15

There were frequent messages from Akikonomu, seeking to describe an infinite sorrow.

“I think that now, finally, I understand.

“She did not like the autumn, that I knew—

Because of the wasted moors that now surround us?”

Hers were the condolences that meant most, the letters that spoke to Genji through the numbness of his heart. He wept quietly on, lost in a sad reverie, and took a very long time with his answer.

“Look down upon me from your cloudy summit,

Upon the dying autumn which is my world.”

He folded it into an envelope and still held it in his hand.