Page:Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan.djvu/249

 He was pleased.

That night he visited her, and talked touchingly of many things. "Would you be sad," he said, "if I should desert my house and become a monk?" He spoke sadly, and she wondered why such a thought had entered his mind, and whether it could be true or not. Overcome with melancholy she wept. Outside was tranquil rain and snow: they slept not at all, but talked together with feeling throughout the night as if the world were all forgotten. She felt that his affection was deeper than she had suspected. He seemed to feel everything in her, and could sympathize with her every emotion. In that case she could accomplish her determination from the beginning [to go to become a nun]. So she made up her mind, but said nothing and sat lamenting. He saw her feeling and said:

And she continued:

In the morning he talked of merrier things than usual, and went back. Though she had no faith in it [i.e. the convent], yet she had been thinking of it to comfort her solitude. Now her mind was confused, trying to think how to realize it, and she told her perplexed feeling to the Prince: Rh