33

New lectors came for the matins, and the abbot, who had been present through the night, started up at the fresh resonance and began intoning mystical formulas. His voice was hoarse with age, but it seemed to have in it a store of grace that was enough to bring hope even to this despairing household.

“How did my lady pass the night?” asked the abbot, going on to speak, his voice sometimes wavering, of her father. “And in which realm will he be now? I wonder. One of peace and serenity, of that I am sure. The other night I dreamed of him. He was wearing secular dress, and he spoke with great clarity.'I had persuaded myself from the depths of my heart to renounce the world,' he said,'and had nothing to hold me back. But now a small worry has come up, to ruffle the calm. I must pause on my way to the land where I long to be. It is a cause of great disappointment to me, and I beg you to pray that I soon recover the ground I have lost.' I could not immediately think what to do, and so I set five or six of my men to chanting the holy name—it was the one thought that came to me. And then I had another: I sent priests out in the four directions to proclaim the Buddhahood of all men.” *

Kaoru was in tears. Oigimi wanted only to die, at the thought of the burden of sin she must bear for her father's troubles. She longed to be with him wherever he was, to join him before his soul had come to its final rest.

After a few words more the abbot withdrew. The priests sent out to proclaim universal Buddhahood had gone to villages near at hand and to the city as well, but presently they were back, for the dawn gales had been cruel.* Seeking out the abbot's room, they prostrated themselves at the garden gate and grandly brought their invocations to an end. Kaoru, whose studies of the Good Law were by now well advanced, was deeply moved.

In painful uncertainty, Nakanokimi came somewhat nearer. Kaoru drew himself up politely as he caught a rustling of silk.

“And how does it seem to you?” he asked. “These readings may not be the most important things in the world, but they do have a certain dignity.” As if in ordinary conversation, he added a poem:

“Forlorn the dawn, when on the frosty bank

The plovers sound their melancholy notes.”

Something about him reminded her of his cruel friend. But she still found him rather forbidding, and sent her answer through Bennokimi:

“The plovers in the dawn, shaking off the frost:

Do they call to the heart of one now sunk in grief?”

Ill favored though the intermediary was, the poem was delivered gracefully enough.

Nakanokimi seemed very shy, even in these fleeting exchanges, but her gentle replies gave evidence of a sensitive nature he would desperately hate to see leave his life. He thought of the Eighth Prince as the abbot had dreamed of him, and of how it must be to watch all of this from the heavens. He had sutras read at the monastery where the prince had spent his last days and ordered new rites at other temples as well. Taking leave of all his affairs in the city, he set about assuring himself that no device, Buddhist or Shinto, had been overlooked.