33

A note came from Niou, telling once more of his unhappiness. Not wishing to compromise herself at this very late date, she sent back only a poem:

“Should I leave no trace behind in this gloomy world,

What target then would you have for your complaints?”

She wanted also to tell Kaoru of her last hours; but the two men were very close friends and the thought of their comparing notes revolted her. It would be better to speak openly of her decision to neither.

A letter came from her mother: “I had a most ominous dream of you last night, and am having scriptures read in several temples. Perhaps because I had trouble getting back to sleep, I have been napping today, and I have had another dream, equally frightening. I waste no time, therefore, in getting off this letter. Do be careful. You are so far away from all of us, the wife of the gentleman who visits you is a disturbingly strong-minded lady, and it worries me terribly that I should have had such a dream at a time when you are not well. I really am very worried. I would like to visit you, but your sister goes on having a difficult time of it. We wonder if she might be in the clutches of some evil spirit, and I have the strictest orders from the governor not to leave the house for a moment. Have scriptures read in your monastery there, please, if you will.”

With the letter were offerings of cloth and a request to the abbot that sutras be read. How sad, thought the girl, that her mother should go to such trouble when it was already too late. She composed her answer while the messenger was off at the monastery. Though there was a great deal that she would have liked to say, she set down only this poem:

“We shall think of meeting in another world

And not confuse ourselves with dreams of this.”

She lay listening to the monastery bells as they rang an accompani-ment to the sutras, and wrote down another poem, this one at the end of the list that had come back from the monastery of the sutras to be read:

“Join my sobs to the fading toll of the bell,

To let her know that the end of my life has come.”

The messenger had decided not to return that night. She tied her last poem to a tree in the garden.

“Here I am having palpitations,” said Nurse, “and she says she's been having bad dreams. Tell the guards to be extra careful. Why _will_ you not have something to eat? Come, a cup of this nice gruel.”

Do please be quiet, Ukifune was thinking. The woman was still alert and perceptive enough, but she was old and hideously wrinkled. Yet another one who should have been allowed to die first—and where would she go now? Ukifune wanted to offer at least a hint of what was about to happen, but she knew that the old woman would shoot bolt upright and begin shrieking to the heavens.

“When you let your worries get the best of you,” sighed Ukon, asking to lie down near her mistress, “they say your soul sometimes leaves your body and goes wandering. I imagine that's why she has these dreams. Please, my lady, I ask you again: make up your mind one way or the other, and call it fate, whatever happens.”

The girl lay in silence, her soft sleeve pressed to her face.

{The Drake Fly}