8

The Twelfth Month, when she was to have been delivered of her child, had passed uneventfully. Surely it would be this month, said her women, and at court everything was in readiness; but the First Month too passed without event. She was greatly troubled by rumors that she had fallen under a malign influence. Her worries had made her physically ill and she began to wonder if the end was in sight. More and more certain as time passed that the child was his, Genji quietly commissioned services in various temples. More keenly aware than most of the evanescence of things, he now found added to his worries a fear that he would not see her again. Finally toward the end of the Second Month she bore a prince, and the jubilation was unbounded at court and at her family palace. She had not joined the emperor in praying that she be granted a long life, and yet she did not want to please Kokiden, an echo of whose curses had reached her. The will to live returned, and little by little she recovered.

The emperor wanted to see his little son the earliest day possible. Genji, filled with his own secret paternal solicitude, visited Fujitsubo at a time when he judged she would not have other visitors.

“Father is extremely anxious to see the child. perhaps I might have a look at him first and present a report.”

She refused his request, as of course she had every right to do. “He is still very shriveled and ugly.”

There was no doubt that the child bore a marked, indeed a rather wonderful, resemblance to Genji. Fujitsubo was tormented by feelings of guilt and apprehension. Surely everyone who saw the child would guess the awful truth and damn her for it. People were always happy to seek out the smallest and most trivial of misdeeds. Hers had not been trivial, and dreadful rumors must surely be going the rounds. Had ever a woman been more sorely tried?

Genji occasionally saw Omyo~bu and pleaded that she intercede for him; but there was nothing she could do.

“This insistence, my lord, is very trying,” she said, at his constant and passionate pleas to see the child. “You will have chances enough later.” Yet secretly she was as unhappy as he was.

“In what world, I wonder, will I again be allowed to see her?” The heart of the matter was too delicate to touch upon.

“What legacy do we bring from former lives

That loneliness should be our lot in this one?

“I do not understand. I do not understand at all.”

His tears brought her to the point of tears herself. Knowing how unhappy her lady was, she could not bring herself to turn him brusquely away.

“Sad at seeing the child, sad at not seeing.

The heart of the father, the mother, lost in darkness.” *

And she added softly: “There seems to be no lessening of the pain for either of you.”

She saw him off, quite unable to help him. Her lady had said that because of the danger of gossip she could not receive him again, and she no longer behaved toward Omyo~bu with the old affection. She behaved correctly, it was true, and did nothing that might attract attention, but Omyo~bu had done things to displease her. Omyo~bu was very sorry for them.