How happy! He seemed to have been thinking her a worthless woman, but he has changed his mind, she thought. The Prince, on his side, thought the lady would have some value for him when he wanted to be amused, but even while he was thinking it, he was told that the Major-General was her favourite and visited her in the daytime. Still others said, "Hyobukyo is another of her lovers." The Prince was deterred by these words and wrote no more.
One day His Highness's little page, who was the lover of one of her maids, came to the house. While they were chattering the page was asked if he had brought a letter, he answered: "No; one day my Lord came here, but he found a palanquin at the gate. From that time he does not write letters. Moreover, he has heard that others visit here." When the boy was gone this was told. She was deeply humiliated. No presumptuous thoughts nor desire for material dependence had been hers. Only while she was loved and respected had she wished for intercourse. Estrangement of any other kind would have been bearable, but her heart was torn asunder to think that he should suspect her of so shameful a thing. In the midst of mourning over her unfortunate situation, a letter was brought her:
I am ill and much troubled these days. Of late I visited your dwelling, but alas! at an unlucky time. I feel that I am unmanly.
Let it be—
I will not look toward the beach—
The seaman's little boat has rowed away.
Her answer:
You have heard unmentionable things about me. I am humiliated and it is painful for me to write any more. Perhaps this will be the last letter.
Off the shore of { aimlessness
{ Sodé
With burning heart and dripping sleeves,
I am he who drifts in the seaman's boat.
It was already the Seventh month. On the seventh day she received many letters from elegant persons in deference to the celestial lovers,[12] but her heart was not touched by them. She was only thinking that she was utterly forgotten by the Prince, who had never lost such an opportunity to write to her; but [at last] there came a poem:
Alas! that I should become like the Herder-God
Who can only gaze at the Weaving One
Beyond the River of Heaven.
The lady saw that he could not forget her and she was pleased.