very sad for his wife, the Second Princess. It would be in bad taste for her
to come visiting, however, and he feared that, whatever precautions were
taken, she might suffer the embarrassment of being seen by his parents,
who were always with him. He said that he would like to visit her, but
they would not hear of it. He asked them, and others, to be good to her.
His mother-in-law had from the start been unenthusiastic about the
match. To~ no Chu~jo~ had pressed the suit most energetically, however, and,
sensing ardor and sincerity, she had at length given her consent. After
careful consideration the Suzaku emperor had agreed. Back in the days
when he had been so worried about the Third Princess he had said that
the Second Princess seemed nicely taken care of. Kashiwagi feared that he
had sadly betrayed the trust.
"I hate to think of leaving her," he said to his mother. "But life does
not go as we wish it. Her resentment at the promises I have failed to keep
must be very strong. Do please be good to her."
"You say such frightening things. How long do you think I would
survive if you were to leave me?"
She was weeping so piteously that he could say no more, and so he
tried discussing the matter of the Second Princess with his brother
Ko~bai. Kashiwagi was a quiet, well-mannered youth, more father than
brother to his youngest brothers, who were plunged into the deepest
sorrow by these despairing remarks. The house rang with lamentations,
which were echoed all through the court. The emperor ordered an immedi-
ate promotion to councillor of the first order.
"Perhaps," he said, "he will now find strength to visit us."
The promotion did not have that happy effect, however. He could
only offer thanks from his sickbed. This evidence of the royal esteem only
added to To~ no Chu~jo~'s sorrow and regret.
A worried Yu~giri came calling, the first of them all to offer congratula-
tions. The gate to Kashiwagi's wing of the house was jammed with car-
<P 645>
riages and there were crowds of well-wishers in his antechambers. Having
scarcely left his bed since New Year, he feared that he would look sadly
rumpled in the presence of such finery. Yet he hated to think that he might
not see them again.
Yu~giri at least he must see. "Do come in," he said, sending the priests
away. "I know you will excuse my appearance."
The two of them had always been the closest of friends, and Yu~giri's
sorrow was as if he were a brother. What a happy day this would have
been in other years! But of course these wishful thoughts accomplished
nothing.
"Why should it have happened?" he said, lifting a curtain. "I had
hoped that this happy news might make you feel a little better."
"I am very sorry indeed that I do not. I do not seem to be the man for
such an honor." Kashiwagi had put on a formal cap. He tried to raise his
head but the effort was too much for him. He was wearing several pleas-
antly soft robes and lay with a quilt pulled over him. The room was in
simple good taste and incenses and other details gave it a deep, quiet
elegance. Kashiwagi was in fact rather carefully dressed, and great atten-
tion had obviously gone into all the appointments. One expects an invalid
<P 646>
to look unkempt and even repulsive, but somehow in his case emaciation
seemed to give a new fineness and delicacy. Yu~giri suffered with him as
he struggled to sit up.
"But what a pleasant surprise," said Yu~giri (though brushing away a
tear). "I would have expected to find you much thinner after such an
illness. I actually think you are better-looking than ever. I had assumed,
somehow, that we would always be together and that we would go
together, and now this awful thing has happened. And I do not even know
why. We have been so close, you and I--it upsets me more than I can say
to know nothing about the most important matter."
"I could not tell you if I wanted to. There are no marked symptoms.
I have wasted away in this short time and scarcely know what is happen-
ing. I fear that I may no longer be in complete control of myself. I have
lingered on, perhaps because of all the prayers of which I am so unworthy,
and in my heart I have only wanted to be done with it all.
" Yet for many reasons I find it hard to go. I have only begun to do
something for my mother and father, and now I must cause them pain. I
am also being remiss in my duties to His Majesty. And as I look back over
my life I feel sadder than I can tell you to think how little I have accom-
plished, what a short distance I have come. But there is something besides
all this that has disturbed me very much. I have kept it to myself and doubt
that I should say anything now that the end is in sight. But I must. I cannot
keep it to myself, and how am I to speak of it if not to you? I do have all
these brothers, but for many reasons it would do no good even to hint of
what is on my mind.
"There was a matter which put me at cross purposes with your es-
teemed father and for which I have long been making secret apology. I did
not myself approve of what I had done and I fell into a depression that
made me avoid people, and finally into the illness in which you now see
me. It was all too clear on the night of the rehearsal at Rokujo~ that he had
not forgiven me. I did not see how it would be possible to go on living with
his anger. I rather lost control of myself and began having nervous disturb-
ances, and so I have become what you see.
"I am sure that I never meant very much to him, but I for my part have
been very dependent on him since I was very young. Now a fear of the
slanders he may have heard is my strongest bond with this world and may
be the greatest obstacle on my journey into the next. Please remember
what I have said and if you find an opportunity pass on my apologies to
him. If after I am gone he is able to forgive whatever I have done, the credit
must be yours."
He was speaking with greater difficulty. Yu~giri could think of details
that seemed to fit into the story, but could not be sure exactly what the
story had been.
"You are morbidly sensitive. I can think of no indication of displeas-
ure on his part, and indeed he has been very worried about you and has
<P 647>
said how he grieves for you. But why have you kept these things to
yourself? I should surely have been the one to convey apologies in both
directions, and now I suppose it is too late." How he wished that they
could go back a few years or months!
"I had long thought that when I was feeling a little better I must speak
to you and ask your opinion. But of course it is senseless to go on thinking
complacently about a life that could end today or tomorrow. Please tell no
one of what I have said. I have spoken to you because I have hoped that
you might find an opportunity to speak to him, very discreetly, of course.
And if you would occasionally look in on the Second Princess. Do what
you can, please, to keep her father from worrying about her."
He wanted to say more, it would seem, but he was in ever greater pain.
At last he motioned that he wanted Yu~giri to leave him. The priests and
his parents and numerous others returned to his bedside. Weeping, Yu~giri
made his way out through the confusion.
Kashiwagi's sisters, one of them married to Yu~giri and another to the
emperor, were of course deeply concerned. He had a sort of fraternal
expansiveness that reached out to embrace everyone. For Tamakazura he
was the only one in the family who really seemed like a brother. She too
commissioned services.
They were not the medicine he needed. He went away like the foam
upon the waters.
The Second Princess did not after all see him again. He had not been
deeply in love with her, not, indeed, even greatly attached to her. Yet his
behavior had been correct in every detail. He had been a gentle, considerate
husband, making no demands upon her and giving no immediate cause for
anger. Thinking sadly over their years together, she thought it strange that
a man doomed to such a short life should have shown so little inclination
to enjoy it. For her mother, the very worst had happened, though she had
in a way expected it. Her daughter had married a commoner, and now
everyone would find her plight very amusing.
Kashiwagi's parents were shattered. The cruelest thing is to have the
natural order upset. But of course it had happened, and complaining did
no good. The Third Princess, now a nun, had thought him impossibly
presumptuous and had not joined in the prayers, but even she was sorry.
Kashiwagi had predicted the birth of the child. Perhaps their strange, sad
union had been joined in another life. It was a depressing chain of
thoughts, and she was soon in tears.
<N 8>
The Third Month came, the skies were pleasant and mild, and the
<P 648>
little boy reached his fiftieth day. He had a fair, delicate skin and was
already showing signs of precociousness. He was even trying to talk.
Genji came visiting. "And have you quite recovered? Whatever you
say, it is a sad thing you have done. The occasion would be so much
happier if you had not done it." He seemed near tears. "It was not kind
of you."
He now came to see her every day and could not do enough for her.
"What are you so worried about?" he said, seeing that her women did
not seem to know how fiftieth-day ceremonies should be managed in a
nun's household. "If it were a girl the fact that the mother is a nun might
seem to invite bad luck and throw a pall over things. But with a boy it
makes no difference."
He had a little place set out towards the south veranda of the main
hall and there offered the ceremonial rice cakes. The nurse and various
other attendants were in festive dress and the array of baskets and boxes
inside the blinds and out covered the whole range of colors--for the
managers of the affair were uninhibited by a knowledge of the sad truth.
They were delighted with everything, and Genji smarted and squirmed.
Newly risen from her sickbed, the princess found her heavy hair very
troublesome and was having it brushed. Genji pulled her curtains aside and
sat down. She turned shyly away, more fragile than ever. Because there
had been such regrets for her lovely hair only a very little had been cut
away, and only from the front could one see that it had been cut at all.
Over several grayish singlets she wore a robe of russet. The profile which
she showed him was charming, in a tiny, childlike way, and not at all that
of a nun.
"Very sad, really," said Genji. "A nun's habit is depressing, there is
no denying the fact. I had thought I might find some comfort in looking
after you as always, and it will be a very long time before my tears have
dried. I had thought that it might help to tax myself with whatever unwit-
ting reasons I may have given you for dismissing me. Yes, it is very sad.
How I wish it were possible to go back.
"If you move away I shall have to conclude that you really do reject
me, with all your heart, and I do not see how I shall be able to face you
again. Do please have a thought for me."
"They tell me that nuns tend to be rather withdrawn from ordinary
feelings, and I seem to have been short on them from the start. What am
I to say?"
"You are not fair to yourself. We have had ample evidence of your
feelings." He turned to the little boy.
The nurse and the other attendants were all handsome, wellborn
women whom Genji himself had chosen. He now summoned them for a
conference.
"What a pity that I should have so few years left for him."
He played with the child, fair-skinned and round as a ball, and bub-
<P 649>
bling with good spirits. He had only very dim memories of Yu~giri as a boy,
but thought he could detect no resemblance. His royal grandchildren of
course had their father's blood in their veins and even now carried them-
selves with regal dignity, but no one would have described them as out-
standingly handsome. This boy was beautiful, there was no other word for
it. He was always laughing, and a very special light would come into his
eyes which fascinated Genji. Was it Genji's imagination that he looked like
his father? Already there was a sort of tranquil poise that quite put one
to shame, and the glow of the skin was unique.
The princess did not seem very much alive to these remarkable good
looks, and of course almost no one else knew the truth. Genji was left alone
to shed a tear for Kashiwagi, who had not lived to see his own son. How
very unpredictable life is! But he brushed the tear away, for he did not
want it to cloud a happy occasion.
"I think upon it in quiet," he said softly, "and there is ample cause
for lamentin."
<P 650>
His own years fell short by ten of the poet's fifty-eight, but he feared
that he did not have many ahead of him. "Do not be like your father" :
this, perhaps, was the admonition in his heart. He wondered which of the
women might be in the princess's confidence. He could not be sure, but
they were no doubt laughing at him, whoever they were. Well, he could
bear the ridicule, and a discussion of his responsibilities and hers in the sad
affair would be more distressing for her than for him. He would say
nothing and reveal nothing.
The little boy was charming, especially the smiling, happy eyes and
mouth. Would not everyone notice the resemblance to the father? Genji
thought of Kashiwagi, unable to show this secret little keepsake to his
grieving parents, who had longed for at least a grandchild to remember him
by. He thought how strange it was that a young man so composed and
