greater and lesser affairs of the Nijō mansion to trusted retainers who had not been swept up in the currents of the times, and he selected others to go with him to Suma. He would take only the simplest essentials for a rustic life, among them a book chest, selected writings of Po Chü-i and other poets, and a seven-stringed Chinese koto. He carefully refrained from anything which in its ostentation might not become a nameless rustic.
Assigning all the women to Murasaki’s west wing, he left behind deeds to pastures and manors and the like and made provision for all his various warehouses and storerooms. Confident of Shōnagon’s perspicacity, he gave her careful instructions and put stewards at her disposal. He had been somewhat brisk and businesslike toward his own serving women, but they had had security — and now what was to become of them?
“I shall be back, I know, if I live long enough. Do what you can in the west wing, please, those of you who are prepared to wait.”
And so they all began a new life.
To Yūgiri’s nurse and maids and to the lady of the orange blossoms he sent elegant parting gifts and plain, useful everyday provisions as well.
He even wrote to Oborozukiyo. “I know that I have no right to expect a letter from you; but I am not up to describing the gloom and the bitterness of leaving this life behind.
“Snagged upon the shoals of this river of tears,
I cannot see you. Deeper waters await me.
“Remembering is the crime to which I cannot plead innocent.”
He wrote nothing more, for there was a danger that his letter would be intercepted.
Though she fought to maintain her composure, there was nothing she could do about the tears that wet her sleeves.
“The foam on the river of tears will disappear
Short of the shoals of meeting that wait downstream.”
There was something very fine about the hand disordered by grief.
He longed to see her again, but she had too many relatives who wished him ill. Discretion forbade further correspondence.
On the night before his departure he visited his father’s grave in the northern hills. Since the moon would be coming up shortly before dawn, he went first to take leave of Fujitsubo. Receiving him in person, she spoke of her worries for the crown prince. It cannot have been, so complicated were matters between them, a less than deeply felt interview. Her dignity and beauty were as always. He would have liked to hint at old resentments; but why, at this late date, invite further unpleasantness, and risk adding to his own agitation?
He only said, and it was reasonable enough: “I can think of a single offense for which I must undergo this strange, sad punishment, and because of it I tremble before the heavens. Though I would not care in the least if my own unworthy self were to vanish away, I only hope that the crown prince’s reign is without unhappy event.”
She knew too well what he meant, and was unable to reply. He was almost too handsome as at last he succumbed to tears.
“I am going to pay my respects at His Majesty’s grave. Do you have a message?”
She was silent for a time, seeking to control herself.
“The one whom I served is gone, the other must go.
Farewell to the world was no farewell to its sorrows. But for both of them the sorrow was beyond words. He replied:
“The worst of grief for him should long have passed. And now I must leave the world where dwells the child.” The moon had risen and he set out. He was on horseback and had only five or six attendants, all of them trusted friends. I need scarcely say that it was a far different procession from those of old. Among his men was that guards officer who had been his special attendant at the Kamo lustration services. The promotion he might have expected had long since passed him by, and now his right of access to the royal presence and his offices had been taken away. Remembering that day as they came in sight of the Lower Kamo Shrine, he dismounted and took Genji’s bridle.
“There was heartvine in our caps. I led your horse.
And now at this jeweled fence I berate the gods.”
Yes, the memory must be painful, for the young man had been the most resplendent in Genji’s retinue. Dismounting, Genji bowed toward the shrine and said as if by way of farewell:
“I leave this world of gloom. I leave my name
To the offices of the god who rectifies.”
The guards officer, an impressionable young man, gazed at him in wonder and admiration.
Coming to the grave, Genji almost thought he could see his father before him. Power and position were nothing once a man was gone. He wept and silently told his story, but there came no answer, no judgment upon it. And all those careful instructions and admonitions had served no purpose at all?
Grasses overgrew the path to the grave, the dew seemed to gather weight as he made his way through. The moon had gone behind a cloud and the groves were dark and somehow terrible. It was as if he might lose his way upon turning back. As he bowed in farewell, a chill came over him, for he seemed to see his father as he once had been.
“And how does he look upon me? I raise my eyes,
And the moon now vanishes behind the clouds.”
Back at Nijō at daybreak, he sent a last message to the crown prince. Tying it to a cherry branch from which the blossoms had fallen, he addressed it to Omyōbu, whom Fujitsubo had put in charge of her son’s affairs. “Today I must leave. I regret more than anything that I cannot see you again. Imagine my feelings, if you will, and pass them on to the prince.
“When shall I, a ragged, rustic outcast,
See again the blossoms of the city?”
She explained everything to the crown prince. He gazed at her solemnly.
“How shall I answer?” Omyōbu asked.
“I am sad when he is away for a little, and he is going so far, and how — tell him that, please.”
A sad little answer, thought Omyōbu.
All the details of that unhappy love came back to her. The two of them should have led placid, tranquil lives, and she felt as if she and she alone had been the cause of all the troubles.
“I can think of nothing to say.” It was clear to him that her answer had indeed been composed with great difficulty. “I passed your message on to the prince, and was sadder than ever to see how sad it made him.
“Quickly the blossoms fall. Though spring departs,
You will come again, I know, to a city of flowers.”
There was sad talk all through the crown prince’s apartments in the wake of the letter, and there were sounds of weeping. Even people who scarcely knew him were caught up in the sorrow. As for people in his regular service, even scullery maids of whose existence he can hardly have been aware were sad at the thought that they must for a time
