25

The birth of a great-grandchild was for the old Akashi nun a dream breaking in upon the slumbers of old age. She came immediately to the crown princess's side and refused to leave. The princess had of course known the company of her mother over the years, but the Akashi lady had had little to say of the past. And here was this old woman, obviously very happy, talking on and on in a tearful, quavering voice. At first the girl gazed at her in distaste and surprise, but then she remembered hints from her mother that there was such a person at Rokujo~. Tears streaming from her eyes, the old nun told of Genji's stay on the Akashi coast and of the crown princess's birth.

“We were at wits' end when he left us and came back to the city. That was that, we said. Fate had been good to us up to a point and no further. But it brought you to redeem us all. Isn't that a lovely thought?”

The girl too was in tears. Without the old lady to tell her, she might never have learned of those sad events so long ago. She began to see that she had no right to consider herself better than her rivals. Murasaki had prepared her for the competition. Otherwise she would not have escaped their open contempt. She had thought herself the grandest of them all, far and away the grandest. The others had scarcely seemed worth the trouble of a sneer. And what must they have been thinking of her all the while! Now she knew the whole truth. She had known that her mother was not of the best lineage, but she had not known that she herself had been born in a remote corner of the provinces. How stupid of her not to have inquired! (One must join her in these reproaches. She really should have been more curious.) She had much to think about: the sad story of her grandmother, for instance, now quite cut off from the world.

Her mother found her lost in these painful thoughts. The liturgists, in small groups, had resoundingly begun their noonday rites. There were few women in immediate attendance on the princess. The old nun had quite taken charge of her.

“But can't you be just a little more careful? The wind is blowing a gale, and you might at least have had them bring something up to close the gaps in the curtains. And here you are hanging over her as if you were her doctor! Don't you know that old people are supposed to keep out of sight?”

Though the old nun must have realized that she had outdone herself, she only cocked her head to one side as if trying to hear a little better. She was not as old as her daughter's remarks suggested, only in her middle sixties. Her nun's habit was in very good taste. Her tearful countenance informed her daughter, who was not at all pleased, that she had been dwelling upon the past.

“I suppose she has been rambling on about things that happened a very long time ago. She has a way of remembering things that never happened at all. Sometimes it all seems like a fantastic dream.”

She smiled down at the girl, who was very pretty and who seemed rather more pensive than usual. She could scarcely believe that anyone so charming could be her own daughter—and the old nun would seem to have upset her with sad talk of the past. It had been the lady's intention to tell the whole story when the final goal was in sight. She doubted that anything the old nun had said could destroy the girl's confidence, but she saw all the same that the conversation had been unsettling.

The holy men having left, the Akashi lady brought in sweets and urged her daughter to take just a morsel. So beautiful and so gentle, the girl brought a new flood of tears from the old nun. A smile suddenly cut a great gap across the aged face, still shining with tears. The Akashi lady tried to signal that the effect was less than enchanting, but to no avail.

“Old waves come upon a friendly shore.

A nun's sleeves dripping brine—who can object?

“It used to be the thing, or so I am told, to be tolerant of old people and their strange ways.”

The crown princess took up paper and a brush from beside her ink-stone.

“The weeping nun must take me over the waves

To the reed-roofed cottage there upon the strand.”

Turning away to hide her own tears, the Akashi lady set down a poem beside it:

“An old man leaves the world, and in his heart

Is darkness yet,* there on the Akashi strand.”

How the princess wished that she could remember the morning of their departure!