30

Murasaki was better, but still in pain through the Fourth Month. It was now the rainy Fifth Month, when the skies are their most capricious. Genji commissioned a reading of the Lotus Sutra in daily installments and other solemn services as well towards freeing the Rokujo~ lady of her sins. At Murasaki's bedside there were continuous readings by priests of good voice. From time to time the Rokujo~ lady would make dolorous utterances through the medium, but she refused all requests that she go away.

Murasaki was troubled with a shortness of breath and seemed even weaker as the warm weather came on. Genji was in such a state of distraction that Murasaki, ill though she was, sought to comfort him. She would have no regrets if she were to die, but she did not want it to seem that she did not care. She forced herself to take broth and a little food and from the Sixth Month she was able to sit up. Genji was delighted but still very worried. He stayed with her at Nijo~.

The Third Princess had been unwell since that shocking visitation. There were no specific complaints or striking symptoms. She felt vaguely indisposed and that was all. She had eaten very little for some weeks and was pale and thin. Unable to contain himself, Kashiwagi would sometimes come for visits as fleeting as dreams. She did not welcome them. She was so much in awe of Genji that to rank the younger man beside him seemed almost blasphemous. Kashiwagi was an amiable and personable young man, and people who were no more than friends were quite right to think him superior; but she had known the incomparable Genji since she was a child and Kashiwagi scarcely seemed worth a glance. She thought herself very badly treated indeed that he should be the one to make her unhappy. Her nurse and a few others knew the nature of her indisposition and grumbled that Genji's visits were so extremely infrequent. He did finally come to inquire after her.

It was very warm. Murasaki had had her hair washed and otherwise sought renewal. Since she was in bed with her hair spread about her, it was not quick to dry. It was smooth and without a suggestion of a tangle to the farthest ends. Her skin was lovely, so white that it almost seemed iridescent, as if a light were shining through. She was very beautiful and as fragile as the shell of a locust.

The Nijo~ mansion had been neglected and was somewhat run-down, and compared to the Rokujo~ mansion it seemed very cramped and narrow. Taking advantage of a few days when she was somewhat more herself, Genji sent gardeners to clear the brook and restore the flower beds, and the suddenly renewed expanse before her made Murasaki marvel that she should be witness to such things. The lake was very cool, a carpet of lotuses. The dew on the green of the pads was like a scattering of jewels.

“Just look, will you,” said Genji. “As if it had a monopoly on coolness. I cannot tell you how pleased I am that you have improved so.” She was sitting up and her pleasure in the scene was quite open. There were tears in his eyes. “I was almost afraid at times that I too might be dying.”

She was near tears herself.

“It is a life in which we cannot be sure

Of lasting as long as the dew upon the lotus.”

And he replied:

“To be as close as the drops of dew on the lotus

Must be our promise in this world and the next.”

Though he felt no great eagerness to visit Rokujo~, it had been some time since he had learned of the Third Princess's indisposition. Her brother and father would probably have heard of it too. They would think his inability to leave Murasaki rather odd and his failure to take advantage of a break in the rains even odder.

The princess looked away and did not answer his questions. Interpreting her silence as resentment at his long absence, he set about reasoning with her.

He called some of her older women and made detailed inquiries about her health.

“She is in an interesting condition, as they say.”

“Really, now! And at this late date! I couldn't be more surprised.”

It was his general want of success in fathering children that made the news so surprising. Ladies he had been with for a very long while had remained childless. He thought her sweet and pathetic and did not pursue the matter. Since it had taken him so long to collect himself for the visit, he could not go back to Nijo~ immediately. He stayed with her for several days. Murasaki was always on his mind, however, and he wrote her letter after letter.

“He certainly has thought of a great deal to say in a very short time,” grumbled a woman who did not know that her lady was the more culpable party. “It does not seem like a marriage with the firmest sort of foundations.”

Kojiju~ was frantic with worry.

Hearing that Genji was at Rokujo~, Kashiwagi was a victim of a jeal-ousy that might have seemed out of place. He wrote a long letter to the Third Princess describing his sorrows. Kojiju~ took advantage of a moment when Genji was in another part of the house to show her the letter.

“Take it away. It makes me feel worse.” She lay down and refused to look at it.

“But do just glance for a minute at the beginning here.” Kojiju~ un-folded the letter. “It is very sad.”

Someone was coming. She pulled the princess's curtains closed and went off.

It was Genji. In utter confusion, the princess had time only to push it under the edge of a quilt.

He would be going back to Rokujo~ that evening, said Genji. “You do not seem so very ill. The lady in the other house is very ill indeed and I would not want her to think I have deserted her. You are not to pay any attention to what they might be saying about me. You will presently see the truth.”

So cheerful and even frolicsome at other times, she was subdued and refused to look at him. It must be that she thought he did not love her. He lay down beside her and as they talked it was evening. He was awakened from a nap by a clamor of evening cicadas.

“It will soon be dark,” he said, getting up to change clothes.

“Can you not stay at least until you have the moon to guide you?” *

She seemed so very young. He thought her charming. At least until then—it was a very small request.

“The voice of the evening cicada says you must leave.

'Be moist with evening dews,' you say to my sleeves?”

Something of the cheerful innocence of old seemed to come back. He sighed and knelt down beside her.

“How do you think it sounds in yonder village,

The cicada that summons me there and summons me here?”