[5] Whether she should stay permanently in the monastery.

[6] The modern Ōtsu, now reached from Kyōto (her starting-point) by tramway in half an hour.

[7] The late night service.

[8] It foreboded ill to Kane-iye, who was at that time Marshal of the bodyguard of the Right. Water typifies weakness and death.

[9] Kane-iye.

[10] Diaries of Court Ladies, 1920.

[11] The earliest printed edition known to me is that of 1650, of which there is a copy in the British Museum. I imagine this to be the editio princeps.

THE SACRED TREE

CHAPTER X
THE SACRED TREE

AS the time for her daughter’s departure came near, Lady Rokujō fell into utter despair. It had at first been generally supposed that the death of the lady at the Great Hall would put an end to all her troubles and the attendants who waited upon her at the Palace-in-the-Fields were agog with excitement. But their expectations remained unfulfilled. Not a word came from Genji, and this unprecedented treatment on his part finally convinced her that something[1] had indeed happened which it was impossible for him to forgive. She strove to cast out all thought of him from her heart so that when the time came she might set out upon her journey without misgiving or regret. For a parent to accompany her daughter on such an occasion was in the highest degree unusual; but in this case the Virgin’s extreme youth was a convenient excuse, and Rokujō put it about that as the child still needed surveillance she had decided to quit the temporal world in her daughter’s company. Even after all that had happened the prospect of parting with her forever was extremely painful to Genji, and as the day drew near he again began to send her letters full of tenderness and solicitude. But he did not propose a meeting, and she herself had by now given up all hope that there could be any question of such a thing. She was certain that (for all his politeness) what had happened must in reality have made her utterly odious to him, and she was determined not to plunge herself, all to no purpose, into a fresh period of conflict and agitation. From time to time she made short visits to her palace, but so secretly that Genji did not hear of it. The Palace-in-the-Fields was not a place where he could see her without inconvenient restrictions and formalities. He fully intended to see her, but put off the visit from day to day till at last months had elapsed since she left the city. Then the ex-Emperor’s health began to decline. He had no definitely serious or alarming symptoms, but constantly complained of feeling that there was something wrong with him. Genji’s thoughts were therefore a great deal occupied with his father’s condition; but he did not want Rokujō to leave with the impression that he had lost all feeling for her, nor did he wish those who knew of their friendship to think that he had treated her heartlessly, and despite all difficulties he set out one day for the Palace-in-the-Fields. It was the seventh of the ninth month and the departure of the Virgin for Ise was bound to take place within the next few days. It may be imagined that Rokujō and her maids were in no condition to receive visits, but he wrote again and again begging her to see him even if it were only at the moment of her departure, and at last, despite the fluster into which her whole household was plunged, and feeling all the while that she was acting very imprudently, she could no longer fight against her longing once more to see him and sent word secretly that, if he came, she would contrive to speak to him for a moment from behind her screen-of-state. As he made his way through the open country that stretched out endlessly on every side, his heart was strangely stirred. The autumn flowers were fading; along the reeds by the river the shrill voices of many insects blended with the mournful fluting of the wind in the pines. Scarcely distinguishable from these somewhere in the distance rose and fell a faint, enticing sound of human music. He had with him only a handful of outriders, and his attendants were by his orders dressed so as to attract as little notice as possible. They noted that this lack of show contrasted strangely with the elaborate pains which their master had bestowed upon his own equipment, and as they looked with admiration at the fine figure he cut, the more romantically disposed among them were thrilled at the thought that it had befallen them to accompany him upon a journey, every circumstance of which was calculated to stir to the depth such sensitive hearts as theirs. So delighted was Genji with the scene before him that he continually asked himself why it was that he had deferred this visit for so long; and he regretted that while Rokujō was at the Palace-in-the-Fields he had not made a constant practice of visiting her. They came at last to a group of very temporary-looking wooden huts surrounded by a flimsy brushwood fence. The archways,[2] built of unstripped wood, stood out black and solemn against the sky. Within the enclosure a number of priests were walking up and down with a preoccupied air. There was something portentous in their manner of addressing one another and in their way of loudly clearing their throats before they spoke. In the Hill of Offering there was a dim flicker of firelight, but elsewhere no single sign of life. So this was the place where he had left one who was from the start in great distress of mind, to shift for herself week after week, month after month! Suddenly he realized with a terrible force all that she must have suffered. He hurried to the place where she had told him he would find her (a room in the northern outbuilding) and sent in a long message contrasting his present quiet and serious existence with his now discarded frivolities. She in return replied with a message, but did not suggest that they should meet. This angered him. ‘You do not seem to realize,’ he said, ‘that such excursions as this are now no part of my ordinary existence and can only be arranged with the greatest difficulty. I had hoped that instead of keeping me beyond the pale, you would hasten to relieve all the anxiety that I have had concerning you in the long months since we met.’ To this appeal were added the protests of her waiting-ladies who were scandalized at the idea of Prince Genji being left waiting outside the house. At first she pleaded the impossibility of receiving a guest in surroundings so cramped and wretched, her duty towards her daughter at this critical hour, the undesirability of such an interview just on the eve of her permanent departure. But though the prospect of facing him filled her with unspeakable depression, she had not the heart to treat him unkindly, and at last, looking very grave, with sighs and hesitation at every step she came forward to meet him. ‘I presume that here one is allowed no further than the verandah,’ he said, and mounting the narrow bamboo platform that surrounded the building he took his seat there. An evening moon had risen and as she saw him moving in its gentle light she knew that all this while she had not been wrong; he was indeed more lovely, more enticing than anyone in the world beside. He began trying to explain why it was that for so many months on end he had not been able to visit her; but he soon got into a tangle, and feeling suddenly embarrassed he plucked a spray from the Sacred Tree[3] which grew outside her room and handing it to her through her blinds-of-state he said: ‘Take this evergreen bough in token that my love can never change. Were it not so, why should I have set foot within the boundaries of this hallowed plot? You use me very ill.’ But she answered with the verse ‘Thought you perchance that the Holy Tree from whose boughs you plucked a spray was as “the cedar by the gate”?’[4] To this he replied: ‘Well knew I what priestess dwelt in this shrine, and for her sake came to pluck this offering of fragrant leaves.’