At Uji, some miles to the southeast of Kyoto, the Eighth Prince lived quietly with two daughters. One warm spring day, looking out over the garden, they made poems on the mallards, which were swimming about the pond. In earlier years, he had considered these small creatures as uncertain existence, which only lived in vain on the surface of water. Now, after his wife had died, he felt something like jealousy towards them chattering happily to each other wing to wing. He had renounced the world and taken charge of bringing up his daughters. He thought that life was uncertain, which had affected the way of thinking of his daughters since their childhood.

While the Eighth Prince was away seeing the priest in the deep mountain, Kaoru came to visit him. He chanced upon his two princesses. He could see them under the autumn moon, which burst forth in all its brilliance. Then, the mist deepened until he could barely make out the figures of the princesses. Again when the moon became bright, the younger princess gaily said, "This plectrum does quite as well as a fan for bringing out the moon." The other, who had a koto before her, looked contemplative and prudent. According to the story, the Eighth Prince taught the lute to the older girl and the thirteen-stringed koto to the younger. In this graphic, the combination is opposite. For three years, Kaoru constantly visited Uji. But it was the first time that he could see them. (Anyway, this is an unforgettable scene for Kaoru. Their beauty has imprinted clearly on his mind.)

The old woman Benn, who was the first cousin of Kojiju and of the Eighth Prince’s deceased wife, received Kaoru. Her mother had worked for the late Kashiwagi. Talking with her, he vaguely understood the secret of his birth. Towards the dawn, the mist lay over the mountains. As he stood up to leave, the bell of the monastery sounded in the distance. The sadness of his own life and of the princesses’ poured over him. He and the older princess, Oigimi, exchanged poems.

The time approached to return to Kyoto. Kaoru regarded the Uji River with his men. He saw some that were fishing for Hiuo, the renowned fish, using nets, and others who made their way up and down the river on unsteady small boats piled with brushwood. "Each boatman is pursuing his own sad small livelihood at the uncertain mercy of the waters. It is the same with all of us", thought Kaoru to himself.

Kaoru again summoned the old woman Benn. She gave him a testament that proved that Kaoru was a son of Kashiwagi. Benn was a daughter of his nurse. When Kashiwagi died, he asked her to keep a role of paper relating the affair with the Third Princess. After twenty years, the musty documents were finally handed down to Kaoru, the illegitimate child of the Third Princess. It would have been a disaster if someone had founded out the truth. Trembling inside, he received them with outward calm.

Resumed by Mary Nagase. Published by UNESCO.© UNESCO 2000