Diaries of Court Ladies
in the moonlight. The door was shut, and she thought of the messenger outside the gate and hastened her answer:
The night opens and I cannot sleep,
Yet I am dreaming dreams,
And, loving them, the moon I do not see.
The Prince thought the answer not invented, and that it would be amusing to have her near him, to respond to his every fancy. After two days he came quietly in a palanquin for women. It was the first time she had shown herself to him in full[1] daylight, but it would be unfriendly to creep away and hide, so she went to welcome him, creeping a little nearer to the entrance. He excused himself for the absence of those days and said: "Make up your mind quickly as to the thing I spoke of the other day. I am always uneasy in these wanderings, yet more uneasy when I cannot see you. O troublesome are the ways of this absurd world!"
She replied: "I wish to yield to your mind, whatever it may be, yet my thoughts are troubled when I anticipate my fate and see myself neglected by you afterwards."
He said: "Try it, I can come very seldom." And he went away. On the hedge there was a beautiful mayumi[2] and the Prince, leaning against the balustrade:
- ↑ The Japanese lady in her dwelling where the light was softened by her window-panes of white silk, or her sudaré, dwelt always in a sort of twilight probably very becoming to beauty.
- ↑ Mayumi—Evonymœus europus. In Autumn the leaves of the tree become purple or red, and they are so pretty that people call them "mountain brocade."
