Yūgiri thought himself odd that he should be so gloomy when everyone else was so caught up in the excitement. His singleness of purpose had come to seem obsessive. Now there appeared a possibility that Tō no Chūjō was prepared to look the other way — and so why did he not slip through? But no. An air of cool indifference had served him well thus far and it must be maintained to the end. It cost him a great deal. As for Kumoinokari, she feared that if the rumors her father had brought were true, then this indifference was not feigned; and so even as they turned from each other they went on thinking about each other.

Calm and resolute on the surface, Tō no Chūjō suspected that he was no longer in control of his daughter’s affairs. If on the assumption that the reports about Prince Nakatsukasa’s daughter were true he were to begin thinking of other arrangements for Kumoinokari, the man to whom he turned would hardly feel flattered, nor was Tō no Chūjō‘s own dignity likely to emerge unimpaired. There would be talk and there might be incidents. Well, he had made a mistake, and that fact could not be kept secret. He must surrender and hope to do so with some dignity.

But he must wait for the proper occasion. He could not step forth and make a great show of welcoming Yūgiri as his own. That would be too utterly ridiculous. The time would come, however. A surface calm hid these tensions.

The anniversary of Princess Omiya’s death fell on the twentieth of the Third Month. Tō no Chūjō attended memorial services at the Gokurakuji Temple, south of the city. All of his sons were with him, a very grand entourage indeed. As handsome as any of them, Yūgiri was also of the party. Though he had avoided Tō no Chūjō since the days when the latter had treated him so badly, he had not let the smallest sign of his resentment show. Tō no Chūjō was increasingly aware of it all the same.

Genji too commissioned memorial services, and Yūgiri solemnly busied himself with services of his own.

As they returned from the Gokurakuji in the evening, cherry petals were drifting through the spring haze. In a reminiscent mood, Tō no Chūjō intoned lines from the anthologies. Yūgiri was no less moved by the beauty of the evening. It looked like rain, someone said. Yūgiri did not seem to hear.

Tō no Chūjō (one may imagine that it was with some apprehension) tugged at his sleeve.

“Why are you angry with me? Might this not be the occasion to forgive me, whatever I may have done? I think I have a right myself to complain, that you should have cast me aside in my declining years.”

“Grandmother’s last instructions,” said Yūgiri, very politely, “were that I look to you for advice and support. But you have not seemed to welcome my presence.”

Suddenly there was a downpour. They hurried home in twos and threes.

What could have produced this sudden change? The words themselves had seemed casual enough, but they came from a man before whom Yūgiri seldom felt comfortable. He lay awake all night asking what they could mean.

Perhaps his patience had been rewarded. Tō no Chūjō seemed to be relenting. He continued to seek a proper occasion, neither too ostentatious nor too casual, for a reconciliation.

Early in the Fourth Month the wisteria at Tō no Chūjō‘s veranda came into profuse bloom, of a subtly richer hue than most wisteria. He arranged a concert, thinking that it must not go unnoticed. As the colors mounted richer in the twilight, he sent Kashiwagi with a note.

“It was a pity that we were not permitted a more leisurely talk under the cherry blossoms. If you are free, I would be most honored to see you.

“Come join me in regrets for the passing of spring

And wisteria now aglow in the evening light.”

It was attached to a magnificent spray of the flower.

Restraining his excitement at the letter awaited so long, Yūgiri sent back a polite answer:

“I grope my way through the gathering shades of evening

With no great hopes of coming upon wisteria.”

“I am not sure I have struck the right note,” he said to Kashiwagi. “Would you look it over, please?”

“All that is required of you is that you come with me.”

“You are far too grand an escort.”

He sent Kashiwagi ahead and went to show Genji the letter.

“I think he must have his reasons,” said Genji, who seemed pleased with himself. “I had thought that he was not showing proper respect towards his late mother, but this changes things.”

“I doubt that it is so very important. Everyone says that his wisteria is very fine this year. I imagine that he was bored and arranged a concert in its honor.”

“He sent a very special messenger, in any event. You must go.”

And so a nervous Yūgiri had his father’s blessing.

“It would not do to overdress,” Genji continued. “A magenta would be all right, I suppose, if you were not yet on the council or if you were between offices. Do please dress very carefully.” He sent one of Yūgiri’s men with a fine robe and several singlets from his own wardrobe.

Yūgiri did take great care with his dress. Tō no Chūjō had begun to grow restless when finally he arrived. Seven or eight of Tō no Chūjō‘s sons, led by Kashiwagi, came out to receive him. They were all very handsome, but Yūgiri was even handsomer, with a calm dignity that rather put them to shame. Tō no Chūjō showed him to his place. It was clear that the preparations for receiving him had been thorough.

“Be sure that you get a good look at him,” Tō no Chūjō had said to his wife and her young women as he changed to formal dress. “He is completely in control of himself. In that respect I think he is more than his father’s equal, though of course Genji is so handsome that a smile from him can make you think all the world’s problems have been solved. I doubt that anyone minds very much if he sometimes seems a little flippant in his treatment of public affairs. Yūgiri is a sterner sort and he has studied hard. I for one would have trouble finding anything wrong with him, and I suspect that most people Would have the same trouble.”

Dispensing with the stiffer formalities, he turned immediately to the matter of honoring his wisteria.

“There is much to be said for cherry blossoms, but they seem so flighty. They are so quick to run off and leave you. And then just when your regrets are the strongest the wisteria comes into bloom, and it blooms on into the summer. There is nothing quite like it. Even the color is somehow companionable and inviting.” He was still a very handsome man. His smile said a great deal.

Though the lavender was not very apparent in the moonlight, he worked hard at admiring it. The wine flowed generously and there was music. Pretending to be very drunk and to have lost all thought for the proprieties, he pressed wine upon Yūgiri, who, though sober and cautious as always, found it hard to refuse.

“Everyone agrees that your learning and accomplishments are more than we deserve in this inferior day of ours. I should think you might have the magnanimity to put up with old dotards like myself. Do you have in your library a tract you can refer to in the matter of filial piety? I must lodge a complaint that you who are so much better informed than most about the teachings of the sages should in your treatment of me have shown indifference to their high principles.” Through drunken tears — might one call them? — came these adroit hints.

“You do me a very grave injustice, sir. I think of you as heir to all the ages, and so important that no sacrifice asked of me could be too great. I am a lazy, careless man, but I cannot think what I might have done to displease you.”

The moment had come, thought Tō no Chūjō. “Underleaves of wisteria,” he said, smiling. Kashiwagi broke off an unusually long and rich spray of wisteria and presented it to Yūgiri with a cup of wine. Seeing that his guest was a little puzzled, Tō no Chūjō elaborated upon the reference with a poem of his own:

“Let us blame the wisteria, of too pale a hue,

Though the pine has let itself be overgrown.”

Taking a careful though elegant sip from the cup that was pressed upon him, Yūgiri replied:

“Tears have obscured the blossoms these many springs,

And now at length they open full before me.”

He poured for Kashiwagi, who replied:

“Wisteria is like the sleeve of a maiden,

Lovelier when someone cares for it.”

Cup followed cup, and it would seem that poem followed poem with equal rapidity; and in the general intoxication none were superior to these.

The light of the quarter-moon was soft and the pond was a minor, and the wisteria was indeed very beautiful, hanging from a pine of medium height that trailed its branches far to one side. It did not have to compete with the lusher green of summer.

Kōbai, in his usual good voice, sang “The Fence of Rushes,” very softly.

“What an odd one to have chosen,” Tō no Chūjō said, laughing. Also in fine voice, he joined in the refrain, changing the disturbed house into “a house of eminence.” The merriment was kept within proper bounds and all the old enmity vanished.

Yūgiri pretended to be very drunk. “I am not feeling at all well,” he said to Kashiwagi, “and doubt very much that I can find my way home. Let me borrow your room.”

“Find him a place to rest, my young lord,” said Tō no Chūjō. “I am afraid that in these my declining years I do not hold my liquor well and may create a disturbance. I shall leave you.” He withdrew.

“Are you saying that you mean to pass one night among the flowers?” said Kashiwagi. “It is a difficult task you assign your guide.”

“The fickle flowers, watched over by the steadfast pine? Please, sir — do not let any hint of the inauspicious creep into the conversation.”

Kashiwagi was satisfied, though he did not think that he had risen to the occasion as wittily as he might have. He had a very high opinion of Yūgiri and would not have wished the affair to end otherwise. With no further misgivings he showed his friend to Kumoinokari’s room.

For Yūgiri it was a waking dream. He had waited, long and well. Kumoinokari was very shy but more beautiful than when, all those years before, he had last seen her. He too was satisfied.

“I knew that people were laughing,” he said, “but I let them laugh, and so here we are. Your chief claim to distinction through it all, if I may say so, has been your chilliness. You heard the song your brother was singing, I suppose. It was not kind of him. The fence of rushes — I would have liked to answer with the one about the Kawaguchi Barrier.”

This, she thought, required comment: “Deplorable.

“So shallow a river, flowing out to sea.

Why did so stout a fence permit it to pass?”

He thought her delightful.

“Shallowness was one, but only one,

Among the traits that helped it pass the barrier.

“The length of the wait has driven me mad, raving mad. At this point I understand nothing.” Intoxication was his excuse for a certain fretful disorderliness. He appeared not to know that dawn was approaching.

The women were very reluctant to disturb him.

“He seems to sleep a confident and untroubled sleep,” said Tō no Chūjō.

He did, however, leave before it was full daylight. Even his yawns were handsome.

His note was delivered later in the morning with the usual secrecy. She had trouble answering. The women were poking one another jocularly and the arrival of Tō no Chūjō added to her embarrassment. He glanced at the note.

“Your coldness serves to emphasize my own inadequacy, and makes me feel that the best solution might be to expire.

“Do not reprove me for the dripping sleeves

The whole world sees. I weary of wringing them dry.”

It may have seemed somewhat facile.

“How his writing has improved.” Tō no Chūjō smiled. The old resent- ments had quite disappeared. “He will be impatient for an answer, my dear.”

But he saw that his presence had an inhibiting effect and withdrew.

Kashiwagi ordered wine and lavish gifts for the messenger, an assistant guards commander who was among Yūgiri’s most trusted attendants. He was glad that he no longer had to do his work in secret.

Genji thought his son more shiningly handsome than ever this morning. “And how are you? Have you sent off your letter? The most astute and sober of men can stumble in the pursuit of a lady, and you have shown your superiority in refusing to be hurried or to make a nuisance of yourself. Tō no Chūjō was altogether too stern and uncompromising. I wonder what people are saying now that he has surrendered. But you must not gloat and you must be on your best behavior. You may think him a calm, unruffled sort of man, but he has a strain of deviousness that does not always seem entirely manly and does not make him the easiest person in the world to get along with.” Genji went on giving advice, it will be seen, though he was delighted with the match.

They looked less like father and son than like brothers, the one not a great deal older than the other. When they were apart people were sometimes not sure which was which, but when they were side by side distinctive traits asserted themselves. Genji was wearing an azure robe and under it a singlet of a Chinese white with the pattern in clear relief, sprucely elegant as always. Yūgiri’s robe was of a somewhat darker blue, with a rich saffron and a softly figured white showing at the sleeves. No bridegroom could have been more presentable.

A procession came in bearing a statue of the infant Buddha. It was followed somewhat tardily by priests. In the evening little girls brought offerings from the several Rokujō ladies, as splendid as anything one would see at court. The services too were similar, the chief difference being the rather curious one that more care and expense would seem to have gone into these at Rokujō.

Yūgiri was impatient to be on his way. He dressed with very great care. He had had his little dalliances, it would seem, none of them very important to him, and there were ladies who felt pangs of jealousy as they saw him off. But he had been rewarded for years of patience, and the match was of the sort the poet called “watertight.” Tō no Chūjō liked him much better now that he was one of the family. It was not pleasant to have been the loser, of course, but his extraordinary fidelity over the years made it difficult to hold grudges. Kumoinokari was now in a position of which her sister at court might be envious. Her stepmother could not, it is true, restrain a certain spitefulness, but it was not enough to spoil the occasion. Her real mother, now married to the Lord Inspector, was delighted.

The presentation of the Akashi girl at court had been fixed f............