9

In the morning they all went to the cell of Ukon's eminent acquaint-ance. The talk was quite uninhibited. The lady was very beautiful, and rather shy in her rough travel dress.

“I have been privileged to know ladies so grand that few people ever see them. In the ordinary course of events they would have been kept out of my sight. I have thought for a very long time that Lady Murasaki, the chancellor's lady, couldn't possibly have a rival. But then someone came along who could almost compete with her. It needn't have surprised anyone, of course. The chancellor's daughter is growing up into a very beautiful lady indeed. He has done everything for her. And just see what we have here, so quiet and unassuming. She's every bit as pretty.

“The chancellor has seen them all, ever since the reign of his late father, all the consorts and the other royal ladies. I once heard him say to Lady Murasaki that the word'beautiful' must have been invented for the late empress and his own daughter. I never saw the late empress and so I cannot say, and the other is still a child, and a person can only imagine how beautiful she will be someday. But Lady Murasaki herself: really she doesn't have a rival even now. I'm sure he just didn't want to speak of her own beauty right there in front of her. He most certainly is aware of it. I once heard him say—he was joking, of course—that she should know better than to take her place beside a handsome man like him. You should see the two of them! The sight of them makes you think years have been

added to your life, and you wonder if anywhere else in the world there is anything like it. But just see what we have here, just look at this lady. She could hold her own with no trouble. You don't go looking for a halo with even the most raving beauty, but if you want the next-best thing-?”

She smiled at Tamakazura, and the old nurse was grinning back. “Just a little longer and she would have been wasted on Kyushu. I couldn't stand the idea, and so I threw away pots and pans and children and came running back to the city. It might as Well have been the capital of a foreign country. Take her to something better, please, as soon as you possibly can. You are in one of the great houses and you know everyone. Do please think of some way to tell her father. Make him count her among his children.”

The girl looked away in embarrassment.

“No, it is true. I don't amount to anything, but His Lordship has seen fit to call me into his presence from time to time, and once when I said I wondered what had happened to the child he said that he wondered too and I must let him know if I heard anything.”

“Yes, of course, he is a very fine gentleman. But he already has all those other fine ladies. I would feel a little more comfortable, I think, if you were to inform her father.”

Ukon told her about the lady of the evening faces. “His Lordship took it very hard. He said he wanted the little girl to remember her by. He said then and he went on saying that he had so few children of his own, he could tell people he had found a lost daughter. I was young and inexperienced and unsure of myself, and I was afraid to go looking for her. I recognized the name of your good husband when he was appointed deputy viceroy. I even caught a glimpse of him when he came to say goodbye to His Lordship. I thought you might have left the child behind at the house where I last saw you. Suppose she had spent the rest of her life in Kyushu —the very thought of it makes me shiver.”