5

The empress, his daughter, returned to court, leaving little Niou to keep him company. Niou remembered the instructions his “granny” had left and was most solicitous of the rose plum at the west wing. Genji thought it very kind of him, and completely charming. The Second Month had come, and plum trees in bloom and in bud receded into a delicate mist. Catching the bright song of a warbler in the rose plum that had been Murasaki's especial favorite, Genji went out to the veranda.

“The warbler has come again. It does not know

That the mistress of its tree is here no more.”

It was high spring and the garden was as it had always been. He tried not to remember, but everything his eye fell on brought such trains of memory that he longed to be off in the mountains, where no birds sing.+ Tears darkened the yellow cascade of _yamabuki_. In most gardens the cherry blossoms had fallen. Here at Nijo~ the birch cherry# followed the double cherries and presently it was time for the wisteria. Murasaki had brought all the spring trees, early and late, into her garden, and each came into bloom in its turn.

“_My cherry_,” said Niou. “Can't we do something to keep it going? Maybe if we put up curtains all around and fasten them down tight. Then the wind can't get at it.”

He was so pretty and so pleased with his proposal that Genji had to smile. “You are cleverer by a great deal than the man who wanted to cover the whole sky with his sleeve.” * Niou was his one companion.

“It may be that we can't go on being friends much longer,” he con-tinued, feeling as always that tears were not far away. “We may not be able to see each other, even if it turns out that I still have some life left in me.”

The boy tugged uncomfortably at his sleeve and looked down. “Do you have to say what Granny said?”

At a corner balustrade, or at Murasaki's curtains, Genji would sit gazing down into the garden. Some of the women were still in dark weeds, and those who had changed back to ordinary dress limited themselves to somber, unfigured cloths. Genji was in subdued informal dress. The rooms were austerely furnished and the house was hushed and lonely.

“Taking the final step, I must abandon

The springtime hedge that meant so much to her.”

No one was hurrying him off into a cell. It would be his own doing, and yet he was sad.