The two mournful processions left the Eta settlement side by side, but their different destinations led to their parting company at the base of the hill. The one carrying the dead samurai turned in the direction of Catzu. There, fitting ceremonies were to be given to the departed soul of Shimadzu, after which he would be interred in the mortuary hall of his ancestors.
The train of the Lady Wistaria turned to the south, travelling many miles over bare and uninhabited regions, over plains, past hamlets and small towns and villages, on towards the mountains of the south.
While the last rays of the setting sun were still illumining the west, the cortege of the new Princess of Mori entered a forest of evergreen pines. When it emerged, the darkening sky had deepened its colors until a melancholy calm wrapped the land in an effulgent glow. The moon had risen on high and was shimmering out its holy light. The earth, reflecting its gleam, seemed a tableau of silent silver.
They had reached a beautiful and tranquil hill. At the top, above the pines and cedars enclosing it in nature’s own sacred wall, the amber peaks of a celestial temple, with its myriad slanting lights, pointed upward in the sky. Their journey was ended.
Very still now stood the cortège. Low and deeply bent stood the silent attendants, as with streaming eyes they gazed longingly upon the slight young figure which the samurai Genji, almost bowed over with personal grief, assisted to alight from the norimon. In her white robes the Lady Wistaria seemed a spirit as she stood there under the moonbeams. Mutely she looked about her. As the muffled sobs of her servitors reached her ears, she wrung her hands with an unconscious gesture of anguish greater than their own.
As if in sympathy with the intense sadness over all who were there, nature herself seemed to show signs of her own distress. Clouds rolled over the skies above the mountains, veiling the moon and the star beams. A little river that flowed at the foot of the hill was heard sobbing as it rolled with a mournful sound over its rapids.
But the lights twinkled out warmly from the temple beyond, and a white-robed priestess was descending to welcome the novitiate. An odor of sweet incense, such as of umegaku or tambo, was wafted to the watchers on the hill from the temple doors. Wistaria turned her face towards it. Then back again she directed her glance to her kneeling servitors. Her voice was as soft and gentle as a benediction.
“Pray thee” she said, “to take care of your honorable healths. Sayonara!”
She hesitated on the threshold of the temple. Then silently she entered the place of tranquil rest amid the shadows of the mountains.