The Tale of Genji . Murasaki Shikibu
on your mind,” said the sage. “You must try to think of something else.”
Genji climbed the hill behind the temple and looked off toward the city. The forests receded into a spring haze.
“Like a painting,” he said. “People who live in such a place can hardly want to be anywhere else.”
“Oh, these are not mountains at all,” said one of his men. “The mountains and seas off in the far provinces, now — they would make a real picture. Fuji and those other mountains.”
Another of his men set about diverting him with a description of the mountains and shores of the West Country. “In the nearer provinces the Akashi coast in Harima is the most beautiful. There is nothing especially grand about it, but the view out over the sea has a quiet all its own. The house of the former governor — he took his vows not long ago, and he worries a great deal about his only daughter — the house is rather splendid. He is the son or grandson of a minister and should have made his mark in the world, but he is an odd sort of man who does not get along well with people. He resigned his guards commission and asked for the Harima post. But unfortunately the people of the province do not seem to have taken him quite seriously. Not wanting to go back to the city a failure, he became a monk. You may ask why he should have chosen then to live by the sea and not in a mountain temple. The provinces are full of quiet retreats, but the mountains are really too remote, and the isolation would have been difficult for his wife and young daughter. He seems to have concluded that life by the sea might help him to forget his frustrations.
“I was in the province not long ago and I looked in on him. He may not have done well in the city, but he could hardly have done better in Akashi. The grounds and the buildings are really very splendid. He was, after all, the governor, and he did what he could to make sure that his last years would be comfortable. He does not neglect his prayers, and they would seem to have given him a certain mellowness.”
“And the daughter?” asked Genji.
“Pretty and pleasant enough. Each successive governor has asked for her hand but the old man has turned them all away. He may have ended up an insignificant provincial governor himself, he says, but he has other plans for her. He is always giving her list instructions. If he dies with his grand ambitions unrealized she is to leap into the sea.”
Genji smiled.
“A cloistered maiden, reserved for the king of the sea,” laughed one of his men. “A very extravagant ambition.”
The man who had told the story was the son of the present governor of Harima. He had this year been raised to the Fifth Rank for his services in the imperial secretariat.
“I know why you lurk around the premises,” said another. “You’re a lady’s man, and you want to spoil the old governor’s plans.”
And another: “You haven’t convinced me. She’s a plain country girl, no more. She’s lived in the country most of her life with an old father who knows nothing of the times and the fashions.”
“The mother is the one. She has used her connections in the city to find girls and women from the best families and bring them to Akashi. It makes your head spin to watch her.”
“If the wrong sort of governor were to take over, the old man would have his worries.”
Genji was amused. “Ambition wide ad deep as the sea. But alas, we would not see her for the seaweed.”
Knowing his fondness for oddities, his men had hoped that the story would interest him.
“It is rather late, sir, and seeing as you have not had another attack, suppose we start for home.”
But the sage objected. “He has been possessed by a hostile power. We must continue our services quietly through the night.”
Genji’s men were persuaded, and for Genji it was a novel and amusing excursion.
“We will start back at daybreak.”
The evening was long. He took advantage of a dense haze to have a look at the house behind the wattled fence. Sending back everyone except Koremitsu, he took up a position at the fence. In the west room sat a nun who had a holy image before her. The blinds were slightly raised and she seemed to be offering flowers. She was leaning against a pillar and had a text spread out on an armrest. The effort to read seemed to take all her strength. perhaps in her forties, she had a fair, delicate skin and a pleasantly full face, though the effects of illness were apparent. The features suggested breeding and cultivation. Cut cleanly at the shoulders, her hair seemed to him far more pleasing than if it had been permitted to trail the usual length. Beside her were two attractive women, and little girls scampered in and out. Much the prettiest was a girl of perhaps ten in a soft white singlet and a russet robe. She would one day be a real beauty. Rich hair spread over her shoulders like a fan. Her face was flushed from weeping.
“What is it?” The nun looked up. “Another fight?” He thought he saw a resemblance. Perhaps they were mother and daughter.
“Inuki let my baby sparrows loose.” The child was very angry. “I had them in a basket.”
“That stupid child,” said a rather handsome woman with rich hair who seemed to be called Shōnagon and was apparently the girl’s nurse. “She always manages to do the wrong thing, and we are forever scolding her. Where will they have flown off to? They were getting to be such sweet little things too! How awful if the crows find them.” She went out.
“What a silly child you are, really too silly,” said the nun. “I can’t be sure I will last out the day, and here you are worrying about sparrows. I’ve told you so many times that it’s a sin to put birds in a cage. Come here.”
The child knelt down beside her. She was charming, with rich, unplucked eyebrows and hair pushed childishly back from the forehead. How he would like to see her in a few years! And a sudden realization brought him close to tears: the resemblance to Fujitsubo, for whom he so yearned, was astonishing.
The nun stroked the girl’s hair. “You will not comb it and still it’s so pretty. I worry about you, you do seem so very young. Others are much more grown up at your age. Your poor dead mother: she was only ten when her father died, and she understood everything. What will become of you when I am gone?”
She was weeping, and a vague sadness had come over Genji too. The girl gazed attentively at her and then looked down. The hair that fel over her forehead was thick and lustrous. “Are these tender grasses to grow without the dew
Which holds itself back from the heavens that would receive it?”
There were tears in the nun’s voice, and the other woman seemed also to be speaking through tears:
“It cannot be that the dew will vanish away
Ere summer comes to these early grasses of spring.”
The bishop came in. “What is this? Your blinds up? And today of all days you are out at the veranda? I have just been told that General Genji is up at the hermitage being treated for malaria. He came in disguise and I was not told in time to pay a call.”
“And what a sight we are. You don’t suppose he saw us?” She lowered the blinds.
“The shining one of whom the whole world talks. Wouldn’t you like to see him? Enough to make a saint throw off the last traces of the vulgar world, they say, and feel as if new years had been added to his life. I will get off a note.”
He hurried away, and Genji too withdrew. What a discovery! It was for such unforeseen rewards that his amorous followers were so constantly on the prowl. Such a rare outing for him, and it had brought such a find! She was a perfectly beautiful child. Who might she be? He was beginning to make plans: the child must stand in the place of the one whom she so resembled.
As he lay down to sleep, an acolyte came asking for Koremitsu. The cell was a narrow one and Genji could hear everything that was said.
“Though somewhat startled to learn