12

Tokikata returned in the evening. “There was a message from Her Majesty,” he said to Ukon. “She is very angry, and so is the minister. These secret expeditions of his suggest very bad judgment, she said, and could have embarrassing consequences. And she said—it was quite a scolding— that her own position would be impossible if His Majesty were to hear of them. I said he had gone off to visit a learned, learned man in the eastern hills.” And he added: “Women are the root of it all. Here we are, the merest bystanders, and we get pulled in, and end up telling lies.”

“How kind of you to make my lady a learned, learned man. A good deed, surely, that wipes out whatever may have been marked against you for lying. But where _did_ he pick up his bad habits? If he had let us know in advance, well, he is a very well-placed young gentleman, and we could have arranged something. But she is right. He shows bad judgment.”

She went to transmit Tokikata's report. True, thought Niou: they would be worried. “It is no fun,” he said to Ukifune,” living in shackles. I wish I could run about like all the others, just for a little while. But what do you think? People will find out, whatever we do. And how will my friend Kaoru take it? We have been close friends. That is only natural. But actually we have been closer than close, and I hate to think what the discovery will do to him. As they say,* he may forget that he has kept you waiting and blame you for everything. I wish I could hide you somewhere from the whole world.”

He could not possibly stay another day. “My soul,” he whispered as he made ready to go, “does it linger on in your sleeve?” *

Wishing to be back in the city before daylight, his men were coughing nervously. She saw him to the door, and still he could not leave her.

“What shall I do? These tears run on ahead

And plunge the road I must go into utter darkness.”

She was touched.

“So narrow my sleeves, they cannot take my tears.

How then shall I make bold to keep you with me?” +

A high wind roared through the trees and the dawn was heavy with frost. Even the touch of their robes, in the moment of parting, seemed co1d.# He was smitten afresh as he mounted his horse, and turned back to her; but his men were not prepared to wait longer. In a daze of longing, he at length set out. The two courtiers of the Fifth Rank** who had come with him led his horse through the mountains and mounted their own only when they had come to open country. Everything, even the clattering of hoofs on the icy riverbank, brought melancholy thoughts. The pull of Uji and love, and that alone, now and in the old days, had the power to bring him through wild mountains. What strange ties he did seem to have with that remote mountain village!