away with the daylight. I could see that the evil spirit, whatever it may
have been, was behaving as usual, taking advantage of her weakness. I had
seen it happen many times during our troubles with the young master. But
<P 697>
she always seemed to rally, with a great effort of will, when she saw that
the princess was as unhappy as she and needed comforting. The princess,
poor thing, has been in a daze." There were many pauses, as if it had all
been more than she could reconcile herself to.
"That is exactly what I mean. She must pull herself together and make
up her mind. You may think it impertinent of me to say so, but I am all
she has left. Her father is a complete recluse. She cannot expect messages
to come very often from those cloudy peaks. Do, please, have a word with
her. What must be must be. She may not want to live on, but we cannot
have our way in these matters. If we could, then of course these cruel
partings would not occur."
Kosho~sho~ did not seek to interrupt. A stag called out from just beyond
the garden wall.
"I would not be outdone.
"I push my way through tangled groves to Ono.
Shall my laments, 0 stag, be softer than yours?"
<P 698>
Kosho~sho~ replied:
"Dew-drenched wisteria robes in autumn mountains.
Sobs to join the baying of the stag."
It was no masterpiece, but the hushed voice and the time and place
were right.
He sent in repeated messages to the princess. A single answer came
back, so brief that it was almost curt. "It is like a nightmare. I shall try to
thank you when I am a little more myself."
What uncommon stubbornness! The thought of it rankled all the way
back to the city. Though the autumn skies were sad, the moon, near full,
saw him safely past Mount Ogura. The princess's Ichijo~ mansion wore an
air of neglect and disrepair. The southwest corner of the garden wall had
collapsed. The shutters were drawn and the grounds were deserted save
for the moon, which had quite taken possession of the garden waters. He
thought how Kashiwagi's flute would have echoed through these same
grounds on such a night.
"No shadows now of them whom once I knew.
Only the autumn moon to guard the waters."
Back at Sanjo~ he gazed up at the moon as if his soul had abandoned
him and gone wandering through the skies.
"Never saw anything like it," said one of the women. "He always used
to be so well behaved."
Kumoinokari was very unhappy indeed. He seemed to have lost his
head completely. Perhaps he had been observing the ladies at Rokujo~, long
used to this sort of thing, and had concluded that she was worse than
uninteresting. Well, it might be that his dissatisfaction should be directed
at himself. Life might have been better for her if he had been a Genji.
Everyone seemed to agree that she was married to a model of decorum and
that her marriage had been ordained by the happiest fates. And was it to
end in scandal?
Dawn was near. Sleepless, they were alone with their separate
thoughts. He was as always in a rush to get off a letter, even before the
morning mists had lifted. Disgusting, thought she, though she did not this
time try to take it from him. It was a long letter, and when he had finished
he read certain favored passages over to himself, softly but quite audibly.
"It falls from above.
"Waking from the dream of an endless night
You said--and when may I pay my visit?"
<P 699>
"And what am I to do?" he added in a whisper as he folded it into
an envelope and sent for a messenger.
She would have liked to know what else was in it and hoped that she
might have a glimpse of the reply. It was all most unsettling.
The sun was high when the reply came. On paper of a dark purple,
it was as usual from Kosho~sho~, and, as usual, short and businesslike.
"She made a few notes at the end of your letter. Feeling a little sorry
for you and thinking them better than nothing, I gathered them and
herewith smuggle them to you."
So the princess had seen his letter! His delight was perhaps a little too
open. There were indeed scraps of paper, fragmentary and disconnected,
some of which he reassembled into a poem:
"Morning and night, laments sound over Mount Ono
And Silent Waterfall--a flow of tears?"
There were also fragments from the anthologies, in a very good hand.
He had always thought that there was something wrong with a man
who could lose his senses over a woman, and here he was doing it himself.
How strange it was, and how extremely painful. He tried to shake himself
back into sanity, but without success.
Genji learned of the affair. The calm, sober Yu~giri, about whom there
had never been a whisper of scandal, an edifying contrast with the Genji
of the days when he had seemed rather too susceptible--here Yu~giri was
making two women unhappy. And he was To~ no Chu~jo~'s son-in-law and
nephew, certainly no stranger to the family. But Yu~giri must know what
he was doing. No doubt it had all been fated, and Genji was in no position
to offer advice. He felt very sorry for the women, and he thought of
Murasaki and how unhappy he had made her. Each time a new rumor
reached him he would tell her how he worried about her and the life that
awaited her when he was gone.
It was not kind of him, she thought, flushing, to have plans for leaving
her. Such a difficult, constricted life as a woman was required to live!
Moving things, amusing things, she must pretend to be unaffected by
them. With whom was she to share the pleasure and beguile the tedium
of this fleeting world? Since it chose to look upon women as useless,
unfeeling creatures, should it not pity the fathers who went to such trouble
rearing them? Like the mute prince who was always appearing in sad
parables, a woman should be sensitive but silent. The balance was cer-
tainly very difficult to maintain--and the little girl in her care, Genji's
granddaughter, must face the same difficulties.
Genji found occasion, on one of Yu~giri's visits, to seek further infor-
mation. "I suppose the mourning for the Ichijo~ lady will soon be over. It
<P 700>
was only yesterday, you think, and already thirty years and more have
gone by. That is the sort of world we live in, and we cling to a life that
is no more substantial than the evening dew. I have wanted for a very long
time to leave it all behind, and it does not seem right that I should go on
living this comfortable life"
"It is true," said Yu~giri. "The very least of us clings to his tiny bit of
life. The governor of Yamato saw to the memorial services without the
help of anyone. It was rather pathetic, somehow. You sensed how little the
poor lady had behind her. There was an appearance of solidity while she
lived and then it was gone."
"I suppose there have been messages from the Suzaku emperor? I can
imagine how things must be with the princess. I did not know them well,
but there have been reports in recent years suggesting what a superior
person the dead lady was. We all feel the loss. The ones we need are the
ones who go away. It must have been a dreadful blow to the Suzaku
emperor. I am told that the Second Princess is his favorite after the Third
Princess here. Everyone says that she is most attractive."
"But what about her disposition? I wonder. The mother was, as you
suggest, a lady whom no one could find fault with. I did not know her well,
but I did see her a few times, on this occasion and that."
He obviously did not propose to give himself away. Genji held his
peace. One did not question the feelings of a man so admirably in control
of himself, nor did one expect to be listened to.
Yu~giri himself had in fact taken responsibility for the memorial ser-
vices. Such matters do not remain secret, and reports reached To~ no Chu~jo~.
Knowing Yu~giri, he put the whole blame on the princess and concluded
that she must be a frivolous, flighty little thing. His sons were all present
at the services, and To~ no Chu~jo~ himself sent lavish offerings. In the end,
because no one wished to be outdone, they were services worthy of the
highest statesman in the land.
The princess had said that she would end her days at Ono. Her father
learned of these intentions and sought to remonstrate with her.
'It will not do. You are right to want to avoid complications, but it
sometimes happens that when a lady alone in the world seeks to withdraw
from it completely she finds that just the opposite has happened. She finds
herself involved in scandal, and therefore in the worst position, neither in
the world nor out of it. I have become a priest and your sister has followed
me and become a nun, and people seem to think my line rather unproduc-
tive. I know that in theory I should not care what they say, but I must
admit that it is not the most pleasing sight, my daughters racing one
another into a nunnery. No, my dear--the world may seem too much for
you, but when you run impulsively away from it you sometimes find that
it is with you more than ever. Do please wait a little while and have a calm
look at things when you are in better spirits."
<P 701>
It seemed that he had heard of Yu~giri's activities. People would not
make charitable judgments, he feared. They would say that she had been
jilted. Though he would not think it entirely dignified of her to appear
before the world as one of Yu~giri's ladies, he did not want to embarrass
her by saying so. He should not even have heard of the affair and he had
no right to an opinion. He said not a word about it.
Yu~giri was feeling restless and inadequate. His petitions were having
no effect at all. Nor did it seem likely that persistence would accomplish
anything. If he could only think how, he might let it be known that the
mother had accepted his suit. He might risk doing slight discredit to the
dead lady's name by making it seem that the affair had begun rather a long
time before, he scarcely knew when. He would feel very silly, in any event,
going through the tears and supplications all over again.
Choosing a propitious day for taking her back to Ichijo~, he instructed
the governor of Yamato to make the necessary preparations. He also gave
instructions for cleaning and repairing the Ichijo~ mansion. It was a fine
house, a suitable dwelling for royalty, but the women she had left behind
could scarcely see out through the weeds that had taken over the garden.
When he had everything cleaned and polished he turned to preparations
for the move itself, asking the governor to put his craftsmen to work on
screens and curtains and cushions and the like.
On the appointed day he went to Ichijo~ and sent carriages and an
escort to Ono. The princess quite refused to leave. Her women noisily
sought to persuade her, as did the governor of Yamato.
"I am near the end of my patience, Your Highness. I have felt sorry
for you and done everything I could think of to help you, even at the cost
of neglecting my official duties. I absolutely must go down to Yamato and
see to putting things in order again. I would not want to send you back
to Ichijo~ all by yourself, but we have the general taking care of everything.
I have to admit that when I give a little thought to these arrangements I
do not find them ideal for a princess, but we have examples enough of far
worse things. Are you under the impression that you alone may escape
criticism? A very childish impression indeed. The strongest and most
forceful lady cannot put her life in order without someone to help her,
someone to make the arrangements and box the corners. Much the wiser
thing would be to accept help where it is offered. And you," he said to
Kosho~sho~ and Sakon. "You have not given her good advice, and your
behavior has not been above reproach."
They stripped her of mourning and brought out fresh, bright robes
and brushed the hair she had resolved to cut. It was a little thinner, but
still a good six feet long and the envy of them all. Yet she went on telling
herself that she looked dreadful, that she must not be seen, that no one
had ever been more miserable than she.
"We are late, my lady." Her women accosted her one after another.
"We are very late."
There was a sudden and violent rain squall.
<P 702>
"My choice would be to rise with the smoke from the peaks,
Which might perhaps not go in a false direction."
Knowing of her wish to become a nun, they had hidden the knives
and scissors. All very unnecessary. She no longer cared in the least what
happened to her, and she would not have been so childish, nor would
she have wished people to think her so obstinate, as to cut her hair in
secret.
Everyone was in a great hurry. All manner of combs and boxes and
chests and bulging bags had already been sent off to the city. The house
was bare, she could not stay on alone. In tears, she was finally shown into
a carriage, and beside her was the empty seat that had been her mother's.
On the journey to Ono her mother, desperately ill, had stroked her hair
and gently sought to comfort her, and on their arrival had insisted that she
dismount first. She had her talisman sword beside her as always, and a
sutra box inlaid with mother-of-pearl, a memento of her mother.
"A small bejeweled box, now wet with tears,
To help me remember and seek elusive solace."
She had kept it back from the offerings in memory of her mother. The
black sutra box she had ordered for herself was not yet ready.
She felt like the son of Urashima, returning to an utterly changed
world. The Ichijo~ house, now buzzing with life, was scarcely recognizable.
