At last came Genji’s pardon and recall, celebrated in every part of the kingdom by riotous holiday-making and rejoicing. His friends of either sex were soon vying with one another in demonstrations of good will and affection. These testimonies to his popularity, pouring in from persons of every rank and condition in life, naturally touched him deeply, and in these stirring days it would have been strange indeed if many minor affairs had not escaped his memory. But for her the time of his restoration was far harder to bear than that of his exile. For whereas she had before confidently looked forward to his return, counting upon it as we count upon the winter trees to bud again in spring, this glorious home-coming and restoration, when at last they came, brought joy to every hut and hovel in the land, but to her only a hundredfold increase of her former misery. For of what comfort to her were his triumphs, if she must hear of them from other lips?
The aunt had the satisfaction of seeing her prophecies fulfilled. It was of course out of the question that anyone would own to an acquaintance with a person living in such miserable squalor as now surrounded the princess. There are those, says the Hokkekyō,[5] whom even Buddha and his saints would have hard work to redeem; and certainly this lady had allowed her affairs to drift into a disorder which the most generous patron would shrink from attempting to set straight. This contempt for all the rest of the world, this almost savage unsociability, was of course no invention of her own; it was merely an attempt to perpetuate the haughty demeanour of the late prince and princess, her parents. But this did not make the young princess’s attitude any less irritating and ridiculous. ‘There is still time to change your mind,’ said her aunt one day. ‘A change of scene—a journey through the mountains, for example, is often very beneficial to people who have some trouble on their minds. I am sure you think that life in the provinces is very uncomfortable and disagreeable, but I can assure you that while you are with us you will never have to stay anywhere quite so higgledy-piggledy....’ The wretched old women who still dragged on their existence in the palace eagerly watched the princess’s face while their fate was being decided. Surely she would not throw away this opportunity of escape! To their consternation they soon saw that her aunt’s appeal was not making the slightest impression upon her. Jijū, for her part, had recently become engaged to a young cousin of the provincial treasurer’s, who was to accompany him to his province, and she was therefore pledged to go down to Tsukushi, whether the princess joined the party or not. She was however deeply attached to her mistress and very loath indeed to leave her in her present condition. She therefore discussed the matter with her again, and did everything in her power to persuade the princess to accompany them; only to make the extraordinary discovery that Suyetsumu was still from day to day living in the hope that the visitor from whom she had for all those years had no word would suddenly reappear and put everything to rights again. ‘He was very fond of me,’ she said. ‘It is only because he has been unhappy himself that he has not remembered to write to me. If he had the slightest idea of what is happening to us here, he would come at once....’ So she had been thinking for years, and though the general structure of the house fell every day into a more fantastic state of dilapidation, she still persisted as obstinately as ever in retaining every trifling article of furniture and decoration in exactly the place where it had always been. She spent so much of her time in tears that a certain part of her face had now become as red as the flower which the hillman carries over his ear; so that her appearance, particularly when she showed her face in profile, would have struck a casual visitor as somewhat forbidding. But of this I will say no more; it is perhaps always a mistake to enter into matters of that kind.
As the cold weather came on, existence at the Hitachi Palace rapidly became more and more difficult. The princess sat staring in front of her, plunged in unbroken gloom. Meanwhile Genji celebrated the ritual of the Eight Readings, in memory of his father, the old Emperor. He took great trouble in choosing the priests for this ceremony and succeeded finally in assembling a notable band of dignitaries. Among them none was more renowned for the sanctity of his life and the wide range of his studies than Princess Suyetsumu’s brother, the Abbot of Daigoji. On his way back from the ceremony, he looked in for a moment at the Hitachi Palace. ‘I have just been celebrating the Eight Readings in Prince Genji’s palace,’ he said; ‘a magnificent ceremony! It is a pleasure to take part in such a service as that! I cannot imagine anything more beautiful and impressive. A veritable paradise—I say it in all reverence—a veritable paradise on earth; and the prince himself, so calm and dignified, you might have thought him an incarnation of some holy Buddha or Bodhisat. How came so bright a being to be born into this dim world of ours?’ So saying, he hurried off to his temple. Unlike ordinary, worldly men and women he never wasted time in discussing sordid everyday affairs or gossiping about other people’s business. Consequently he made no allusion to the embarrassed circumstances in which his sister was living. She sometimes wondered whether even the Saints whom he worshipped would, if they had found some one in a like situation, really have succeeded in behaving with so splendid an indifference.
She was indeed beginning to feel that she could hold out no longer, when one day her aunt suddenly arrived at the palace. This lady was quite prepared to meet with the usual rebuffs; but having on this occasion come in a comfortable travelling coach stored with everything that the princess could need during a journey she did not for an instant doubt that she would gain her point. With an air of complete self-confidence she bustled towards the front gate. No sooner had the porter begun trying to open it than she realized into what a pitch of decay her niece’s property had fallen. The doors were off their hinges, and as soon as they were moved tottered over sideways, and it was not till her own menservants come to the rescue that, after a tremendous shouldering and hoisting, a passage was cleared through which she could enter the grounds. What did one do next? Even such a heap of gimcrack ruins as this presumably had some apertures which were conventionally recognized as doors and windows. A lattice door on the southern side of the house was half open and here the visitors halted. It did not seem possible that any human being was within hail; but to their astonishment, from behind a smoke-stained, tattered screen-of-state the maid Jijū suddenly appeared. She was looking very haggard, but though age and suffering had greatly changed her, she was still a well-made, pleasing woman; ‘at any rate far more presentable than her mistress,’ thought the visitors. ‘We are just starting,’ cried out the aunt to the lady of the house, who, as she guessed, was seated behind this sooty screen: ‘I have come to take Jijū away. I am afraid you will find it very difficult to get on without her, but even if you will not deign to have any dealings with us yourself, I am sure you will not be so inconsiderate as to stand in this poor creature’s way....’ She put in so moving a plea on behalf of Jijū that there ought by rights to have been tears in her eyes. But she was in such high spirits at the prospect of travelling as a provincial governor’s wife that a smile of pleasant anticipation played upon her lips all the while. ‘I know quite well,’ she continued, ‘that the late prince was not at all proud of his connexion with us, and I am sure it was quite natural that when you were a child you should pick up his way of thinking and feeling. But that is a long time ago now. You may say that it was my fault we did not meet. But really while celebrities such as Prince Genji were frequenting the house I was not at all sure that humble people like ourselves would be welcome. However, one of the advantages of being of no importance is that we humdrum creatures are not subject to the same violent ups and downs as you exalted people. I for my part was very sorry to see your fortunes declining so rapidly as they have done of late, but so long as I was near at hand I was quite happy about you and did not consider it my duty to interfere. But now that I am going away to another part of the country, I confess I feel very uneasy....’ ‘It would be delightful to go with you. Most people would be very glad indeed.... But I think that as long as the place holds together at all I had better go on as I am....’ That was all that could be got out of her. ‘Well, that is for you to decide,’ said the aunt at last, ‘but I should not think that anyone has ever before buried himself alive in such a god-forsaken place. I am sure that if you had asked him in time Prince Genji would have been delighted to put things straight for you; indeed, with a touch here and there no doubt he would soon have made the place more sumptuous than the Jade Emperor’s[6] Palace. But unfortunately he is now entirely preoccupied with this young daughter of Prince Hyōbukyō, and will do nothing for anyone else. He used to lead a roving life, distributing his favours in all sorts of directions. But now that has all stopped, and under these circumstances it is very unlikely to occur to him that a person living buried away in the middle of such a jungle as this, is all the time expecting him to rush round and take her affairs in hand.’ The princess knew that this was only too true and she now began to weep bitterly. Yet she showed no signs of changing her mind, and the Chancellor’s wife, after wasting the whole afternoon in tormenting her, exclaimed at last: ‘Well then, I shall take Jijū. Make haste, please, please; it is getting late!’ Weeping and flustered Jijū drew her mistress back into the alcove: ‘I never meant to go,’ she whispered, ‘but this lady seems so very anxious to take me. I think perhaps I will travel with them part of the way and then come back again. There is a great deal of truth in all that she has been saying. But then, on the other hand, I do not like to upset you by leaving. It is terrible to have to decide so quickly....’ So she whispered; but though the princess loved her dearly and was stung to the quick that even this last friend should be making ready to desert her, she said not a word to encourage Jijū to stay, but only sobbed more bitterly than before. She was wondering what she could give to her maid to keep in remembrance of her long service in the family. Perhaps some cloak or dress? Unfortunately all her clothes were far too worn and soiled to give away. She remembered that somewhere in the house was a rather pretty box containing some plaited strands of her own hair, her fine glossy hair that grew seven feet long. This would be her present, and along with it she would give one of those boxes of delicious clothes-scent that still survived from the old days when her parents were alive. These she handed to Jijū together with an acrostic poem in which she compared her departure to the severing of this plaited tress of hair. ‘Your Mama told me always to look after you,’ she said, ‘and whatever happened to me I should never dream of sending you away. I think however that you are probably right to go, and only wish that some one nicer were taking charge of you....’ ‘I know Mama wished me to stay with you,’ said Jijū at last through her tears. ‘But quite apart from that, we have been through such terrible times together in these last years that I cannot bear to go off heaven knows where and leave you here to shift for yourself. But, Madam, “By the Gods of Travel to whom I shall make offering upon my way, I swear that never can I be shorn from you like this tress of severed hair.”’ Suddenly the voice of the aunt broke in upon them shouting impatiently: ‘What has become of Jijū? Be quick, now, it is getting quite dark!’ Hardly knowing what she did, Jijū climbed into the coach and as it drove away stared helplessly at the dilapidated house.
So at last Jijū had left her; Jijū who for years past, though in sore need of a little pleasure and distraction, had never once asked for a single day’s holiday! But this was not the end of the princess’s troubles; for now even the few old charwomen who still remained in the house—poor doddering creatures who could never have persuaded anyone else to employ them—began threatening to leave. ‘Do you think I blame her?’ said one of them, speaking of Jijū’s departure. ‘Not I! What had she to stay for, I ask you. And come to that, I should like to know why we go on putting up with it all.’ And they began with one accord remembering influential patrons who had at one time or another promised to employ them. No, decidedly they would not stay in the place any longer.
These conversations, which took place in the princess’s hearing, had the most disquieting effect upon her. The Frosty Month[7] had now come. In the open country around, though snow and hail frequently fell, they tended to melt between-whiles. But in the wilderness that surrounded the Hitachi Palace vast drifts of snow, protected by the tangled overgrowth from any ray of sunlight, piled higher and higher, till one might have fancied oneself in some valley among the Alps of Koshi. Through these arctic wastes not even the peasants would consent to press their way and the palace was for weeks on end entirely cut off from the outer world.
The princess sat staring at the snow. Life had been dull enough before, but at any rate she had some one at hand whose chatter at times broke in upon her gloom. But now Jijū’s laughter, Jijū’s tears were gone, and as she lay day and night alike behind her crumbling curtains-of-state the princess was consumed by a loneliness and misery such as she had never known before.
Meanwhile, at the Nijō Palace, Genji remained wholly absorbed in the girl from whom he had so long been separated, and it was only a few very particular friends who heard any news of him at all. He did sometimes think of the Hitachi Palace and wondered whether the princess could still be living there all alone. But he was in no great hurry to discover, and the New Year passed without his having taken any steps about her. In the fourth month he decided to call upon the ladies in the Village of Falling Flowers, and having obtained Murasaki’s permission he set out one evening, clad in his usual disguise. For days it had rained unceasingly. But now, just at the moment when the heavy rain stopped and only a few scattered drops were falling, the moon rose; and soon it was one of those exquisite late spring nights through whose moonlight stillness he had in earlier years so often ridden out on errands of adventure. Busy with memories of such excursions he had not noticed where he was driving, when suddenly looking up he saw a pile of ruined buildings surrounded by plantations so tangled and overgrown that they wore the aspect of a primeval jungle. Over a tall pine-tree a trail of wisteria blossoms was hanging; it quivered in the moonlight, shaken by a sudden puff of wind that carried with it when it reached him a faint and almost imperceptible odour of flowers. It was for orange-blossom that he had set out that night; but here too was a flower that had a fragrance worth enjoying. He leaned out of the carriage window. They were passing by a willow whose branches swept the ground; with the crumbling away of the wall which had once supported it the tree had fallen forward till its trunk was almost prostrate. Surely he had seen these grounds before? Why, yes, this must be—suddenly it all came back to him. Of course it was that strange lady’s house. He was driving past the Hitachi Palace. Poor creature, he must discover at once what had become of her; and stopping his carriage and calling to Koremitsu, who as usual on occasions of the kind was in attendance upon him, he asked him whether this was not indeed Princess Suyetsumu’s place. ‘Why certainly!’ said Koremitsu. ‘In that case,’ said Genji, ‘I should like to find out whether the same people are still living there. I have not time to pay a personal visit now, but I should like you to go in and enquire. Make sure that you discover exactly how things stand. It looks so silly if one calls on the wrong people.’
After a particularly dismal morning spent in staring blankly in front of her the princess had fallen asleep and dreamed that her father, the late prince, was still alive and well. After such a dream as that she woke up more miserable than ever. The window side of the room had been flooded in the recent rains; but taking a cloth she began mopping up the water and trying to find a place where she could put her chair. While she did so the stress of her sufferings stirred her to a point of mental alertness which she did not often reach. She had composed a poem, and suddenly she recited the lines: ‘To the tears I shed in longing for him that is no more, are added the ceaseless drippings that patter from my broken roof!’
Meanwhile Koremitsu had made his way into the house and was wandering this way and that looking for some sign of life. He spent a long while in poking into all sorts of corners and at last concluded that the place had been abandoned as uninhabited. He was just setting out to report this to Genji when the moon came out from behind a cloud, lighting up the front of the house. He then noticed a trellis roll-door which was half pulled up. A curtain behind it moved. It almost seemed as though some one were there. Koremitsu, feeling oddly enough quite nervous, turned back and approached this door, clearing his throat loudly as he did so. In answer to this signal a very aged, decrepit voice answered from within the room. ‘Well, what is it? Who are you?’ ‘It is Koremitsu,’ he answered, ‘could you tell Jijū that I should like to speak to her?’ ‘Jijū?’ the aged voice answered, ‘you cannot speak to her, she has gone away. But would not I do just as well?’ The voice was incredibly ancient and croaking, but he recognized it as that of one of the gentlewomen whom he used to meet here in former days. To those within, inured as they were to years of absolute isolation, the sudden apparition of this figure wrapped in a great hunting cloak, was a mystery so startling and inexplicable that for a while it did not occur to them that their visitor could be other than some fox-spirit or will-o’-the-wisp masquerading in human form. But the apparition behaved with reassuring gentility and coming right up to the doorway now addressed them as follows: ‘I must make it my business to find out exactly how matters stand. If you can assure me that, on your mistress’s side, nothing has changed since the time when we used to come here, then I think you will find His Highness my master no less ready to help you than he was in days gone by. Can I trust you to let her know that we halted here to-night? I must be able to report to my master that his message is in safe hands....’ The old lady and her companions burst out laughing. ‘Listen to him!’ they cried, ‘asking whether Madam has altered her way of life, whether she has taken to new friends! Do you suppose, young man, that if she were not waiting day and night for this famous prince of yours, she would still be living in this wilderness? Why, if there had been a soul in the world to help us, we should have shifted from these tumbledown quarters a long while ago. Just let Prince Genji have a look at the place for himself; he’ll soon know how things stand! Yes, and we have been living like this for years; I shouldn’t think anyone in the world has ever been through such times as we have in this house. I tell you it’s a wonder we’ve been able to bear it for so long, such a life as we and our poor young lady have been leading....’ They soon got launched upon a recital of their sufferings and misfortunes, which wandered so far from the purpose in hand that Koremitsu, growing impatient, at last interrupted them. ‘Enough, enough,’ he cried; ‘that will do to go on with. I will go to Prince Genji at once and tell him of this.’