30

Though it was very late, the emperor thought it would be rude to ignore Lady Kokiden, the Suzaku emperor's mother. He looked in on her as he started back for the palace.+ Genji was with him. An old lady now, she was very pleased. Genji thought of Fujitsubo. It seemed wrong that of his father's ladies the one should be living so long and the other should have died so soon.#

“I am old and forgetful,” said Kokiden, weeping, “but your kind visit brings everything back.”

“Having lost the ones whom I so depended upon,” the emperor re-plied, “I have scarcely been able to detect the arrival of spring, but this interview quite restores my serenity. I shall call upon you from time to time, if I may.”

Genji too said that he would call again. Kokiden was disconcerted by the grandeur of the procession as they made a somewhat hasty departure. What sort of memories would Genji have of her and her better days? She was sorry now for what she had done. It had been his destiny to rule, and she had been able to change nothing. Her sister Oborozukiyo, with little else to occupy her thoughts, found them turning to the past, in which there was much to muse upon and be moved by. It would seem that she still contrived, on this occasion and that, to get off a note to Genji. Kokiden was always finding fault with the management of her stipends and allowances, and grumbling about her misfortune in having lived on into so inferior a reign. She complained so much, indeed, that not even her son could bear her company.