27

“I don't care which one she goes to. I just want her to go safely, and I've said my prayers at Hatsuse and at Ishiyama too. The people on the general's land are thugs, there's no other way to describe them, and this town is swarming with them, all related to each other. Everyone here in Yamashiro and over in Yamato is related to Udoneri and that Ukonnodaibu,+ you know, his son-in-law, the ones the general left to look after us. I'm not saying, mind you, that a fine gentleman like the general himself would order any rough business, but you can't tell about country people, and they're the ones who take turns guarding the house. Every last one of them is determined that nothing will go wrong while he is on duty—it's a point of honor—and, why, anything could happen. It was very foolish and very careless of the prince to do what he did the other night. He's so bent on secrecy that he comes incognito with no guard to speak of at all. Anything could happen, I tell you, if one of those men were to catch him.”

Ukifune listened in an agony of embarrassment. It was clear that they had guessed everything, even her feelings toward Niou. She had not decided upon either of the two. Niou's ardor quite dizzied her, and left her incredulous that she should be its cause and object; and on the other hand she could not bring herself to say her final farewells to the man who had so long* been her chief source of strength. Hence her agony and the paralyzing indecision. And how awful if Niou's heedlessness really were to invite “rough business.”

“Leave me alone, please. Please—just let me die.” She lay with her face pressed against a cushion. “Has anyone, the lowest beggar, ever had more to worry about than I have?”

“You are not to say so. I was only flying to make things a little easier for you. You used to throw off worries as if they weren't there, and now you fret and fret. I really don't understand you.”

For the two women who knew the truth, the tension mounted. Nurse, meanwhile, hummed a happy song as she went on with her preparations, dyeing this piece of cloth, cutting that. “Now here's someone who might amuse you,” she said, calling to Ukifune's side a pretty little girl who had just come into their service. “Do you have to lie around the house all day long when there's nothing in the world the matter with you? I wonder if someone might be trying to get at you and spoil everything.”