Anthology of Japanese Literature by Donald Keene Page B

began to appear that the lady in the alley had fallen from favor since the birth of her child. I had prayed, at the height of my unhappiness, that she would live to know what I was then suffering, and it seemed that my prayers were being answered. She was alone, and now her child was dead, the child that had been the cause of that unseemly racket. The lady was of frightfully bad birth—the unrecognized child of a rather odd prince, it was said. For a moment she was able to use a noble gentleman who was unaware of her shortcomings, and now she was abandoned. The pain must be even sharper than mine had been. I was satisfied. . . .
    It had become painful even to get his rare letters, little flashes into the past, and I was sure, moreover, that there would be more insults like the recent one as long as he could pass my gate. I determined therefore to go away, as I had planned earlier, to that temple in the western mountains, and to do so before he emerged from his penance.
    The mountain road was crowded with associations. We had traveled it together a number of times, and then there had been that time, just at this season, when he had played truant from court and we had spent several days together in this same temple. I had only three attendants with me this time.
    I hurried up to the main hall. It was warm, and I left the door open and looked out. The hall was situated on an eminence in a sort of mountain basin. It was heavily wooded and the view was most effective, although it was already growing dark and there was no moon. The priests made preparations for the early watch, and I began my prayers, still with the door open.
    Just as the conch shells blew ten there was a clamor at the main gate. I knew that the Prince had arrived. I quickly lowered the blinds, and, looking out, saw two or three torches among the trees.
    "I have come to take your mother back," he said to the boy, who went down to meet him. "I have suffered a defilement, though, and cannot get out. Where shall we have them pick her up?"
    The boy told me what he had said, and I was quite at a loss to know how to handle such madness. "What can you be thinking of," I sent back, "to come off on such a weird expedition? Really, I intend to stay here only the night. And it would not be wise for you to defile the temple. Please go back immediately—it must be getting late."
    Those were the first of a great number of messages the boy had to deliver that night, up and down a flight of stairs that must have been more than a hundred yards long. My attendants, sentimental things, found him most pathetic.
    Finally the boy came up in tears: "He says it is all my fault—that I am a poor one not to make a better case for him. He is really in a rage." But I was firm—I could not possibly go down yet, I said.
    "All right, all right," the Prince stormed. "I can't stay here all night. There is no help for it—hitch the oxen."
    I was greatly relieved. But the boy said that he would like to go back to the city with his father, and that he would probably not come again. He went off weeping. I was quite desolate: how could he, whom of all in the world I had come most to rely on, leave me like this? But I said nothing, and presently, after everyone had left, he came back alone.
    He was choked with tears. "He says I am to stay until I am sent for."
    I felt extremely sorry for the boy, but I tried to distract him by ridiculing his weakness. Surely he did not think his father would abandon him, too, I said. . . .
    I spent the days in the usual observances and the nights praying before the main Buddha. Since the place was surrounded by hills and there seemed no danger of my being seen, I kept the blinds up; but once, so great still was my lack of self-possession, I hastily started to lower them when an unseasonal thrush burst into song in a dead tree nearby.
    Then the expected defilement approached, and I knew I should have to leave. But in the city a rumor had spread that I