The Shirakawas’ house looking out eastward over the sea was an ideal spot for awaiting the moon, and Yukitomo, with his love of gaiety and his fondness for using such occasions to hold lively drinking parties for relatives and friends or to organize games of chance for their amusement, had invited a dozen or more men and women to join him that night in two second-floor rooms thrown open for the purpose at the front of the house. Some were playing ‘flower cards,’ some played go, some as they gossiped were helping themselves liberally to the snacks provided with the saké; all of them were pleasurably excited at being able to participate without the slightest sense of guilt, on the pretext of awaiting the moonrise, in this kind of late-night frivolity.

Occasionally a guest would peer out at the dark sky as though suddenly remembering their ostensible aim, only to turn again to where the cards were being slapped in rapid succession on the tatami.

‘I wonder if it isn’t time for the moon to rise? It must be after one.’

‘Not for a long while yet. The papers said the moon would rise at one thirty-five.’

‘I only hope it doesn’t cloud over just then …’

Tomo went downstairs to tell the servants to bring fresh supplies of food. On her way to the kitchen she glanced into the room where Takao was supposed to be sleeping and saw Maki bent forward beside the quilts where Takao lay in bed, talking intently in a low voice to Suga and Yumi.

They broke off abruptly at the sight of Tomo, the expression on the faces of all three so comically confused that Tomo had an immediate intuition, like an electric shock, of what was wrong.

On her way back from the kitchen she found Suga lurking like a shadow at the foot of the stairs.

‘Ma’am …’ she said in voice of suppressed pain.

‘What’s the matter, Suga? What were you talking about with Maki?’ Even as she spoke, by a kind of tacit agreement, they took themselves out onto the deserted veranda.

The light from the unshuttered rooms on the second floor upstairs threw the garden shrubs into dim green relief and the loud voices and laughter reached them with stratling immediacy. The late-night autumn air struck the skin like a cold spray of water.

‘Ma’am, I was really shocked … that the young mistress …’

Suga got so far, then her voice expired in a kind of wheeze. Fighting against the darkness that threatened to steal over her vision, Tomo put both arms around Suga’s trembling shoulders.

‘I know … You mean, something happened that time at Enoshima…’

‘Yes, Maki … Maki saw with her own eyes …’