Page:The Sacred Tree (Waley 1926).pdf/111

Rh pray do not leave the house till your poor little son is awake.’ He answered with the poem: ‘To a shore I go where the tapering smoke of salt-kilns shall remind me of the smoke that loitered by her pyre.’ He wrote no letter to go with the poem, but turning to the nurse he said: ‘It is sad at all times to leave one’s friends at dawn. How much the more for one such as I, who goes never to return!’ ‘Indeed,’ she answered, ‘ “farewell” is a monster among words, and never yet sounded kindly in any ear. But seldom can this word have had so sinister an import as to all of us on this unhappy morning.’

Touched by her concern at his departure he felt that he must give her what she evidently expected,—some further message for her mistress, and he wrote: ‘There is much that I should like to say, but after all you will have little difficulty in imagining for yourself the perplexity and despair into which my present situation has plunged me. I should indeed dearly like to see the little prince before I go. But I fear that the sight of him might weaken my resolution to forsake the fleeting world, and therefore I must force myself to leave this house without further delay.’

The whole household was now awake and every one was on the watch to see him start. The moon shone red at the edge of the sky, and in its strange light he looked so lovely, yet so sad and thoughtful, that the hearts of wolves and tigers, nay of very demons, would have melted at the sight of him. It may be imagined then with what feelings those gentlewomen watched him drive away, many of whom had known and loved him since he was a child. But I had forgotten to say that Aoi’s mother replied with the poem: ‘Seek not another sky, but if you love her, stay beneath these clouds with which her soul is blent.’ When he