Page:A Wreath of Cloud.djvu/314

310 his ink very carefully and, continually inspecting the point of his brush, began writing slowly and cautiously. The air of serious concentration with which he settled down to his task was very impressive; more so, indeed, than the composition itself, for his education had been chiefly upon other lines.

The poem was as follows: ‘Not even on this distracted night when howling winds drive serried hosts of cloud across the sky, do I for an instant forget thee, thou Unforgettable One.’ He tied this to a tattered spray of miscanthus that he had picked up in the porch. At this there was general laughter. ‘It’s clear you haven’t read your Katano no Shōshō’ said one of the nurses, ‘or you would at least choose a flower that matched your paper….’ ‘You are quite right,’ he answered rather sulkily, ‘I have never bothered my head about such matters. No doubt one ought to go tramping about the countryside looking for an appropriate flower; but I have no intention of doing so….’ He had always seemed to the nurses and other such ladies of the household very difficult to get anything out of. Apparently he did not care what impression he made upon them; and as a matter of fact they were beginning to think him rather priggish and stuck-up.

He wrote a second letter, and sending for his retainer Uma no Suké put this and the original note into the man’s hand. But evidently the two letters were to go in quite different directions. For Uma no Suké, having scanned the addresses, entrusted one to a page boy and the other to a discreet, responsible-looking body-servant. These proceedings were accompanied by a great many whispered