The tale of Genji
to leave the body and break out into emotions which the waking mind
would not countenance. Even where someone’s actions are all but
irreproachable (she reflected) people take a malicious delight in
saying nothing about the good he has done and everything about the
evil. With what joy would they seize upon such a story as this! That
after his death a man’s ghost should pursue his enemies is a thing
which seems to be of constant occurrence, yet even this is taken as a
sign that the dead man was of a fiendishly venomous and malignant
character and his reputation is utterly destroyed. ‘What then will
become of me if it is thought that while still alive I have been
guilty of so hideous a crime?’ She must face her fate. She had lost
Genji for ever. If she were to keep any control at all over her own
thoughts she must first of all find some way of putting him wholly out
of mind. She kept on reminding herself not to think of him, so that
this very resolve led her in the end to think of him but the more.
The Virgin of Ise should by rights have entered upon her duties before
the end of the year, but difficulties of various kinds arose and it
was not till the autumn of the next year that she could at last be
received. She was to enter the Palace in-the-Fields[14] in the ninth
month, but this was decided so late that the arrangements for
her second Purification had to be made in great haste. It was
very inconvenient that at this crisis her mother, so far from
superintending the preparations, spent hour after hour lying dazed and
helpless upon her bed. At last the priests arrived to fetch the girl
away. They took a grave view of the mother’s condition and gave her
the benefit of their presence by offering up many prayers and
incantations. But week after week she remained in the same condition,
showing no symptom which seemed actually dangerous, yet all the time
(in some vague and indefinite way) obviously very ill. Genji sent
constantly to enquire after her, but she saw clearly that his
attention was occupied by quite other matters. Aoi’s delivery was not
yet due and no preparations for it had been made, when suddenly there
were signs that it was close at hand. She was in great distress, but
though the healers recited prayer upon prayer their utmost efforts
could not shift by one jot the spiteful power which possessed her. All
the greatest miracle-workers of the land were there; the utter failure
of their ministrations irritated and perplexed them. At last, daunted
by the potency of their incantations, the spirit that possessed her
found voice and, weeping bitterly, she was heard to say: ‘Give me a
little respite; there is a matter of which Prince Genji and I must
speak.’ The healers nodded at one another as though to say ‘Now we
shall learn something worth knowing,’ for they were convinced that the
‘possession’ was speaking through the mouth of the possessed, and they
hurried Genji to her bedside. Her parents thinking that, her end being
near, she desired to give some last secret injunction to Genji,
retired to the back of the room. The priests too ceased their
incantations and began to recite the _Hokkekyo_[15] in low impressive
tones. He raised the bed-curtain. She looked lovely as ever as
she lay there, very big with child, and any man who saw her even
now would have found himself strangely troubled by her beauty. How
much the more then Prince Genji, whose heart was already overflowing
with tenderness and remorse! The plaited tresses of her long hair
stood out in sharp contrast to her white jacket.[16] Even to this
loose, sick-room garb her natural grace imparted the air of a
fashionable gown! He took her hand. ‘It is terrible’ he began, ‘to see
you looking so unhappy ...’ he could say no more. Still she gazed at
him, but through his tears he saw that there was no longer in her eyes
the wounded scorn that he had come to know so well, but a look of
forbearance and tender concern; and while she watched him weep her own
eyes brimmed with tears. It would not do for him to go on crying like
this. Her father and mother would be alarmed; besides, it was
upsetting Aoi herself, and meaning to cheer her he said: ‘Come, things
are not so bad as that! You will soon be much better. But even if
anything should happen, it is certain that we shall meet again in
worlds to come. Your father and mother too, and many others, love you
so dearly that between your fate and theirs must be some sure bond
that will bring you back to them in many, many lives that are to be.’
Suddenly she interrupted him: ‘No, no. That is not it. But stop these
prayers awhile. They do me great harm,’ and drawing him nearer to her
she went on ‘I did not think that you would come. I have waited for
you till all my soul is burnt with longing.’ She spoke wistfully,
tenderly; and still in the same tone recited the verse ‘Bind thou, as
the seam of a skirt is braided, this shred, that from my soul despair
and loneliness have sundered.’ The voice in which these words were
said was not Aoi’s; nor was the manner hers. He knew someone
whose voice was very like that. Who was it? Why, yes; surely only
she,—the Lady Rokujō. Once or twice he had heard people suggest that
something of this kind might be happening; but he had always rejected
the idea as hideous and unthinkable, believing it to be the malicious
invention of some unprincipled scandalmonger, and had even denied that
such ‘possession’ ever took place. Now he had seen one with his own
eyes. Ghastly, unbelievable as they were, such things did happen in
real life. Controlling himself at last he said in a low voice: ‘I am
not sure who is speaking to me. Do not leave me in doubt....’ Her
answer proved only too conclusively that he had guessed aright. To his
horror her parents now came back to the bed, but she had ceased to
speak, and seeing her now lying quietly her mother thought the attack
was over, and was coming towards the bed carrying a basin of hot water
when Aoi suddenly started up and bore a child. For the moment all was
gladness and rejoicing; but it seemed only too likely that the spirit
which possessed her had but been temporarily dislodged; for a fierce
fit of terror was soon upon her, as though the thing (whatever it was)
were angry at having been put to the trouble of shifting, so that
there was still grave anxiety about the future. The Abbot of Tendai
and the other great ecclesiastics who were gathered together in the
room attributed her easy delivery to the persistency of their own
incantations and prayers, and as they hastily withdrew to seek
refreshment and repose they wiped the sweat from their brows with an
expression of considerable self-satisfaction. Her friends who had for
days been plunged in the deepest gloom now began to take heart a
little, believing that although there was no apparent improvement yet
now that the child was safely born she could not fail to mend. The
prayers and incantations began once more, but throughout the
house there was a new feeling of confidence; for the amusement of
looking after the baby at least gave them some relief from the strain
under which they had been living for so many days. Handsome presents
were sent by the ex-Emperor, the Royal Princes and all the Court,
forming an array which grew more dazzling each night.[17] The fact
that the child was a boy made the celebrations connected with his
birth all the more sumptuous and elaborate.
The news of this event took Lady Rokujō somewhat aback. The last
report she had heard from the Great Hall was that the confinement was
bound to be very dangerous. And now they said that there had not been
the slightest difficulty. She thought this very peculiar. She had
herself for a long while been suffering from the most disconcerting
sensations. Often she felt as though her whole personality had in some
way suddenly altered. It was as though she were a stranger to herself.
Recently she had noticed that a smell of mustard-seed incense for
which she was at a loss to account was pervading her clothes and hair.
She took a hot bath and put on other clothes; but still the same odour
of incense pursued her. It was bad enough even in private to have this
sensation of being as it were estranged from oneself. But now her body
was playing tricks upon her which her attendants must have noticed and
were no doubt discussing behind her back. Yet there was not one person
among those about her with whom she could bring herself to discuss
such things and all this pent-up misery seemed only to increase the
strange process of dissolution which had begun to attack her mind.
Now that Genji was somewhat less anxious about Aoi’s condition the
recollection of his extraordinary conversation with her at the
crisis of her attack kept on recurring in his mind, and it made so
painful an impression upon him that though it was now a long time
since he had communicated with Rokujō and he knew that she must be
deeply offended, he felt that no kind of intimacy with her would ever
again be possible. Yet in the end pity prevailed and he sent her a
letter. It seemed indeed that it would at present be heartless to
absent himself at all from one who had just passed through days of
such terrible suffering and from her friends who were still in a state
of the gravest anxiety, and all his secret excursions were abandoned.
Aoi still remained in a condition so serious that he was not allowed
to see her. The child was as handsome an infant as you could wish to
see. The great interest which Genji took in it and the zest with which
he entered into all the arrangements which were made for its welfare
delighted Aoi’s father, inasmuch as they seemed signs of a better
understanding between his daughter and Genji; and though her slow
recovery caused him great anxiety, he realized that an illness such as
that through which she had just passed must inevitably leave
considerable traces behind it and he persuaded himself that her
condition was less dangerous than one might have supposed. The child
reminded Genji of the Heir Apparent and made him long to see
Fujitsubo’s little son again. The desire took such strong hold upon
him that at last he sent Aoi a message in which he said: ‘It is a very
long time since I have been to the Palace or indeed have paid any
visits at all. I am beginning to feel the need of a little
distraction, so to-day I am going out for a short while and should
like to see you before I go. I do not want to feel that we are
completely cut off from one another.’ So he pleaded, and he was
supported by her ladies who told her that Prince Genji was her own
dear Lord and that she ought not to be so proud and stiff with him.
She feared that her illness had told upon her looks and was for
speaking to him with a curtain between, but this too her gentlewomen
would not allow. He brought a stool close to where she was lying and
began speaking to her of one thing or another. Occasionally she put in
a word or two, but it was evident that she was still very weak.
Nevertheless it was difficult to believe that she had so recently
seemed almost at the point of death. They were talking quietly
together about those worst days of her illness and how they now seemed
like an evil dream when suddenly he recollected the extraordinary
conversation he had had with her when she was lying apparently at her
last gasp and filled with a sudden bitterness, he said to her: ‘There
are many other things that I must one day talk to you about. But you
seem very tired and perhaps I had better leave you.’ So saying he
arranged her pillows, brought her warm water to wash in and in fact
played the sick-nurse so well that those about her wondered where he
had acquired the art. Still peerlessly beautiful but weak and listless