The tale of Genji
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.
The child was lying on her bed weeping for her grandmother. ‘A
gentleman in a big cloak has come to play with you,’ said one of the
women who were waiting upon her; ‘I wonder if it is your father.’ At
this she jumped up and cried out: ‘Nurse, where is the gentleman in a