The tale of Genji
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.
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