11

Ukifune had been living in unrelieved gloom and boredom, such as to make her wonder, looking moodily out into the mist that clung to the mountains, how she could go on; but today she had interesting company, and begrudged the passage of each moment. The day sped by, a calm spring day. There was nothing to distract Niou from present delights. Her face, at which he gazed and did not tire,* was pretty and gentle, and free of anything that could be counted a blemish. She was not, to be sure, the equal of his princess at Nijo~, nor was she to be compared to his lady at Rokujo~, now in the finest glow of youth. But there did come these occasions when the moment seemed sufficient unto itself, and he thought her the most charming creature he had ever seen. She, for her part, had thought Kaoru the handsomest of men, but here was a luster, a glow, with which he could not compete.

Niou sent for an inkstone. He wrote beautifully, even though for his own amusement, and he drew interesting pictures. What young person could have resisted him?

“You must look at this and think of me when I am not able to visit you.” He sketched a most handsome couple leaning towards each other. “If only we could be together always.” And he shed a tear.

“The promise is made for all the ages to come,

“No. I am inviting bad luck. I must control myself. It will not be easy to visit you, my dear, and the thought of not seeing you makes me want to die. Why do you suppose I have gone to all this trouble when you were not at all kind to me the last time we met?”

She took up the brush, still inked, and jotted down a poem of her own:

“Were life alone uncertain of the morrow,

Then might we count upon the heart of a man.”

It amused him that she should be reproving him for future infidelities. “And whose heart is it that you have found so undependable?” He smiled, and pressed her to tell of her arrival at Uji and of the days that had followed.

“Why must you keep asking questions that I cannot answer?” There was an open, childlike quality about the reproach that he found enchant-ing. He knew that the whole story would presently come out. Why then must he have it from her lips?