2

Two or three days before his departure he visited his father-in-law. It was sad, indeed rather eerie, to see the care he took not to attract notice. His carriage, a humble one covered with cypress basketwork, might have been mistaken for a woman's. The apartments of his late wife wore a lonely, neglected aspect. At the arrival of this wondrous and unexpected guest, the little boy's nurse and all the other women who had not taken positions elsewhere gathered for a last look. Even the shallowest of the younger women were moved to tears at the awareness he brought of transience and mutability. Yu~giri, the little boy, was very pretty indeed, and indefatigably noisy.

“It has been so long. I am touched that he has not forgotten me.” He took the boy on his knee and seemed about to weep.

The minister, his father-in-law, came in. “I know that you are shut up at home with little to occupy you, and I had been thinking I would like to call on you and have a good talk. I talk on and on when once I let myself get started. But I have told them I am ill and have been staying away from court, and I have even resigned my offices; and I know what they would say if I were to stretch my twisted old legs for my own pleasure. I hardly need to worry about such things any more, of course, but I am still capable of being upset by false accusations. When I see how things are with you, I know all too painfully what a sad day I have come on at the end of too long a life. I would have expected the world to end before this was allowed to happen, and I see hot a ray of light in it all.”

“Dear sir, we must accept the disabilities we bring from other lilies. Everything that has happened to me is a result of my own inadequacy. I have heard that in other lands as well as our own an offense which does

not, like mine, call for dismissal from office is thought to become far graver if the culprit goes on happily living his old life. And when exile is considered, as I believe it is in my case, the offense must have been thought more serious. Though I know I am innocent, I know too what insults I may look forward to if I stay, and so I think that I will forestall them by leaving.”

Brushing away tears, the minister talked of old times, of Genji's father, and all he had said and thought. Genji too was weeping. The little boy scrambled and rolled about the room, now pouncing upon his father and now making demands upon his grandfather.

“I have gone on grieving for my daughter. And then I think what agony all this would have been to her, and am grateful that she lived such a short life and was spared the nightmare. So I try to tell myself, in any event. My chief sorrows and worries are for our little man here. He must grow up among us dotards, and the days and months will go by without the advantage of your company. It used to be that even people who were guilty of serious crimes escaped this sort of punishment; and I suppose we must call it fate, in our land and other lands too, that punishment should come all the same. But one does want to know what the charges are. In your case they quite defy the imagination.”

To~ no Chu~jo~ came in. They drank until very late, and Genji was induced to stay the night. He summoned Aoi's various women. Chu~nagon was the one whom he had most admired, albeit in secret. He went on talking to her after everything was quiet, and it would seem to have been because of her that he was prevailed upon to spend the night. Dawn was at hand when he got up to leave. The moon in the first suggestions of daylight was very beautiful. The cherry blossoms were past their prime, and the light through the few that remained flooded the garden silver. Everything faded together into a gentle mist, sadder and more moving than on a night in autumn. He sat for a time leaning against the railing at a corner of the veranda. Chu~nagon was waiting at the door as if to see him off.

“I wonder when we will be permitted to meet again.” He paused, choking with tears. “Never did I dream that this would happen, and I neglected you in the days when it would have been so easy to see you.”

Saisho~, Yu~giri's nurse, came with a message from Princess Omiya. “I would have liked to say goodbye in person, but I have waited in hope that the turmoil of my thoughts might quiet a little. And now I hear that you are leaving, and it is still so early. Everything seems changed, completely wrong. It is a pity that you cannot at least wait until our little sleepyhead is up and about.”

Weeping softly, Genji whispered to himself, not precisely by way of reply:

“There on the shore, the salt burners' fires await me.

Will their smoke be as the smoke over Toribe Moor? Is this the parting at dawn we are always hearing of? No doubt there are those who know.”

“I have always hated the word'farewell,'“ said Saisho~, whose grief seemed quite unfeigned.” And our farewells today are unlike any others.”

“Over and over again, “he sent back to Princess Omiya, “I have thought of all the things I would have liked to say to you; and I hope you will understand and forgive my muteness. As for our little sleepyhead, I fear that if I were to see him I would wish to stay on even in this hostile city, and so I shall collect myself and be on my way.”

All the women were there to see him go. He looked more elegant and handsome than ever in the light of the setting moon, and his dejection would have reduced tigers and wolves to tears. These were women who had served him since he was very young. It was a sad day for them.

There was a poem from Princess Omiya:

“Farther retreats the day when we bade her goodbye,

For now you depart the skies that received the smoke.”

Sorrow was added to sorrow, and the tears almost seemed to invite further misfortunes.