Page:The Sacred Tree (Waley 1926).pdf/246

240 tress of severed hair.” ’ Suddenly the voice of the aunt broke in upon them shouting impatiently: ‘What has become of Jijū? Be quick, now, it is getting quite dark!’ Hardly knowing what she did, Jijū climbed into the coach and as it drove away stared helplessly at the dilapidated house.

So at last Jijū had left her; Jijū who for years past, though in sore need of a little pleasure and distraction, had never once asked for a single day’s holiday! But this was not the end of the princess’s troubles; for now even the few old charwomen who still remained in the house—poor doddering creatures who could never have persuaded anyone else to employ them—began threatening to leave. ‘Do you think I blame her?’ said one of them, speaking of Jijū’s departure. ‘Not I! What had she to stay for, I ask you. And come to that, I should like to know why we go on putting up with it all.’ And they began with one accord remembering influential patrons who had at one time or another promised to employ them. No, decidedly they would not stay in the place any longer.

These conversations, which took place in the princess’s hearing, had the most disquieting effect upon her. The Frosty Month had now come. In the open country around, though snow and hail frequently fell, they tended to melt between-whiles. But in the wilderness that surrounded the Hitachi Palace vast drifts of snow, protected by the tangled overgrowth from any ray of sunlight, piled higher and higher, till one might have fancied oneself in some valley among the Alps of Koshi. Through these arctic wastes not even the peasants would consent to press their way and the palace was for weeks on end entirely cut off from the outer world.

The princess sat staring at the snow. Life had been dull enough before, but at any rate she had some one at hand