To Oborozuki, despite a certain reluctance, he wrote at last: ‘That after what happened between us you should have ceased to communicate with me was both natural and prudent. But I would now have you know that the unparalleled ferocity of my enemies has at last driven me from the Court. “The rising torrent of your reproachful tears has carried me at last to the flood-mark of exile and disgrace.” I cannot forget that this folly alone was the instrument of my undoing.’ There was some danger that the letter might fall into wrong hands before it reached its destination, and for that reason he made it brief and vague.
The lady was heart-stricken, and though she strove to hide her tears, they flowed in a torrent that her sleeve was not broad enough to dam. She sent him the poem: ‘Long ere I reach the tide of your return shall I, poor scum upon the river of tears, be vanished out of sight.’ She was weeping violently when she wrote it, and there were many blotches and mistakes, but her writing was at all times elegant and pleasing. He would very much have liked to see her once more before his departure, and he many times thought of arranging it. But she was too intimately connected with just those people who had been chiefly responsible for his undoing, and somewhat regretfully he put the idea aside.
On the evening of the day before his departure he went to worship at his father’s tomb on the Northern Hills. As the moon did not rise till after midnight he found himself with time on his hands, and went first to visit the Abbess Fujitsubo. She allowed him to stand close up to her curtain, and on this occasion spoke to him with her own mouth. She naturally had many questions to talk over concerning the future of her son, which was now more than ever uncertain. But apart from this, two people who had once lived on such terms as this prince and princess, could not now fail to have much to say to one another of a far more intimate and tender character. He thought her every bit as charming and graceful as in old days, and this made him allude with bitterness to her heartless treatment of him. But he remembered in time that her present state made any such complaints in the highest degree unseemly and inappropriate. He was allowing his feelings to get out of hand, and withdrawing for a while into his own thoughts, he said at last: ‘This punishment has come upon me quite unexpectedly, and when I try to account for it, one possible explanation of a most alarming character presents itself to my mind. I am not thinking of the danger to myself should a certain fact be known, but of the disastrous consequences of such a disclosure upon the career of the young prince, your son....’ The same possibility had of course occurred to her. Her heart beat wildly, but she did not answer. The many painful scenes in which he had recently taken part had broken his spirit and he now wept unrestrainedly. ‘I am going to the Royal Tombs,’ he said at last. ‘Have you any message?’ She answered with the poem: ‘He that was, is not; and he that is, now hides from the afflictions of the world. What increase but of tears did my renunciation bring?’
At last the moon rose, and he set out. Only five or six attendants were with him, men of low rank, but all of them deeply attached to him. Genji himself rode on horseback like the rest. This was quite natural on such an occasion, but his companions could not help contrasting this melancholy cavalcade with the splendours of his retinue in former days. Among them the most downcast was Ukon,[5] who had formed part of his special escort on the occasion of the Kamo festival a few years ago. This gentleman had since that time seen himself repeatedly passed over at the annual distribution of honours, and finally his name disappeared altogether from the lists. Being without employment he had been obliged to go into service, and was now acting as Genji’s groom. As they rode along Ukon’s eye lighted on the Lower Shrine of Kamo which lay quite near their road, and remembering that wonderful day of the festival he leapt from his horse and holding Genji’s bridle he recited the verse: ‘Well I remember how, crowned with golden flowers, we rode together on that glorious day! Little, alas, they heed their worshippers, the churlish gods that in the Shrine of Kamo dwell.’
Genji well knew what was passing through the man’s mind. He remembered with indignation and pity how Ukon had been the gayest, the most resplendent figure among those who had ridden with him on that day. Genji too alighted from his horse and turning his face towards the Shrine repeated this parting poem: ‘Thou who art called the Righter of Wrongs, to Thee I leave it to clear the name that stays behind me, now that I am driven from the fleeting haunts of men.’ Ukon was a very impressionable youth, and this small episode thrilled and delighted him beyond measure.
At last they reached the Tombs. Genji’s mind was full of long-forgotten images. He saw his father seated on the throne in the days of his prime, the pattern of a kindly yet magnificent king. Who could then have guessed that death would in an instant deface all memory of that good and glorious reign? Who could have foreseen that the wise policies which, with tears in his eyes, he had time and again commended to those about him, would in an instant be reversed, and even his dying wishes contemptuously cast aside? The path to the Royal Tomb was already overgrown with tall thick grass, so that in pressing his way along it he became soaked with dew. The moon was hidden behind clouds, dank woods closed about him on either hand, such woods as give one the feeling one will never return through them alive. When at last he knelt at the tomb, his father’s face appeared so vividly before him that he turned cold with fear. Then murmuring the verse: ‘How comes it that thy vanished image looms before me, though the bright moon, symbol of thy high fortunes, is hidden from my sight?’ he set out towards the town, for it was now broad daylight. On his return he sent a message to the Heir Apparent. Ōmyōbu had taken charge of the child since Fujitsubo’s retirement and it was through her that Genji now addressed his son: ‘I leave the City to-day. That I have been unable to visit you once more is the greatest of my many vexations. You indeed know better than I can tell what thoughts are mine in this extremity, and I beg you to commend me to your little master in such terms as you deem best.’ With this letter he enclosed a spray of withered cherry-blossoms to which was tied the poem: ‘When again shall I see the flowers of the City blossoming in Spring, I whom fortune has cast out upon the barren mountains of the shore?’ This she passed on to the boy who, young though he was, quite well understood the import of the message, and when Ōmyōbu added ‘It is hard at present to say when he will return...!’ the young prince said sadly ‘Even when he stays away for a little while I miss him very much, and now that he is going a long way off I do not know how I shall get on.... Please say this to him for me.’
She was touched by the simplicity of his message. Ōmyōbu often called to mind all the misery which in past days had grown out of her mistress’s disastrous attachment. Scene after scene rose before her. How happy they might both have been, if only.... And then she would remember that she and she alone had been the promoter of their ruin. She had pleaded for Genji, arranged those fatal meetings! And a bitter remorse filled her soul. She now sent the following reply: ‘His Highness dictated no formal answer. When I informed him of your departure, his distress was very evident....’ This and more she wrote, somewhat incoherently, for her thoughts were in great confusion. With the letter was the poem: ‘Though sad it is to mark how swift the flowers fall, yet to the City Spring will come again and with it, who can tell....’ ‘Oh if that time were come!’ she added, and spent the hours which followed in recounting such moving tales of Genji’s wisdom and kindness that every one in the Palace was soon dissolved in tears. If these people who but seldom caught sight of him were distressed at the prospect of his departure, it may be imagined what were the feelings of those whose duties brought them constantly into his presence. At the Nijō-in every one down to the mere scullery-maids and outdoor servants, who could never hope to exchange a single word with him and had thought themselves very lucky if they obtained an occasional glance or smile, had always been in despair when it was known that he would be absent from the palace even for a few days. Nor was his downfall by any means welcome in the country at large. Since his seventh year he had enjoyed the privilege of running in and out of the old Emperor’s rooms just as he felt inclined. Everything he asked for had been granted without question, and there were few who had not at one time or another found themselves beholden to his boundless good-nature and generosity. Even among the great nobles and Ministers of the Crown there were some who owed their first promotion to Genji’s good offices; and countless persons of less importance knew quite well that they owed everything to him. But such was their dread of the present Government, with its ruthless methods of persecution and suppression, that not one of them now came near him. Expressions of regret were everywhere heard; but it was only in the secrecy of their own hearts that these sympathizers dared blame the Government for happenings which they universally deplored. After all, what was the good of risking their own positions by showing to the exiled prince civilities which could be of no real use to him? There was some sense in this, but on Genji their prudence made a most painful and dispiriting impression. He suddenly felt the world was inhabited by a set of mean and despicable creatures, none of whom were worth putting oneself out for in any way at all.
He spent the whole of that day quietly with Murasaki at his palace. He was to start soon after midnight. She hardly knew him as he stood before her dressed in his queer travelling clothes. ‘The moon has risen,’ he said at last. ‘Come out to the door and see me start. I know that at the last minute I shall think of all kinds of things I meant to say to you to-day. Even when I am only going away for a few nights, there are always so many things to remember....’ He raised the curtain-of-state behind which she was sitting and drew her with him towards the portico. She was weeping bitterly. Her feet would not obey her and she stumbled haltingly at his side. The moonlight fell straight upon her face. He looked down at her tenderly. The thought came to him that he might die at Suma. Who would look after her? What would become of her? He was indeed no less heart-broken than she; but he knew that if he gave way to his feelings her misery would only be increased and he recited the verse: ‘We who so long have sworn that death alone should part us, must suffer life for once to cancel all our vows.’ He tried to speak lightly, but when she answered: ‘Could my death pay to hold you back, how gladly would I purchase a single moment of delay,’ he knew that she was not speaking idly. It was terrible to leave her, but he knew that by daylight it would be harder still, and he fled from the house. All the way down to the river her image haunted him and it was with a heart full to bursting that he went aboard the ship. It was a season when the days are long, and meeting with a favourable wind they found themselves at Suma between three and four o’clock in the afternoon.[6] It was indeed a trifling journey, but to Genji, who had never crossed the sea before, the experience was somewhat alarming, though his fears were mingled with wonder and delight. As they came in sight of that wild and lonely headland where stands the Hall of Ōye[7] marked by its solitary pine, he recited the verse: ‘A life more outcast shall be mine among these hills than all those exiles led whose sufferings the books of Kara[8] have rehearsed.’ He watched the waves lapping up over the sands and then creeping back again. It put him in mind of the ancient song: ‘Oh would that like the tides I went but to return!’ Those who were with him knew the song well enough, but never before had it moved them as now when Genji murmured to himself the long-familiar words. Looking back he saw that the mountains behind them were already melting into the hazy distance, and it seemed to him that he had indeed travelled the classical ‘three thousand leagues’ of which the Chinese poets so often speak. The monotonous dripping of the oars now became almost unendurable. ‘Now is my home hid from me by the mist-clad hills, and even the sky above me seems not the lovely cloudland that I knew.’ So he sang, being for the moment utterly downcast and dispirited.
His new home was quite close to the place where in ancient days Ariwara no Yukihira[9] once lived in exile, ‘trailing his water-buckets along the lonely shore.’ At this point the sea bends back, forming a shallow inlet, encompassed by desolate hills.
He proceeded to inspect the hut which had been prepared for his reception. Never had he seen such a place before. Even the hedge was built in quite a different way from what he was used to; and the hut itself, with its thatched roof and wide-spreading gables covered with wattled bull-rushes, seemed to him the most extraordinary place to live in. But he could not help admiring the ingenuity with which it was constructed, and he knew that if he had come there under different circumstances the prospect of staying in such a cottage would have fascinated and delighted him. How, in the old days, he had longed for such an experience!