never really enjoyed himself and in the end dreaded even these short absences almost as much as she did. Now he was going away not for a fixed number of days or even years, but for a huge, incalculable period of time; perhaps (for who knew what might not happen either to him or her?) forever. The thought that he might never see her again was unendurable and he began to devise a scheme for hiding her in his retinue and secretly taking her with him. He soon saw however that this was quite impracticable. First there was the difficult sea-journey; and then, at Suma, the total lack of amusements and society. The waves and winds of that desolate shore would make poor companions for one used to the gaieties of a fashionable house. It would moreover be utterly impossible in such a place to make adequate provision for the comfort of a fastidious and delicately-nurtured lady. Her presence would soon involve him in all sorts of difficulties and anxieties. She herself felt that she would rather face every danger, every hardship, than be left behind at the Nijō-in, and that he should doubt her courage wounded her deeply.
The ladies at the ‘village of falling flowers,’ though in any case they saw him but seldom, were dismayed at the news of his departure, not for personal reasons only, but also because they had come to depend in numerous ways on his patronage and support. Many others whose acquaintance with him was very slight, were, though they would not have confessed it, shattered at the prospect of his disappearance from the Court. The abbess[1] herself feared that if she showed him any open mark of sympathy at this turn in his fortunes she would give new life to rumours which had already been used against him by his enemies. But from the time when his decision was first announced she contrived to send him constant secret messages. He
- ↑ Fujitsubo.
