18

He set off for Ono once more. He had thought to wait until the mourning was over but could no longer contain his impatience. The prin-cess's reputation was beyond saving in any event, and he might as well do what other men did and have his way with her. He did not try very hard to persuade Kumoinokari that her suspicions were groundless. For all the princess's determination to be unfriendly, he had a weapon to use against her, the old lady's reproof at his failure to come visiting that second evening.

It was the middle of the Ninth Month, a time when not even the most insensitive of men can be unaware of the mountain colors. The autumn winds tore at the trees and the leaves of the vines* seemed fearful of being left behind. Someone far away was reading a sutra, and someone was invoking the holy name, and for the rest Ono seemed deserted. Indifferent to the clappers meant to frighten them from the harvests, the deer that sought shelter by the garden fences were somber spots among the hues of autumn. A stag bayed plaintively, and the roar of a waterfall was as if meant to break in upon sad thoughts. Insect songs, less insistent, among the brown grasses, seemed to say that they must go but did not know where. Gentians peered from the grasses, heavy with dew, as if they alone might be permitted to stay on. The sights and sounds of autumn, ordinary enough, but recast by the occasion and the place into a melancholy scarcely to be borne.

In casual court robes, pleasantly soft, and a crimson singlet upon which the fulling blocks had beaten a delicate pattern, he stood for a time at the corner railing. The light of the setting sun, almost as if directed upon him alone, was so bright that he raised a fan to his eyes, and the careless grace would have made the women envious had he been one of their number. But alas, they could not have imitated it. He smiled, so handsome a smile that it must bring comfort to the cruelest grief, and asked for Kosho~sho~.

“Come closer please” Though she was already very near, he sensed that there were others behind the blinds “I would expect at least you to be a little friendlier. The mists are thick enough to hide you if you are afraid of being seen” He glanced up at them though not as if reposing great faith in them. “Do please come out.”

She gathered her skirts and took a place behind a curtain of mourning which she had set out just beyond the blinds. A younger sister of the governor of Yamato, she had been taken in by her aunt and reared with the Second Princess, almost as a sister. She had therefore put on the most somber of mourning robes.

He was soon in tears. “To a grief that refuses to go away is added a sense of injury quite beyond describing, enough to take all the meaning from life. Everywhere I look I encounter expressions of amazement that it should be so.” He spoke too of the mother's last letter.

Kosho~sho~ was sobbing. “When you did not write she withdrew into her thoughts as if she did not mean to come out again. She seemed to go away with the daylight. I could see that the evil spirit, whatever it may have been, was behaving as usual, taking advantage of her weakness. I had seen it happen many times during our troubles with the young master. But she always seemed to rally, with a great effort of will, when she saw that the princess was as unhappy as she and needed comforting. The princess, poor thing, has been in a daze.” There were many pauses, as if it had all been more than she could reconcile herself to.

“That is exactly what I mean. She must pull herself together and make up her mind. You may think it impertinent of me to say so, but I am all she has left. Her father is a complete recluse. She cannot expect messages to come very often from those cloudy peaks. Do, please, have a word with her. What must be must be. She may not want to live on, but we cannot have our way in these matters. If we could, then of course these cruel partings would not occur.”

Kosho~sho~ did not seek to interrupt. A stag called out from just beyond the garden wall.

“I would not be outdone.*

“I push my way through tangled groves to Ono.

Shall my laments, 0 stag, be softer than yours?”

Kosho~sho~ replied:

“Dew-drenched wisteria robes* in autumn mountains.

Sobs to join the baying of the stag.”

It was no masterpiece, but the hushed voice and the time and place were right.

He sent in repeated messages to the princess. A single answer came back, so brief that it was almost curt. “It is like a nightmare. I shall try to thank you when I am a little more myself.”