2

The Suzaku emperor now worried about his second daughter, whose plight was no doubt the object of much malicious laughter. And his third daughter had become a nun, and cut herself off from the pleasures of ordinary life. The disappointment was in both cases very cruel. He had resolved, however, to concern himself no more with the affairs of this vulgar world, and he held his peace. He would think, in the course of his devotions, that the Third Princess would be at hers. Since she had taken her vows he had found numerous small occasions for writing to her. Thinking the mountain harvests rather wonderful, the bamboo shoots that thrust their way up through the undergrowth of a thicket near his retreat, the taro root from deeper in the mountains, he sent them off to the Third Princess with an affectionate letter at the end of which he said:

“My people make their way with great difficulty through the misty spring hills, and here, the merest token, is what I asked them to gather for you.

“Away from the world, you follow after me,

And may we soon arrive at the same destination.*

“It is not easy to leave the world behind.”

Genji came upon her in tears. He wondered why she should have these bowls ranged before her, and then saw the letter and gifts. He was much moved. The Suzaku emperor had written most feelingly of his longing and his inability, when life was so uncertain, to see her as he would wish. “May we soon arrive at the same destination.” He would not have called it a notable statement, but the priestly succinctness was very effective all the same. Evidences of Genji's indifference had no doubt added to the emperor's worries.

Shyly the Third Princess set about composing her answer. She gave the messenger a figured blue-gray robe. Genji took up a scrap of paper half hidden under her curtains and found something written on it in a childlike, uncertain hand.

“Longing for a place not of this world,

May I not join you in your mountain dwelling?”

“He worries so about you,” said Genji. “It is not kind of you to say these things.”

She turned away from him. The still-rich hair at her forehead and the girlish beauty of her profile seemed very sad. Because the sadness was urging him towards something he might regret and be taken to task for, he pulled a curtain between them, trying very hard all the same not to seem distant or chilly.