Meanwhile Iyo no Suke, who was now a very old man, began to decline in health, and feeling that his end was near, he called his sons to him and discussed with them the disposition of his worldly affairs. But what evidently concerned him above all was the future of his young wife. They must promise him to yield to her wishes in everything and to treat her exactly as they had done during his lifetime. Still unsatisfied by their assurances he sent for them over and over again at every hour of the night and day and exacted fresh promises. But Utsusemi, after all that she had suffered already, could not believe that happiness of any kind could ever be in her fate. She saw herself, so soon as her husband was dead, bandied about unwanted from one relation’s house to another, and the prospect appalled her. Iyo knew only too well what was passing in her mind. He desired so persistently to comfort and protect her that, could life be prolonged by mere anxiety to live, he would never have deserted her. For her indeed he would gladly have forgone the joys of Paradise that his ghost might linger on earth and keep her from all harm. Thus, profoundly distrusting the intention of his sons and full of the blackest forebodings, he died at last after a bitter struggle against fate, and only when his will could no longer hold out against the encroachments of sickness and old age.

For a while, with their father’s dying injunctions fresh in their ears, the step-sons treated her with at any rate superficial kindness; but this soon wore off and she began to find her position in the house exceedingly unpleasant. This no doubt lay rather in the nature of the circumstances themselves than in any particular ill-will on the part of her guardians. But she felt herself to be the object of a deliberate persecution and her life became one continual succession of tears and lamentations. The only one of the brothers who seemed to have any sympathy with her was Ki no Kami: ‘Please keep nothing back from me,’ he said. ‘My father was so anxious that I should help you and how can I, unless you entrust your secrets to me?’ Then he took to following her about. She remembered how amorous he had always been. Soon his intentions became perfectly apparent. She had suffered enough already in her life; why should she sit down and wait quietly for the fresh miseries which fate had now in store for her? Without a word to anybody she sent for her confessor and took the vows of a nun. Her waiting-women and servants were naturally aghast at this sudden step. Ki no Kami took it as a personal affront. ‘She did it simply to spite me,’ he told people; ‘but she is young yet and will soon be wondering how on earth she is going to support such an existence for the rest of her life,’—sagacity which did not impress his hearers quite as he intended.

[1] Utsusemi’s husband. See vol. i, chapters 2 and 3.

[2] ‘The wind that blows across the ridge, that blows across the hills, would that it might carry a message to him that I love.’

[3] Utsusemi’s brother; the ‘boy’ of vol. i, ch. 3.

[4] Kai-nashi = ‘no shell’; but also ‘no profit.’

[5] I.e. Iyo no Suke.

[6] Ō-saka means ‘Hill of Meeting’; seki means a barrier, but also a flood-dam. See above, p. [25].

CHAPTER XVII
THE PICTURE COMPETITION

IT will be remembered that after Rokujō’s death Genji decided that her daughter Princess Akikonomu had best come and live with him till the time came for her Presentation at Court. At the last minute, however, he altered his mind, for such a step seemed too direct a provocation to Princess Akikonomu’s admirer, the young ex-Emperor Suzaku. But though he did not remove her from her palace in the Sixth Ward he felt his responsibilities towards this unfortunate orphan very keenly and paid her many lengthy visits. He had now definitely arranged with Fujitsubo that Akikonomu was soon to enter the Emperor’s Palace; but he was careful not to betray in public any knowledge of this plan, and to the world at large he seemed merely to be giving the girl such general guidance and support as might be expected from a guardian and family friend.