sorry for them? They came when it was their turn, and this is the way they are welcomed.’ He leant upon the pillar of her seat, the evening light falling upon him as he turned towards her. They had many memories in common; did she still recall, he asked, that terrible morning when he came to visit her mother at the Palace-in-the-fields? ‘Too much my thoughts frequent those vanished days,’ she quoted,[1] and her eyes filled with tears. Already he was thinking her handsome and interesting, when for some reason she rose and shifted her position, using her limbs with a subtle grace that made him long to see her show them to better advantage…. But stay! Ought such thoughts to be occurring to him? ‘Years ago,’ he said, ‘at a time when I might have been far more happily employed, I became involved, entirely through my own fault, in a number of attachments, all of the most unfortunate kind, with the result that I never knew an instant’s peace of mind. Among these affairs there were two which were not only, while they lasted, far more distressing than the rest, but also both ended under a dark cloud of uncharitableness and obstinacy. The first was with Lady Rokujō, your mother. The fact that she died still harbouring against me feelings of the intensest bitterness will cast a shadow over my whole life, and my one consolation is that in accordance with her wishes, I have been able to do something towards helping you in the world. But that by any act of mine the flame of her love should thus forever have been stifled will remain the greatest sorrow of my life.’ He had mentioned two affairs; but he decided to leave the other part of his tale untold and continued: ‘During the period when my fortunes were in eclipse I had plenty of time to think over all these things and worked out a new plan which I hoped
- ↑ From a poem by Ono no Komachi’s sister, say the commentaries; but such a poem is not to be found in her surviving works.
