21

He still thought a great deal about the Akashi lady, but his life was so constricted that he could not easily visit her. She seemed to have concluded that the bond between them meant nothing. By what right? Her refusal to leave the hills for a more conventional abode seemed to him a touch haughty. Yet he pitied her, and took every opportunity to attend services in his new chapel. Oi only seemed sadder as she came to know it better, the sort of place that must have a melancholy effect on even the chance visitor. Genji's visits brought contradictory feelings: the bond between them was a powerful one, obviously, and it had meant unhappiness. She might have been better off without it. These are the sad thoughts which most resist consolation.

The torches of the cormorant fishermen through the dark groves were like fireflies on a garden stream.

“For someone not used to living beside the water,” said Genji, “I think it must be wonderfully strange and different.”

“The torches bobbing with the fisher boats

Upon those waves have followed me to Oi.

“The torches and my thoughts are now as they were then.”

And he answered:

“Only one who does not know deep waters

Can still be bobbing, dancing on those waves.

“Who, I ask you, has made whom unhappy?” So he turned her gentle complaint against her.

It was a rime of relative leisure when Genji could turn his thoughts to his devotions. Because his visits were longer, the Akashi lady (or so one hears) was feeling somewhat happier with her lot.

{The Morning Glory}