who had been with him on other trips to Uji, this secretary, and the son of his old nurse, a young man who had just been promoted to the Fifth Rank for his work as a privy secretary. They were all among his closer confidants. The secretary had orders to inquire carefully into comings and goings at Sanjō, and was certain that Kaoru would not be visiting Uji in the next day or two.

Memories came flooding back. Niou found himself pulled in several directions at once. In the old days he had felt remarkably close to Kaoru, who had taken him by the hand and led him off to Uji. It bothered him a little to think what he was now doing to his good friend, and he was a little frightened too, for he was a prince, and even in the city his adventures were never secrets. Such were his thoughts as, in drab incognito, he mounted his horse; but he was of an impressionable, eagerly responsive nature. His heart rose as they pushed deeper into the mountains. Would it be much longer? Would she let him see her? A tragedy indeed if he were denied even a glimpse of her!

He had come by carriage as far as the Hōshōji Temple and from there on horseback. Making very good time, he was in Uji by perhaps eight in the evening. The secretary having questioned an attendant of Kaoru’s who was familiar with the arrangements at Uji, they were able to pull up at an unguarded spot to the west of the house. Breaking through the reed fence, they slipped inside. The secretary himself was somewhat uncertain, not really knowing his way about, but the grounds did not seem to be heavily guarded. He saw a dim light and heard a rustling of garments at the south front of the house.

“There still seem to be people up. Come this way, please, if you will.”

Niou made his way softly up the stairs and leaned forward to take advantage of a crack he had found in a shutter. The rustling of an Iyo blind gave him brief pause. The house was new and clean, and but roughly furnished. As if in confidence that no one would be looking in on them, the women inside had not bothered to cover the openings. The curtain beyond the shutter had been lifted back across its frame. In the bright light, three or four women were sewing. A pretty little maidservant was spinning thread. It was a face he had had a glimpse of in the torchlight at Nijō. Or was he perhaps mistaken? Then he saw the young woman who had announced herself as Ukon. Ukifune herself lay gazing into the light, her head pillowed on her arm. Her eyes, charmingly girlish and not without a certain dignity, and her forehead, thick hair spilling down over it, reminded him astonishingly of his princess at Nijō.

“But if you do go, I don’t imagine you’ll be coming back very soon.” It was Ukon, busy creasing a robe. “We had that messenger from the general yesterday, you know. The general will be coming on about the first of the month, we can be sure of it, once the business of the provincial appointments is out of the way. What has he said in his letters?”

Evidently sunk in thoughts of her own, the girl did not answer.

“It won’t look at all good, running off when you know he’ll be coming.”

“I think you ought to let him know about your plans,” said the woman facing Ukon. “It won’t seem very nice to go dashing off without a word to him. And I think you ought to come back as soon as you’ve had time for a prayer or two. I know this is a lonely place, but it’s a safe, quiet place too. Once you’re used to it you’ll feel more at home than you ever did in the city.”

“Don’t you think the polite thing,” said another woman, whom he could not see, “would be to wait a little while? After you’re in the city you can have a good visit with your mother. The old woman here is much too quick with her good ideas. Careful plans turn out best in the end. It is true now and it has always been true.”

“Why didn’t you stop her? Old people are such a nuisance.” These reproaches seemed to be directed at Ukifune’s nurse.

Yes, to be sure, thought Niou: there had. been a troublesome old woman with the girl. The memory of that evening had a misty, spectral quality about it.

The talk went on, so open that he was almost embarrassed. “I say the lucky one is our lady in the city. The minister throws his weight about and makes a big thing of having royalty for a son-in-law, but since our little master was born our side has had the better of it. And there aren’t any nasty, pushy old women at Nijō, and our lady can do very much as she pleases.”

“Oh, but our own lady will be doing just as well if the general keeps his promises. She’ll be there with the best of them.”

“There with the best of them!” Ukifune raised herself on an elbow. “Did you have to say that? You know I don’t want you comparing me with the lady at Nijō. What if she were to hear?”

How might the two of them be related, this girl and his own lady? There was an unmistakable resemblance. The girl was no match for the other in proud, cool elegance. She was winsome and pretty, no more, and her features were delicately formed. A suggestion of less than the rarest refinement, however, was not enough to make him withdraw when he had before his eyes a girl who had been so long and persistently on his mind.

This first good look at her left him in an agony of impatience to make her his own. It would appear that she was going on a journey. And she seemed to have parents. When would he have another such chance? What might he hope to accomplish in the course of the night?

He gazed on and on, in growing agitation.

“I’m very sleepy,” said Ukon, gathering up half-sewn garments and hanging them over the curtain rack. “I don’t know why, but I hardly slept at all last night. I can finish tomorrow morning. Even if your mother gets an earl y start it will be noon by the time she gets here.” Leaning on an armrest, she seemed about to doze off. The girl retired somewhat farther into the room and lay down. After disappearing into a back room for a time, Ukon reappeared and lay down at her feet. Soon she was fast asleep.

At a loss for other devices, Niou tapped on the shutter.

“Who is it?” asked Ukon.

He cleared his throat. A most genteel sound, thought Ukon. It would be Kaoru. She came to the shutter.

“Raise it, if you will, please.”

“You’ve chosen a strange hour. It must be very late.”

“I heard from Nakanobu that your lady would be going away, and I came running. It was a terrible trip, terrible. Do raise the shutter, please.” She obeyed, not guessing who it would be. He spoke in undertones and skillfully imitated his friend’s mannerisms. “I’m all in tatters. Something really frightful happened along the way.”

“It must have been, I’m sure.” Uncertain what to do, she put the light at a distance.

“I don’t want anyone to see me. Please don’t wake them.”

He was a clever mimic. Since their voices were similar, he was able to give a convincing enough imitation of Kaoru that he was shown to the rear of the hall. How trying for the poor man, thought Ukon, withdrawing behind a curtain. Under rough travel guise he wore robes of a fine, soft weave. His fragrance scarcely if at all inferior to Kaoru’s, he undressed as if he were in his own private rooms and lay down beside Ukifune.

“Why not where you usually sleep?”

He did not answer. Ukon spread a coverlet over her mistress, and, arousing the women nearby, asked them to lie down some slight distance away. Since it was the practice for Kaoru’s men to be accommodated elsewhere, no one sensed what was happening.

“How very sweet of him, so late at night. Doesn’t she understand?”

“Oh, do be quiet.” Some people understand too well, thought Ukon. “A whisper in the middle of the night can be worse than a scream.”

Ukifune was stunned. She knew that it was not Kaoru; but whoever it was had put his hand over her mouth. (If he was capable of such excesses at home, with everyone watching, what would he not be capable of here?) Had she known immediately that it was not Kaoru, she might have resisted, even a little; but now she was paralyzed. She had hurt him on an earlier occasion, he said, and she had been on his mind ever since; and so she quickly guessed who he was. Hideously embarrassed, horrified at the thought of what was being done to her sister, she could only weep. Niou too was in tears. It would not be easy to see her again. Might it have been better not to come at all?

And so the night sped past. Outside, an attendant coughed to warn of the approach of dawn. Ukon came out. Niou did not want to leave, for he had had far from enough of the girl’s company — and it would be difficult to come again. Very well: let them raise any sort of commotion they wished. He would not go back today. One loved while one lived. Why go back and die of longing?

He summoned Ukon. “You will think it unwise, I am sure, but I propose to spend the day here. Have my men hide somewhere not too far away, and send Tokikata to the city with good excuses — maybe he can say I’m busy praying at a mountain temple.”

Ukon was aghast. Why had she not been more careful? But she was soon in control of herself once more. What was done was done, and there was no point in antagonizing him. Call it fate, that he should have gone on thinking about Ukifune after that strange, fleeting encounter. No one was to blame.

“Her mother is sending for her today. What do you intend to do? I know that some things have to be, and there is nothing anyone can do about them; but you’ve really picked a very bad day. Suppose you come again, if you still feel in the mood.”

An able woman, thought he. “No, I’ve been wandering around in a daze all these weeks. I haven’t cared what they might be saying about me. A man in my position doesn’t go sneaking off into the night, you know, if he’s still worried about appearances. Just tell her mother there’s been a very unfortunate defilement, and send them back again. Don’t give them a hint that I’m here. For her sake and for mine. I don’t think that’s asking a great deal, and I won’t settle for less.”

He did seem so infatuated with the girl that he no longer worried about the reproaches he might call down upon himself.

Ukon went out to a man who had been nervously seeking to get Niou on his way, and informed him of these new intentions. “Go tell him, please, that this will not do. He is behaving outrageously. I don’t care what he may be thinking, what your men are thinking is more important. Are you children, bringing him out into these wilds? Country people can be unruly, you know, and they don’t always respect rank.”

The secretary had to agree that things might be difficult.

“And which of you is Tokikata?” She passed on Niou’s orders.

“Oh, but of course,” laughed Tokikata. “Any excuse to get away from that tongue of yours. But seriously: he seems very fond of her, and I intend to do what I can, even if it means, as you say, taking childish risks. Well, I’m off. They’ll soon be changing the guard.”

Ukon was in a quandary. How was she to keep Niou’s presence a secret?

“The general seems to have had reasons for coming incognito,” she said when the others were up. “Something rather awful happened to him along the way. He’s having fresh clothes sent out tonight.”

“Mount Kohata is a dreadful place. That’s what happens when you go around without a decent guard. How really dreadful.”

“Don’t shout about it, if you please. Give the servants a hint and they’ll guess everything.”

Ukon did not like it at all. She was not a natural liar. And what would she find to say if a messenger were to come from Kaoru?” Please,” she prayed, bowing in the direction of Hatsuse. “Please let this day pass like all the others.”

Ukifune and her mother were to go on a pilgrimage to Ishiyama. The women had been through all the necessary fasting and purification. For nothing, it now became apparent. How very unfortunate!

The sun had risen, the shutters were open. Ukon stayed near her mistress. Blinds were lowered to darken the main hall and bills posted announcing a retreat. Should Ukifune’s mother ask to come in, Ukon would have to say that there had been forbidding dreams in the night. She brought water to Niou and her mistress. The morning ablutions were in no way out of the ordinary, but it seemed infinitely strange to him that this new girl should be waiting on him. He invited her to wash first. Used to Kaoru’s quiet ways, she now found herself with a gentleman who proclaimed himself incapable of tolerating a moment’s separation. This must be the sort of thing people meant when they spoke of love. But what if word of this new shift in her destinies — strangest of destinies — were to get abroad? What, before anything, of Nakanokimi?

He still did not know who she was. “You are being very unkind, and I can tell you that I am not at all happy. Tell me everything, everything. There’s no need to be shy. I’ll only like you better, I vow it, whatever you tell me. Tell me your family doesn’t amount to a thing, and I’ll still like you better.”

She remained silent despite his importunings, but on other subjects she answered with a pleasing openness. He was delighted to see that she was not ill disposed toward him.

The sun was high when a retinue from the city — two carriages, seven or eight mounted warriors, rough East Country people, as always, and numbers of foot soldiers as well — arrived to escort her back. Embarrassed at their uncouth speech and manners, the women of the house shooed them out of earshot. What could she possibly say to them? Ukon was asking herself. That Kaoru was on the premises? But the lie would be transparent. Everyone knew the whereabouts of someone so prominent.

Confiding in none of the other women, she got off a letter to the girl’s mother: “Night before last her monthly defilement came on, and, to compound her unhappiness at having to cancel the pilgrimage, she had a bad dream last night. Complete retirement has seemed necessary. We are very sorry indeed — no doubt some evil spirit has been at work.”

She fed the guards and sent them on their way, and, again offering the monthly defilement as her excuse, informed the nun that they would not after all be going to Ishiyama.

Ukifune had been living in unrelieved gloom and boredom, such as to make her wonder, looking moodily out into the mist that clung to the mountains, how she could go on; but today she had interesting company, and begrudged the passage of each moment. The day sped by, a calm spring day. There was nothing to distract Niou from present delights. Her face, at which he gazed and did not tire, was pretty and gentle, and free of anything that could be counted a blemish. She was not, to be sure, the equal of his princess at Nijō, nor was she to be compared to his lady at Rokujō, now in the finest glow of youth. But there did come these occasions when the moment seemed sufficient unto itself, and he thought her the most charming creature he had ever seen. She, for her part, had thought Kaoru the handsomest of men, but here was a luster, a glow, with which he could not compete.

Niou sent for an inkstone. He wrote beautifully, even though for his own amusement, and he drew interesting pictures. What young person could have resisted him?

“You must look at this and think of me when I am not able to visit you.” He sketched a most handsome couple leaning towards each other. “If only we could be together always.” And he shed a tear.

“The promise is made for all the ages to come,

But in these our lives we cannot be sure of the morrow.

“No. I am inviting bad luck. I must control myself. It will not be easy to visit you, my dear, and the thought of not seeing you makes me want to die. Why do you suppose I have gone to all this trouble when you were not at all kind to me the last time we met?”

She took up the brush, still inked, and jotted down a poem of her own:

“Were life alone uncertain of the morrow,

Then might we count upon the heart of a man.”

It amused him that she should be reproving him for future infidelities. “And whose heart is it that you have found so undependable?” He smiled, and pressed her to tell of her arrival at Uji and of the days that had followed.

“Why must you keep asking questions that I cannot answer?” There was an open, childlike quality about the reproach that he found enchanting. He knew that the whole story would presently come out. Why then must he have it from her lips?

Tokikata returned in the evening. “There was a message from Her Majesty,” he said to Ukon. “She is very angry, and so is the minister. These secret expeditions of his suggest very bad judgment, she said, and could have embarrassing consequences. And she said — it was quite a scolding — that her own position would be impossible if His Majesty were to hear of them. I said he had gone off to visit a learned, learned man in the eastern hills.” And he added: “Women are the root of it all. Here we are, the merest bystanders, and we get pulled in, and end up telling lies.”

“How kind of you to make my lady a learned, learned man. A good deed, surely, that wipes out whatever may have been marked against you for lying. But where did he pick up his bad habits? If he had let us know in advance, well, he is a very well-placed young gentleman, and we could have arranged something. But she is right. He shows bad judgment.”

She went to transmit Tokikata’s report. True, thought Niou: they would be worried. “It is no fun,” he said to Ukifune,” living in shackles. I wish I could run about like all the others, just for a little while. But what do you think? People will find out, whatever we do. And how will my friend Kaoru take it? We have been close friends. That is only natural. But actually we have been closer than close, and I hate to think what the discovery will do to him. As they say, he may forget that he has kept you waiting an............