Page:A Wreath of Cloud.djvu/292

288 not find “No Admittance” in large letters on your door. But though I hardly like to mention it, we are (in the words of the poet) both “tinged with the purple of Musashi Moor.” If I am being too bold, pray tell me so and do not take offence.’ All this was written in a rather speckly hand. On the back was the postcript: ‘By the way, I have some thoughts of inflicting myself upon you this very same evening. And please forgive these blots, which (as the saying goes) all the waters of Minasé River would not wash away, so what is the use of trying?’ In the margin was the following extraordinary poem: ‘I wonder with as big a query as How Cape on the Sea of Hitachi where the grasses are so young and green, when oh when, like the waves on the shore of Tago, shall we meet face to face?’

‘I’ll write no more,’ she added at the side of the poem, ‘for I declare I feel as flustered as the foam on the great River at Yoshino….’

It was written on a single sheet of blue poetry-paper, in a very cursive style, copiously adorned with hooks and flourishes which seemed to wander about at their own will and stand for nothing at all. The tails of her ‘ shi ’s were protracted to an inordinate length, and the lines slanted more and more as the letter went on, till in the end they seemed in danger of falling over sideways. But so delighted was she with her own composition that she could hardly bear to part with it. At last, however, she gave it a final look of admiration, folded it up very small and attaching it to a carnation-blossom, handed it to her favourite messenger, a little peasant-boy who did the dirty work in her part of the palace. He was a good-looking child, and though he had only been in service for a very short while, he had made himself quite at home. Sauntering into Lady Chūjō’s apartments, he found his way to the servants’ sitting-room and demanded that the note should at once be taken to her