The boy tugged uncomfortably at his sleeve and looked down. "Do
you have to say what Granny said?"
At a corner balustrade, or at Murasaki's curtains, Genji would sit
gazing down into the garden. Some of the women were still in dark weeds,
and those who had changed back to ordinary dress limited themselves to
somber, unfigured cloths. Genji was in subdued informal dress. The rooms
were austerely furnished and the house was hushed and lonely.
"Taking the final step, I must abandon
The springtime hedge that meant so much to her."
<P 727>
No one was hurrying him off into a cell. It would be his own doing,
and yet he was sad.
<N 6>
With time heavy on his hands, he visited the Third Princess. Niou and
his nurse came along. As usual, Niou was everywhere, and the company
of Kaoru, the princess's little boy, seemed to make him forget his fickle
cherry blossoms. The princess was in her chapel, a sutra in her hands. Genji
had never found her very interesting or exciting, but he had to admire this
quiet devotion, untouched, apparently, by regrets for the world and its
pleasures. How bitterly ironical that this shallow little creature should
have left him so far behind!
The flowers on the altar were lovely in the evening light.
"She is no longer here to enjoy her spring flowers, and I am afraid that
they do very little for me these days. But if they are beautiful anywhere
it is on an altar." He paused. "And her _yamabuki_--it is in bloom as I cannot
remember having seen it before. The sprays are gigantic. It is not a flower
that insists on being admired for its elegance, and that may be why it seems
so bright and cheerful. But why do you suppose it chose this year to come
into such an explosion of bloom?--almost as if it wanted us to see how
indifferent it is to our sorrows."
"Spring declines to come to my dark valley," she replied, somewhat
nonchalantly.
Hardly an appropriate allusion. Even in the smallest matters Murasaki
had seemed to know exactly what was wanted of her. So it had been to
the end. And in earlier years? All the images in his memory spoke of
sensitivity and understanding in mood and manner and words. And so
once again he was letting one of his ladies see him in maudlin tears.
<N 7>
Evening mists came drifting in over the garden, which was very
beautiful indeed.
He went to look in on the Akashi lady. She was startled to see him
after such a long absence, but she received him with calm dignity. Yes, she
was a superior lady. And Murasaki's superiority had been of a different
sort. He talked quietly of the old years.
"I was very soon taught what a mistake it is to be fond of anyone. I
tried to make sure that I had no strong ties with the world. There was that
time when the whole world seemed to turn against me. If it did not want
me, I had nothing to ask of it. I could see no reason why I should not end
my days off in the mountains. And now the end is coming and I still have
not freed myself of the old ties. I go on as you see me. What a weakling
I do seem to be."
He spoke only indirectly of the matter most on his mind, but she
understood and sympathized. "Even people whom the world could per-
fectly well do without have lingering regrets, and for you the regrets must
be enormous. But I think that if you were to act too hastily the results
<P 728>
might be rather unhappy. People will think you shallow and flighty and
you will not be happy with yourself. I should imagine that the difficult
decisions are the firmest once they are made. I have heard of so many
people who have thrown away everything because of a little surprise or
setback that really has not mattered in the least. That is not what you want.
Be patient for a time, and if your resolve has not weakened when your
grandchildren are grown up and their lives seem in order--I shall have no
objections and indeed I shall be happy for you."
It was good advice. "But the caution at the heart of the patience you
recommend is perhaps even worse than shallowness."
He spoke of the old days as memories came back. "When Fujitsubo
died I thought the cherry trees should be in black. I had had so much time
when I was a boy to admire her grace and beauty, and it may have been
for that reason that I seemed to be the saddest of all when she died. Grief
does not correspond exactly with love. When an old and continuous rela-
tionship comes to an end, the sorrow is not just for the relationship itself.
The memory of the girl who was presently a woman and of all the years
until suddenly at the end of your own life you are alone--this is too much
to be borne. It is the proliferation of memories, some of them serious and
some of them amusing, that makes for the deepest sorrow."
He talked on into the night of things old and new, and was half
inclined to spend the night with her; but presently he made his departure.
She looked sadly after him, and he was puzzled at his own behavior.
Alone once more, he continued his devotions on through the night,
resting only briefly in his drawing room. Early in the morning he got off
a letter to the Akashi lady, including this poem:
"I wept and wept as I made my slow way homewards.
It is a world in which nothing lasts forever.
Though his abrupt departure had seemed almost insulting, she was in
tears as she thought of the dazed, grieving figure, somehow absent, so
utterly unlike the old Genji.
"The wild goose has flown, the seedling rice is dry.
Gone is the blossom the water once reflected."
The hand was as always beautiful. He remembered Murasaki's resent-
ment towards the Akashi lady. They had in the end become good friends,
and yet a certain stiffness had remained. Murasaki had kept her distance.
Had anyone except Genji himself been aware of it? He would sometimes
look in on the Akashi lady when the loneliness was too much for him, but
he never stayed the night.
<N 8>
It was time to change into summer robes. New robes came from the
lady of the orange blossoms, and with them a poem:
<P 729>
"It is the day of the donning of summer robes,
And must there be a renewal of memories?"
He sent back:
"Thin as the locust's wing, these summer robes,
Reminders of the fragility of life."
<N 9>
The Kamo festival seemed very remote indeed from the dullness of
his daily round.
"Suppose you all have a quiet holiday," he said to the women, fearing
that the tedium must be even more oppressive today than on most days.
"Go and see what the people at home are up to."
Chu~jo~ was having a nap in one of the east rooms. She sat up as he
came in. A small woman, she brought a sleeve to her face, bright and lively
and slightly flushed. Her thick hair, though somewhat tangled from sleep,
was very beautiful. She was wearing a singlet of taupe-yellow, dark-gray
robes, and saffron trousers, all of them just a little rumpled, and she had
slipped off her jacket and train. She now made haste to put herself in order.
Beside her was a sprig of heartvine.
"It is so long since I have had anything to do with it," he said, picking
it up, "that I have even forgotten the name."
She thought it a somewhat suggestive remark.
"With heartvine we garland our hair--and you forget!
All overgrown the urn, so long neglected."
Yes, he had neglected her, and he was sorry.
"The things of this world mean little to me now,
And yet I find myself reaching to break off heartvine."
There still seemed to be one lady to whom he was not indifferent.
The rainy Fifth Month was a difficult time.
Suddenly a near-full moon burst through a rift in the clouds. Yu~giri
chanced to be with him at this beautiful moment. The white of the orange
blossoms leaped forward in the moonlight and on a fresh breeze the scent
that so brings memories came wafting into the room. But it was for only
a moment. The sky darkened even as they awaited, "unchanged a thou-
sand years, the voice of the cuckoo." The wind rose and almost blew out
the eaves lamp, rain pounded on the roof, and the sky was black once
more.
"The voice of rain at the window," whispered Genji. It was not a
very striking or novel allusion, but perhaps because it came at the right
<P 730>
moment Yu~giri wished it might have been heard "at the lady's hedge."
"I know I am not the first man who has had to live alone," said Genji,
"but I do find myself restless and despondent. I should imagine that after
this sort of thing a mountain hermitage might come as a relief. Bring
something for our guest," he called to the women. "I suppose it is too late
to send for the men."
Yu~giri wished that his father were not forever gazing up into the sky
as if looking for someone there. This inability to forget must surely stand
in the way of salvation. But if he himself was unable to forget the one brief
glimpse he had had of her, how could he reprove his father?
"It seems like only yesterday, and here we are at the first anniversary.
What plans do you have for it?"
"Only the most ordinary sort. This is the time, I think, to dedicate the
Paradise Mandala she had done, and of course she had a great many sutras
<P 731>
copied. The bishop, I can't think of his name, knows exactly what she
wanted. He should be able to give all the instructions."
"Yes, she seems to have thought about these things a great deal, and
I am sure that they are a help to her wherever she is now. We know, of
course, what a fragile bond she had with this world, and the saddest thing
is that she had no children."
"There are ladies with stronger bonds who still have not done very
well in the matter of children. It is you who must see that our house grows
and prospers."
Not wanting it to seem that he did nothing these days but weep, Genji
said little of the past.
Just then, faintly--how can it have known?--there came the call of
the cuckoo for which they had been waiting.
"Have you come, O cuckoo, drenched in nighttime showers,
In memory of her who is no more?"
And still he was gazing up into the sky.
Yu~giri replied:
"Go tell her this, O cuckoo: the orange blossoms
Where once she lived are now their loveliest."
The women had poems too, but I shall not set them down.
Yu~giri, who often kept his father company through the lonely nights,
spent this night too with him. The sorrow and longing were intense at the
thought that the once-forbidden rooms were so near and accessible.
One very hot summer day Genji went out to cool himself beside
a lotus pond, now in full bloom. "That there should be so very many
tears" : it was the phrase that first came into his mind. He sat as if in a
trance until twilight. What a useless pursuit it was, listening all by himself
to these clamorous evening cicadas and gazing at the wild carnations in the
evening light.
"I can but pass a summer's day in weeping.
Is that your pretext, O insects, for weeping too?"
Presently it was dark, and great swarms of fireflies were wheeling
about. "Fireflies before the pavilion of evening" --this time it was a Chi-
nese verse that came to him.
"The firefly knows that night has come, and I--
My thoughts do not distinguish night from day."
The Seventh Month came, and no one seemed in a mood to honor the
meeting of the stars. There was no music and there were no guests. Deep
<P 732>
in the night Genji got up and pushed a door open. The garden below the
gallery was heavy with dew. He went out.
"They meet, these stars, in a world beyond the clouds.
My tears but join the dews of the garden of parting."
Already at the beginning of the Eighth Month the autumn winds were
lonely. Genji was busy with preparations for the memorial services. How
swiftly the months had gone by! Everyone went through fasting and
penance and the Paradise Mandala was dedicated. Chu~jo~ as usual brought
holy water for Genji's vesper devotions. He took up her fan, on which she
had written a poem:
"This day, we are told, announces an end to mourning.
How can it be, when there is no end to tears?"
He wrote beside it:
"The days are numbered for him who yet must mourn.
And are they numbered, the tears that yet remain?"
Early in the Ninth Month came the chrysanthemum festival. As al-
ways, the festive bouquets were wrapped in cotton to catch the magic dew.
<P 733>
"On other mornings we took the elixir together.
This morning lonely sleeves are wet with dew."
The Tenth Month was as always a time of gloomy winter showers.
Looking up into the evening sky, he whispered to himself: "The rains are
as the rains of other years." He envied the wild geese overhead, for they
were going home.
"O wizard flying off through boundless heavens,
Find her whom I see not even in my dreams."
The days and months went by, and he remained inconsolable.
Presently the world was buzzing with preparations for the harvest
festival and the Gosechi dances. Yu~giri brought two of his little boys,
already in court service, to see their grandfather. They were very nearly
the same age, and very pretty indeed. With them were several of their
uncles, spruce and elegant in blue Gosechi prints, a very grand escort
