The tale of Genji
am coming with you. I shall ride on horseback.’ ‘If your heart is set
upon it,’ said Koremitsu, ‘it is not for me to reason with you. Let us
start soon, so that we may be back before the night is over.’ So
putting on the hunting-dress and other garments in which he had
disguised himself before, he left his room.
Already the most hideous anguish possessed him, and now, as he set out
upon this strange journey, to the dark thoughts that filled his mind
was added a dread lest his visit might rouse to some fresh fury the
mysterious power which had destroyed her. Should he go? He hesitated;
but though he knew that this way lay no cure for his sadness, yet if
he did not see her now, never again perhaps in any life to come would
he meet the face and form that he had loved so well. So with Koremitsu
and the one same groom to bear him company he set out upon the road.
The way seemed endless. The moon of the seventeenth night had risen
and lit up the whole space of the Kamo plain, and in the light of the
outrunners’ torches the countryside towards Toribeno now came dimly
into sight. But Genji in his sickness and despair saw none of this,
and suddenly waking from the stupor into which he had fallen found
that they had arrived.
The nun’s cell was in a chapel built against the wall of a wooden
house. It was a desolate spot, but the chapel itself was very
beautiful. The light of the visitors’ torches flickered through the
open door. In the inner room there was no sound but that of a
woman weeping by herself; in the outer room were several priests
talking together (or was it praying?) in hushed voices. In the
neighbouring temples vespers were over and there was absolute
stillness; only towards the Kiyomizu were lights visible and many
figures seemed to throng the hill-side.[16]
A senior priest, son of the aged nun, now began to recite the
Scriptures in an impressive voice, and Genji as he listened felt the
tears come into his eyes. He went in. Ukon was lying behind a screen;
when she heard him enter, she turned the lamp to the wall. What
terrible thing was she trying to hide from him? But when he came
nearer he saw to his joy that the dead lady was not changed in any way
whatsoever, but lay there very calm and beautiful; and feeling no
horror or fear at all he took her hand and said, ‘Speak to me once
again; tell me why for so short a while you came to me and filled my
heart with gladness, and then so soon forsook me, who loved you so
well?’ and he wept long and bitterly by her side.
The priests did not know who he was, but they were touched by his
evident misery and themselves shed tears. He asked Ukon to come back
with him, but she answered: ‘I have served this lady since she was a
little child and never once for so much as an hour have I left her.
How can I suddenly part from one who was so dear to me and serve in
another’s house? And I must now go and tell her people what has become
of her; for (such is the manner of her death) if I do not speak soon,
there will be an outcry that it was I who was to blame, and that would
be a terrible thing for me, Sir,’ and she burst into tears, wailing ‘I
will lie with her upon the pyre; my smoke shall mingle with hers!’
‘Poor soul’ said Genji, ‘I do not wonder at your despair. But
this is the way of the world. Late or soon we must all go where she
has gone. Take comfort and trust in me.’ So he sought to console her,
but in a moment he added: ‘Those, I know, are but hollow words. I too
care no longer for life and would gladly follow her.’ So he spoke,
giving her in the end but little comfort.
‘The night is far spent’ said Koremitsu; ‘we must now be on our way.’
And so with many backward looks and a heart full to bursting he left
the house. A heavy dew had fallen and the mist was so thick that it
was hard to see the road. On the way it occurred to him that she was
still wearing his scarlet cloak, which he had lent her when they lay
down together on the last evening. How closely their lives had been
entwined!
Noting that he sat very unsteadily in his saddle, Koremitsu walked
beside him and gave him a hand. But when they came to a dyke, he lost
hold and his master fell to the ground. Here he lay in great pain and
bewilderment. ‘I shall not live to finish the journey’ he said; ‘I
have not strength to go so far.’ Koremitsu too was sorely troubled,
for he felt that despite all Genji’s insistence, he ought never to
have allowed him, fever-stricken as he was, to embark upon this
disastrous journey. In great agitation he plunged his hands in the
river and prayed to Our Lady Kwannon of Kiyomizu. Genji too roused
himself at last and forced himself to pray inwardly to the Buddha. And
so they managed to start upon their journey again and in the end with
Koremitsu’s help he reached his palace.
This sudden journey undertaken so late at night had seemed to all his
household the height of imprudence. They had noted for some while past
his nightly wanderings grow more and more frequent; but though often
agitated and pre-occupied, never had he returned so haggard as that
morning. What could be the object of these continual excursions?
And they shook their heads in great concern. Genji flung himself upon
his bed and lay there in fever and pain for several days. He was
growing very weak. The news was brought to the Emperor who was greatly
distressed and ordered continual prayers to be said for him in all the
great temples; and indeed there were more special services and
purification-ceremonies and incantations than I have room to rehearse.
When it became known that this prince so famous for his great charm
and beauty, was likely soon to die, there was a great stir in all the
kingdom.
Sick though he was he did not forget to send for Ukon and have her
enrolled among his gentlewomen. Koremitsu, who was beside himself with
anxiety concerning his master, yet managed on her arrival to calm
himself and give to Ukon friendly instruction in her new duties; for
he was touched by the helpless plight in which she had been left. And
Genji, whenever he felt a little better, would use her to carry
messages and letters, so that she soon grew used to waiting upon him.
She was dressed in deep black and though not at all handsome was a
pleasant enough looking woman.
‘It seems that the same fate which so early stayed your lady’s course
has willed that I too should be but little longer for this world. I
know in what sore distress you are left by the loss of one who was for
so many years your mistress and friend; and it was my purpose to have
comforted you in your bereavement by every care and kindness I could
devise. For this reason, indeed, it grieves me that I shall survive
her for so short a time.’ So, somewhat stiltedly, he whispered to
Ukon, and being now very weak he could not refrain from tears. Apart
from the fact that his death would leave her utterly without resource,
she had now quite taken to him and would have been very sorry indeed
if he had died.
His gentlemen ran hither and thither, distracted; the Emperor’s envoys
thronged thick as the feet of the raindrops. Hearing of his
father’s distress and anxiety, Genji strove hard to reassure him by
pretending to some slight respite or improvement. His father-in-law
too showed great concern, calling every day for news and ordering the
performance of various rites and potent liturgies; and it was perhaps
as a result of this, that having been dangerously ill for more than
twenty days, he took a turn for the better, and soon all his symptoms
began to disappear. On the night of his recovery the term of his
defilement also ended and hearing that the Emperor was still extremely
uneasy about him, he determined to reassure the Court by returning to
his official residence at the Palace. His father-in-law came to fetch
him in his own carriage and rather irritatingly urged upon him all
sorts of remedies and precautions.
For some while everything in the world to which he had now returned
seemed strange to him and he indeed scarce knew himself; but by the
twentieth day of the ninth month his recovery was complete, nor did
the pallor and thinness of his face become him by any means ill.
At times he would stare vacantly before him and burst into loud
weeping, and seeing this there were not wanting those who said that he
was surely possessed.
Often he would send for Ukon, and once when they had been talking in
the still of the evening he said to her ‘There is one thing which
still puzzles me. Why would she never tell me who she was? For even if
she was indeed, as she once said, “a fisherman’s child,” it was a
strange perversity to use such reticence with one who loved her so
well.’
‘You ask why she hid her name from you?’ said Ukon. ‘Can you wonder at
it? When could she have been expected to tell you her name (not that
it would have meant much to you if you had heard it)? For from the
beginning you treated her with a strange mistrust, coming with such
secrecy and mystery as might well make her doubt whether you were
indeed a creature of the waking world. But though you never told her
she knew well enough who you were, and the thought that you would not
be thus secret had you regarded her as more than a mere plaything or
idle distraction was very painful to her.’
‘What a wretched series of misunderstandings’ said Genji. ‘For my part
I had no mind to put a distance between us. But I had no experience in
such affairs as this. There are many difficulties in the path of such
people as I. First and foremost I feared the anger of my father the
Emperor; and then, the foolish jesting of the world. I felt myself
hedged in by courtly rules and restrictions. But for all the tiresome
concealments that my rank forced upon me, from that first evening I
had so strangely set my heart upon her that though reason counselled
me I could not hold back; and indeed it seems sometimes to me that an
irresistible fate drove me to do the thing of which I now so bitterly
and continually repent. But tell me more about her. For there can now
be no reason for concealment. When on each seventh day I cause the
names of the Buddhas to be written for her comfort and salvation, whom
am I to name in my inward prayer?’
‘There can be no harm in my telling you that’ said Ukon, ‘and I should
have done so before, did I not somehow feel it a shame to be prating
to you now about things she would not have me speak of while she was
alive. Her parents died when she was quite small. Her father, Sammi
Chūjō, loved her very dearly, but felt always that he could not give
her all the advantages to which her great beauty entitled her; and
still perplexed about her future and how best to do his duty by her,
he died. Soon afterwards some accident brought her into the company of
Tō no Chūjō[17] who was at that time still a lieutenant and for three
years he made her very happy. But in the autumn of last year
disquieting letters began to arrive from the Great Hall of the
Right,[18] and being by nature prone to fits of unreasoning fear she
now fell into a wild panic and fled to the western part of the town
where she hid herself in the house of her old wet-nurse. Here she was
very uncomfortable, and had planned to move to a certain village in
the hills, when she discovered that it would be unlucky, owing to the
position of the stars since the beginning of the year, to make a
journey in that direction; and (though she never told me so) I think,
Sir, it troubled her sorely that you should have come upon her when
she was living in so wretched a place. But there was never anyone in
the world like my lady for keeping things to herself; she could never
bear that other people should know what was on her mind. I have no
doubt, Sir, that she sometimes behaved very oddly to you and that you