26

On the appointed day he went to Ichijo~ and sent carriages and an escort to Ono. The princess quite refused to leave. Her women noisily sought to persuade her, as did the governor of Yamato.

“I am near the end of my patience, Your Highness. I have felt sorry for you and done everything I could think of to help you, even at the cost of neglecting my official duties. I absolutely must go down to Yamato and see to putting things in order again. I would not want to send you back to Ichijo~ all by yourself, but we have the general taking care of everything. I have to admit that when I give a little thought to these arrangements I do not find them ideal for a princess, but we have examples enough of far worse things. Are you under the impression that you alone may escape criticism? A very childish impression indeed. The strongest and most forceful lady cannot put her life in order without someone to help her, someone to make the arrangements and box the corners. Much the wiser thing would be to accept help where it is offered. And you,” he said to Kosho~sho~ and Sakon. “You have not given her good advice, and your behavior has not been above reproach.”

They stripped her of mourning and brought out fresh, bright robes and brushed the hair she had resolved to cut. It was a little thinner, but still a good six feet long and the envy of them all. Yet she went on telling herself that she looked dreadful, that she must not be seen, that no one had ever been more miserable than she.

“We are late, my lady.” Her women accosted her one after another. “We are very late.”

There was a sudden and violent rain squall.

“My choice would be to rise with the smoke from the peaks,

Which might perhaps not go in a false direction.” *

Knowing of her wish to become a nun, they had hidden the knives and scissors. All very unnecessary. She no longer cared in the least what happened to her, and she would not have been so childish, nor would she have wished people to think her so obstinate, as to cut her hair in secret.+

Everyone was in a great hurry. All manner of combs and boxes and chests and bulging bags had already been sent off to the city. The house was bare, she could not stay on alone. In tears, she was finally shown into a carriage, and beside her was the empty seat that had been her mother's. On the journey to Ono her mother, desperately ill, had stroked her hair and gently sought to comfort her, and on their arrival had insisted that she dismount first. She had her talisman sword beside her as always, and a sutra box inlaid with mother-of-pearl, a memento of her mother.

“A small bejeweled box, now wet with tears,

To help me remember and seek elusive solace.”

She had kept it back from the offerings in memory of her mother. The black sutra box she had ordered for herself was not yet ready.

She felt like the son of Urashima,# returning to an utterly changed world.