15

The Second Princess had a note from her sister. The hand, delicate but sure, delighted Kaoru. He should have thought of this device sooner. The empress sent interesting paintings to the Second Princess and Kaoru gathered even finer ones for the First Princess. One of the finest called to mind his own situation: consumed with desire for the First Princess, the son of the Serikawa general* is out walking of an autumn evening. If only the real princess might be as generous as the princess in the story.

“The autumn wind that brings the dew to the rushes,

It chills, it saddens most when evening comes.”

He would have like to jot down his poem beside the painting, but it would not do to give the smallest hint of his feelings. Always he came to the same useless conclusion: Oigimi would have had the whole of his affection. He would not have taken a royal princess for his bride. Indeed, if the emperor had heard of the events at Uji he would probably not have wanted Kaoru for a son-in-law. She was the source of all his sorrow, the lady at the bridge!

His thoughts jumped to Nakanokimi, and presently the jumble of longing and resentment and frustration began to seem ridiculous even to him; and so he moved on to the third Uji sister, who had died such a terrible death. She was to be taxed with a kind of childishness, with rashness and indiscretion, but she had suffered. Sensing a change in Kaoru's own feelings, she had had a very bad conscience to live with. He thought of her last days. A lovable sort of companion she might have been, someone not to be taken very seriously or offered too exalted a place. He no longer felt angry with Niou, and he could no longer reprove the girl. He had only his own erratic ways to blame.

Such thoughts occupied much of his time.