The vice-governor of Iyo had the year after the death of Genji’s father become vice-governor of Hitachi. His wife, the lady of the locust she11, had gone with him to his post. In that distant part of the realm she heard of Genji’s exile. One is not to imagine that she was unconcerned, but she had no way of writing to him. The winds blowing down over Tsukuba were not to be trusted, it seemed, and reports from the city were few; and so the months and years went by. Although the period of his exile had not been fixed, he did finally return to the city. A year later the vice-governor of Hitachi also returned to the city.

It happened that on the day the Hitachi party came to Osaka barrier, Genji had set off on a pilgrimage of thanksgiving to Ishiyama. The former governor of Kii and others had come from the city to meet the Hitachi party. They brought news of Genji’s excursion. Thinking how enormous the confusion was likely to be if the two parties met, the vice-governor set out at dawn. The women’s carriages moved slowly, however, and soon the sun was high. As they reached Uchidenohama, on the coast of Lake Biwa, Genji’s outrunners were already clearing the road. He himself was just entering the hills east of the city, they said. The vice-governor pulled his carriages in under the cedars at the top of the barrier rise. Unhitching the oxen, the coachmen knelt respectfully for Genji to pass. Though spaced at intervals along the road, the Hitachi procession was impressive. The ladies, sleeves and skirts protruding gaily from the blinds of perhaps ten of the carriages seemed not at all frowsy or countrified. Genji thought of the carriages awaiting the high priestess’s departure for Ise. In wave upon wave, his attendants turned to admire the sleeves and skirts.

It being the end of the Ninth Month, the autumn leaves, some crimson and some but gently tinted, and the grasses and flowers touched lightly by the frost were very beautiful indeed; and Genji’s men, pouring past the gatehouse in travel livery, damasks and dappled prints, added yet more color His blinds lowered, Genji sent for Kogimi, the lady’s brother, now a guards officer.

“See, I have come all the way to the barrier. Should this not tell her something?”

Affectionate memories came flooding back, but he had to make do with this most ordinary of greetings.

The lady too was assailed by memories, of events which she had kept to herself all these years.

“It flowed as I went, it flows as I return,

The steady crystal spring at the barrier rise.”

There was no point in trying to explain what she meant.

Kogimi went out to meet Genji on the return from Ishiyama and to apologize for not having stayed with him that earlier day. He had been a favorite with Genji, whose patronage had seen him as far as the Fifth Rank. Fearing at the time of Genji’s exile that the association would be damaging, he had gone off to Hitachi with his sister and brother-in-law. If, in the years since, Genji had been somewhat less fond of him, there was no sign of that fact in his behavior now. Though things could not be quite the same again, of course, Genji still thought the youth rather promising. The governor of Kii had since become governor of Kawachi. His younger brother, a guards officer, had been stripped of his commission and had gone into exile with Genji, and now he was being richl............