28

One quiet evening, the yearning at length too much for him, Kaoru paid a visit. Nakanokimi had a cushion set out for him on the veranda and sent word through one of her women that she was not feeling well and would be unable to receive him. Though almost in tears, he was determined to control himself before her women.

“When you are not well, you invite strange priests to sit beside you. Can you not at least treat me like your physician? Can you not let me inside your room? If we have to have people running back and forth with messages, then I might as well not have come at all.”

Very improper, said the women who had been present at the scene that earlier evening. They lowered a blind between the veranda and the main hall and showed him to the seat usually occupied by the priest in night attendance. Nakanokimi was extremely uncomfortable, but had to agree that open hostility would be misguided. Shyly and without enthusiasm, she edged a little closer, and the few words that came to him in a faint little voice so reminded him of Oigimi in the days after she fell ill that forebodings were added to his sorrow. The lights seemed to dim before his eyes. He could only blurt out short and disconnected phrases. Her refusal to answer seemed intolerable. Reaching through the blind in the manner he had as of being one of the family, he pulled the curtain slightly aside and leaned towards her.

In a panic, she called out to a woman named Sho~sho~. “I seem to be rather short of breath. I wonder if I might ask you to massage me for just a moment or two.”

“That sort of thing only makes matters worse.” With a sigh, he drew back again—but not because any great measure of calm had returned to him. “Why do you go on feeling so unwell? I have asked about people in your condition and been told that there may be great discomfort at first but that it goes away in time. Might you perhaps be making a little too much of it all?”

“I do feel unwell sometimes,” she replied, much embarrassed to have to talk of her condition. “It was so with my sister too. I have heard people describe it as a sign that neither of us was meant to live long.”

Yes, he thought, in an access of pity. One had to realize that life was far shorter than “the thousand years of the pine.” * Sho~sho~'s presence no longer enough to restrain him, he began to speak of his feelings over the years. He did, it was true, choose his words with care and circumspection, avoiding matters that might be compromising or inconveniently clear to an outsider. A gentleman of remarkable sensitivity, thought Sho~sho~.

Everything reminded him of Oigimi, who seldom left his thoughts. “From very early in my life I turned my back on the world, and I hoped to end my days a bachelor. But fate seems to have intervened. One would have to say that your sister was a rather chilly lady, and yet something about her struck up a most extraordinary response, and my saintly resolutions, for what they were worth, began to waver. I admit that I went out looking for comfort after she died. I glanced at this and that woman and even kept company with one or two for a time. It was only that I wanted to stop thinking of her.” He was in tears and his voice had taken on a pleading note. “And to no purpose at all. I have been drawn to no one else. Sometimes—I am only human—I have not been able to keep myself under very tight control. But it would hurt me very much indeed to think that you have ever had cause to doubt my motives. You would have every right to be shocked and revolted if you were to detect even a hint of anything improper in my behavior toward you. Do please let me go on seeing you from time to time. Who could possibly object if we were to talk of the little trifles that interest us? I have no tendencies, I assure you, that need make you feel in danger. I am not like other people, I swear I am not.”

“But I do trust you. You do not know me very well if you think I

would allow such extraordinary intimacy otherwise. You have been kindness itself over the years, and it is because I know so well what you will do for me that I have asked favors of you.”

“Favors? I am not aware of any worth mentioning—or dare I hope that in your plans for your mountain village you will finally decide you have found a use for me? If that is so, then we have evidence that you have read a part of my feelings. I am delighted.” He had not finished complaining, but he thought that her women had heard enough.