hidden from my sight?’ he set out towards the town, for it was now broad daylight. On his return he sent a message to the Heir Apparent. Ōmyōbu had taken charge of the child since Fujitsubo’s retirement and it was through her that Genji now addressed his son: ‘I leave the City to-day. That I have been unable to visit you once more is the greatest of my many vexations. You indeed know better than I can tell what thoughts are mine in this extremity, and I beg you to commend me to your little master in such terms as you deem best.’ With this letter he enclosed a spray of withered cherry-blossoms to which was tied the poem: ‘When again shall I see the flowers of the City blossoming in Spring, I whom fortune has cast out upon the barren mountains of the shore?’ This she passed on to the boy who, young though he was, quite well understood the import of the message, and when Ōmyōbu added ‘It is hard at present to say when he will return…!’ the young prince said sadly ‘Even when he stays away for a little while I miss him very much, and now that he is going a long way off I do not know how I shall get on…. Please say this to him for me.’
She was touched by the simplicity of his message. Ōmyōbu often called to mind all the misery which in past days had grown out of her mistress’s disastrous attachment. Scene after scene rose before her. How happy they might both have been, if only… And then she would remember that she and she alone had been the promoter of their ruin. She had pleaded for Genji, arranged those fatal meetings! And a bitter remorse filled her soul. She now sent the following reply: ‘His Highness dictated no formal answer. When I informed him of your departure, his distress was very evident….’ This and more she wrote, somewhat incoherently, for her thoughts were in great confusion. With the letter was the poem: ‘Though sad
