shower passed. The address was in Rokujō, near the eastern limits of the city, and since he had set out from the palace the way seemed a long one. He passed a badly neglected house, the garden dark with ancient trees.
“The inspector’s house,” said Koremitsu, who was always with him. “I called there with a message not long ago. The old lady has declined so shockingly that they can’t think what to do for her.”
“You should have told me. I should have looked in on her. Ask, please, if she will see me.”
Koremitsu sent a man in with the message.
The women had not been expecting a caller, least of all such a grand one. For some days the old lady had seemed beyond helping, and they feared that she would be unable to receive him. But they could hardly turn such a gentleman away — and so a cushion was put out for him in the south room.
“My lady says that she fears you will find it cluttered and dirty, but she is determined at least to thank you for coming. You must find the darkness and gloom unlike anything you have known.”
And indeed he could not have denied that he was used to something rather different.
“You have been constantly on my mind, but your reserve has it difficult for me to call. I am sorry that I did not know sooner of illness.”
“I have been ill for a very long time, but in this last extremity — it was good of him to come.” He caught the sad, faltering tones as she gave the message to one of her women. “I am sorry that I cannot receive him properly. As for the matter he has raised, I hope that he will still count the child among those important to him when she is no longer a child. The thought of leaving her uncared for must, I fear, create obstacles along the road I yearn to travel. But tell him, please, how good it was of him. I wish the child were old enough to thank him too.”
“Can you believe,” he sent back, “that I would put myself in this embarrassing position if I were less than serious? There must be a bond between us, that I should have been so drawn to her since I first heard of her. It all seems so strange. The beginnings of it must have been in a different world. I will feel that I have come in vain if I cannot hear the sound of her young voice.”
“She is asleep. She did not of course know that you were coming.”
But just then someone came scampering into the room. “Grandmother, they say the gentleman we saw at the temple is here. Why don’t you go out and talk to him?”
The women tried to silence her.
“But why? She said the very sight of him made her feel better. I heard
Though much amused, Genji pretended not to hear. After proper statements of sympathy he made his departure. Yes, she did seem little more than an infant. He would be her teacher.
The next day he sent a letter inquiring after the old lady, and with it a tightly folded note for the girl:
“Seeking to follow the call of the nestling crane
The open boat is lost among the reeds.
“And comes again and again to you?”
He wrote it in a childish hand, which delighted the women. The child was to model her own hand upon it, no detail changed, they said.
Shōnagon sent a very sad answer: “It seems doubtful that my lady, after whom you were so kind as to inquire, will last the day. We are on the point of sending her off to the mountains once more. I know that she will thank you from another world.”
In the autumn evening, his thoughts on his unattainable love, he longed more than ever, unnatural though the wish may have seemed, for the company of the little girl who sprang from the same roots. The thought of the evening when the old nun had described herself as dew holding back from the heavens made him even more impatient — and at the same time he feared that if he were to bring the girl to Nijō he would be disappointed in her.
“I long to have it, to bring it in from the moor,
The lavender that shares its roots with another.”
In the Tenth Month the emperor was to visit the Suzaku palace. -->From all the great families and the middle and upper courtly ranks the most accomplished musicians and dancers were selected to go with him, and grandees and princes of the blood were busy at the practice that best suited their talents. Caught up in the excitement, Genji was somewhat remiss in inquiring after the nun.
When, finally, he sent off a messenger to the northern hills, a sad reply came from the bishop: “We lost her toward the end of last month. It is the way of the world, I know, and yet I am sad.”
If the news shocked even him into a new awareness of evanescence, thought Genji, how must it be for the little girl who had so occupied the nun’s thoughts? Young though she was, she must feel utterly lost. He remembered, though dimly how it had been when his mother died, and he sent off an earnest letter of sympathy. Shōnagon’s answer seemed rather warmer. He went calling on an evening when he had nothing else to occupy him, some days after he learned that the girl had come out of mourning and returned to the city. The house was badly kept and almost deserted. The poor child must be terrified, he thought. He was shown to the same room as before. Sobbing, Shōnagon told him of the old lady’s last days. Genji too was in tears.
“My young lady’s father would seem to have indicated a willingness to take her in, but she is at such an uncomfortable age, not quite a child and still without the discernment of an adult; and the thought of having her in the custody of the lady who was so cruel to her mother is too awful. Her sisters will persecute her dreadfully, I know. The fear of it never left my lady’s mind, and we have had too much evidence that the fear was not groundless. We have been grateful for your expressions of interest, though we have hesitated to take them seriously. I must emphasize that my young lady is not at all what you must think her to be. I fear that we have done badly by her, and that our methods have left her childish even for her years.”
“Must you continue to be so reticent and apologetic? I have made my own feelings clear, over and over again. It is precisely the childlike quality that delights me most and makes me think I must have her for my own. You may think me complacent and self-satisfied for saying so, but I feel sure that we were joined in a former life. Let me speak to her, please.
“Rushes hide the sea grass at Wakanoura.
Must the waves that seek it out turn back to sea?
“That would be too much to ask of them.”
“The grass at Wakanoura were rash indeed
To follow waves that go it knows not whither.
“It would be far, far too much to ask.”
The easy skill with which she turned her poem made it possible for him to forgive its less than encouraging significance. “After so many years,” he whispered, “the gate still holds me back.”
The girl lay weeping for her grandmother. Her playmates came to tell her that a gentleman in court dress was with Shōnagon. perhaps it would be her father?
She came running in. “Where is the gentleman, Shōnagon? Is Father here?”
What a sweet voice she had!
“I’m not your father, but I’m someone just as important. Come here.”
She saw that it was the other gentleman, and child though she was, she flushed at having spoken out of turn. “Let’s go.” She tugged at Shōnagon’s sleeve. “Let’s go. I’m sleepy.”
“Do you have to keep hiding yourself from me? Come here. You can sleep on my knee.”
“She is really very young, sir.” But Shōnagon urged the child forward, and she knelt obediently just inside the blinds.
He ran his hand over a soft, rumpled robe, and, a delight to the touch, hair full and rich to its farthest ends. He took her hand. She pulled away — for he was, after all, a stranger.