The tale of Genji
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