Yes, this was all just as Tō no Chūjō had described. ‘I think there was some mention of a child that Chūjō was vexed to have lost sight of’ said Genji more interested than ever; ‘am I right?’ ‘Yes, indeed,’ she answered ‘it was born in the spring of last year, a girl, and a fine child it was.’ ‘Where is it now?’ asked Genji. ‘Could you get hold of it and bring it to me here without letting anyone know where you were taking it? It would be a great comfort to me in my present misery to have some remembrance of her near me;’ and he added, ‘I ought of course to tell Chūjō, but that would lead to useless and painful discussions about what has happened. Somehow or other I will manage to bring her up here in my palace. I think there can be no harm in that. And you will easily enough find some story to tell to whatever people are now looking after her.’ ‘I am very glad that this has entered your head,’ said Ukon, ‘it would be a poor look-out for her to grow up in the quarter where she is now living. With no one properly belonging to her and in such a part of the town....’
In the stillness of the evening, under a sky of exquisite beauty, here and there along the borders in front of his palace some insect croaked its song; the leaves were just beginning to turn. And as he looked upon this pleasant picture he felt ashamed at the contrast between his surroundings and the little house where Yūgao had lived. Suddenly somewhere among the bamboo groves the bird called iyebato uttered its sharp note. He remembered just how she had looked when in the gardens of that fatal house the same bird had startled her by its cry, and turning to Ukon, ‘How old was she?’ he suddenly asked; ‘for though she seemed childlike in her diffidence and helplessness, that may only have been a sign that she was not long for this world.’ ‘She must have been nineteen’ said Ukon. ‘When my mother, who was her first wet-nurse, died and left me an orphan, my lady’s father was pleased to notice me and reared me at my lady’s side. Ah Sir, when I think of it, I do not know how I shall live without her; for kind as people here may be I do not seem to get used to them. I suppose it is that I knew her ways, poor lady, she having been my mistress for so many years.’
To Genji even the din of the cloth-beaters’ mallets had become dear through recollection, and as he lay in bed he repeated those verses of Po Chü-i.
In the eighth month and ninth month when the nights are growing long
A thousand times, ten thousand times the fuller’s stick beats.
The young brother still waited upon him, but he no longer brought with him the letters which he had been used to bring. Utsusemi thought he had at last decided that her treatment of him was too unfriendly to be borne, and was vexed that he should feel so. Then suddenly she heard of his illness, and all her vexation turned to consternation and anxiety. She was soon to set out upon her long journey, but this did not much interest her; and to see whether Genji had quite forgotten her she sent him a message saying that she had been able to find no words in which to express her grief at hearing the news of his illness. With it she sent the poem: ‘I did not ask for news and you did not ask why I was silent; so the days wore on and I remained in sorrow and dismay.’ He had not forgotten her, no, not in all his trouble; and his answer came: ‘Of this life, fragile as the utsusemi’s[19] shell, already I was weary, when your word came, and gave me strength to live anew.’ The poem was written in a very tremulous and confused hand; but she thought the writing very beautiful and it delighted her that he had not forgotten how, cicada-like, she had shed her scarf. There could be no harm in this interchange of notes, but she had no intention of arranging a meeting. She thought that at last even he had seen that there could be no sense in that.
As for Utsusemi’s companion, she was not yet married, and Genji heard that she had become the mistress of Tō no Chūjō’s brother Kurōdo no Shōshō; and though he feared that Shōshō might already have taken very ill the discovery that he was not first in the field, and did not at all wish to offend him, yet he had a certain curiosity about the girl and sent Utsusemi’s little brother with a message asking if she had heard of his illness and the poem: ‘Had I not once gathered for my pillow a handful of the sedge that grows upon the eaves,[20] not a dewdrop of pretext could my present message find.’ It was an acrostic with many hidden meanings. He tied the letter to a tall reed and bade him deliver it secretly; but was afterwards very uneasy at the thought that it might go astray. ‘If it falls into Shōshō’s hands’ he thought ‘he will at once guess that it was I who was before him.’ But after all Shōshō would probably not take that so very hard, Genji had vanity enough to think.
The boy delivered the message when Shōshō was at a safe distance. She could not help feeling a little hurt; but it was something that he had remembered her at all, and justifying it to herself with the excuse that she had had no time to do anything better, she sent the boy straight back with the verse: ‘The faint wind of your favour, that but for a moment blew, with grief has part befrosted the small sedge of the eaves.’ It was very ill-written, with all sorts of ornamental but misleading strokes and flourishes; indeed with a complete lack of style. However, it served to remind him of the face he had first seen that evening by the lamplight. As for the other who on that occasion had sat so stiffly facing her, what determination there had been in her face, what a steady resolution to give no quarter!
The affair with the lady of the sedge was so unintentional and so insignificant that though he regarded it as rather frivolous and indiscreet, he saw no great harm in it. But if he did not take himself in hand before it was too late he would soon again be involved in some entanglement which might finally ruin his reputation.
On the forty-ninth day after Yūgao’s death a service in her memory was by his orders secretly held in the Hokedō on Mount Hiyei. The ritual performed was of the most elaborate kind, everything that was required being supplied from the Prince’s own store; and even the decoration of the service books and images was carried out with the utmost attention. Koremitsu’s brother, a man of great piety, was entrusted with the direction of the ceremony, and all went well. Next Genji sent for his old writing-master, a doctor of letters for whom he had a great liking and bade him write the prayer for the dead.[21] ‘Say that I commit to Amida the Buddha one not named whom I loved, but lost disastrously,’ and he wrote out a rough draft for the learned man to amend. ‘There is nothing to add or alter,’ said the master, deeply moved. Who could it be, he wondered, at whose death the prince was so distressed? (For Genji, try as he might, could not hide his tears.)