20

The memorial services were over, but Genji remained in seclusion for seven weeks. Pitying him in the unaccustomed tedium, To~ no Chu~jo~ would come and divert him with the latest talk, serious and trivial; and it seems likely that old Naishi was cause for a good laugh now and then.

“You mustn't make fun of dear old Granny,” said Genji; but he found stories of the old lady unfailingly amusing.

They would go over the list of their little adventures, on the night of a misty autumn moon, just past full, and others; and their talk would come around to the evanescence of things and they would shed a few tears.

On an evening of chilly autumn rains, To~ no Chu~jo~ again came calling. He had changed to lighter mourning and presented a fine, manly figure indeed, enough to put most men to shame. Genji was at the railing of the west veranda, looking out over the frostbitten garden. The wind was high and it was as if his tears sought to compete with the driven rain.

“Is she the rain, is she the clouds? Alas, I cannot say.” *

He sat chin in hand. Were he himself the dead lady, thought To~ no Chu~jo~, his soul would certainly remain bound to this world. He came up to his friend. Genji, who had not expected callers, quietly smoothed his robes, a finely glossed red singlet under a robe of a deeper gray than To~ no Chu~jo~'s. It was the modest, conservative sort of dress that never seems merely dull.

To~ no Chu~jo~ too looked up at the sky.

“Is she the rain? Where in these stormy skies,

To which of these brooding clouds may I look to find her? Neither can I say,” he added, as if to himself.

“It is a time of storms when even the clouds

To which my lady has risen are blotted away.”

Genji's grief was clearly unfeigned. Very odd, thought To~ no Chu~jo~. Genji had so often been reproved by his father for not being a better husband, and the attentions of his father-in-law had made him very uncomfortable. There were circumstances, having largely to do with his nearness to Princess Omiya, which kept him from leaving Aoi completely; and so he had continued to wait upon her, making little attempt to hide his dissatisfaction. To~ no Chu~jo~ had more than once been moved to pity him in this unhappy predicament. And now it seemed that she had after all had a place in his affections, that he had loved and honored her. To~ no Chu~jo~,s own sorrow was more intense for the knowledge. It was as if a light had gone out.

Gentians and wild carnations peeped from the frosty tangles. After To~ no Chu~jo~ had left, Genji sent a small bouquet by the little boy's nurse, Saisho~, to Princess Omiya, with this message:

“Carnations at the wintry hedge remind me

Of an autumn which we leave too far behind. Do you not think them a lovely color?”

Yes, the smiling little “wild carnation” he now had with him was a treasure.

The princess, less resistant to tears than the autumn leaves to the winds, had to have someone read Genji's note to her.

She sent this answer:

“I see them, and my sleeves are drenched afresh,

The wild carnations at the wasted hedge.”