6

His house was firmly barred and shuttered, and everyone seemed to be asleep. Kumoinokari's women had suggested that his kindness to the Second Princess was more than kindness, and she was not pleased to have him coming home so late at night. It is possible that she was only pretending to be asleep.

“My mountain girl and I,” * he sang, in a low but very good voice.

“This place is locked up like a fort. A dark hole of a place. Some people do not seem to appreciate moonlight.”

He had the shutters raised and himself rolled up the blinds. He went out to the veranda.

“Such a moon, and there are people sound asleep? Come on out. Be a little more friendly.”

But she was unhappy and pretended not to hear. Little children were sprawled here and there, sound asleep, and there were clusters of women, also asleep. It was a thickly populated scene, in sharp contrast to the mansion from which he had just come. He blew a soft strain on his new flute. And what would the princess be thinking in the wake of their interview? Would she indeed, as he had requested, leave the koto and the other instruments in the same tuning? Her mother was said to be very good on the Japanese koto. He lay down. In public Kashiwagi had shown his wife all the honors due a princess, but they had seemed strangely hollow. Yu~giri wanted very much to see her, and at the same time feared that he would be disappointed. One was often disappointed when the advance reports were so interesting. His thoughts turned to his own marriage. All through the years he had given not the smallest cause for jealousy. He had given his wife ample cause, perhaps, to be somewhat overbearing.

He dozed off and dreamed that Kashiwagi was beside him, dressed as on their last meeting. He had taken up the flute. How unsettling, Yu~giri said to himself, still dreaming, that his friend should still be after the flute.

“If it matters not which wind sounds the bamboo flute,

Then let its note be forever with my children.

“I did not mean it for you.”

Yu~giri was about to ask for an explanation when he was awakened by the screaming of a child. It was screaming very lustily, and vomiting. The nurse was with it, and Kumoinokari, sending for a light and pushing her hair roughly behind her ears, had taken it in her arms. A buxom lady, she was offering a well-shaped breast. She had no milk, but hoped that the breast would have a soothing effect. The child was fair-skinned and very pretty.

“What seems to be the trouble?” asked Yu~giri, coming inside.

The noise and confusion had quite driven away the sadness of the dream. One of the women was scattering rice to exorcise malign spirits.

“We have a sick child on our hands and here you are prancing and dashing about like a young boy. You open the shutters to enjoy your precious moonlight and let in a devil or two.”

He smiled. She was still very young and pretty. “They have found an unexpected guide. I suppose if it had not been for me they would have lost their way? A mother of many children acquires great wisdom.”

“Go away, if you will, please.” He was so handsome that she could think of nothing more severe to say. “You should not be watching.”

She did indeed seem to find the light too strong. Her shyness was not at all unattractive.

The child kept them awake the whole night.

Yu~giri went on thinking about the dream. The flute was threatening to raise difficulties. Kashiwagi was still attached to it, and so perhaps it should have stayed at Ichijo~. It should not, in any case, have been passed on to Yu~giri by a woman. But what had Kashiwagi meant, and what would he be thinking now? Because of the regret and the longing he must wander in stubborn darkness, worrying about trifles. One did well to avoid such entanglements.

He had services read on Mount Otagi* and at a temple favored by Kashiwagi. But what to do about the flute? It had a rich history, the old lady had said. Offered immediately to a temple it might do a little toward the repose of Kashiwagi's soul. Yet he hesitated.

He visited Rokujo~.