7

Kaoru felt very sorry for her indeed. Niou, given his bright, somewhat showy nature, was certain to be drawn to the more modish and accomplished Rokunokimi, however fond he might be of Nakanokimi. And with that formidable family of hers mounting guard over him, Nakanokimi would be doomed to lonely nights such as she had not known before. An

utterly heartbreaking situation, everything considered. And how useless he was himself! Why had he given her away? His spirit had been serene in its renunciation of the world until he had been drawn to Oigimi, and he had let it be stirred and muddied. He had managed to control himself despite the intensity of his devotion, for it would have gone against his original intentions to force himself upon her. He had continued to hope, looking towards a day when he might arouse even a faint response in her and see her heart open even a little. Though everything indicated that her own wishes were very different, he had still found comfort in her apparent inability to send him on his way. She had sought to interest him in her sister, with whom, she had said, she shared a single being. He had sought with unnecessary haste, by way of retaliation, to push Nakanokimi into Niou's arms. In a strong fit of pique he had taken Niou off to Uji and made all the arrangements for him. What an irremediable blunder it had been! And as for Niou—if he remembered a small fraction of Kaoru's troubles in those days, ought he not to be a little concerned about Kaoru's feelings today? Triflers, woman-chasers were not for women to rely upon—not, indeed, for anyone to have much faith in. A farsighted sort of protector Kaoru himself had been! No doubt his way of riveting his attention on a single object seemed strange and reprehensible to most people. Having lost his first love, he was less than delighted at having a bride bestowed upon him by the emperor himself, and every day and every month his longing for Nakanokimi grew. This deplorable inability to accept his loss had to do with the fact that Oigimi and Nakanokimi had been close as sisters seldom are. With almost her last breath Oigimi had asked him to think of her sister as he had thought of her. She left behind no regrets to tie her to the world, she had said, save that he had gone against her wishes in this one matter. And now, the crisis having come, she would be looking down from the heavens in anger. All through the lonely nights, for which he had no one to blame but himself, he would awaken at the rising of the gentlest breeze, and over and over again he would run through a list of complications from the past and worries for the future that were not, strictly speaking, his own. He had dallied with this or that lady from time to time, and even now there were several in his household whom he had no reason at all to dislike; but not one of them had held his attention for more than a moment. There were others, ladies of royal lineage to whom the times had not been kind and who now lived in poverty and neglect. Several such ladies had been taken in by his mother, but they had not shaken his determination to be without regrets when the time came to leave the world.

One morning, after a more than usually sleepless night, he looked out into the garden, and his eye was caught by morning glories, fragile and uncertain, in among the profusion of dew-soaked flowers at the hedge. “They bloom for the morning,” * he whispered to himself, the evanescence of the flowers matching his own sense of futility. He lay hoping for a little rest as the shutters were raised, and watched on, alone, as the morning glories opened.

“Please have a carriage brought out, one that won't attract much attention,” he said to a servant. “I want to go to the Nijo~ house.”

“But Prince Niou was at the palace all night, my lord. Some men brought his carriage back later in the evening.”

“I want to ask after the princess. I've heard that she is not well. I will be at the palace myself later in the day. Be quick about it, please. I want to get started not too long after sunrise.”

His toilet finished, he stepped down into the garden and wandered among the flowers for a time. There was nothing gaudy or obviously contrived about his dress, but he had a calm dignity that was almost intimidating. It was a manner profoundly his own, for he was not one to strut and preen. Pulling a tendril toward him, he saw that it was still wet with dew.

“It lasts, I know, but as long as the dew upon it.

Yet am I drawn to the hue that fades with the morning. How very quickly it goes.”

He broke it off to take with him, and left without a glance for the saucy maiden flowers.