People of the Province came in crowds to see us, and said that if the boat had been outside the bay that night it would have been seen no more. Even the thought terrified me.
Off Ishitsu, in the wild sea
The boat driven before the storm
Fades away and is seen no more.
The wild gusts drive the boat—
Into the wild sea she disappears—
Off Ishitsu!
I devoted myself in various ways for the World [her husband]. Even in serving at Court one had like-wise to devote one's self unceasingly. What favor could one win by returning to the parents' home from time to time?
As I advanced in age I felt it unbecoming to behave as young couples do. While I was lamenting I grew ill, and could not go out to temples for worship. Even this rare going out was stopped, and I had no hope of living long, but I wanted to give my younger children a safer position while I was alive.
I grieved and waited for the delightful thing [an appointment] for my husband. In Autumn he got a position,[79] but not so good a one as we had hoped, and we were much disappointed. It was not so distant as the place from which he had returned, so he made up his mind to go, and we hastily made preparations. He started from the house where his daughter had recently gone to live.[80] It was after the tenth of the Gods-absent month. I could not know what had happened after he started, but all seemed happy on that day. He was accompanied by our boy. My husband wore a red coat and pale purple kimono,[81] and aster-coloured hakama [divided skirt], and carried a long sword. The boy wore blue figured clothes and red hakama, and they mounted their horses beside the veranda.
When they had gone out noisily I felt very, very lonely. As I had heard the Province was not so distant I was less hopeless than I had been before.
The people who accompanied him to see him off returned the next day and told me that they had gone down with great show [of splendour] and, then continuing, said they had seen human fire[82] this morning starting [from the company] and flying towards the Capital. I tried to suppose it to be from some one of his retinue. How could I think the worst? I could think of nothing but how to bring up these younger ones.
He came back in the Deutzia month of the next year and passed the Summer and Autumn at home, and on the twenty-fifth of the Long-night month he became ill.
1058. On the fifth day of the Tenth month all became like a dream.[83] My sorrows could be compared to nothing in this world.
Now I knew that my present state had been reflected in the mirror offered to the Hasé Temple [about twenty-five years before by her mother] where some one was seen weeping in agony. The reflection of the happier one had not been realized. That could never be in the future.