The Tale of Genji

by Murasaki Shikibu

She met him with a stern and sorrowful countenance, but this did not disguise her charm, and as though conscious that he was unduly admiring her she began to treat him with great coldness and disdain. He longed to find some blemish in her, to think that he had been mistaken, and be at peace.

I need not tell all that happened. The night passed only too quickly. He whispered in her ear the poem: ‘Now that at last we have met, would that we might vanish forever into the dream we dreamed to-night!’ But she, still conscience-stricken: ‘Though I were to hide in the darkness of eternal sleep, yet would my shame run through the world from tongue to tongue.’ And indeed, as Genji knew, it was not without good cause that she had suddenly fallen into this fit of apprehension and remorse. As he left, Ōmyōbu came running after him with his cloak and other belongings which he had left behind. He lay all day upon his bed in great torment. He sent a letter, but it was returned unopened. This had happened many times in the past, but now it filled him with such consternation that for two or three days he was completely prostrate and kept his room. All this while he was in constant dread lest his father, full of solicitude, should begin enquiring what new trouble had overtaken him. Fujitsubo, convinced that her ruin was accomplished, fell into a profound melancholy and her health grew daily worse. Messengers arrived constantly from the Court begging her to return without delay; but she could not bring herself to go. Her disorder had now taken a turn which filled her with secret foreboding, and she did nothing all day long but sit distractedly wondering what would become of her. When the hot weather set in she ceased to leave her bed at all. Three months had now passed and there was no mistaking her condition. Soon it would be known and everywhere discussed. She was appalled at the calamity which had overtaken her. Not knowing that there was any cause for secrecy, her people were astonished that she had not long ago informed the Emperor of her condition. Speculations were rife, but the question was one which only the Princess herself was in a position definitely to solve. Ōmyōbu and her old nurse’s daughter who waited upon her at her toilet and in the bath-house had at once noted the change and were somewhat taken aback. But Ōmyōbu was unwilling to discuss the matter. She had an uncomfortable suspicion that it was the meeting which she arranged that had now taken effect with cruel promptness and precision. It was announced in the Palace that other disorders had misled those about her and prevented them from recognizing the true nature of her condition. This explanation was accepted by everyone.

The Emperor himself was full of tender concern, and though messengers kept him constantly informed, the gloomiest doubts and fancies passed continually through his mind. Genji was at this time visited by a most terrifying and extraordinary dream. He sent for interpreters, but they could make little of it. There were indeed certain passages to which they could assign no meaning at all; but this much was clear: the dreamer had made a false step and must be on his guard. ‘It was not my dream’ said Genji, feeling somewhat alarmed. ‘I am consulting you on behalf of someone else,’ and he was wondering what this ‘false step’ could have been when news reached him of the Princess’s condition. This then was the disaster which his dream had portended! At once he wrote her an immense letter full of passionate self-reproaches and exhortations. But Ōmyōbu, thinking that it would only increase her agitation, refused to deliver it, and he could trust no other messenger. Even the few wretched lines which she had been in the habit of sending to him now and again had for some while utterly ceased.

In her seventh month she again appeared at Court. Overjoyed at her return, the Emperor lavished boundless affection upon her. The added fulness of her figure, the unwonted pallor and thinness of her face gave her, he thought, a new and incomparable charm. As before, all his leisure was spent in her company. During this time several Court festivals took place and Genji’s presence was constantly required; sometimes he was called upon to play the koto or flute, sometimes to serve his father in other ways. On such occasions, strive as he might to show no trace of embarrassment or agitation, he feared more than once that he had betrayed himself; while to her such confrontations were one long torment.

The nun had somewhat improved in health and was now living in the Capital. He had enquired where she was lodging and sent messages from time to time, receiving (which indeed was all he expected) as little encouragement as before. In the last months his longing for the child had increased rather than diminished, but day after day went by without his finding any means to change the situation. As the autumn drew to its close, he fell into a state of great despondency. One fine moonlit night when he had decided, against his own inclination, to pay a certain secret visit,[7] a shower came on. As he had started from the Palace and the place to which he was going was in the suburbs of the Sixth Ward, it occurred to him that it would be disagreeable to go so far in the rain. He was considering what he should do when he noticed a tumbled-down house surrounded by very ancient trees. He asked whose this gloomy and desolate mansion might be, and Koremitsu, who, as usual, was with him replied: ‘Why that is the late Azechi no Dainagon’s house. A day or two ago I took occasion to call there and was told that my Lady the nun has grown very weak and does not now know what goes on about her.’ ‘Why did you not tell me this before? ‘said Genji deeply concerned; ‘I should have called at once to convey my sympathy to her household. Pray go in at once and ask for news.’ Koremitsu accordingly sent one of the lesser attendants to the house, instructing him to give the impression that Genji had come on purpose to enquire. When the man announced that Prince Genji had sent him for news and was himself waiting outside, great excitement and consternation prevailed in the house. Their mistress, the servants said, had for several days been lying in a very parlous condition and could not possibly receive a visit. But they dared not simply send so distinguished a visitor away, and hastily tidying the southern parlour, they bustled him into it, saying, ‘You must forgive us for showing you into this untidy room. We have done our best to make it presentable. Perhaps, on a surprise visit, you will forgive us for conducting you to such an out-of-the-way closet....’ It was indeed not at all the kind of room that he was used to. ‘I have been meaning for a long while to visit this house,’ said Genji; ‘but time after time the proposals which I made in writing concerning a certain project of mine were summarily rejected and this discouraged me. Had I but known that your mistress’s health had taken this turn for the worse....’ ‘Tell him that at this moment my mind is clear, though it may soon be darkened again. I am deeply sensible of the kindness he has shown in thus visiting my death-bed, and regret that I cannot speak with him face to face. Tell him that if by any chance he has not altered his mind with regard to the matter that he has discussed with me before, by all means let him, when the time has come, number her among the ladies of his household. It is with great anxiety that I leave her behind me and I fear that such a bond with earth may hinder me from reaching the life for which I have prayed.’

Her room was so near and the partition so thin that as she gave Shōnagon her message he could hear now and again the sound of her sad, quavering voice. Presently he heard her saying to someone ‘How kind, how very kind of him to come. If only the child were old enough to thank him nicely!’ ‘It is indeed no question of kindness,’ said Genji to Shōnagon. ‘Surely it is evident that only some very deep feeling would have driven me to display so zealous a persistency! Since first I saw this child, a feeling of strange tenderness towards her possessed me, and it has grown to such a love as cannot be of this world only.[8] Though it is but an idle fancy, I have a longing to hear her voice. Could you not send for her before I go?’ ‘Poor little thing,’ said Shōnagon. ‘She is fast asleep in her room and knows nothing of all our troubles.’ But as she spoke there was a sound of someone moving in the women’s quarters and a voice suddenly was heard saying: ‘Grandmother, Grandmother! Prince Genji who came to see us in the mountains is here, paying a visit. Why do you not let him come and talk to you?’ ‘Hush, child, hush!’ cried all the gentlewomen, scandalized. ‘No, no,’ said the child; ‘Grandmother said that when she saw this prince it made her feel better at once. I was not being silly at all.’ This speech delighted Genji; but the gentlewomen of the household thought the child’s incursion painful and unseemly, and pretended not to hear her last remark. Genji gave up the idea of paying a real visit and drove back to his house, thinking as he went that her behaviour was indeed still that of a mere infant. Yet how easy and delightful it would be to teach her!

Next day he paid a proper visit. On his arrival he sent in a poem written on his usual tiny slip of paper: ‘Since first I heard the voice of the young crane, my boat shows a strange tendency to stick among the reeds!’ It was meant for the little girl and was written in a large, childish hand, but very beautifully, so that the ladies of the house said as soon as they saw it ‘This will have to go into the child’s copy-book.’

Shōnagon sent him the following note: ‘My mistress, feeling that she might not live through the day, asked us to have her moved to the temple in the hills, and she is already on her way. I shall see to it that she learns of your enquiry, if I can but send word to her before it is too late.’ The letter touched him deeply.

During these autumn evenings his heart was in a continual ferment. But though all his thoughts were occupied in a different quarter, yet owing to the curious relationship in which the child stood to the being who thus obsessed his mind, the desire to make the girl his own throughout this stormy time grew daily stronger. He remembered the evening when he had first seen her and the nun’s poem, ‘Not knowing if any will come to nurture the tender leaf....’ She would always be delightful; but in some respects she might not fulfil her early promise. One must take risks. And he made the poem: ‘When shall I see it lying in my hand, the young grass of the moor-side that springs from purple[9] roots?’ In the tenth month the Emperor was to visit the Suzaku-in for the Festival of Red Leaves. The dancers were all to be sons of the noblest houses. The most accomplished among the princes, courtiers and other great gentlemen had been chosen for their parts by the Emperor himself, and from the Royal Princes and State Ministers downward everyone was busy with continual practices and rehearsals. Genji suddenly realized that for a long while he had not enquired after his friends on the mountain. He at once sent a special messenger who brought back this letter from the priest: ‘The end came on the twentieth day of last month. It is the common lot of mankind; yet her loss is very grievous to me!’ This and more he wrote, and Genji, reading the letter was filled with a bitter sense of life’s briefness and futility. And what of the child concerning whose future the dead woman had shown such anxiety? He could not remember his own mother’s death at all distinctly; but some dim recollection still floated in his mind and gave to his letter of condolence an added warmth of feeling. It was answered, not without a certain self-importance, by the nurse Shōnagon.

After the funeral and mourning were over, the child was brought back to the Capital. Hearing of this he allowed a short while to elapse and then one fine, still night went to the house of his own accord. This gloomy, decaying, half-deserted mansion must, he thought, have a most depressing effect upon the child who lived there. He was shown into the same small room as before. Here Shōnagon told him between her sobs the whole tale of their bereavement, at which he too found himself strangely moved. ‘I would send my little mistress to His Highness her father’s,’ she continued, ‘did I not remember how cruelly her poor mother was used in that house. And I would do it still if my little lady were a child in arms who would not know where she had been taken to nor what the people there were feeling towards her. But she is now too big a girl to go among a lot of strange children who might not treat her kindly. So her poor dead grandmother was always saying down to her last day. You, Sir, have been very good to us, and it would be a great weight off my mind to know that she was coming to you even if it were only for a little while; and I would not worry you with asking what was to become of her afterwards. Only for her sake I am sorry indeed that she is not some years older, so that you might make a match of it. But the way she has been brought up has made her young even for her age.’ ‘You need not so constantly remind me of her childishness,’ said Genji. ‘Though it is indeed her youth and helplessness which move my compassion, yet I realize (and why should I hide it from myself or from you?) that a far closer bond unites our souls. Let me tell her myself what we have just now decided,’ and he recited a poem in which he asked if ‘like the waves that lap the shore where young reeds grow he must advance only to recede again.’ ‘Will she be too much surprised?’ he added. Shōnagon, saying that the little girl should by all means be fetched, answered his poem with another in which she warned him that he must not expect her to ‘drift seaweed-like with the waves,’ before she understood his intention. ‘Now, what made you think I should send you away without letting her see you?’ she asked, speaking in an off-hand, familiar tone which he found it easy to pardon. His appearance, which the gentlewomen of the house studied with great care while he sat waiting for the child and singing to himself a verse of the song Why so hard to cross the hill? made a deep impression upon them, and they did not forget that moment for a long while after.