To Genji it brought back the cries of that strange bird, which cry he had heard on that fearful night in Rokjiâ, and the subject recurred to his mind once more, and he said to Ukon, “How old was she?”
“Nineteen.”
“And how came you to know her?”
“I was the daughter of her first nurse, and a great favorite of her father's, who brought me up with her, and from that time I never left her. When I come to think of those days I wonder how I can exist without her. The poet says truly, ‘The deeper the love, the more bitter the parting.' Ah! how gentle and retiring she was. How much I loved her!”
“That retiring and gentle temperament,” said Genji, “gives far greater beauty to women than all beside, for to have no natural pliability makes women utterly worthless.”
The sky by this time became covered, and the wind blew chilly. Genji gazed intently on it and hummed:—
“When we regard the clouds above,
Our souls are filled with fond desire,
To me the smoke of my dead love,
Seems rising from the funeral pyre.”
The distant sound of the bleacher's hammer reached their ears, and reminded him of the sound he had heard in the Yûgao's house. He bade “Good-night” to Ukon, and retired to rest, humming as he went:—
“In the long nights of August and September.”
On the forty-ninth day (after the death of the Yûgao) he went to the Hokke Hall in the Hiye mountain, and there had a service for the dead performed, with full ceremony and rich offerings. The monk-brother of Koremitz took every pains in its performance.
The composition of requiem prayers was made by Genji himself, and revised by a professor of literature, one of his intimate friends. He expressed in it the melancholy sentiment about the death of one whom he had dearly loved, and whom he had yielded to Buddha. But who she was was not stated. Among the offerings there was a dress. He took it up in his hands and sorrowfully murmured,
“With tears to-day, the dress she wore
I fold together, when shall I
Bright Elysium's far-off shore
This robe of hers again untie?”
And the thought that the soul of the deceased might be still wandering and unsettled to that very day, but that now the time had come when her final destiny would be decided,8 made him pray for her more fervently.
So closed the sad event of Yûgao.
Now Genji was always thinking that he should wish to see his beloved in a dream.
The evening after his visit to the Hokke Hall, he beheld her in his slumbers, as he wished, but at the same moment the terrible face of the woman that he had seen on that fearful evening in Rokjiâ again appeared before him; hence he concluded that the same mysterious being who tenanted that dreary mansion had taken advantage of his fears and had destroyed his beloved Yûgao.
A few words more about the house in which she had lived. After her flight no communication had been sent to them even by Ukon, and they had no idea of where she had gone to. The mistress of the house was a daughter of the nurse of Yûgao. She with her two sisters lived there. Ukon was a stranger to them, and they imagined that her being so was the reason of her sending no intelligence to them. True they had entertained some suspicions about the gay Prince, and pressed Koremitz to confide the truth to them, but the latter, as he had done before, kept himself skilfully aloof.
They then thought she might have been seduced and carried off by some gallant son of a local Governor, who feared his intrigue might be discovered by Tâ-no-Chiûjiâ.
During these days Kokimi, of Ki-no-Kami's house, still used to come occasionally to Genji. But for some time past the latter had not sent any letter to Cicada. When she heard of his illness she not unnaturally felt for him, and also she had experienced a sort of disappointment in not seeing his writing for some time, especially as the time of her departure for the country was approaching. She therefore sent him a letter of inquiry with the following:—
“If long time passes slow away,
Without a word from absent friend,
Our fears no longer brook delay,
But must some kindly greeting send.”
To this letter Genji returned a kind answer and also the following:—
“This world to me did once appear
Like Cicada's shell, when cast away,
Till words addressed by one so dear,
Have taught my hopes a brighter day.”
This was written with a trembling hand, but still bearing nice traits, and when it reached Cicada, and she saw that he had not yet forgotten past events, and the scarf he had carried away, she was partly amused and partly pleased.
It was about this time that the daughter of Iyo-no-Kami was engaged to a certain Kurando Shiâshiâ, and he was her frequent visitor. Genji heard of this, and without any intention of rivalry, sent her the following by Kokimi:—
“Like the green reed that grows on high
By river's brink, our love has been,
And still my wandering thoughts will fly
Back to that quickly passing scene.”
She was a little flattered by it, and gave Kokimi a reply, as follows:—
“The slender reed that feels the wind
That faintly stirs its humble leaf,
Feels that too late it breathes its mind,
And only wakes, a useless grief.”
Now the departure of Iyo-no-Kami was fixed for the beginning of October.
Genji sent several parting presents to his wife, and in addition to these some others, consisting of beautiful combs, fans, nusa ,9 and the scarf he had carried away, along with the following, privately through Kokimi:—
“I kept this pretty souvenir
In hopes of meeting you again,
I send it back with many a tear,
Since now, alas! such hope is vain.”
There were many other minute details, which I shall pass over as uninteresting to the reader.
Genji's official messenger returned, but her reply about the scarf was sent through Kokimi:—
“When I behold the summer wings
Cicada like, I cast aside;
Back to my heart fond memory springs,
And on my eyes, a rising tide.”
The day of the departure happened to be the commencement of the winter season. An October shower fell lightly, and the sky looked gloomy.
Genji stood gazing upon it and hummed:—
“Sad and weary Autumn hours,
Summer joys now past away,
Both departing, dark the hours,
Whither speeding, who can say?”
All these intrigues were safely kept in strict privacy, and to have boldly written all particulars concerning them is to me a matter of pain. So at first I intended to omit them, but had I done so my history would have become like a fiction, and the censure I should expect would be that I had done so intentionally, because my hero was the son of an Emperor; but, on the other hand, if I am accused of too much loquacity, I cannot help it.
✦ ✦ ✦
Name of an ecclesiastical office.
Sasinuki is a sort of loose trousers, and properly worn by men only, hence some commentators conclude, the attendant here mentioned to mean a boy, others contend, this garment was worn by females also when they rode.
A mythological repulsive deity who took part in the building of a bridge at the command of a powerful magician.
A popular superstition in China and Japan believes foxes to have mysterious powers over men.
Upasaka, a sect of the followers of Buddhism who are laymen though they observe the rules of clerical life.
Meitreya, a Buddhisatna destined to reappear as a Buddha after the lapse of an incalculable series of years.
It is the Oriental custom that when one offers up a prayer, he first washes his hands, to free them from all impurity.
According to the Buddhist's doctrine of the Hosso sect, all the souls of the dead pass, during seven weeks after death, into an intermediate state, and then their fate is decided. According to the Tendai sect, the best and the worst go immediately where they deserve, but those of a medium nature go through this process.
An offering made of paper, to the God of roads, which travellers were accustomed to make, before setting out on a journey.