her. She had lived so secluded a life that to open her mouth at all in a stranger’s presence seemed to her a terrible ordeal, and her gentlewomen were in the end obliged to make such amends as they could. It was a comfort that many of her officers and gentlewomen were closely connected with the Imperial Family and would, if his project for installing her in the Palace did not come to naught, be able to help her to assert herself. He would have been glad to know more about her appearance, but she always received him from behind her curtains, and he neither felt justified in taking the liberties that are accorded to a parent nor did he feel quite sure enough of himself to wish to put his parental feelings to the test. He was indeed very uncertain with regard to his own intentions, and for the present mentioned his plans about her to nobody. He saw to it that the Memorial Service was carried out with great splendour, devoting to the arrangement of it a care that deeply gratified the bereaved household. Life there was becoming more and more featureless and depressing as the weeks went by. One by one Lady Akikonomu’s servants and retainers were finding other employment. The Palace stood at the extreme outer edge of the Sixth Ward, in a district which was very little frequented, and the melancholy bells which went on tolling and tolling in innumerable adjacent temples reduced her every evening to a state of abject misery. She had always been used to spend a great deal of time in her mother’s company, and even when she was sent to Ise, though no parent had ever before accompanied the Vestal Virgin, they still remained unseparated. It can be imagined then that her mother’s loss left her peculiarly helpless and desolate; and the thought that Rokujō, who had travelled so far for her sake, should now set out upon this last journey all alone, caused her unspeakable pain. Many suitors both high and low, under cover
