The high priestess of Kamo, Princess Asagao, resigned her position upon the death of her father. Never able to forget ladies who had interested him, Genji had sent frequent inquiries after her health. Her answers were always very stiff and formal. She was determined never again to be the subject of rumors. He was of course not happy.

He learned that she had returned to her father’s Momozono Palace in the Ninth Month. The Fifth Princess, younger sister of the old emperor and aunt of Asagao and of Genji as well, was also in residence at Momozono. Genji paid a visit, making the Fifth Princess his excuse. The old emperor had been very fond of his sister and niece, and Genji could say that he had inherited a responsibility. They occupied the east and west wings of the palace, which already showed signs of neglect and wore a most melancholy aspect

The Fifth Princess received him. She seemed to have aged and she coughed incessantly. Princess Omiya, the mother of Genji’s dead wife, was her older sister, but the two were very different. Princess Omiya had retained her good looks to the end. A husky-voiced, rather gawky person, the Fifth Princess had somehow never come into her own.

“The world has seemed such a sad place since your father died. I spend my old age sniffling and sobbing. And now Prince Shikibu has left me too. I was sure that no one in the world would even remember me, and here you are. Your kind visit has done a great deal to dispel the gloom.”

Yes, she had aged. He addressed her most courteously. “Everything seemed to change when Father died. There were those years when with no warning and for no reason that I could see I languished in the provinces. Then when my good brother saw fit to call me back and I was honored with official position once more, I found that I ad little time of my own, and I fear that I have neglected you inexcusably. I have so often thought that I would like to call and have a good talk about old times.”

“As you say, it has been a very uncertain and disorderly world. Everywhere I look I see something more to upset me. And I have lived through it all quite as if I were no part of it. No one should be asked to live so long — but now that I see you back where you should be, I remember how I hated the thought of dying while you were still away.” Her voice cracked and wavered. “Just see what a handsome gentleman you have become. You were so pretty when you were little that it was hard to believe you were really meant for this world, and each time since I have had the same thought, that you might have been meant for somewhere else. They say that His Majesty looks just like you, but I don’t believe it. There can’t be two such handsome men.”

He smiled. She might have waited until he was out of earshot. “You praise me too highly. I neglected myself when I was in the provinces and I fear I have not shaken off the countrified look. As for His Majesty, there has been no one, past or present, to rival him in good looks. You are quite right when you say that there cannot be two such handsome men.”

“I think I may expect to live awhile longer if I may be honored from time to time with a visit like this. It is as if both years and sorrows were leaving me.” There was a pause for tears. “I was, I must admit it, envious of Princess Omiya that she had succeeded in establishing such close relations with you. There was evidence that Prince Shikibu was envious too.”

The conversation had taken an interesting turn. “A bond with Prince Shikibu’s house,” he said somewhat sardonically, “would have been an honor and a pleasure. But I fear that I was not made to feel exactly wanted.”

His eye had been wandering in the direction of the other wing. The Withered garden had a monochrome beauty all its own. He was restless. What would this quiet seclusion have done to Asagao?

“I think I will just look in at the other wing. She would think it rude of me not to.”

He passed through a gallery. In the gathering darkness he could still see somber curtains of mourning beyond blinds trimmed in dark gray. A wonderfully delicate incense came drifting towards him.

He was invited into the south room, for it would not do to leave him on the veranda. Asagao’s lady of honor came with a message.

“So you still treat me as if I were a headstrong boy. I have waited so long that I have come to think myself rather venerable, and would have expected the privilege of the inner rooms.”

“I feel as if I were awakening from a long dream,” the princess sent back, “and I must ask time to deliberate the patience of which you speak.”

Yes, thought Genji, the world was an uncertain, dreamlike place.

“One does indeed wait long and cheerless months

In hopes the gods will someday give their blessing.

“And what divine command do you propose to invoke this time? I have thought and felt a great deal, and would take comfort from sharing even a small part of it with you?”

The princess sensed cool purpose in the old urgency and impetuosity. He had matured. Yet he still seemed much too young for the high office he held.

“The gods will tell me I have broken my vows

For having had the briefest talk with You.”

“What a pity. I would have thought them prepared to let the gentle winds take these things away.”

There really was no one else like him. But she was in grim earnest, refusing to be amused when her lady of honor suggested that the god of Kamo was likely to take her no more seriously than he had taken Narihira. The years only seemed to have made her less disposed to welcome gallantry. Her women were much distressed by her coldness.

“You have given the interview quite the wrong turn.” Genuinely annoyed, he got up to leave. “We seem to grow older for purposes of suffering more massive indignities. Is it your purpose to reduce me to the ultimate in abjection?”

The praise was thunderous (it always had been) when he was gone. It was a time when the skies would have brought poignant thoughts in any case, and a falling leaf could take one back to things of long ago. The women exchanged memories of his attentions in matters sad and joyous.

He lay awake with his disappointment. He had the shutters raised early and stood looking out at the morning mist. Trailing over the withered flowers was a morning glory that still had one or two sad, frostbitten little blooms. He broke it off and sent it to Asagao.

“You turned me away in shame and humiliation, and the thought of how the rout must have pleased you is not comfortable.

“I do not forget the morning glory I saw.

Will the years, I wonder, have taken it past its bloom?

“I go on, in spite of everything, hoping that you pity me for the sad thoughts of so many years.”

It was a civil sort of letter which it would be wrong to ignore, said her women, pressing an inkstone upon her.

“The morning glory, wholly changed by autumn,

Is lost in the tangle of the dew-drenched hedge.

“Your most apt simile brings tears.”

It could not have been called a very interesting or encouraging reply, but he was unable to put it down. Perhaps it was the elegance of the handwriting, on soft gray-green paper, that so held him.

Sometimes, in an exchange of this sort, one is deluded by rank or an elegant hand into thinking that everything is right, and afterwards, in attempting to describe it, made to feel that it was not so at all. It may be that I have written confidently and not very accurately.

Not wishing to seem impulsive, he was reluctant to reply; but the thought of all the months and years through which she had managed to be cold and yet keep him interested brought some of his youthful ardor back. He wrote a most earnest letter, having summoned her messenger to the east wing, where they would not be observed. Her women tended to be of an easygoing sort, less than firm even towards lesser men, and their noisy praise had put her on her guard. She herself had always been uncompromising, and now she thought that they were too old and too conspicuous, he and she, for such flirtations. The most routine and perfunctory exchange having to do with the flowers and grasses of the seasons seemed likely to invite criticism. The years had not changed her. In annoyance and admiration, he had to admit that she was unusual.

Word that he had seen her got abroad in spite of everything. It was said that he was sending her very warm letters. The Fifth Princess, among others, was pleased. They did seem such a remarkably well-matched pair. The rumor presently reached Murasaki, who at first told herself that he would not dream of keeping such a secret from her. Then, watching him closely, she could not dismiss the evidences which she found of restlessness. So he was serious about something which he had treated as a joke. She and Asagao were both granddaughters of emperors, but somehow the other lady had cut the grander figure. If Genji’s intentions proved serious Murasaki would be in a very unhappy position indeed. Perhaps, too confident that she had no rivals, she had presumed too much upon his affections. It did not seem likely that he would discard her, at least in the immediate future, but it was quite possible that they had been together too long and that he was taking her for granted. Though in matters of no importance she could scold him most charmingly, she gave no hint of her concern when she was really upset. He spent much of his time these days gazing into the garden. He would spend several nights at court and on his return busy himself with what he called official correspondence, and she would conclude that the rumors were true. Why didihe not say something? He seemed like a stranger.

There were no festivals this year. Bored and fidgety, he set off for Momozono again one evening. He had taken the whole day with his toilet, choosThere were no festivals this year. Bored and fidgety, he set off for ing pleasantly soft robes and making sure that they were well perfumed. The weaker sort of woman would have had even fewer defenses against his charms than usual.

He did, after all, think it necessary to tell Murasaki. “The Fifth Princess is not well. I must look in upon her.”

He waited for a reply, but she was busying herself with the little girl. Her profile told him that all was not well.

“You seem so touchy these days. I cannot think why. I have not wanted to be taken for granted, like a familiar and rumpled old robe, and so I have been staying away a little more than I used to. What suspicions are you cherishing this time?”

“Yes, it is true. One does not enjoy being wearied of.” She turned away and lay down.

He did not want to leave her, but he had told the Fifth Princess that he would call, and really must be on his way.

So this, thought Murasaki, was marriage. She had been too confident.

Mourning robes have their own beauty, and his were especially beautiful in the light reflected from the snow. She could not bear to think that he might one day be leaving her for good.

He took only a very few intimate retainers with him. “I have reached an age,” he said, very plausibly, “when I do not want to go much of anywhere except to the palace. But they are having a rather sad time of it at Momozono. They had Prince Shikibu to look after them, and now it seems very natural, and very sad too, that they should turn to me.”

Murasaki’s women were not convinced. “It continues to be his great defect that his attention wanders. We only hope that no unhappiness comes of it.”

At Momozono the traffic seemed to be through the north gate. It would have been undignified for Genji to join the stream, and so he sent one of his men in through the great west gate. The Fifth Princess, who had not expected him so late on a snowy evening, made haste to order the gate opened. A chilly-looking porter rushed out. He was having trouble and there was no one to help him.

“All rusty,” he muttered. Genji felt rather sorry for him.

And so thirty years had gone by, like yesterday and today. It was a fleeting, insubstantial world, and yet the temporary lodgings which It offered were not easy to give up. The grasses and flowers of the passing seasons continued to pull at him.

“And when did wormwood overwhelm this gate,

This hedge, now under snow, so go to ruin?’,

Finally the gate was opened and he made his way in.

The Fifth Princess commenced talking, as always, of old times. She talked on and on, and Genji was drowsy. She too began to yawn.

“I get sleepy of an evening. I’m afraid I’m not the talker I used to be.”

The sounds which then began to emerge from her may have been snores, but they were unlike any he had heard before.

Delighted at this release, he started off. But another woman had taken over, coughing a very aged cough. “I had ventured to hope that you might remember me,............