2

Sensing something out of the ordinary in her last note, Niou immedi-ately dispatched a messenger. She had not found his company distasteful, he was sure. Worried about his well-known fickleness, then, had she hidden herself away? His messenger arrived at a house given over to wailing and lamenting and could find no one to take his letter.

What had happened? he asked a maidservant.

“Our lady died last night. We are stunned, completely stunned. We don't know where to turn. The gentleman who has been such a help isn't here to help now.”

Not knowing a great deal about the Uji household, the man did not press the matter. Back in the city he reported to Niou, for whom the news was like a sudden, horrible visitation. She had been indisposed, it was true, but not seriously ill; and that last note had shown a certain flair rather wanting in most of her notes. What could have happened?

He summoned Tokikata. “Go and see what you can find out, please.”

“I don't know what rumors the general has picked up, but he has reprimanded the guard, and now not even the servants can get in and out of the house without being stopped. If I were suddenly to appear and he were to hear of it, I'm afraid he would guess everything. And of course the place will be in a frightful stir, swarms of people rushing in all directions.”

“Perhaps; but I have to know the truth. You're a clever fellow. Find a way to see that Jiju~. She'll know everything. I want the truth. We can't believe what we hear from servants.”

Unable to resist feelings on such open display, Tokikata set out for Uji that evening. He was not of a rank to require a retinue and he wasted no time. Though the rain had stopped, he had dressed as if for a difficult and dangerous journey and he looked more like a foot soldier than an intimate of royalty. The Uji house was, as he had expected, a bedlam.

“We must have the services immediately, tonight,” someone was saying. Startled, he asked for Ukon. She refused to see him.

“I cannot get myself to my feet,” she sent back. “It seems a pity that I cannot even say hello. I don't suppose that you will be coming this way again.”

“But how can I go back with nothing to report? Let me talk to your friend, then, please.”

He was so insistent that Jiju~ presently came forward. She was sobbing uncontrollably. “Please tell the prince that it is all too terrible. He cannot possibly have foreseen that she would be capable of such a thing. We are stunned, dazed—no, I can't think of the right word. When I am a little more myself, I may be able to tell you about her last days, and how sad she was, and how she hated sending him away that night. Come again, please, when I can really talk to you. I would not want to pass the defilement on to you.” *

Wails echoed from the inner rooms. He recognized Nurse: “Where are you, my lady? Please come back. You haven't even let us see you, and why should we want to go on living? I was with you from the start and I still have not seen enough of you. My one thought through all the years was to make you happy. And now you have left me, disappeared, not even told me where you might be going. I can't believe that you have let a devil take you away. I can't believe it. And so we must pray. We must pray to Lord Taishakuten.+ Give her back to us, whoever you are, man or devil or whoever. Let us look at her, even if she is dead.”

There were numerous obscure points in all this. “Tell me the truth. Has someone taken her away? I am here because he wants the facts. There is nothing to be done now, I suppose, whatever has happened, and if he should learn the truth and find it at variance with what I have told him, then he is sure to think me incompetent and irresponsible. You can imagine, can you not, the intensity of feeling that prompted him to send me, hoping against hope that what he had heard would not be true? In other countries even kings have fallen too deeply in love and lost their senses, but I think there can be no other example anywhere of such absolute devotion.”

Yes, thought Jiju~, Niou was showing a most laudable concern. And the details of this unusual event would not be kept secret forever. “If there were even the slightest chance that someone had run off with her, do you think we would be carrying on as you see us? She had been in bad spirits for some time, and then there were those unpleasant hints that the general had found out, and her mother and Nurse here—it's she who is making all the noise—they were all caught up in the excitement of sending her off to the man who seemed to have first claim; and so I would imagine that longing for the prince just drove her out of her mind. It was too much for her. And now she has done away with herself, body and soul, and that is the reason for the sentiments you are getting such an earful of.”

She still had not precisely come out with it. Ambiguities remained. “Well, I'll come again. Too much is left out when you can't sit down* for a good talk. I rather imagine that the prince will be visiting you.”

“That would be a very great honor. If the world were to learn that he was fond of her, then it would seem that her stars were good to her. But she did keep it a secret, and perhaps she would rest more easily if he were to do the same. We do not mean to tell anyone that she died an unnatural death.” She did not want him to know that the body had not been found. He was clever and would soon guess the truth, and so she hurried him on his way.