He wrote frequently to Akashi and many times begged her to come up to the Capital. But she had heard so many stories of how others had suffered at his hands,—how he had again and again toyed with the affections not only of humble creatures such as herself, but of the greatest ladies in the land, only to cast them aside a few months later with the most callous indifference. Surely it would be foolish not to take warning? If this was his conduct towards persons of rank and influence, what sort of treatment could she, a friendless girl, expect? What part could she hope to play save the humiliating one of a foil to the young princess who was Genji’s lawful bride? Suppose she accepted his offer, suppose she let him instal her in this new house, how often would he come near her? Sometimes perhaps on his way to Murasaki’s room he might look in casually for a moment; more she could not expect. She saw herself the butt of every lewd wit in his palace. No; she would never consent.
But there were other considerations. Should she continue to bring up her baby daughter in this sequestered spot, how could the child ever hope to take its place among the princes and princesses of the Blood? Little as she trusted Genji, she must not cut off her child from all possibility of an ultimate transference to the Capital. Her parents too realized with dismay that her prospect at the City was none too bright; but on the whole they inclined towards a move.
There was a certain estate near the Ōi River[1] which her mother had inherited (it had belonged to Nakatsukasa no Miya, the mother’s paternal grandfather). Successive heirs failed to claim it and for two years the place had been falling into decay. A fresh plan had occurred to the old recluse and his wife. They summoned the caretaker of the place, a descendant of the man whom Nakatsukasa had originally left in charge and said to him: ‘We had intended to quit the world forever and end our earthly days in this inaccessible retreat. But certain unexpected events in our family have made it necessary that we should again seek a residence within easy reach of the Capital. After our long absence from the Court we should feel utterly lost and bewildered were we to plunge straight into the bustle of the town, and it occurred to us that while we are looking for some quiet, old house to live in permanently, it might be a good thing to use this place at Ōi which you have been looking after for us!’ ‘I am afraid you will be very disappointed when you see it,’ said the man. ‘For years past no one has been in possession and everything is tumbling to pieces. I have been making shift myself to live in a room which has indeed a kind of ceiling, but no roof! And since the spring they have been building this new hermitage for Prince Genji close by, and this has changed the whole character of the district. The place is crowded with workmen; for the hermitage, by what I can make out, is going to be a very grand affair. If what you are looking for is a quiet, unfrequented spot you will certainly be badly disappointed.’ His remarks had the opposite effect to that which he had intended. To learn that at Ōi they would be living as it were under Genji’s very wing was an astonishing piece of news. He ordered the man to put the large repairs in hand at once; what wanted setting to rights indoors they could see to at leisure later on. This did not at all suit the caretaker. ‘If you want to know,’ he said sulkily, ‘I reckon this place belongs to me as much as to anyone. I have been living there quietly all these years and this is the first I have heard of anybody putting in a claim to it. When I first took things in hand the pastures and rice-fields were all running to waste, and his lordship Mimbu no Tayū told me before he died that I could have them for my very own and do what I could with them as payment of certain sums which he then owed me.’ What he was really frightened of was that, if the family came into residence, they would lay claim to some of the live stock and grain that their land had produced. He had suddenly grown very red in the face, his voice quivered with anger and his whole aspect was so grim and even menacing that the old recluse hastened to reassure him: ‘I am not in any way interested in the farm or its produce,’ he said; ‘with regard to them please go on just as before. As a matter of fact I have got the title-deeds somewhere here, but it is a long time since I attended to business matters of any kind and it might take me a long while to find these papers. I will remember to look into the question and see how it stands....’ The steward soon cooled down. He noted that the old priest was evidently on friendly terms with Genji. This decided him to be civil. And after all, even if the presence of his masters might for the moment be rather inconvenient, he would later on have plenty of opportunities for reimbursing himself. Mollified by these reflections he set the repairs in hand at once.
Genji meanwhile had no notion of what was afoot and could not understand why, after all his entreaties, the Lady of Akashi still hung back. He did not at all like the idea of their child being brought up amid such uncivilized surroundings. Moreover, if the story afterwards became known, it would certainly seem as though he had been reluctant to acknowledge the child and had behaved with great heartlessness in making no proper provision for it or for the mother.
But at last the house at Ōi was ready and a letter came from Akashi describing how, with no idea that he was building in the district, they had suddenly remembered the existence of the place and were making plans for living there. He understood quite well the object of this move. The Lady of Akashi was determined that if their intercourse was to be resumed it must be in a place where she would not be subjected to a humiliating contact with her rivals. To avoid this she was evidently prepared to make every conceivable sacrifice. He was curious to know more about her future plan of retreat and sent Koremitsu, who was always employed in confidential missions of this kind, to investigate the place a little and let him know if there was anything he could do to assist the new-comers at Ōi. Koremitsu reported that the house was in a very agreeable situation which somehow reminded one of the seaside. ‘It sounds just the place for her,’ said Genji. The hermitage which he was building was to the south of Daikakuji, which temple, in the beauty of its groves and cascades, it even bid fair to rival. The house where the family from Akashi was coming to live was right on the river, among the most delightful pine-woods, and the unpretentious way in which it was planned, in one long building without galleries or side-wings, gave it rather the air of a farmhouse than of a gentleman’s mansion. As regards furniture Koremitsu told him what was most needed and he saw to it that these wants were supplied.
A member of Genji’s personal servants now arrived at Akashi to assist the family in their removal. When she found herself actually faced with the prospect of leaving these shores and inlets, near which so great a part of her life had been spent, the Lady of Akashi was filled with consternation. The present plan was that her father should stay on at Akashi alone, and the idea of leaving him made her very unhappy. Looking back over the whole affair, with all its consequences, she was amazed to think that she had ever drifted into this miserable union, which had brought nothing but trouble and confusion upon herself and those for whom she cared. She found herself envying those whose fortune it had been never to cross this prince’s path. Her father, seeing the house full of the servants and retainers whom Genji had sent from the Capital, could not deny to himself that here indeed was the fulfilment of his every dream and prayer. He had secured his daughter’s future. But what about his own? How would his life be endurable without her? He brooded on this night and day, but never showed what was passing in his mind, save for saying once or twice to his wife: ‘Do you think even if I went with you I should see much of the little girl[2]?’ The mother was also much distressed. For years past her husband had slept in his little hermitage and had lived an entirely separate life, engrossed in his meditations and devotions. There was little reason to suppose that, even should she stay behind, he would give her very much of his society, and virtually she would be living without any companionship or support. But though he was a spectator of their lives rather than a participator in them, his casual exits and entrances had become the rock in which her whole existence was rooted; the prospect of separation appalled her. He was a strange creature; but she had long ago given up expecting him to play in any sense a husband’s part. His odd appearance, his eccentric opinions, their lonely life,—all these she had learnt to tolerate in the belief that this at any rate was the last stage of her disillusionment, the final and unalterable ordeal which death alone would end. Suddenly she found herself face to face with this undreamed-of parting, and her heart shrank. The wet-nurse and other young persons whom at the time of the child’s birth Genji had sent from the Capital were beginning to become very restive and the prospect of the coming journey delighted them. Yet even the most frivolous among them could not leave these creeks and sandy bays without a pang; and there were some who, knowing that it might never be their lot to visit such scenes again, came near to adding the salt of tears to sleeves already splashed by the breakers of the rising tide.
Autumn had begun and the country was at its loveliest. At dawn upon the day fixed for their departure a chill wind was blowing and insects filled the air with their interminable cry. The Lady of Akashi, already awake, kept going to her window and looking out across the sea. Her father had returned early from celebrating the night service in his chapel; it was with trembling lips that he had performed the familiar ceremonies. But now that the day of parting had come no words of sorrow or ill-omen must be spoken. So each was determined, but it was no easy matter to keep things going. The child was brought in, its infant beauty shining like a jewel in the greyness of the dawn. The grandfather never wearied of holding it in his arms and, young as it was, an understanding seemed to have grown up between them. He was indeed astonished by the readiness with which the child accepted a companion whose appearance and manners, so different from those of its regular attendants, might have been expected to have alarmed it in the highest degree. Moreover there seemed something inappropriate, almost sinister in their alliance. Yet for long he had scarcely let it be a minute out of his sight. How should he live without it? He did not want to spoil the journey by an outburst of unrestrained grief; yet utterly silent he could not remain, and reciting the verse: ‘While for good speed upon their road and happiness to come I pray, one thing the travellers will not deny me, an old man’s right to shed a foolish tear or two,’ he tried to hide his tears with his sleeve, exclaiming: ‘No, I ought not to; I should not do it!’
His wife stood weeping at his side; there was one thing that she could not disguise from herself: after long years both of his life and her own that had been spent in an unceasing protest against the pleasures and frivolities of the world, it was to those same frivolities and in pursuit of the most worldly ambitions that her husband was sending her away from him: ‘Together we left the city,’ she cried; ‘how all alone shall I re-find the paths down which you led me over heath and hill?’ The Lady of Akashi also recited a poem in which she said that even to those who seem to have parted forever, life with its turns and chances brings strange reunions to pass. She besought her father to come at least part of the way with them; but he seemed to regard it as utterly impossible that he should venture away from his seaside retreat, and it was evident that he regarded the negotiation even of the short road down to the sea as the most venturesome and nerve-racking business.
‘When I first put worldly ambitions aside,’ said the old man, ‘and contented myself with a mere provincial post, I made up my mind that, come what might, you, my dear daughter, should not suffer from my having sacrificed my own prospects; and how best, despite the remoteness of our home, to fit you for the station of life to which you properly belonged became my one thought and care. But my experience as Governor taught me much; I realized my incapacity for public affairs, and knew that if I returned to the City it would only be to play the wretched part of ex-Governor. My resources were much diminished and were I to set up house again at the Capital it would be on a very different scale from before. I knew that I should be regarded as a failure both in my private and public life, a disgrace to the memory of my father who occupied the highest station in the State; moreover my acceptance of a provincial governorship had everywhere been regarded as the end of my career, and as for myself, I could not but think that it was indeed best it should be so. But you were now growing up and your future had to be thought of. How could I allow you to waste your beauty in this far corner of the earth like a brocade that is never taken from the drawer? But no better prospect seemed to present itself, and in my despair I called upon Buddha and all the gods to help me. That, living as we did, any fresh acquaintances should ever be formed by us seemed out of the question. Yet all the time I believed that some strange chance would one day befall us. And what indeed could have been more utterly unforeseen than the circumstance which at last brought so distinguished a guest to our home? In this I could not but see the hand of Heaven, and my only anxiety was lest too great an inequality of rank should divide you. But since the birth of this child, that fear has not so much troubled me, for I feel that your union is fated to be a lasting one. A child of Royal Blood cannot, we must allow, pass all its days in a village by the sea, and though this parting costs me dear I am determined never again to tamper with the world that I have renounced. Princes are the lamps that light this world, and though they may for a time be destined to cast confusion upon the quiet of rusticity, soon they must perforce return to their true firmament; while those whom they have left smile back, as I do now, into the lowly Sphere[3] from whence they sprang. Should you hear that I am dead, do not tease yourselves concerning the welfare of my soul, and above all, while less than death divides us, do not worry over what may be befalling me.’ Thus he poured out all that was passing through his mind and at last he added in conclusion: ‘You may be sure that each of the six times of Prayer, till the day when the smoke rises from my pyre, I shall pray with all my heart for the happiness of the little princess....’
Hitherto he had spoken with great self-possession; but now his face began to pucker.