proud and ambitious should have destroyed himself. His resentment quite
left him, and he was in tears.
"And how does he look to you?" Genji had taken advantage of a
moment when there were no women with the princess. "It is very sad to
think that in rejecting me you have rejected him too."
She flushed.
"Yes, very sad," he continued softly.
"Should someone come asking when the seed was dropped,
What shall it answer, the pine among the rocks?"
She lay with her head buried in a pillow. He saw that he was hurting
her, and fell silent. But he would have liked to know what she thought of
her own child. He did not expect mature discernment of her, but he would
have liked to think that she was not completely indifferent. It was very sad
indeed.
<N 9>
Yu~giri was sadder than the dead man's brothers. He could not forget
that last interview and the mysterious matters which Kashiwagi had been
unable to keep to himself. What had he been trying to say? Yu~giri had not
sought to press for more. The end had been in sight, and it would have
been too unfeeling. Though not seriously ill, it woul-
seem, the princess
had simply and effortlessly taken her vows. Why, and why had Genji
permitted them? On the very point of death Murasaki had pleaded that
he let her become a nun, and he had quite refused to listen. So Yu~giri went
on sifting through such details as he had. More than once he had seen
Kashiwagi's feelings go out of control. Kashiwagi had been calmer and
more careful and deliberate than most young men, so quietly in possession
of himself, indeed, that his reserve had made people uncomfortable. But
he had had his weak side too. Might an excess of gentleness have been at
the root of the trouble? Yu~giri found it hard to understand any excess that
could make a man destroy himself. Kashiwagi had not done well by the
princess, but for Yu~giri the wrong was of a more general nature. Perhaps
<P 651>
there were conditions which Kashiwagi had brought with him from former
lives--but Yu~giri found such a loss of control difficult to accept even so.
He kept his thoughts to himself, saying nothing even to his wife, Ka-
shiwagi's sister. He wanted very much to see what effect those oblique
hints might have on Genji, but found no occasion.
To~ no Chu~jo~ and his wife seemed barely conscious of the passing
days. All the details of the weekly memorial services, clerical robes and the
like, were left to their sons. Ko~bai, the oldest, gave particular attention to
images and scriptures. When they sought to arouse their father for the
services, his reply was as if he too might be dying.
"Do not come to me. I am as you see me, lost to this world. I would
be an obstacle on his way through the next."
For the Second Princess there was the added sorrow of not having
been able to say goodbye. Sadly, day after day, she sat looking over the
wide grounds of her mother's Ichijo~ house, now almost deserted. The men
of whom Kashiwagi had been fondest did continue to stop by from time
to time. His favorite grooms and falconers seemed lost without him. Even
now they were wandering disconsolately over the grounds. The sight of
them, and indeed every small occurrence, summoned back the unextin-
guishable sadness. Kashiwagi's belongings gathered dust. The lute and the
japanese koto upon which he had so often played were silent and their
strings were broken. The very air of the place spoke of sorrow and neglect.
The princess gazed sadly out at the garden, where the trees wore the green
haze of spring. The blossoms had none of them forgotten their proper
season.
Late one morning, as dull as all the others, there was a vigorous
shouting of outrunners and a procession came up to the gate.
"We had forgotten," said one of the women. "It almost seemed for a
moment that His Lordship had come back."
The princess's mother had thought that it would be one or more of
Kashiwagi's brothers, who were frequent callers, but the caller was in fact
more stately and dignified than they. It was Yu~giri. He was offered a seat
near the south veranda of the main hall. The princess's mother herself
came forward to receive him--it would have been impolite to send one of
the women.
"I may assure you," said Yu~giri, "that I have been sadder than if he
were my brother. But there are restraints upon an outsider and I was able
to offer only the most perfunctory condolences. He said certain things at
the end that have kept your daughter very much on my mind. It is not a
world in which any of us can feel secure, but until the day when it becomes
clear which of us is to go first, I mean to exert myself in your behalf and
hers in every way I can think of. Too much has been going on at court to
let me follow my own inclinations and simply withdraw from things, and
it would not have been very satisfying to look in on you and be on my
way again. And so the days have gone by. I have heard that To~ no Chu~jo~
<P 652>
is quite insane with grief. My own grief has only been less than his, and
it has been deepened by the thought of the regret with which my friend
must have left your daughter behind."
His words were punctuated from time to time by a suggestion of tears.
The old lady thought him very courtly and dignified and at the same time
very approachable.
There were tears in her voice too, and when she had finished speaking
she was weeping openly. "Yes, the sad thing is that it should all be so
uncertain and fleeting. I am old and I have tried to tell myself that worse
things have happened. But when I see her lost in grief, almost out of her
mind, I cannot think what to do. It almost comes to seem that I am the
really unlucky one, destined to see the end of two brief lives.
"You were close to him and you may have heard how little inclined
I was to accept his proposal. But I did not want to go against his father's
wishes, and the emperor too seemed to have decided that he would make
her a good husband. So I told myself that I must be the one who did not
understand. And now comes this nightmare, and I must reprove myself for
not having been truer to my very vague feelings. They did not of course
lead me to expect anything so awful.
"I had thought, in my old-fashioned way, that unless there were really
compelling reasons it was better that a princess not marry. And for her,
poor girl, a marriage that should never have been has come to nothing. It
would be better, I sometimes think, and people would not judge her
harshly, if she were to let the smoke from her funeral follow his. Yet the
possibility is not easy to accept, and I go on looking after her. It has been
a source of very great comfort in all the gloom to have reports of your
concern and sympathy. I do most sincerely thank you. I would not have
called him an ideal husband, but it moves me deeply to learn that because
you were so close to him you were chosen to hear his dying words, and
that there were a few for her mixed in among them."
She was weeping so piteously that Yu~giri too was in tears. "It may
have been because he was strangely old for his years that he came at the
end to seem so extremely despondent. I had been foolish enough to fear
that too much enlightenment might destroy his humanity and to caution
him against letting it take the joy out of him. I fear that I must have given
him cause to think me superficial. But it is your daughter I am saddest for,
though you may think it impertinent of me to say so." His manner was
warm and open. "Her grief and the waste seem worse than anything."
This first visit was a short one.
He was five or six years younger than Kashiwagi, but a youthful
receptivity had made Kashiwagi a good companion. Yu~giri had almost
seemed the maturer of the two and certainly he was the more masculine,
though his extraordinary good looks were also very youthful. He gave the
young women who saw him off something happy to think about after all
the sorrow.
There were cherry blossoms in the forward parts of the garden. "This
<P 653>
year alone" --but the allusion did not seem a very apt one. "If we wish
to see them," he said softly, and added a poem of his own, not, however,
as if he had a specific audience in mind.
"Although a branch of this cherry tree has withered,
It bursts into new bloom as its season comes."
The old lady was prompt with her answer, which was sent out to him
as he was about to leave:
"The willow shoots this spring, not knowing where
The petals may have fallen, are wet with dew."
She had not perhaps been the deepest and subtlest of the Suzaku
emperor's ladies, but her talents had been much admired, and quite prop-
erly so, he thought.
He went next to To~ no Chu~jo~'s mansion, where numerous sons were
gathered. After putting himself in order To~ no Chu~jo~ received him in the
main drawing room. Sorrow had not destroyed his good looks, though his
face was thin and he wore a bushy beard, which had been allowed to grow
all during his son's illness. He seemed to have been more affected by his
son's death than even by his mother's. The sight of him came near reducing
Yu~giri to tears, but he thought weeping the last thing the occasion called
for. To~ no Chu~jo~ was less successful at controlling his tears, for Yu~giri and
the dead youth had been such very close friends. The talk was of the
stubborn, lingering sadness, and as it moved on to other matters Yu~giri told
of his interview with the Second Princess's mother. This time the minis-
ter's tears were like a sudden spring shower. Yu~giri took out a piece of
notepaper on which he had jotted down the old lady's poem.
"I'm afraid I can't make it out," said To~ no Chu~jo~, trying to see
through his tears. The face once so virile and proud had been softened by
grief. Though the poem was not a particularly distinguished one the image
about the dew on the willow shoots seemed very apt and brought on a
new flood of tears.
"The autumn your mother died I thought that sorrow could not be
crueler. But she was a woman, and one does not see very much of women.
They tend to have few friends and to stay out of sight. My sorrow was
an entirely private matter. My son was not a remarkably successful man,
but he did attract the emperor's gracious notice and as he grew older he
rose in rank and influence, and more and more people looked to him for
support. After their various circumstances they were all upset by his death.
Not of course that my grief has to do with prestige and influence. It is
rather that I remember him before all this happened, and see what a
dreadful loss it is. I wonder if I will ever be the same again."
<P 654>
Looking up into an evening sky which had misted over a dull gray,
he seemed to notice for the first time that the tips of the cherry branches
were bare. He jotted down a poem on the same piece of notepaper, beside
that of the princess's mother.
"Drenched by the fall from these trees, I mourn for a child
Who should in the natural order have mourned for me."
Yu~giri answered:
"I doubt that he who left us wished it so,
That you should wear the misty robes of evening."
And Kashiwagi's brother Ko~bai:
"Bitter, bitter--whom can he have meant
To wear the misty robes ere the advent of spring?"
The memorial services were very grand. Kumoinokari, Yu~giri's wife,
helped with them, of course, and Yu~giri made them his own special con-
cern.
He frequently visited the Ichijo~ mansion of the Second Princess. There
was something indefinably pleasant about the Fourth Month sky and the
trees were a lovely expanse of new green; but the house of sorrows was
quiet and lonely, and for the ladies who lived there each new day was a
new trial.
It was in upon this sadness that he came visiting. Young grasses had
sprung up all through the garden, and in the shade of a rock or a tree, where
the sand covering was thin, wormwood and other weeds had taken over
as if asserting an old claim. The flowers that had been tended with such
care were now rank and overgrown. He thought how clumps of grass now
tidy and proper in the spring would in the autumn be a dense moor
humming with insects, and he was in tears as he parted the dewy tangles
and came up to the veranda. Rough blinds of mourning were hung all along
the front of the house. Through them he could see gray curtains newly
changed for the season. He had glimpses too of skirts that told of the
presence of little page girls, very pretty and at the same time incongruously
drab. A place was set out for him on the veranda, but the women protested
that he should be treated with more ceremony. Vaguely unwell, the prin-
cess's mother had been resting. He looked out into the garden as he talked
with her women, and the indifference of the trees brought new pangs of
sorrow. Their branches intertwined, an oak and a maple seemed younger
than the rest.
<P 655>
"How reassuring. What bonds from other lives do you suppose have
brought them together?" Quietly, he came nearer the blinds.
"By grace of the tree god let the branch so close
To the branch that withered be close to the branch that lives.
"I think it very unkind of you to keep me outdoors." He leaned
forward and put a hand on the sill.
The women were in whispered conversation about the gentler Yu~giri
they were being introduced to. Among them was one Sho~sho~, through
whom came the princess's answer.
"There may not be a god protecting the oak.
Think not, even so, its branches of easy access.
