15

The memorial rites were over, and the emperor still grieved. There was an old bishop who had had the confidence of successive empresses since Fujitsubo's mother. Fujitsubo herself had been very close to him and valued his services highly, and he had been the emperor's intermediary in solemn vows and offerings. A saintly man, he was now seventy. He had been in seclusion, making his own final preparations for the next life, but he had come down from the mountains to be at Fujitsubo's side. The emperor had kept him on at the palace.

Genji too had pressed him to stay with the emperor through the difficult time and see to his needs as in the old days. Though he feared, replied the bishop, that he was no longer capable of night attendance, he was most honored by the invitation and most grateful that he had been permitted to serve royal ladies for so long.

One night, in the quiet before dawn, between shifts of courtiers on night duty, the bishop, coughing as old people will, was talking with the emperor about matters of no great importance.

“There is one subject which I find it very difficult to broach, Your Majesty. There are times when to speak the truth is a sin, and I have held my tongue. But it is a dilemma, since your august ignorance of a certain matter might lead to unknowing wrong. What good would I do for anyone if I were to die in terror at meeting the eye of heaven? Would it have for me the scorn which it has for the groveling dissembler?”

What might he be referring to? Some bitterness, some grudge, which he had not been able to throw off? It was unpleasant to think that the most saintly of hearts can be poisoned by envy.

“I have kept nothing from you since I learned to talk,” said the emperor, “and I shall not forgive easily if now you are keeping something from me.”

“It is wrong, I know, Your Majesty. You must forgive me. You have been permitted to see into depths which are guarded by the Blessed One, and why should I presume to keep anything from you? The matter is one which can project its unhappy influence into the future. Silence is damaging for everyone concerned. I have reference to the late emperor, to your late mother, and to the Genji minister.

“I am old and of no account, and shall have no regrets if I am punished for the revelation.

“I humbly reveal to you what was first revealed to me through the Blessed One himself. There were matters that deeply upset your mother

e was carrying you within her. The details were rather beyond the grasp of a simple priest like myself. There was that unexpected crisis when the Genji minister was charged with a crime he had not committed. Your royal mother was even more deeply troubled, and I undertook yet more varied and elaborate services. The minister heard of them and on his own initiative commissioned the rites which I undertook upon Your Majesty's accession.” And he described them in detail.

It was a most astounding revelation. The terror and the sorrow were beyond describing. The emperor was silent for a time. Fearing that he had given offense, the old man started from the room.

“No, Your Reverence. My only complaint is that you should have concealed the matter for so long. Had I gone to my grave ignorant of it, I would have had it with me in my next life. And is there anyone else who is aware of these facts?”

“There are, I most solemnly assure you, two people and two people only who have ever known of them, Omyo~bu and myself. The fear and the awe have been all the worse for that fact. Now you will understand, perhaps, the continuing portents which have had everyone in such a state of disquiet. The powers above held themselves in abeyance while Your Majesty was still a boy, but now that you have so perfectly reached the age of discretion they are making their displeasure known. It all goes back to your parents. I had been in awful fear of keeping the secret. “The old man was weeping. “I have forced myself to speak of what I would much prefer to have forgotten.”

It was full daylight when the bishop left.