The shining Genji was dead, and there was no one quite like him. It would be irreverent to speak of the Reizei emperor. Niou, the third son of the present emperor, and Kaoru, the young son of Genji’s Third Princess, had grown up in the same house and were both thought by the world to be uncommonly handsome, but somehow they did not shine with the same radiance. They were but sensitive, cultivated young men, and the fact that they were rather more loudly acclaimed than Genji had been at their age was very probably because they had been so close to him. They were in any event very well thought of indeed. Niou had been reared by Murasaki, her favorite among Genji’s grandchildren, and still had her Nijō house for his private residence. If the crown prince was because of his position the most revered of the royal children, Niou was his parents’ favorite. They would have liked to have him with them in the palace, but he found life more comfortable in the house of the childhood memories. Upon his initiation he was appointed minister of war.
The First Princess, his sister, lived in the east wing of Murasaki’s southeast quarter at Rokujō. It was exactly as it had been at Murasaki’s death, and everything about it called up memories. The Second Prince had rooms in the main hall of the same quarter and spent much of his spare time there. The Plum Court was his palace residence. He was married to Yūgiri’s second daughter and was of such high character and repute that he was widely expected to become crown prince when the next reign began.
Yūgiri had numerous daughters. The oldest was married to the crown prince and had no rival for his affections. It had been generally assumed that the younger daughters would be married to royal princes in turn. The Akashi empress, Yūgiri’s sister, had put in a good word for them. Niou, however, had thoughts of his own. He was a headstrong young man who did exactly what he wanted to do. Yūgiri told himself that there were after all no laws in these matters, meanwhile making sure that his daughters had every advantage and letting it be known that princes who came paying court would not be turned away. Princes and high courtiers who flattered themselves that they were among the eligible had very exciting reports about the sixth daughter.
Genji’s various ladies tearfully left Rokujō for the dwellings that would be their last. Genji had given the lady of the orange blossoms the east lodge at Nijō. Kaoru’s mother lived in her own Sanjō mansion. With the Akashi empress now in residence at the palace, Rokujō had become a quiet and rather lonely place. Yūgiri had observed — it had been true long ago and it was still true — how quickly the mansions of the great fall into ruin. Enormous expense and attention went into them, and one could almost see the beginning of the process when their eminent masters were dead, and so they became the most poignant reminders of evanescence. He did not want anything of the sort to happen at Rokujō. He was determined that there would be life in the mansion and the streets around it while he himself was still alive. He therefore installed Kashiwagi’s widow, the Second Princess, in the northeast quarter, where he had lived as the foster son of the lady of the orange blossoms. He was very precise and impartial in his habits, spending alternate nights there and at his Sanjō residence, where Kumoinokari lived.
Genji had polished the Nijō house to perfection, and then the south-east quarter at Rokujō had become the jeweled pavilion, the center of life and excitement. Now it was as if they had been meant all along for one among his ladies and for her grandchildren. There it was that the Akashi lady ministered to the needs of the empress’s children. Making no changes in the ordering of the two households, Yūgiri treated Genji’s several ladies as if he were the son of them all. His strongest regret was that Murasaki had not lived to see evidences of his esteem. After all these years he still grieved for her.
And the whole world still mourned Genji. It was as if a light had gone out. For his ladies, for his grandchildren, for others who had been close to him, the sadness was of course more immediate and intense, and they were constantly being reminded of Murasaki too. It is true, they all thought: the cherry blossoms of spring are loved because they bloom so briefly.
Genji had asked the Reizei emperor to watch over Kaoru. The emperor was faithful to the trust, and his empress, Akikonomu, sad that she had no children of her own, found her greatest pleasure in being of service to him. His initiation ceremonies, when he was fourteen, were held in the Reizei Palace. In the Second Month he was made a chamberlain and in the autumn Captain of the Right Guards. This rapid promotion was at the behest of the Reizei emperor, who seemed to have his own reasons for haste. So it was that Kaoru was a man of importance at a very early age. He was given rooms in the Reizei Palace and the Reizei emperor made it his personal business to see that all the ladies-in-waiting and even the maids and page girls were the prettiest and ablest to be had. Similar attention went into fitting the rooms, which would not have offended the sensibilities of the most refined and demanding princess. Indeed, the Reizei emperor and his empress forwent the services of the most accomplished women in their own retinue, that Kaoru might be more elegantly served. They wanted him to be happy at Reizei and could not have been more attentive to his needs if he had been their son. The Reizei emperor had only one child, a princess by a daughter of Tō no Chūjō. There was of course nothing that he was not ready and eager to do for her. Perhaps it was because his love for Akikonomu had deepened over the years that he was equally solicitous of Kaoru. There were some, indeed, who did not quite understand this partiality.
Kaoru’s mother had quite given herself up to her devotions. She spared herself no expense in arranging the monthly invocation of the holy name and the semiannual reading of the Lotus Sutra and all the other prescribed rites. Her son’s visits were her chief pleasure. Sometimes he almost seemed more like a father than a son — a fact which he was aware of and though rather sad. He was a constant companion of both the reigning emperor and the retired emperor, and was much sought after by the crown prince and other princes too, until he sometimes wished that he could be in two places at once. From his childhood there had been things, chance remarks, brief snatches of an overheard conversation, that had upset him and made him wish that there were someone to whom he could go for an explanation. There was no one. His mother would be distressed at any hint that he had even these vague suspicions. He could only brood in solitude and ask what missteps in a former life might explain the painful doubts with which he had grown up — and wish that he had the clairvoyance of a Prince Rāhula, who instinctively knew the truth about his own birth.
“Whom might I ask? Why must it be
That I do not know the beginning or the end?”
But of course there was no one he could go to for an answer.
These doubts were with him most persistently when he was unwell. His mother, taking the nun’s habit when still in the flush of girlhood — had it been from a real and thorough conversion? He suspected rather that some horrible surprise had overtaken her, something that had shaken her to the roots of her being. People must surely have heard about it in the course of everyday events, and for some reason had felt constrained to keep it from him.
His mother was at her devotions, morning and night, but he thought it unlikely that the efforts of a weak and vacillating woman could transform the dew upon the lotus into the bright jewel of the law. A woman labors under five hindrances, after all. He wanted somehow to help her towards a new start in another life.
He thought too of the gentleman who had died so young. His soul must still be wandering lost, unable to free itself of regrets for this world. How he wished that they could meet — there would be other lives in which it might be possible.
His own initiation ceremonies interested him not in the least, but he had to go through with them. Suddenly he found himself a rather conspicuous young man, indeed the cynosure of all eyes. This new eminence only made him withdraw more resolutely into himself.
The emperor favored him because they were so closely related, but a quite genuine regard had perhaps more to do with the matter. As for the empress, her children had grown up with him and he still seemed almost one of them. She remembered how Genji had sighed at the unlikelihood that he would live to see this child of his late years grown into a man, and felt that Genji’s worries had added to her own responsibilities. Yūgiri was more attentive to Kaoru than to his own sons.
The shining Genji had been his father’s favorite child, and there had been jealousy. He had not had the backing of powerful maternal relatives, but, blessed with a cool head and mature judgment, he had seen the advantages of keeping his radiance somewhat di............