The Tale of Genji

by Murasaki Shikibu

Next day, Genji again sent for the boy, who went to his sister saying ‘I am going to Prince Genji. Where is your answer to his letter?’ ‘Tell him’ she answered ‘that there is no one here who reads such letters.’ The boy burst out laughing. ‘Why, you silly, how could I say such a thing to him. He told me himself to be sure to bring an answer.’ It infuriated her to think that Genji should have thus taken the boy into his confidence and she answered angrily, ‘He has no business to talk to you about such things at your age. If that is what you talk about you had better not go to him any more.’ ‘But he sent for me’ said the boy, and started off.

‘I was waiting for you all yesterday’ said Genji when the boy returned. ‘Did you forget to bring the answer? Did you forget to come?’ The child blushed and made no reply. ‘And now?’ ‘She said there is no one at home who reads such letters.’ ‘How silly, what can be the use of saying such things?’, and he wrote another letter and gave it to the boy, saying: ‘I expect you do not know that I used to meet your sister before her marriage. She treats me in this scornful fashion because she looks upon me as a poor-spirited, defenceless creature. Whereas she has now a mighty Deputy Governor to look after her. But I hope that you will promise to be my child not his. For he is very old, and will not be able to take care of you for long.’

The boy was quite content with this explanation, and admired Genji more than ever. The prince kept him always at his side, even taking him to the Palace. And he ordered his Chamberlain to see to it that he was provided with a little Court suit. Indeed he treated him just as though he were his own child.

Genji continued to send letters; but she, thinking that the boy, young as he was, might easily allow a message to fall into the wrong hands and that then she would lose her fair name to no purpose, feeling too (that however much he desired it) between persons so far removed in rank there could be no lasting union, she answered his letters only in the most formal terms.

Dark though it had been during most of the time they were together, she yet had a clear recollection of his appearance, and could not deny to herself that she thought him uncommonly handsome. But she very much doubted if he on his side really knew what she was like; indeed she felt sure that the next time they met he would think her very plain and all would be over.

Genji meanwhile thought about her continually. He was for ever calling back to memory each incident of that one meeting, and every recollection filled him with longing and despair. He remembered how sad she had looked when she spoke to him of herself, and he longed to make her happier. He thought of visiting her in secret. But the risk of discovery was too great, and the consequences likely to be more fatal to her even than to himself.

He had been many days at the Palace, when at last the Earth Star again barred the road to his home. He set out at once, but on the way pretended that he had just remembered the unfavourable posture of the stars. There was nothing to do but seek shelter again in the house on the Middle River. Ki no Kami was surprised but by no means ill-pleased, for he attributed Genji’s visit to the amenity of the little pools and fountains which he had constructed in his garden.

Genji had told the boy in the morning that he intended to visit the Middle River, and since he had now become the Prince’s constant companion, he was sent for at once to wait upon him in his room. He had already given a message to his sister, in which Genji told her of his plan. She could not but feel flattered at the knowledge that it was on her account he had contrived this ingenious excuse for coming to the house. Yet she had, as we have seen, for some reason got it into her head that at a leisurely meeting she would not please him as she had done at that first fleeting and dreamlike encounter, and she dreaded adding a new sorrow to the burden of her thwarted and unhappy existence. Too proud to let him think that she had posted herself in waiting for him, she said to her servants (while the boy was busy in Genji’s room) ‘I do not care to be at such close quarters with our guest, besides I am stiff, and would like to be massaged; I must go where there is more room,’ and so saying she made them carry her things to the maid Chūjō’s bedroom in the cross-wing.

Genji had purposely sent his attendants early to bed, and now that all was quiet, he hastened to send her a message. But the boy could not find her. At last when he had looked in every corner of the house, he tried the cross-wing, and succeeded in tracking her down to Chūjō’s room. It was too bad of her to hide like this, and half in tears he gasped out ‘Oh how can you be so horrid? What will he think of you?’ ‘You have no business to run after me like this’ she answered angrily, ‘It is very wicked for children to carry such messages. But’ she added, ‘you may tell him I am not well, that my ladies are with me, and I am going to be massaged....’ So she dismissed him; but in her heart of hearts she was thinking that if such an adventure had happened to her while she was still a person of consequence, before her father died and left her to shift for herself in the world, she would have known how to enjoy it. But now she must force herself to look askance at all his kindness. How tiresome he must think her! And she fretted so much at not being free to fall in love with him, that in the end she was more in love than ever. But then she remembered suddenly that her lot had long ago been cast. She was a wife. There was no sense in thinking of such things, and she made up her mind once and for all never again to let foolish ideas enter her head.

Genji lay on his bed, anxiously waiting to see with what success so young a messenger would execute his delicate mission. When at last the answer came, astonished at this sudden exhibition of coldness, he exclaimed in deep mortification ‘This is a disgrace, a hideous disgrace,’ and he looked very rueful indeed. For a while he said no more, but lay sighing deeply, in great distress. At last he recited the poem ‘I knew not the nature of the strange tree[20] that stands on Sono plain, and when I sought the comfort of its shade, I did but lose my road,’ and sent it to her. She was still awake, and answered with the poem ‘Too like am I in these my outcast years to the dim tree that dwindles from the traveller’s approaching gaze.’ The boy was terribly sorry for Genji and did not feel sleepy at all, but he was afraid people would think his continual excursions very strange. By this time, however, everyone else in the house was sound asleep. Genji alone lay plunged in the blackest melancholy. But even while he was raging at the inhuman stubbornness of her new-found and incomprehensible resolve, he found that he could not but admire her the more for this invincible tenacity. At last he grew tired of lying awake; there was no more to be done. A moment later he had changed his mind again, and suddenly whispered to the boy ‘Take me to where she is hiding!’ ‘It is too difficult’ he said, ‘she is locked in and there are so many people there. I am afraid to go with you.’ ‘So be it’ said Genji, ‘but you at least must not abandon me’ and he laid the boy beside him on his bed. He was well content to find himself lying by this handsome young Prince’s side, and Genji, we must record, found the boy no bad substitute for his ungracious sister.