people you do not mean to forget."
"You may remember that you have already brought the matter up
once or twice before, and you have my word that I shall not forget. Not
that you can expect a great deal of me, I am afraid. All my impulses are
to run away from the world, and it does not seem to have very strong hopes
for me in any case. No, I do not hold a great deal in reserve. But for as long
as I live, my determination will not waver."
The prince was much relieved. A late moon, breaking through the
clouds with a soft, clean radiance, seemed about to touch the western hills.
Having said his prayers, to which the scene lent an especial dignity, he
turned to talk of old times.
<P 805>
"How is it at court these days? On autumn nights people used to
gather in His Majesty's chambers. There was always something a little too
good, a little ostentatious--or it so seemed to me--about the way the
famous musicians lent their presence to this group and the next one. What
was really worth notice was the way His Majesty's favorites and the ladies
of the bedchamber and the rest would be chatting away as pleasantly as
you could wish, and all the while you knew that they were in savage
competition. And then, as quiet came over the palace, you would have the
real music, leaking out from their several rooms. Each strain seemed to be
pleading its own special cause.
"Women are the problem, good for a moment of pleasure, offering
nothing of substance. They are the seeds of turmoil, and it is not hard to
see why we are told that their sins are heavy. I wonder if you have ever
tried to imagine what a worry a child is for its father. A son is no problem.
But a daughter--there is a limit to worrying, after all, and the sensible
thing would be to recognize the hopeless for what it is. But fathers will
go on worrying."
He spoke as if in generalities; but could there be any doubt that he
was really speaking of himself and his daughters?
"I have told you of my feelings about the world," said Kaoru. "One
result of them has been that I have not mastered a single art worthy of the
name. But music--yes, I know how useless it is, and still I have had a hard
time giving it up. I do have a good precedent, after all. You will remember
that music made one of the apostles jump up and dance."
He had been longing, he continued, to have more of the music of
which he had caught that one tantalizing snatch. The prince thought this
might be the occasion for a sort of introduction. He went to the princesses'
rooms. There came a soft strain on a koto, and that was all. The light,
impromptu melody, here where it was always quiet and where now there
was not one other human sound, with the sky beginning to take on the
colors of dawn, quite entranced Kaoru. But the princesses could not be
persuaded to give more.
"Well," said their father, going to the altar, "I have done what I can
to bring you together. You have years ahead of you, and I must leave the
rest to you.
"I go, this hut of grass will dry and fall.
But this solemn undertaking must last forever.
"Something tells me that we will not meet again." He was in tears.
"You must think me an insufferable complainer."
"Your'hut of grass' has sealed a pledge eternal.
It will not fall, though ages come and go.
<P 806>
"The wrestling meet will keep me busy for a while, but I will see you
again when it is out of the way."
<N 5>
The prince having withdrawn to his prayers, Kaoru called Bennokimi
to another room and asked for details of the story she had told. The dawn
moon flooded the room, setting him off through the blinds to most won-
derful effect. Silently, the princesses withdrew behind deeper curtains. Yet
he did seem to be unlike most young men. His way of speaking was quiet
and altogether serious. Oigimi occasionally came forth with an answer.
Kaoru thought of his friend Niou and the rapidity with which he had been
drawn to the princesses. Why must he himself be so different? Their father
had as good as offered them to him; and why did he not rush forward to
claim them? It was not as if he found the thought of having one of them
for his wife quite out of the question. That they were ladies of discernment
and sensibility they had shown well enough in tests such as this evening's,
and in exchanges having to do with the flowers of spring and the leaves
of autumn and other such matters. In a sense, indeed, he thought of them
as already in his possession. It would be a cruel wrench if fate should give
them to others.
He started back before daylight, his thoughts on the prince and his
apparent conviction that death was near. When the round of court duties
was over, thought Kaoru, he would come again.
Niou was hoping that the autumn leaves might be his excuse for
another visit to Uji. He continued to write to the princesses. Thinking these
advances no cause for concern, they were able to answer from time to time
in appropriately casual terms.
<N 6>
With the deepening of autumn, the prince's gloom also deepened.
Concluding that he must withdraw to some quiet refuge where nothing
would upset his devotions, he left behind various admonitions.
"Parting is the way of the world. It cannot be avoided: but the grief
is easier to bear when you have a companion to share it with. I must leave
it to your imagination--for I cannot tell you--how hard it is for me to go
off without you, knowing that you are alone. But it would not do to
wander lost in the next world because of ties with this one. Even while I
have been here with you, I have as good as run away from the world; and
it is not for me to say how it should be when I am gone. But please
remember that I am not the only one. You have your mother to think of
too. Please do nothing that might reflect on her name. Men who are not
worthy of you will try to lure you out of these mountains, but you are not
to yield to their blandishments. Resign yourselves to the fact that it was
not meant to be--that you are different from other people and were meant
to be alone--and live out your lives here at Uji. Once you have made up
your minds to it, the years will go smoothly by. It is good for a woman,
even more than for a man, to be away from the world and its slanders."
The princesses were beyond thinking about the future. It was beyond
them, indeed, to think how they would live if they were to survive their
<P 807>
father by so much as a day. These gloomy and ominous instructions left
them in the cruelest uncertainty. He had in effect renounced the world
already, but for them, so long beside him, to be informed thus suddenly
of a final parting--it was not from intentional cruelty that he had done it,
of course, and yet in such cases a certain resentment is inevitable.
On the evening before his departure he inspected the premises with
unusual care, walking here, stopping there. He had thought of this Uji villa
as the most temporary of dwellings, and so the years had gone by. Every-
thing about him suggesting freedom from worldly taints, he turned to his
devotions, and thoughts of the future slipped in among them from time
to time. His daughters were so very much alone--how could they possibly
manage after his death?
He summoned the older women of the household.
"Do what you can for them, as a last favor to me. The world does not
pay much attention when an ordinary house goes to ruin. It happens every
day. I don't suppose people pay so very much attention when it happens
to one like ours. But if fate seems to have decided that the collapse is final,
a man does feel ashamed, and wonders how he can face his ancestors.
Sadness, loneliness--they are what life brings. But when a house is kept
in a manner that becomes its rank, the appearances it maintains, the feel-
ings it has for itself, bring their own consolation. Everyone wants luxury
and excitement; but you must never, even if everything fails--you must
never, I beg of you, let them make unsuitable marriages."
As the moonlight faded in the dawn, he went to take leave of his
daughters. "Do not be lonely when I am gone. Be happy, find ways to
occupy yourselves. One does not get everything in this world. Do not fret
over what has to be."
He looked back and looked back again as he started up the path to
the monastery.
The girls were lonely indeed, despite these admonitions. What would
the one do if the other were to go away? The world offers no security in
any case; and what could they possibly do for themselves if they were
separated? Smiling over this small matter, sighing over that rather more
troublesome detail, they had always been together.
<N 7>
It was the morning of the day when the prince's meditations were to
end. He would be coming home. But in the evening a message came
instead: "I have been indisposed since this morning. A cold, perhaps--
whatever it is, I am having it looked after. I long more than ever to see
you.
The princesses were in consternation. How serious would it be? They
hastened to send quilted winter garments. Two and three days passed, and
there was no sign of improvement. A messenger came back. The ailment
was not of a striking nature, he reported. The prince was generally indis-
posed. If there should be even the slightest improvement he would brave
the discomfort and return home.
<P 808>
The abbot, in constant attendance, sought to sever the last ties with
this world. "It may seem like the commonest sort of ailment," he said, "but
it could be your last. Why must you go on worrying about your daughters?
Each of us has his own destiny, and it does no good to worry about others."
He said that the prince was not to leave the temple under any circum-
stances.
It was about the twentieth of the Eighth Month, a time when the
autumn skies are conducive to melancholy in any case. For the princesses,
lost in their own sad thoughts, there was no release from the morning and
evening mists. The moon was bright in the early-morning sky, the surface
of the river was clear and luminous. The shutters facing the mountain were
raised. As the princesses gazed out, the sound of the monastery bell came
down to them faintly--and, they said, another dawn was upon them.
But then came a messenger, blinded with tears. The prince had died
in the night.
Not for a moment had the princesses stopped thinking of him; but this
was too much of a shock, it left them dazed. At such times tears refuse to
come. Prostrate, they could only wait for the shock to pass. A death is sad
when, as is the commoner case, the survivors have a chance to make proper
farewells. For the princesses, who did not have their father with them, the
sense of loss was even more intense. Their laments would not have seemed
excessive if they had wailed to the very heavens. Reluctant to accept the
thought of surviving their father by a day, they asked what they were to
do now. But he had gone a road that all must take, and weeping did
nothing to change that cruel fact.
As had been promised over the years, the abbot arranged for the
funeral. The princesses sent word that they would like to see their father
again, even in death. And what would be accomplished? replied the holy
man. He had trained their father to acceptance of the fact that he would
not see them again, and now it was their turn. They must train their hearts
to a freedom from binding regrets. As he told of their father's days in the
monastery, they found his wisdom somewhat distasteful.
It had long been their father's most fervent wish to take the tonsure,
but in the absence of someone to look after his daughters he had been
unable to turn his back on them. Day after day, so long as he had lived,
this inability had been at the same time the solace of a sad life and the bond
that tied him to a world he wished to leave. Neither to him who had now
gone the inevitable road nor to them who must remain behind had fulfill-
ment come.
<N 8>
Kaoru was overcome with grief and regret. There were so many things
left to talk about if only they might have another quiet evening together.
Thoughts about the impermanence of things chased one another through
his mind, and he made no attempt to stop the flow of tears. The prince had
said, it was true, that they might not meet again; but Kaoru had so accus-
tomed himself over the years to the mutability of this world, to the way
<P 809>
morning has of becoming evening, that thoughts "yesterday, today" had
not come to him. He sent long and detailed letters to the abbot and the
princesses. Having received no other such message, the princesses, though
still benumbed with grief, knew once again what kindness they had
known over the years. The loss of a father is never easy, thought Kaoru,
and it must be very cruel indeed for two ladies quite alone in the world.
He had had the foresight to send the abbot offerings and provisions for the
services, and he also saw, through the old woman, that there were ample
offerings at the Uji villa.
The rest of the month was one long night for the princesses, and so
the Ninth Month came. The mountain scenery seemed more capable than
ever of summoning the showers that dampen one's sleeves, and sometimes,
lost in their tears, they could almost imagine that the tumbling leaves and
the roaring water and the cascade of tears had become one single flow.
Near distraction themselves, their women thought to dislodge them
even a little from their grief. "Please, my ladies. If this goes on you will
soon be in your own graves. Our lives are short enough in any case."
Priests were charged with memorial services at the villa as well as at
the monastery. With holy images to remind them of the dead prince, the
