16

The emperor's mind was in turmoil. It was all like a terrible dream. His reputed father, the old emperor, had been badly served, and the em-peror was serving his real father badly by letting him toil as a common minister. He lay in bed with his solitary anguish until the sun was high. A worried Genji came making inquiries. His arrival only added to the confusion in the emperor's mind. He was in tears. More tears for his mother, surmised Genji, it being a time when there was no respite from tears. He must regretfully inform the emperor that Prince Shikibu* had just died. Another bit of the pattern, thought the emperor. Genji stayed with him all that day.

“I have the feeling,” said the emperor, in the course of quiet, intimate talk, “that I am not destined to live a long life. I have a feeling too which I cannot really define that things are wrong, out of joint. There is a spirit of unrest abroad. I had not wished to upset my mother by subjecting her and all of you to radical change, but I really do think I would prefer a quieter sort of life.”

“It is out of the question. There is no necessary relationship between public order and the personal character of a ruler. In ages past we have seen the most deplorable occurrences in the most exemplary reigns. In China there have been violent upheavals during the reigns of sage emperors. Similar things have happened here. People whose time has come have died, and that is all. You are worrying yourself about nothing.”

He described many precedents which it would not be proper for me to describe in my turn.

In austere weeds of mourning, so much more subdued than ordinary court dress, the emperor looked extraordinarily like Genji. He had long been aware of the resemblance, but his attention was called to it more forcibly by the story he had just heard. He wanted somehow to hint of it to Genji. He was still very young, however, and rather awed by Genji and fearful of embarrassing or displeasing him. Though it turned on matters far less important, their conversation was unusually warm and affectionate.

Genji was too astute not to notice and be puzzled by the change. He did not suspect, however, that the emperor knew the whole truth.