18

The weather being somewhat cooler, the empress thought of removing to the palace.

But her younger women objected. “This is the place for autumn colors. Do let us stay and see them.”

They were all of them gathered at Rokujo~. They went boating on the lake and they enjoyed the moonlight. Day and night, song to koto and lute floated over the grounds. Niou was not one to overlook such excitement. To the ladies, even those who saw him morning and night, he was like a fresh flower upon each appearance. Kaoru visited less frequently and they found him forbidding and unapproachable. One day Jiju~ chanced to look out from behind a screen and saw the two of them side by side. If only her lady had lived, become the bride of the one or the other, and reaped blessings (people would have said) from former lives! How utterly forlorn was the reality of her passing compared with the possibilities she had thrown away. But no one must be vouchsafed the smallest hint of the truth. Jiju~ must evince no more than any girl's interest in the two men.

Niou was transmitting all the court gossip to his mother. Kaoru got up to leave and Jiju~ slipped out of sight. She did not want him to know that she had taken service again before even the year of mourning was over. He would think her lacking in steadfastness and dedication.

He went to the east galleries, where numbers of women were whisper-ing to one another just inside an open door.

“How pleasant if we could all be friends. You can trust me, you know, just as you trust one another, and it is possible that I might have a thing or two to teach you. Do you know what I mean? Yes, I rather think you do, and I am pleased.”

The poor girl s were at a loss for an answer. Presently an older and very experienced woman named Ben spoke up. “I fear that the ones who have no good cause to answer are the ones with all the answers. Isn't that the unfortunate way of the world? You are not to understand, of course, that good cause makes a girl speak up in response to just any passing query; and on the other hand it would be odd for us brazen ones to sit here like lumps.” *

“So those who have good cause to be friendly tend to be shy, and you are not such a one? How very sad for both of us.”

She seemed to have slipped off her cloak and pushed it away, and, in dishabille, to be at practice on her calligraphy. It seemed too that she had been toying with flowers, for several delicate sprays lay on the lid of her writing box. He was treated to an elegant array of ladies, though some had slipped behind curtains and the others had turned so that their faces could not be seen through the open door.

He pulled the inkstone nearer.

“Now through a field of riotous maiden flowers

I go, untouched by any drop of dew.

“Do you still not trust me?”

He handed it to a lady who sat turned away from him, very near the door. Calmly, quickly, with scarcely a motion, she set down an answering poem.

“A flower whose name may suggest a want of judgment,

It does not bend for every passing dew.”

It was a tiny sample to go by, but he found the hand pleasing and distinguished. Perhaps en route to the royal audience chamber she had found him blocking the way.

“Well,” resumed Ben, “I must say that you make yourself very clear, and you do, as you have indicated, show signs of senility.

“Suppose you too have a nap among the flowers.

Then may we see how well you resist their hues.

“And then we will be in a position to make up our minds about you.”

Kaoru was ready with another poem:

“I shall stay the night, if I have your invitation,

Though common hues, I warn you, tempt me not.”

“That was not kind. I spoke in generalities.”

He had said little, but it had interested them.

“Well, I see that I am in the way. I shall leave it unobstructed. And I seem to have come at a time that calls for unusual reticence.” *

They only hoped, thought some of the women as he turned to leave, that he had not taken Ben for their spokesman.