Meanwhile he often wondered how the Lady of Akashi was faring, but he was at this time so much occupied both with private and national affairs that he could not get news of her as often as he would have liked to do. He reckoned that her delivery was likely to take place early in the third month, and about that time he contrived to send a secret courier to Akashi and learnt that the event had already taken place sixteen days ago. It was a girl, and everything had gone well. This was Genji’s first daughter, and he felt quite excited. But how callous he had been to let her go through all this alone! Why had he not brought her with him to the City and looked after her while this was happening? He felt, indeed, a sudden outburst of tenderness towards her and of remorse at his own hardness of heart.
Astronomers had once told him that he would have three children, of whom the eldest and youngest would eventually ascend the Throne, while the middle one would rise to be Chief Minister. They had further said it would be the lowest-born of the three mothers who would give birth to the future Empress. All that had happened so far fitted in very well with their prognostications. The prophecy that his children would attain Imperial rank and lead the Government of the country had been repeatedly made by sign-readers of all kinds; but during the difficult times from which Genji had just emerged it appeared to be wildly improbable that any of these hopes would be fulfilled. But now the safe accession of Ryōzen to the Throne made him feel that everything would happen as the soothsayers had foretold. That he himself was not destined to achieve such honours had been generally recognized and he had long ago given up regarding such a thing as within the bounds of possibility. So well had this been recognized by his father, the old Emperor, that although Genji was his favourite son he had given special instructions that he was to remain a commoner. As regards Ryōzen, it was not of course recognized in the world that His Majesty was Genji’s son; but that, after all, did not in any way invalidate the truth of the sign-readers’ prognostications.
But if this new child were really going to be empress it seemed almost disrespectful to have allowed her to be born at so strange a place. He must make amends to this future sovereign, and that he might soon be able to lodge both mother and child in proper comfort, he ordered his bailiffs to push through the rebuilding of the eastern lodge as rapidly as possible.
It occurred to him that it would be very difficult for her to secure a suitable wet-nurse at Akashi. He chanced to hear of a young woman, a child of the old Emperor’s Lady-in-Attendance, who had recently, under distressing circumstances, been left with an infant on her hands. Both the Lady-in-Attendance and her husband, who had been one of the Royal Chamberlains, were dead, and the girl had been left entirely to her own devices; with the result which I have mentioned above. His informant undertook to interview the girl and, if possible, persuade her to take service at Akashi. She did not in point of fact need very much persuasion. She was young and thoughtless and thoroughly tired of sitting all day in a large tumble-down house with nothing to do but stare in front of her. She could not imagine any service which she would better like to enter than his, and at once agreed to go. Genji was of course delighted; though he felt somewhat uncomfortable at sending away a young girl to a place where she would enjoy so few distractions. There were certain matters which it was necessary to talk over with her, and in complete secrecy, with many precautions against his absence being noticed at home, he contrived to visit the young woman’s house. She did not actually withdraw her consent; but she was now feeling very nervous about the whole business. Genji, however, took so much trouble in explaining to her what she had to do and in removing all her doubts and apprehensions that in the end she put herself entirely at his disposal. It happened to be a lucky day, and with many apologies for giving her so little time he asked her to get ready for the journey. ‘It seems very hard,’ Genji said, ‘that you should be packed off to the country like this to look after some one else’s child. But I am particularly anxious that some one should be there. I know by experience that it will be rather dull; but you must make up your mind to put up with it for a time, just as I did.’ Having thus encouraged her, he gave a detailed description of the place and all that belonged to it.
She had sometimes done service at the Palace and this was not the first time Genji had seen her. But her misfortunes had brought her very low and she looked years older than when he saw her last. The house was in a hopeless state of disrepair and its vast size, together with the carefully planned copses and avenues which surrounded it, made the place only the more depressing. How had she contrived to hold out there so long? His sympathy was aroused. The charm of youth had not after all entirely deserted her, and she was intelligent. He felt inclined to prolong the interview and said laughing: ‘Now that it is all arranged I feel quite sorry that you have agreed to go. What do you feel about it?’ She felt indeed that if she were destined to enter Genji’s service at all, it would have been agreeable to find herself consigned to a rather less remote part of his household. He now recited the verse: ‘Can this one moment of farewell indeed have been the sum of all our friendship, whose separation seems now like the parting of familiar friends?’ Smiling she answered him: ‘Your chagrin, I suspect, is not that I must leave you, but springs from envy that I not you should go whither your heart is set.’ Her quickness delighted him and, whatever truth there may have been in her ironic exposure of his feelings, he was really sorry that she was going.
He sent her as far as the boundary of the City in a wheeled carriage,[4] under the care of his most trusted personal servants, upon whom he had enjoined absolute silence concerning this affair. Among the baggage was a vast number of presents, from the Guardian Sword[5] down to the most trifling articles such as might possibly be useful to the Lady of Akashi at this crisis; upon the young nurse too he lavished every small attention which his ingenuity could devise, determined to mitigate so far as was possible the discomfort of her long journey. It amused him to picture to himself the extravagant fuss which the old priest, at all times so comically preoccupied with his daughter’s fortunes, must be making in this latest crisis. Not but what he was himself filled with the tenderest concern for the Lady’s welfare. Above all, he must not let her feel at such a minute that there was now or ever could be any obstacle to his fulfilling the promises concerning which she herself had always been so sceptical, and in the letter which he now sent he spoke in the most definite manner of his intentions towards the child and his plans for her future life at the Capital.
The travellers proceeded as far as the borders of Settsu by boat, and thence on horseback to Akashi with all possible speed, where their arrival was welcomed by the old recluse with boundless gratitude and delight. With raised hands he solemnly made obeisance in the direction of the Capital, and the mother and child, marked henceforward with this new and unhoped-for sign of princely favour, became invested in his eyes with an almost alarming degree of sanctity. The child was indeed a most exquisite creature, and the young nurse felt, from the moment it was presented to her, that Genji’s care and anxiety on its behalf were by no means ill-bestowed. In an instant the discomforts and perils of her long journey seemed like an evil dream, from which she had suddenly awaked to find this pretty and enticing infant lying in her arms. Henceforward she had no thought but how best to tend and succour it.
The mother, it seemed, had for many months past been in very low spirits. Her confinement had left her in a condition of extreme weakness, and she was herself convinced that she would not recover. These fresh tokens of Genji’s affection and concern could not fail somewhat to revive her. For the first time she raised her head from the pillows and received the messengers with every sign of interest and delight. They informed her that they had been ordered to return to the Capital without a moment’s delay. She contrived to write a few hasty lines, in which little indeed could appear of all that at that moment she was thinking and feeling. Yet these few words made an impression upon their recipient the violence of which surprised and disquieted him.
He had not himself told Murasaki about the birth of his child at Akashi, nor was it likely that anyone else would in so many words have done so. But he feared that some inkling of the matter might reach her, and he finally made up his mind that it would be better for her to know all about it. ‘I had far rather that this had not happened. It is all the more irritating because I have for so long been hoping that you would have a child; and that, now the child has come, it should be some one else’s instead is very provoking. It is only a girl, you know, which really makes it rather a different matter. It would perhaps have been better from every point of view if I had left things as they were, but this new complication makes that quite impossible. I think, indeed, of sending for the child. I hope that when it arrives you will not feel ill-disposed towards it.’ She flushed: ‘That is just the sort of thing you always used to say,’ she answered. ‘It seems to me to show a very strange state of mind. Of course I ought to put up with it, but there are certain things which I do not see how I can be expected to get used to....’ ‘Softly, softly,’ he answered, laughing at her unwonted asperity, ‘who is asking you to get used to anything? I will tell you what you are doing. You are inventing all sorts of feelings for me such as I have never really had at all, and then getting cross with me for having them. That is not a very amiable proceeding, is it?’ And having gone on in this strain for some while, he became quite cheerful.
She thought of how they had longed for one another during the years of his exile, of his constant letters and messages. This whole affair at Akashi—what had it been but a pastime, a momentary distraction in the midst of his disappointments and troubles? ‘You will understand then,’ Genji continued, ‘that I was anxious to hear how things were going on. I sent to enquire and have just heard that everything is still as well as one can hope for. But if I start telling you about it now I know we shall soon be at cross purposes again....’ ‘She is of course very charming,’ he added presently, ‘but I think my feeling for her had a good deal to do with the place and the circumstances....’ He began to describe how exquisitely the smoke from the salt-kilns had tapered across the evening sky; he spoke of the poems which they had exchanged, of his first glimpse of her by night, of her delightful playing on the zithern. Upon all these themes he enlarged with evident satisfaction. Murasaki while she listened could not but remember how particularly unhappy she had been just at the very time when the episodes which Genji was now recalling with such relish were taking place at Akashi. Even if this affair were, as he represented it to be, a mere pastime of the moment, it was clear that he had been singularly successful in his search for distraction. ‘Come,’ he said at last, ‘I am doing my best to show you that I am fond of you. You had best be quick, if you are ever going to forgive me at all; life does not last forever. Here am I trying so hard just now not to give you the slightest cause for one speck of jealousy or suspicion. And now just because of this unfortunate affair....’ So saying he sent for his large zithern and tried to persuade her to play it with him as they were used to do. But Murasaki could not help remembering his enthusiasm for the playing of the Lady at Akashi. With such virtuosity she did not care to compete, and say what he would he could not persuade her to play a note.