Page:Anthology of Japanese Literature.pdf/194

190 The Priestly Sovereign called to her, but there was no answer. After a while a withered-looking old nun appeared, and he asked her, “Where has the former Empress gone?” “Over to the mountain to pick some flowers,” was the reply. “How hard it is,” said His Majesty, “that since she renounced the world she has had no one to perform such services for her.”

“This fate has come upon her in accordance with the Five Precepts and the Ten Virtues,” said the nun. “Why then should she spare herself the austerities of mortifying her flesh?”

The Priestly Sovereign looked at this nun and noticed that she was clothed in pieces of silk and cotton roughly put together. He thought It strange that one of such appearance should speak thus, and asked who she was. For some time she could answer nothing but only wept. After a while she controlled her feelings and replied, “I am Awa no Naiji, daughter of the late Shinzei. Once you loved me very deeply, and if now you have forgotten me it must be because I have become old and ugly.” She pressed her sleeve to her face, unable to control herself any longer: a sight too pitiful to behold.

“Yes,” said His Majesty, “it is you, Awa no Naiji. I had forgotten all about you. Everything now seems like a dream.” He could not stop the tears, and the courtiers with him said with emotion, “She seemed to speak so strangely for a nun, but she had good cause.”

Presently two nuns clad in dark robes were seen making their way slowly and painfully down through the rough rocks of the mountain-side. The Priestly Sovereign asked who they were, and the nun replied, “The one carrying a basket of mountain azaleas on her arm is the former Empress, and the other, with a load of bracken for burning, is the daughter of Korezane.”

The former Empress, since she was living apart from the world in this way, was so overwhelmed with shame at seeing the visitors that she would gladly have hidden herself somewhere to avoid them, but she could not retrace her steps to the mountains nor was she able to go into her cell. The old nun came to her as she stood dumbfounded, and took her basket from her hands.

“Since you have renounced the world,” said Awa no Naiji, “what