WHILE Genji, like Yukihira of old, ‘dragged his leaky pails’ along the shore of Suma, his absence had been mourned, in varying ways and degrees, by a very large number of persons in the Capital. Even those who stood in no need of patronage or protection and had through his departure lost only the amenities of a charming friendship were deeply distressed. For some of them, such as Murasaki, this sad time was mitigated by constant messages from his place of exile; some were privileged to busy their needles upon such garments as his altered state prescribed, or were allowed the consolation of rendering him other small services such as in his present difficulties he was likely to require. But there were others who, though they had received his favours, had done so unknown to the world, and these ladies now learned of Genji’s last hours at the Capital from the casual gossip of some friend who had no idea that the matter was of any particular concern to them. Needless to say they feigned a like indifference; but such concealment costs one dear and not a few hearts were broken in the process.
Among those who fared worst during his absence was the lady at the Hitachi Palace.[1] During the period after her father’s death there had been no one to take care of her and she had for a while led a very wretched existence. But then came the unexpected apparition of Genji. His letters and visits, which to him in the crowded days of his glory were insignificant acts of courtesy, implying no more than a very mild degree of interest and affection, were to their recipient, with her narrow and unvarying life, like the reflection of a star when it chances to fall into a bowl of water. It was but natural, she thought, that when the outcry against him began Genji should no longer find time for an attachment which had in any case played only a very subordinate part in his life, particularly as the attacks upon him were part of a widespread movement which could not but be causing him the greatest anxiety. Then came his exile and at last his triumphant return. But still she heard no word from him.
In old days when she heard nothing from him for a week or two she would become a little tearful it is true, but she still managed to carry on her ordinary existence. Now months, years had passed; long ago she had given up all hope, and sank into a condition of settled apathy and gloom. ‘Poor princess!’ said the elderly gentlewomen who waited upon her. ‘Really she has had the worst possible luck! To see this glorious apparition suddenly descending upon her like a God or Buddha out of the sky—not that he meant very much by it; but she, poor lady, could never get over the surprise of his noticing her at all—and then for him to disappear without a word! She knows of course that it is not from her that he has run away to Suma; it all comes of this new government! But still, one cannot help being very sorry for the poor young creature.’ She had indeed during the time after her father’s death become gradually inured to a life of extreme monotony and isolation; but Genji’s visits had awakened in her quite new ambitions; for the first time in her life she began to feel herself drawn towards the world of taste and fashion. This made her renewed state of poverty and isolation all the more difficult to bear. The fact that Genji frequented the house had for the time being induced a certain number of other visitors to present themselves. But since his departure one visitor after another, having grown more and more remiss in his attentions, finally ceased to come at all. Her father’s ladies-in-waiting were all very advanced in years and every now and then one of them would die; the other servants, both indoors and out, were continually seeking better service, and hardly a month passed but some member of her staff either died or drifted away. The palace grounds, which had for long years past been allowed to sink into a sad state of neglect, had now become a mere jungle. Foxes had made their lairs in the garden walks, while from the ornamental plantations, now grown into dank and forbidding woods, the voice of the screech-owl sounded day and night alike; so little was there now any sign of human habitation in that place, so dim was the daylight that pierced those tangled thickets. The few servants who still lingered on in the midst of all this desolation began to declare that tree-spirits and other fearsome monsters had established themselves in the palace grounds and were every day becoming more open and venturesome in their habits. ‘There is no sense in continuing to live like this,’ one of these ladies said. ‘Nowadays all the government officials are building themselves handsome houses. Several of them have for a long time past had their eye on all your timber and have been making enquiries in the neighbourhood whether you might not be prevailed upon to part with it. If only you would consent to do so, you might with the proceeds easily buy some newer place that would be less depressing to live in. You are really asking too much of the few servants that remain with you....’ ‘Hush, how can you suggest such a thing!’ answered the princess. ‘What would people think if they heard you? So long as I am alive no such disrespect to my poor Father’s memory shall ever be committed. I know quite well that the grounds have become rather wild and dismal; but this was his home, his dear spirit haunts the place, and I feel that so long as I am here I am never far off from him. That has become my only comfort....’ She broke off in tears, and it was impossible to allude to the subject again. Her furniture too, though entirely out of fashion, was much of it very beautiful in an old-world way, and enquiries were constantly coming from those who made it their business to understand such matters and had heard that she possessed a work by such and such a master of some particular time and school. Such proposals she regarded merely as an ill-bred comment upon her poverty and indeed complained of them bitterly to the aforementioned gentlewoman. ‘But, Madam,’ the lady protested, ‘it is not at all an unusual thing....’ And to convince her mistress that funds must somehow or other be procured she began to call her attention to various dilapidations, the repair of which could not safely be deferred for a single day. But it made no difference. The idea of selling any of her possessions seemed to the princess utterly untenable. ‘If he had not meant me to keep them, he would not have put them here,’ she said; ‘I cannot bear to think of them becoming ornaments in ordinary, worldly people’s houses. I do not think he would wish me to...,’ and that was all that could be got out of her.
Visitors and even letters were now absolutely unknown at the Hitachi Palace. True, her elder brother the Zen priest on the rare occasions when he came up to the Capital, usually visited the palace. But he did little more than poke his head in and go away. He was a particularly vague and unpractical sort of man, who even among his fellow clerics ranked as unusually detached from all worldly considerations. In fact he was a saint, and consequently very unlikely to notice that the whole place was overgrown with weeds and bushes, still less to suggest any means of clearing them away.
Meanwhile, the state of affairs was becoming very acute. The once elegant courtyard was thickly overgrown with weeds; and lusty hemlock clumps were fast destroying the gables and eaves of the roof. The main eastern and western gates of the park were barricaded by huge masses of mugwort and it was impossible to open them. This might have given the inhabitants of the palace a certain comforting sense of security, had it not been for the fact that the walls which surrounded the estate were everywhere either broken down or upon the point of falling. Horse and oxen from the neighbouring pastures soon found their way through these gaps, and when the summer came they began to make free with the palace lawns in a way which scandalized the little herd-boys who were in charge of them. At the time of the autumn equinox there were very heavy gales, and one day the main roof of the servants’ wing was blown right away, leaving only a ceiling of thin match-boarding, a mere shell, which would not have withstood the mildest shower of rain. At this the under-servants left in a body. Henceforward the few inhabitants of the palace led a pitiable existence, not even getting enough to eat, for there was no one to make up the fires or prepare their food. Thieves and vagabonds had the place completely at their mercy; but fortunately it never occurred to them to go near it. How could so desolate a ruin contain anything worth meddling with? They shook their heads and trudged on. But strangely enough, had he penetrated those savage thickets, an enterprising burglar would have found, amid a tangled mass of wreckage, a drawing-room[2] perfectly appointed in every detail, each ornament, each screen and article of furniture still standing exactly where the late prince had left it. True, there was no longer anyone to dust this last-surviving room, and it needed dusting badly. Never mind, it was a real room; not just a living-place, but a noble apartment with everything in it handsome and dignified just as it ought to be. And here, year in and year out, her whole life was spent.
Solitary people with a great deal of time on their hands seem usually to turn to old ballads and romances for amusement and distraction, but for such employments the princess showed little inclination. Even in the lives of those who have no particular interest in poetry there are usually periods of inactivity during which they take to exchanging verses with some sympathetic correspondent—verses which, if they are young, generally contain affecting references to various kinds of plant and tree. But the princess’s father had imbued her with the belief that all outward display of emotion is undignified and ill-bred; she felt that what he would really have liked best would have been for her to communicate with no one at all, and she had long given up writing even to the few relations with whom she might have been expected occasionally to correspond.
At rare intervals she would open an old-fashioned chest and fiddle for a while with a number of ancient picture-scrolls, illustrations of such stories as The Chinese Prefect, The Mistress of Hakoya, Princess Kaguya[3] and the like. Then there were some poems which, though all of very ancient date, were excellently chosen, with the names of the poets and the titles of the poems written in a nice clear hand at the side, so that one could really tell what one was reading. They were written on the best Kanya and Michinoku papers, now grown somewhat puffy with age,[4] and though it cannot be supposed that she could derive much pleasure from reading the same familiar pages over and over again, yet it was noticed that in her hours of deepest depression she would often sit with the books spread open before her. As for reading the Sūtras or performing those Buddhist ceremonies which have now become so indispensable an element in fashionable life, she would have shuddered at the thought, and would not have dreamed of so much as touching a rosary, even though no one was there to see. Such was the arduous standard of conduct which this lady imposed upon herself.
Of her old servants only Jijū, the daughter of her foster-nurse, had survived the general exodus of the last few years. Jijū’s friend, the former Vestal of Kamo, whose company had been one of her distractions, was dead, and the poor lady’s existence had become such as no one could reasonably be expected to endure. A sister of the princess’s mother had fallen on evil days and ended by marrying a provincial official. She now lived at the Capital, and as she had daughters, together with a bevy of unusually agreeable young waiting-women, Jijū occasionally visited the house, where indeed she was quite at home, for both her parents had been friends of the family. But the princess herself, with her usual unsociability, absolutely refused to hold any communication with her aunt’s household. ‘I am afraid the princess looks upon me as a very vulgar person,’ the aunt said to Jijū one day. ‘She still thinks, despite the wretched manner in which she now lives, that to have such relations as we is a disgrace to her. At any rate I suppose that is why she is so careful never to come near us.’ It was in this somewhat malicious tone that she always discussed her niece’s behaviour.
I have noticed that people of quite common origin who have risen in the world can in a very short time achieve a perfect imitation of aristocratic importance. And similarly, if through some accident an aristocrat falls into low company, he generally exhibits a meanness so thorough-going that it is hard to believe he has been at any pains to acquire it. Of this second tendency the princess’s aunt was a good example. She knew that after her unfortunate marriage the people at the Hitachi Palace had regarded her as a disgrace to the family. Now that the prince was dead and Suyetsumu herself was in circumstances of such difficulty, there seemed to be quite a good chance that the princess might eventually have to take shelter under her aunt’s roof. This was what the aunt herself was looking forward to. It was her revenge. She saw the princess installed as a dependant, fetching and carrying for her daughters. And what an ideal drudge she would make, being so priggish and strait-laced that it would never be necessary to keep an eye upon her! ‘You ought to bring her round to see us sometimes,’ the aunt would say to Jijū, ‘and if you could get her to bring her zithern, so much the better; we have heard so much about her playing.’ Jijū did her best, and the princess, docile as usual, admitted that there was everything to be said in favour of paying an occasional visit. But when it came to the point, panic overwhelmed her. She would do anything, anything that Jijū asked; but she would not make friends. And so, greatly to the aunt’s discomfiture, the matter was dropped.
About this time her uncle was appointed treasurer to a provincial district. He intended to take his family with him, and was anxious to equip his daughters with attendants whom it would be pleasant to name in the ears of provincial visitors. The chance of being able to exhibit a real princess as a member of their staff was not to be thrown away and the aunt returned once more to the attack. ‘I am very worried at having to go so far away from you,’ she sent word by Jijū. ‘We have not had the pleasure of seeing you much lately; but it was a great comfort to me to feel that I was near at hand and could help you if anything went wrong. I am most anxious that, if possible, we should not be separated....’ All this had no effect whatever. ‘The conceited little fool! I have no patience with her,’ the aunt cried out at last. ‘She may have these grand ideas about herself if she chooses; but no one else is going to take much notice of a creature that goes on year after year living in the hole-and-corner way that she does; least of all this famous Prince Genji, with whom she pretends to be so intimate.’