The Tale of Genji

by Murasaki Shikibu

‘Then the little girl must be this lady’s child,’ Genji realized at last. And that accounted for her resemblance to the lady in the Palace.[2] He felt more drawn towards her than ever. She was of good lineage, which is never amiss; and her rather rustic simplicity would be an actual advantage when she became his pupil, as he was now determined she should; for it would make it the easier for him to mould her unformed tastes to the pattern of his own. ‘And did the lady whose sad story you have told me leave no remembrance behind her?’ asked Genji, still hoping to turn the conversation on to the child herself. ‘She died only a short while after her child was born, and it too was a girl. The charge of it fell to my sister who is in failing health and feels herself by no means equal to such a responsibility.’ All was now clear. ‘You will think it a very strange proposal,’ said Genji, ‘but I feel that I should like to adopt this child. Perhaps you would mention this to your sister? Though others early involved me in marriage, their choice proved distasteful to me and having, as it seems, very little relish for society, I now live entirely alone. She is, I quite realize, a mere child, and I am not proposing....’ Here he paused and the priest answered: ‘I am very much obliged to you for this offer; but I am afraid it is clear that you do not at all realize that the child in question is a mere infant. You would not even find her amusing as a casual distraction. But it is true that a girl as she grows up needs the backing of powerful friends if she is to make her way in the world, and though I cannot promise you that anything will come of it, I ought certainly to mention the matter to her grandmother.’ His manner had suddenly become somewhat cool and severe. Genji felt that he had been indiscreet and preserved an embarrassed silence. ‘There is something which I ought to be doing in the Hall of Our Lord Amida,’ the priest presently continued, ‘so I must take leave of you for a while. I must also read my vespers; but I will rejoin you afterwards,’ and he set out to climb the hill. Genji felt very disconsolate. It had begun to rain; a cold wind blew across the hill, carrying with it the sound of a waterfall,—audible till then as a gentle intermittent plashing, but now a mighty roar; and with it, somnolently rising and falling, mingled the monotonous chanting of the scriptures. Even the most unimpressionable nature would have been plunged into melancholy by such surroundings. How much the more so Prince Genji, as he lay sleepless on his bed, continually planning and counter-planning! The priest had spoken of ‘vespers,’ but the hour was indeed very late. It was clear however that the nun was still awake, for though she was making as little noise as possible, every now and then her rosary would knock with a faint click against the praying-stool. There was something alluring in the sound of this low, delicate tapping. It seemed to come from quite close. He opened a small space between the screens which divided the living-room from the inner chamber and rustled his fan. He had the impression that someone in the inner room after a little hesitation had come towards the screen as though saying to herself ‘It cannot be so, yet I could have sworn I heard ...,’ and then retreated a little, as though thinking ‘Well, it was only my fancy after all!’ Now she seemed to be feeling her way in the dark, and Genji said aloud ‘Follow the Lord Buddha and though your way lie in darkness yet shall you not go astray.’ Suddenly hearing his clear young voice in the darkness, the woman had not at first the courage to reply. But at last she managed to answer: ‘In which direction, please, is He leading me? I am afraid I do not quite understand.’ ‘I am sorry to have startled you,’ said Genji. ‘I have only this small request to make: that you will carry to your mistress the following poem: ‘Since first he saw the green leaf of the tender bush, never for a moment has the dew of longing dried from the traveller’s sleeve.’ ‘Surely you must know that there is no one here who understands messages of that kind,’ said the woman; ‘I wonder whom you mean?’ ‘I have a particular reason for wishing your mistress to receive the message,’ said Genji, ‘and I should be obliged if you would contrive to deliver it.’ The nun at once perceived that the poem referred to her grandchild and supposed that Genji, having been wrongly informed about her age, was intending to make love to her. But how had he discovered her grand-daughter’s existence? For some while she pondered in great annoyance and perplexity, and at last answered prudently with a poem in which she said that ‘he who was but spending a night upon a traveller’s dewy bed could know little of those whose home was forever upon the cold moss of the hill-side.’ Thus she turned his poem to a harmless meaning. ‘Tell her,’ said Genji when the message was brought back, ‘that I am not accustomed to carry on conversations in this indirect manner. However shy she may be, I must ask her on this occasion to dispense with formalities and discuss this matter with me seriously!’ ‘How can he have been thus misinformed?’ said the nun, still thinking that Genji imagined her grand-daughter to be a grown-up woman. She was terrified at being suddenly commanded to appear before this illustrious personage and was wondering what excuse she would make. Her maids, however, were convinced that Genji would be grievously offended if she did not appear, and at last, coming out from the women’s chamber, she said to him: ‘Though I am no longer a young woman, I very much doubt whether I ought to come like this. But since you sent word that you have serious business to discuss with me, I could not refuse....’ ‘Perhaps’ said Genji, ‘you will think my proposal both ill-timed and frivolous. I can only assure you that I mean it very seriously. Let Buddha judge....’ But here he broke off, intimidated by her age and gravity. ‘You have certainly chosen a very strange manner of communicating this proposal to me. But though you have not yet said what it is, I am sure you are quite in earnest about it.’ Thus encouraged, Genji continued: ‘I was deeply touched by the story of your long widowhood and of your daughter’s death. I too, like this poor child, was deprived in earliest infancy of the one being who tenderly loved me, and in my childhood suffered long years of loneliness and misery. Thus we are both in like case, and this has given me so deep a sympathy for the child that I long to make amends for what she has lost. It was, then, to ask if you would consent to let me play a mother’s part that at this strange and inconvenient hour I trespassed so inconsiderately upon your patience.’ ‘I am sure that you are meaning to be very kind,’ said the nun, ‘but—forgive me—you have evidently been misinformed. There is indeed a girl living here under my charge; but she is a mere infant and could not be of the slightest interest to you in any way, so that I cannot consent to your proposal.’ ‘On the contrary,’ said Genji, ‘I am perfectly conversant with every detail concerning this child; but if you think my sympathy for her exaggerated or misplaced, pray pardon me for having mentioned it.’ It was evident that he did not in the least realize the absurdity of what he had proposed, and she saw no use in explaining herself any further. The priest was now returning and Genji, saying that he had not expected she would at once fall in with his idea and was confident that she would soon see the matter in a different light, closed the screen behind her.

The night was almost over. In a chapel near by, the Four Meditations of the Law Flower were being practised. The voices of the ministrants who were now chanting the Litany of Atonement came floating on the gusty mountain-wind, and with this solemn sound was mingled the roar of hurrying waters. ‘Startled from my dream by a wandering gust of the mountain gale, I heard the waterfall, and at the beauty of its music wept.’ So Genji greeted the priest; and he in turn replied with the poem ‘At the noise of a torrent wherein I daily fill my bowl I am scarce likely to start back in wonder and delight.’ ‘I get so used to it,’ he added apologetically. A heavy mist covered the morning sky, and even the chirruping of the mountain-birds sounded muffled and dim. Such a variety of flowers and blossoming trees (he did not know their names) grew upon the hill-side, that the rocks seemed to be spread with a many-coloured embroidery. Above all he marvelled at the exquisite stepping of the deer who moved across the slope, now treading daintily, now suddenly pausing; and as he watched them the last remnants of his sickness were dispelled by sheer delight. Though the hermit had little use of his limbs, he managed by hook or crook to perform the mystic motions of the Guardian Spell,[3] and though his aged voice was husky and faltering, he read the sacred text with great dignity and fervour. Several of Genji’s friends now arrived to congratulate him upon his recovery, among them a messenger from the Palace. The priest from the hut below brought a present of strange-looking roots for which he had gone deep into the ravine. He begged to be excused from accompanying Genji on his way. ‘Till the end of the year,’ he said, ‘I am bound by a vow which must deprive me of what would have been a great pleasure,’ and he handed Genji the stirrup-cup. ‘Were I but able to follow my own desires,’ said Genji taking the cup, ‘I would not leave these hills and streams. But I hear that my father the Emperor is making anxious enquiry after me. I will come back before the blossom is over.’ And he recited the verse ‘I will go back to the men of the City and tell them to come quickly, lest the wild wind outstripping them should toss these blossoms from the cherry bough.’ The old priest, flattered by Genji’s politeness and captivated by the charm of his voice, answered with the poem: ‘Like one who finds the aloe-tree in bloom, to the flower of the mountain-cherry I no longer turn my gaze.’ ‘I am not after all quite so great a rarity as the aloe-flower,’ said Genji smiling.

Next the hermit handed him a parting-cup, with the poem ‘Though seldom I open the pine-tree door of my mountain-cell, yet have I now seen face to face the flower few live to see,’ and as he looked up at Genji, his eyes filled with tears. He gave him, to keep him safe in future from all harm, a magical wand; and seeing this the nun’s brother in his turn presented a rosary brought back from Korea by Prince Shōtoku. It was ornamented with jade and was still in the same Chinese-looking box in which it had been brought from that country. The box was in an open-work bag, and a five-leafed pine-branch was with it. He also gave him some little vases of blue crystal to keep his medicines in, with sprays of cherry-blossom and wistaria along with them, and such other presents as the place could supply. Genji had sent to the Capital for gifts with which to repay his reception in the mountain. First he gave a reward to the hermit, then distributed alms to the priests who had chanted liturgies on his behalf, and finally he gave useful presents to the poor villagers of the neighbourhood. While he was reading a short passage from the scriptures in preparation for his departure, the old priest went into his house and asked his sister the nun whether she had any message for the Prince. ‘It is very hard to say anything at present,’ she said. ‘Perhaps if he still felt the same inclination four, or five years hence, we might begin to consider it.’ ‘That is just what I think,’ said the priest.

Genji saw to his regret that he had made no progress whatever. In answer to the nun’s message he sent a small boy who belonged to the priest’s household with the following poem: ‘Last night indeed, though in the greyness of twilight only, I saw the lovely flower. But to-day a hateful mist has hidden it utterly from my sight.’ The nun replied: ‘That I may know whether indeed it pains you so deeply to leave this flower, I shall watch intently the motions of this hazy sky.’ It was written in a noteworthy and very aristocratic hand, but quite without the graces of deliberate artistry. While his carriage was being got ready, a great company of young lords arrived from the Great Hall, saying that they had been hard put to it to discover what had become of him and now desired to give him their escort. Among them were Tō no Chūjō, Sachū Ben, and other lesser lords, who had come out of affection for the Prince. ‘We like nothing better than waiting upon you,’ they said, rather aggrieved, ‘it was not kind of you to leave us behind.’ ‘But having come so far,’ said another, ‘it would be a pity to go away without resting for a while under the shadow of these flowering trees’; whereupon they all sat down in a row upon the moss under a tall rock and passed a rough earthenware wine-jar from hand to hand. Close by them the stream leaped over the rocks in a magnificent cascade. Tō no Chūjō pulled out a flute from the folds of his dress and played a few trills upon it. Sachū Ben, tapping idly with his fan, began to sing ‘The Temple of Toyora.’ The young lords who had come to fetch him were all persons of great distinction; but so striking was Genji’s appearance as he sat leaning disconsolately against the rock that no eye was likely to be turned in any other direction. One of his attendants now performed upon the reed-pipe; someone else turned out to be a skilful shō[4] player. Presently the old priest came out of his house carrying a zithern, and putting it into Genji’s hands begged him to play something, ‘that the birds of the mountain may rejoice.’ He protested that he was not feeling at all in the mood to play; but yielding to the priest’s persuasion, he gave what was really not at all a contemptible performance. After that, they all got up and started for home. Everyone on the mountain, down to the humblest priest and youngest neophyte, was bitterly disappointed at the shortness of his stay, and there were many tears shed; while the old nun within doors was sorry to think that she had had but that one brief glimpse of him and might never see him again. The priest declared that for his part he thought the Land of the Rising Sun in her last degenerate days ill-deserved that such a Prince should be born to her, and he wiped his eyes. The little girl too was very much pleased with him and said he was a prettier gentleman than her own father. ‘If you think so, you had better become his little girl instead,’ said her nurse. At which the child nodded, thinking that it would be a very good plan indeed; and in future the best-dressed person in the pictures she painted was called ‘Prince Genji’ and so was her handsomest doll.

On his return to the Capital he went straight to the Palace and described to his father the experiences of the last two days. The Emperor thought him looking very haggard and was much concerned. He asked many questions about the hermit’s magical powers, to all of which Genji replied in great detail. ‘He ought certainly to have been made Master Magician long ago,’ said His Majesty. ‘His ministrations have repeatedly been attended with great success, but for some reason his services have escaped public acknowledgment,’ and he issued a proclamation to this effect. The Minister of the Left came to meet him on his way from the Presence and apologized for not having come with his sons to bring him back from the mountain. ‘I thought,’ he said, ‘that as you had gone there secretly, you would dislike being fetched; but I very much hope that you will now come and spend a few days with us quietly; after which I shall esteem it a privilege to escort you to your palace.’ He did not in the least want to go, but there was no escape. His father-in-law drove him to the Great Hall in his own carriage, and when the bullocks had been unyoked dragged it in at the gate with his own hands. Such treatment was certainly meant to be very friendly; but Genji found the Minister’s attentions merely irritating.

Aoi’s quarters had, in anticipation of Genji’s coming, just been put thoroughly to rights. In the long interval since he last visited her many changes had been made; among other improvements, a handsome terrace had been built. Not a thing was out of its right place in this supremely well-ordered house. Aoi, as usual, was nowhere to be seen. It was only after repeated entreaties by her father that she at last consented to appear in her husband’s presence. Posed like a princess in a picture she sat almost motionless. Beautiful she certainly was. ‘I should like to tell you about my visit to the mountain, if only I thought that it would interest you at all or draw an answer from you. I hate to go on always like this. Why are you so cold and distant and proud? Year after year we fail to reach an understanding and you cut yourself off from me more completely than before. Can we not manage for a little while to be on ordinary terms? It seems rather strange, considering how ill I have been, that you should not attempt to enquire after my health. Or rather, it is exactly what I should expect; but nevertheless I find it extremely painful.’ ‘Yes,’ said Aoi, ‘it is extremely painful when people do not care what becomes of one.’ She glanced back over her shoulder as she spoke, her face full of scorn and pride, looking uncommonly handsome as she did so. ‘You hardly ever speak,’ said Genji, ‘and when you do, it is only to say unkind things and twist one’s harmless words so that they seem to be insults. And when I try to find some way of helping you for a while at least to be a little less disagreeable, you become more hopelessly unapproachable than ever. Shall I one day succeed in making you understand...?’ and so saying he went into their bedroom. She did not follow him. He lay for a while in a state of great annoyance and distress. But, probably because he did not really care about her very much one way or the other, he soon became drowsy and all sorts of quite different matters drifted through his head. He wanted as much as ever to have the little girl in his keeping and watch her grow to womanhood. But the grandmother was right; the child was too absurdly young, and it would be very difficult to broach the matter again. Would it not however be possible to contrive that she should be brought to the Capital? It would be easy then to find excuses for fetching her and she might, even through some such arrangement as that, become a source of constant delight to him. The father, Prince Hyōbukyō, was of course a man of very distinguished manners; but he was not at all handsome. How was it that the child resembled one of her aunts and was so unlike all the rest? He had an idea that Fujitsubo and Prince Hyōbukyō were children of the same mother, while the others were only half-sisters. The fact that the little girl was closely related to the lady whom he had loved for so long made him all the more set upon securing her, and he began again to puzzle his head for some means of bringing this about.

Next day he wrote his letter of thanks to the priest. No doubt it contained some allusion to his project. To the nun he wrote: ‘Seeing you so resolutely averse to what I had proposed, I refrained from justifying my intentions so fully as I could have wished. But should it prove that, even by the few words I ventured to speak, I was able to convince you that this is no mere whim or common fancy, how happy would such news make me.’ On a slip of paper folded small and tucked into the letter he wrote the poem: ‘Though with all my heart I tried to leave it behind me, never for a moment has it left me,—the fair face of that mountain-flower!’ Though she had long passed the zenith of her years the nun could not but be pleased and flattered by the elegance of the note; for it was not only written in an exquisite hand, but was folded with a careless dexterity which she greatly admired. She felt very sorry for him, and would have been glad, had it been in her conscience, to have sent him a more favourable reply. ‘We were delighted,’ she wrote, ‘that being in the neighbourhood you took occasion to pay us a visit. But I fear that when (as I very much hope you will) you come here purposely to visit us, I shall not be able to add anything to what I have said already. As for the poem which you enclose, do not expect her to answer it, for she cannot yet write her “Naniwa Zu”[5] properly, even letter by letter. Let me then answer it for her: “For as long as the cherry-blossoms remain unscattered upon the shore of Onoe where wild storms blow,—so long have you till now been constant!” For my part, I am very uneasy about the matter.’

The priest replied to the same effect. Genji was very much disappointed and after two or three days he sent for Koremitsu and gave him a letter for the nun, telling him at the same time to find out whatever he could from Shōnagon, the child’s nurse. ‘What an impressionable character he is,’ thought Koremitsu. He had only had a glimpse of the child; but that had sufficed to convince him that she was a mere baby, though he remembered thinking her quite pretty. What trick would his master’s heart be playing upon him next?

The old priest was deeply impressed by the arrival of a letter in the hands of so special and confidential a messenger. After delivering it, Koremitsu sought out the nurse. He repeated all that Genji had told him to say and added a great deal of general information about his master. Being a man of many words he talked on and on, continually introducing some new topic which had suddenly occurred to him as relevant. But at the end of it all Shōnagon was just as puzzled as everyone else had been to account for Genji’s interest in a child so ridiculously young. His letter was very deferential. In it he said that he longed to see a specimen of her childish writing done letter by letter, as the nun had described. As before, he enclosed a poem: ‘Was it the shadows in the mountain well that told you my purpose was but jest?’[6] To which she answered ‘Some perhaps that have drawn in that well now bitterly repent. Can the shadows tell me if again it will be so?’ and Koremitsu brought a spoken message to the same effect, together with the assurance that so soon as the nun’s health improved, she intended to visit the Capital and would then communicate with him again. The prospect of her visit was very exciting.

About this time Lady Fujitsubo fell ill and retired for a while from the Palace. The sight of the Emperor’s grief and anxiety moved Genji’s pity. But he could not help thinking that this was an opportunity which must not be missed. He spent the whole of that day in a state of great agitation, unable whether in his own house or at the Palace to think of anything else or call upon anyone. When at last the day was over, he succeeded in persuading her maid Ōmyōbu to take a message. The girl, though she regarded any communication between them as most imprudent, seeing a strange look in his face like that of one who walks in a dream, took pity on him and went. The Princess looked back upon their former relationship as something wicked and horrible and the memory of it was a continual torment to her. She had determined that such a thing must never happen again.