15

The New Year came, the skies were soft and bright, the ice melted along the banks of the pond. The princesses thought how strange it was that they should so long have survived their father. With a note saying that he had had them gathered in the melting snow, the abbot sent cress from the marshes and fern shoots from the mountain slopes. Country life did have its points, said the women as they cooked the greens and arranged them on pilgrims' trays. What fun it was, really, to watch the days and months go by with their changing grasses and trees.

They were easily amused, thought the princesses.

“If he were here to pluck these mountain ferns,

Then might we find in them a sign of spring.”

And Nakanokimi:

“Without our father, how are we to praise

The cress that sends its shoots through banks of snow?”

Such were the trifles with which they passed their days. Neither Niou nor Kaoru missed an occasion for greetings. They came in such numbers, indeed, as to be something of a nuisance, and with my usual carelessness I failed to make note of them.