Page:Anthology of Japanese Literature.pdf/192

188 instead of dew, and when she gazed on the faded hue of the withered chrysanthemums by the wall she could hardly fail to be reminded of her own condition. Entering before the Buddha, she prayed for the sacred spirit of the Emperor, that it might attain perfect Buddhahood, and for the departed spirits of all the Heike, that they might quickly enter the Way of Salvation. But still the image of the late Emperor was impressed on her mind, and wherever she might be, and in what world soever, she thought she could never forget it. They built for her a small cell ten feet square beside the Jakkō-in, and in it were two rooms; in one she put her shrine of Buddha and in the other she slept. There she spent her time continually repeating the nembutsu and performing the Buddhist services, both by night and by day.

It happened that once, on the fifth day of the tenth month, she heard the sound as of someone treading on the oak leaves which had fallen and covered the garden. “Who can it be,” she exclaimed, “that comes to disturb one who has thus renounced the world? Go and see; for I will conceal myself if it be anyone I do not wish to meet.” One of the ladies went to look, and it was only a young stag that had passed that way.

In the spring of 1186 the Priestly Sovereign expressed a wish to go to Ohara and see the place where Kenreimon’in was living in retirement, but March and April were stormy and the cold still lingered. The snow did not melt on the mountains nor the icicles thaw in the valleys. Spring passed and summer came, and the festival of Kamo was already over when His Majesty proceeded to the recesses of Ohara. The summer grasses had grown up thickly, and as they parted them on the little-trodden road His Majesty, who had never