ordinary people. Fujitsubo on the contrary invariably released even her servants and retainers from any duty which she felt to be an undue infringement of their liberty.
She was devout; but unlike many religious persons she did not display her piety by impressive benefactions paid for out of funds which other people had collected. Her charities (and they were considerable) were made at the expense of her own exchequer. The ranks, titles and benefices which were at her disposal she distributed with great intelligence and care, and so many were her individual acts of generosity that there was scarcely a poor ignorant mountain-priest in all the land who had not reason to lament her loss. Seldom had the obsequies of any public person provoked so heart-felt and universal a sorrow. At Court no colour but black was anywhere to be seen; and the last weeks of spring lacked all their usual brilliance and gaiety.
Standing one day before the great cherry-tree which grew in front of the Nijō-in Genji suddenly remembered that this was the season when, under ordinary circumstances, the Flower Feast would have been held at the Emperor’s Palace. ‘This year should’st thou have blossomed with black flowers,’[1] he murmured and, to hide the sudden access of grief that had overwhelmed him, rushed into his chapel and remained there weeping bitterly till it began to grow dark. Issuing at last, he found a flaming sun about to sink beneath the horizon. Against this vivid glow the trees upon the hill stood out with marvellous clearness, every branch, nay every twig distinct. But across the hill there presently drifted a thin filament of cloud, draping the summit with a band of grey. He was in no mood that day to notice sunsets or pretty cloud-effects; but in this half-curtained sky there seemed to him to be a strange significance, and
- ↑ Quoting a poem of Uyeno Mine-o’s upon the death of Fujiwara no Mototsune, 891 A.D.
