9

An escort arrived from the city, delighted to see Genji so improved, and a message was delivered from his father. The bishop had a breakfast of unfamiliar fruits and berries brought from far down in the valley.

“I have vowed to stay in these mountains until the end of the year, and cannot see you home.” He pressed wine upon Genji. “And so a holy vow has the perverse effect of inspiring regrets.”

“I hate to leave your mountains and streams, but my father seems worried and I must obey his summons. I shall come again before the cherry blossoms have fallen.

“I shall say to my city friends:'Make haste to see

Those mountain blossoms. The winds may see them first.'“

His manner and voice were beautiful beyond description.

The bishop replied:

“In thirty hundreds of years it blooms but once.

My eyes have seen it, and spurn these mountain cherries.” *

“A very great rarity indeed,” Genji said, smiling, “a blossom with so long and short a span.”

The sage offered a verse of thanks as Genji filled his cup:

“My mountain door of pine has opened briefly

To see a radiant flower not seen before.”

There were tears in his eyes. His farewell present was a sacred mace + which had special protective powers. The bishop too gave farewell presents: a rosary of carved ebony# which Prince Sho~toku had obtained in Korea, still in the original Chinese box, wrapped in a netting and attached to a branch of cinquefoil pine; several medicine bottles of indigo decorated with sprays of cherry and wisteria and the like; and other gifts as well, all of them appropriate to the mountain setting. Genji's escort had brought gifts for the priests who had helped with the services, the sage himself and the rest, and for all the mountain rustics too. And so Genji started out.

The bishop went to the inner apartments to tell his sister of Genji's proposal.

“It is very premature. If in four or five years he has not changed his mind we can perhaps give it some thought.”

The bishop agreed, and passed her words on without comment.

Much disappointed, Genji sent in a poem through an acolyte:

“Having come upon an evening blossom,

The mist is loath to go with the morning sun.”

She sent back:

“Can we believe the mist to be so reluctant?

We shall watch the morning sky for signs of truth.”

It was in a casual, cursive style, but the hand was a distinguished one.