Weeping uncontrollably, he set about a reply. There were many
pauses and the words were fragmentary and disconnected and the hand
like the tracks of a strange bird.
"As smoke I shall rise uncertainly to the heavens,
And yet remain where my thoughts will yet remain.
"Look well, I pray you, into the evening sky. Be happy, let no one
reprove you; and, though it will do no good, have an occasional thought
for me."
Suddenly worse again, he made his way tearfully back to his room.
"Enough. Go while it is still early, please, and tell her of my last moments.
I would not want anyone who already thinks it odd to think it even odder.
What have I brought from other lives, I wonder, to make me so unhappy?"
Usually he kept her long after their business was finished, but today
<P 640>
he dismissed her briefly. She was very sorry for him and did not want to
go.
His nurse, who was her aunt, told Kojiju~ of his illness, weeping all the
while.
To~ no Chu~jo~ was in great alarm. "He had seemed better these last few
days. Why the sudden change?"
"I cannot see why you are surprised," replied his son. "I am dying.
That is all."
<N 3>
That evening the Third Princess was taken with severe pains.
Guessing that they were birth pangs, her women sent for Genji in
great excitement. He came immediately. How vast and unconditional his
joy would be, he thought, were it not for his doubts about the child. But
no one must be allowed to suspect their existence. He summoned ascetics
and put them to continuous spells and incantations, and he summoned all
the monks who had made names for themselves as healers. The Rokujo~
mansion echoed with mystic rites. The princess was in great pain through
the night and at sunrise was delivered of a child. It was a boy. Most
unfortunate, thought Genji. It would not be easy to guard the secret if the
resemblance to the father was strong. There were devices for keeping girls
in disguise and of course girls did not have to appear in public as did boys.
But there was the other side of the matter: given these nagging doubts from
the outset, a boy did not require the attention which must go into rearing
a girl.
But how very strange it all was! Retribution had no doubt come for
the deed which had terrified him then and which he was sure would go
on terrifying him to the end. Since it had come, all unexpectedly, in this
world, perhaps the punishment would be lighter in the next.
Unaware of these thoughts, the women quite lost themselves in min-
istering to the child. Because it was born of such a mother in Genji's late
years, it must surely have the whole of his affection.
The ceremonies on the third night were of the utmost dignity and the
gifts ranged out on trays and stands showed that everyone thought it an
occasion demanding the best. On the fifth night the arrangements were
Akikonomu's. There were robes for the princess and, after their several
ranks, gifts for her women too, all of which would have done honor to a
state occasion. Ceremonial repast was laid out for fifty persons and there
was feasting all through the house. The staff of the Reizei Palace, including
Akikonomu's personal chamberlain, was in attendance. On the seventh
day the gifts and provisions came from the emperor himself and the
ceremony was no less imposing than if it had taken place at court. To~ no
Chu~jo~ should have been among the guests of honor, but his other worries
made it impossible for him to go beyond general congratulations. All the
princes of the blood and court grandees were present. Genji was deter-
mined that there be no flaw in the observances, but he was not happy. He
did not go out of his way to make his noble guests feel welcome, and there
was no music.
<N 4>
<P 641>
The princess was tiny and delicate and still very frightened. She quite
refused the medicines that were pressed upon her. In the worst of the crisis
she had hoped that she might quietly die and so make her escape. Genji
behaved with the strictest correctness and was determined to give no
grounds for suspicion. Yet he somehow thought the babe repellent and
was held by certain of the women to be rather chilly.
"He doesn't seem to like it at all." One of the old women interrupted
her cooings. "And such a pretty little thing too. You're almost afraid for
it. And so late in his life, when he has had so few."
The princess caught snatches of their conversation and seemed to see
a future of growing coldness and aloofness. She knew that she too was to
blame and she began to think of becoming a nun. Although Genji paid an
occasional daytime visit, he never stayed the night.
"I feel the uncertainty of it all more than ever," he said, pulling her
curtains back. "I sometimes wonder how much time I have left. I have been
occupied with my prayers and I have thought that you would not want
to see people and so I have stayed away. And how are you? A little more
yourself again? You have been through a great deal."
"I almost feel that I might not live" She raised her head from her
pillow. "But I know that it would be a very grave sin to die now. I rather
think I might like to become a nun. I might begin to feel better, and even
if I were to die I might be forgiven." She seemed graver and more serious
than before, and more mature.
"Quite out of the question--it would only invite trouble. What can
have put the idea into your head? I could understand if you really were
going to die, but of course you are not."
But he was thinking that if she felt constrained to say such things,
then the generous and humane course might be to let her become a nun.
To require that she go on living as his wife would be cruel, and for him
too things could not be the same again. He might hurt her and word of
what he had done might get abroad and presently reach her royal father.
Perhaps she was right: the present crisis could be her excuse. But then he
thought of the long life ahead of her, as long as the hair which she was
asking to have cut--and he thought that he could not bear to see her in
a nun's drab robes.
"No, you must be brave," he said, urging medicine upon her. "There
is nothing wrong with you. The lady in the east wing has recovered from
a far worse illness. We really did think she was dead. The world is neither
as cruel nor as uncertain as we sometimes think it."
There was a rather wonderful calm in the figure before him, pale and
thin and quite drained of strength. Her offense had been a grave one, but
he thought that he had to forgive her.
<N 5>
Her father, the Suzaku emperor, heard that it had been an easy birth
and longed to see her. His meditations were disturbed by reports that she
was not making a good recovery.
<P 642>
She ate nothing and was weaker and more despondent. She wept as
she thought of her father, whom she longed to see more intensely than at
any time since she had left his house. She feared that she might not see
him again. She spoke of her fears to Genji, who had an appropriate emis-
sary pass them on to the Suzaku emperor. In an agony of sorrow and
apprehension and fully aware of the impropriety, he stole from his moun-
tain retreat under cover of darkness and came to her side.
Genji was surprised and awed by the visit.
"I had been determined not to have another glance at the vulgar
world," said the emperor, "but we all know how difficult it is for a father
to throw off thoughts of his child. So I have let my mind wander from
my prayers. If the natural order of things is to be reversed and she is to
leave me, I have said to myself, then I must see her again. Otherwise the
regret would be always with me. I have come in spite of what I know they
all will say."
There was quiet elegance in his clerical dress. Not wanting to attract
attention, he had avoided the livelier colors permitted a priest. A model of
clean simplicity, thought Genji, who had long wanted to don the same
garb. Tears came easily, and he was weeping again.
"I do not think it is anything serious," he said, "but for the last month
and more she has been weak and has eaten very little." He had a place set
out for the emperor before the princess's curtains. "I only wish we were
better prepared for such an august visit."
Her women dressed her and helped her to sit up.
"I feel like one of the priests you have on night duty," said the
emperor, pulling her curtains slightly aside. "I am embarrassed that my
prayers seem to be having so little effect. I thought you might want to see
me, and so here I am, plain and undecorated."
She was weeping. "I do not think I shall live. May I ask you, while
you are here, to administer vows?"
"A most admirable request, if you really mean it. But the fact that you
are ill does not mean that you will die. Sometimes when a lady with years
ahead of her takes vows she invites trouble, and the blame that is certain
to go with it. We must not be hasty." He turned to Genji. "But she really
does seem to mean it. If this is indeed her last hour, we would certainly
not want to deny her the support and comfort of religion, however
briefly."
"She has been saying the same thing for some days now, but I have
suspected that an outside force has made her say it. And so I have refused
to listen."
"I would agree if the force seemed to be pulling in the wrong direction.
But the pain and regret of refusing a last wish--I wonder."
He had had unlimited confidence in Genji, thought the emperor, and
indications that Genji had no deep love for the princess had been a con-
<P 643>
stant worry. Even now things did not seem to be going ideally well. He
had been unable to discuss the matter with Genji. But now--might not a
quiet separation be arranged, since there were no signs of a bitterness likely
to become a scandal? Genji had no thought of withdrawing his support,
it seemed clear, and so, taking his apparent willingness as the mark of his
fidelity and himself showing no sign of resentment, might the emperor not
even now make plans for disposing of his property, and appoint for her
residence the fine Sanjo~ mansion which he had inherited from his father?
He would know before he died that she had settled comfortably into the
new life. However cold Genji might be he surely would not abandon her.
These thoughts must be tested.
"Suppose, then, while I am here, I administer the preliminary injunc-
tions and give her the beginnings of a bond with the Blessed One."
Regret and sorrow drove away the last of Genji's resentment. He went
inside the princess's curtains. "Must you think of leaving me when I have
so little time before me? Do please try to bear with me a little longer. You
must take your medicine and have something to eat. What you propose
is very admirable, no doubt, but do you think you are up to the rigors it
demands? Wait until you are well again and we will give it a little
thought."
But she shook her head. He was making things worse.
Though she said nothing, he could imagine that he had hurt her
deeply, and he was very sorry. He remonstrated with her all through the
night and presently it was dawn.
"I do not want to be seen by daylight," said the Suzaku emperor. He
summoned the most eminent of her priests and had them cut her hair. And
so they were ravaged, the thick, smooth tresses now at their very best.
Genji was weeping bitterly. She was the emperor's favorite, and she had
been brought to this. His sleeves were wet with tears.
"It is done," he said. "Be happy and work hard at your prayers."
The sun would be coming up. The princess still seemed very weak and
was not up to proper farewells.
"It is like a dream," said Genji. "The memory of an earlier visit comes
back and I am extremely sorry not to have received you properly. I shall
call soon and offer apologies."
He provided the emperor with an escort for the return journey.
"Fearing that I might go at any time," said the emperor, "and that
awful things might happen to her, I felt that I had to make provision for
her. Though I knew that I was going against your deeper wishes in asking
you to take responsibility, I have been at peace since you so generously
agreed to do so. If she lives, it will not become her new vocation to remain
in such a lively establishment. Yet I suspect that she would be lonely in
a mountain retreat like my own. Do please go on seeing to her needs as
seems appropriate."
"It shames me that you should find it necessary at this late date to
<P 644>
speak of the matter. I fear that I am too shaken to reply." And indeed he
did seem to be controlling himself only with difficulty.
<N 6>
In the course of the morning services the malignant spirit emerged,
laughing raucously. "Well, here I am. You see what I have done. I was not
at all happy, let me tell you, to see how happy you were with the lady you
thought you had taken from me. So I stayed around the house for a while
to see what I could do. I have done it and I will go."
So she still had not left them! Genji was horrified, and regretted that
they had let the princess take her vows. Though she now seemed a little
more her old self she was very weak and not yet out of danger. Her women
sighed and braced themselves for further efforts. Genji ordered that there
be no slackening of the holy endeavors, and in general saw that nothing
was left undone.
<N 7>
News of the birth seemed to push Kashiwagi nearer death. He was
