15

Concluding that nothing more was to be expected, he started for the city. Further attempts at correspondence would seem inappropriate and even childish. Yet he could not forget the figure of which he had had a glimpse that afternoon. He pitied the girl, though of course he still did not know what reasons there were for pity.

Toward the middle of the Eighth Month, on a falconing expedition, he again visited Ono.

He called Sho~sho~ and gave her a note for the girl. “The sight of you has left me restless and utterly at loose ends.”

Since it seemed unlikely that the girl would answer, the nun sent back: “She awaits 'I know not whom on Matsuchi Hill.'“*

“You have told me that she has troubles,” he said when the nun came out to receive him. “I would like more details, if you don't mind. Few things go as I would wish them. I often think of withdrawing to the mountains myself; but people hold me back, and time goes by. I am of a rather morose turn, I fear, and sunny dispositions do not particularly suit me. Perhaps if I might talk of my troubles with someone who has troubles too?”

He seemed very interested indeed, thought the nun. “If you are look-ing for someone who is not very talkative, I suspect that you have come to the right place. But her distrust of the world is almost frightening, and she seems determined not to do as other women do. It was not easy for me, even, to say goodbye to the world, and I have so little time ahead of me. I do not know how a girl with everything ahead of her can even think of it.” As she bustled back and forth between girl and caller, it was as if she had become a mother once more. “You are not being kind,” she said to the girl. “You must let him have an answer, even if it is only a word or two. People like us should be more understanding than most.”

But the girl was cold to her persuasions. “I know nothing at all, not the way they answer these things, nothing.”

“I beg your pardon?” said the captain. “No answer? That is too un-kind. It is a lie, then, about Matsuchi Hill?

' “I wait,' said the voice from the pines; and I have come

And find myself wandering lost through dew-drenched reeds.” +

“Do try to feel a little sorry for him,” said the nun. “You must answer at least this one time.”

But the thought of even a delicate show of interest horrifled the girl, and a response was sure to invite further challenges. She remained silent.

This evidence of apathy was not to the nun's liking. She sent an answer herself, and her manner as she set about it suggested that she had not always been of an ascetic bent. “Though the dew on the autumn moors may have wet your sleeves,

You do wrong, 0 hunter, to blame our weed-grown lodgings.

“I but forward her reply to your message. As you see, it is not en-couraging.”

The nuns had warm feelings towards the captain, and of course they could not know how deeply it distressed the girl to have word get out, despite her own wishes, that she was still alive. They seemed intent upon pushing her into his arms. “Just have a try at letting him talk to you when these little chances come up. You will be surprised, I am sure you will, at how silly you have been to hold back. No, it needn't be the usual sort of thing. Just let him know that you don't dislike him.”

They were far from as withdrawn and unworldly as she would have wished, and the youthful zest with which they turned out bad poetry did nothing to restore her composure. What further humiliations must she expect?—for she still had life, unbearable burden which she had sought to be rid of. If only they would turn her out, rejected by the whole world.

The captain heaved a sigh, perhaps because other worries had crossed his mind. Taking out a flute, he played a muted tune upon it, and when he had finished he intoned softly, as if to himself:"'The call of the hart disturbs the autumn night.'“* He did appear to be a man of taste. “I seem to have come all this way just to be tormented by memories,” he said, getting up to leave, “and I fear that my new friend will not be much comfort. No, your retreat does not seem to lie along my 'mountain path away from the world.'“+

“Such a beautiful night, and it is just beginning.” The nun came out towards the veranda. “Must you go?”

“What possible reason have I to stay? I sense very great distances between us.”

He had no wish at this point to seem eager. The one fleeting glimpse had been interesting, and had offered possible relief from loneliness and boredom. That was all. Her haughtiness was rather out of keeping with her circumstances, and cooled his ardor.

The nun was reluctant to see even the flute go. She sought to detain him with a verse, though not a very clever one:

“A stranger to the late-night moon in its glory

That he now disdains our house at the mountain ridge?”

She had been clever in one respect: she had made it seem that the girl's own sentiments were in the poem. His interest revived, he sent an answering poem:

“I shall watch till the moon goes behind the mountain ridge,

To see how it slips through the boards that roof your chamber.”