10

The rainy Fifth Month was a difficult time.

Suddenly a near-full moon burst through a rift in the clouds. Yu~giri chanced to be with him at this beautiful moment. The white of the orange blossoms leaped forward in the moonlight and on a fresh breeze the scent that so brings memories came wafting into the room. But it was for only a moment. The sky darkened even as they awaited, “unchanged a thousand years, the voice of the cuckoo.” + The wind rose and almost blew out the eaves lamp, rain pounded on the roof, and the sky was black once more.

“The voice of rain at the window,” # whispered Genji. It was not a very striking or novel allusion, but perhaps because it came at the right moment Yu~giri wished it might have been heard “at the lady's hedge.” *

“I know I am not the first man who has had to live alone,” said Genji, “but I do find myself restless and despondent. I should imagine that after this sort of thing a mountain hermitage might come as a relief. Bring something for our guest,” he called to the women. “I suppose it is too late to send for the men.”

Yu~giri wished that his father were not forever gazing up into the sky as if looking for someone there.+ This inability to forget must surely stand in the way of salvation. But if he himself was unable to forget the one brief glimpse he had had of her, how could he reprove his father?

“It seems like only yesterday, and here we are at the first anniversary. What plans do you have for it?”

“Only the most ordinary sort. This is the time, I think, to dedicate the Paradise Mandala she had done, and of course she had a great many sutras copied. The bishop, I can't think of his name, knows exactly what she wanted. He should be able to give all the instructions.”

“Yes, she seems to have thought about these things a great deal, and I am sure that they are a help to her wherever she is now. We know, of course, what a fragile bond she had with this world, and the saddest thing is that she had no children.”

“There are ladies with stronger bonds who still have not done very well in the matter of children. It is you who must see that our house grows and prospers.”

Not wanting it to seem that he did nothing these days but weep, Genji said little of the past.

Just then, faintly—how can it have known?*—there came the call of the cuckoo for which they had been waiting.

“Have you come, O cuckoo, drenched in nighttime showers,

In memory of her who is no more?”

And still he was gazing up into the sky.

Yu~giri replied:

“Go tell her this, O cuckoo: the orange blossoms

Where once she lived are now their loveliest.”

The women had poems too, but I shall not set them down.

Yu~giri, who often kept his father company through the lonely nights, spent this night too with him. The sorrow and longing were intense at the thought that the once-forbidden rooms were so near and accessible.