The Tale of Genji . Murasaki Shikibu
she did not say so, quite outrageous.
The bishop came out.
“Very well, then. I have made a beginning, and it has given me strength.” And Genji pushed the screen back in place.
In the Lotus Hall, voices raised in an act of contrition mingled solemnly with the roar of the waterfall and the wind that came down from the mountain.
This was Genji’s poem, addressed to the bishop:
“A wind strays down from the hills to end my dream,
And tears well forth at these voices upon the waters.”
And this the bishops reply:
“These waters wet your sleeves. Our own are dry,
And tranquil our hearts, washedd lean by mountain waters.
“Such is the effect of familiarity with these scenes.”
There were heavy mists in the dawn sky, and bird songs came from Genji knew not where. Flowering trees and grasses which he could not identify spread like a tapestry before him. The deer that now paused to feed by the house and now wandered on were for him a strange and wonderful sight. He quite forgot his illness. Though it was not easy for the sage to leave his retreat, he made his way down for final services. His husky voice, emerging uncertainly from a toothless mouth, had behind it long years of discipline, and the mystic incantations suggested deep and awesome powers.
An escort arrived from the city, delighted to see Genji so improved, and a message was delivered from his father. The bishop had a breakfast of unfamiliar fruits and berries brought from far down in the valley.
“I have vowed to stay in these mountains until the end of the year, and cannot see you home.” He pressed wine upon Genji. “And so a holy vow has the perverse effect of inspiring regrets.”
“I hate to leave your mountains and streams, but my father seems worried and I must obey his summons. I shall come again before the cherry blossoms have fallen.
“I shall say to my city friends:‘Make haste to see
Those mountain blossoms. The winds may see them first.’”
His manner and voice were beautiful beyond description.
The bishop replied:
“In thirty hundreds of years it blooms but once.
My eyes have seen it, and spurn these mountain cherries.”
“A very great rarity indeed,” Genji said, smiling, “a blossom with so long and short a span.”
The sage offered a verse of thanks as Genji filled his cup:
“My mountain door of pine has opened briefly
To see a radiant flower not seen before.”
There were tears in his eyes. His farewell present was a sacred mace which had special protective powers. The bishop too gave farewell presents: a rosary of carved ebony which Prince Shōtoku had obtained in Korea, still in the original Chinese box, wrapped in a netting and attached to a branch of cinquefoil pine; several medicine bottles of indigo decorated with sprays of cherry and wisteria and the like; and other gifts as well, all of them appropriate to the mountain setting. Genji’s escort had brought gifts for the priests who had helped with the services, the sage himself and the rest, and for all the mountain rustics too. And so Genji started out.
The bishop went to the inner apartments to tell his sister of Genji’s proposal.
“It is very premature. If in four or five years he has not changed his mind we can perhaps give it some thought.”
The bishop agreed, and passed her words on without comment.
Much disappointed, Genji sent in a poem through an acolyte:
“Having come upon an evening blossom,
The mist is loath to go with the morning sun.”
She sent back:
“Can we believe the mist to be so reluctant?
We shall watch the morning sky for signs of truth.”
It was in a casual, cursive style, but the hand was a distinguished one.
He was about to get into his carriage when a large party arrived from the house of his father-in-law, protesting the skill with which he had eluded them. Several of his brothers-in-law, including the oldest, Tō no Chūjō, were among them.
“You know very well that this is the sort of expedition we like best. You could at least have told us. Well, here we are, and we shall stay and enjoy the cherries you have discovered.”
They took seats on the moss below the rocks and wine was brought out.1t was a pleasant spot, beside cascading waters. Tō no Chūjō took out a flute, and one of his brothers, marking time with a fan, sang “To the West of the Toyora Temple.” They were handsome young men, all of them, but it was the ailing Genji whom everyone was looking at, so handsome a figure as he leaned against a rock that he brought a shudder of apprehension. Always in such a company there is an adept at the flageolet, and a fancier of the shō pipes as well.
The bishop brought out a seven-stringed Chinese koto and pressed Genji to play it. “Just one tune, to give our mountain birds a pleasant surprise.”
Genji protested that he was altogether too unwell, but he played a passable tune all the same. And so they set forth. The nameless priests and acolytes shed tears of regret, and the aged nuns within, who had never before seen such a fine gentleman, asked whether he might not be a visitor from another world.
“How can it be,” said the bishop, brushing away a tear, “that such a one has been born into the confusion and corruption in which we live?”
The little girl too thought him very grand. “Even handsomer than Father,” she said.
“So why don’t you be his little girl?”
She nodded, accepting the offer; and her favorite doll, the one with the finest wardrobe, and the handsomest gentleman in her pictures too were thereupon named “Genji.”
Back in the city, Genji first reported to his father upon his excursion. The emperor had never before seen him in such coarse dress.
He asked about the qualifications of the sage, and Genji replied in great detail.
“I must see that he is promoted. Such a remarkable record and I had not even heard of him.”
Genji’s father-in-law, the Minister of the Left, chanced to be in attendance. “I thought of going for you, but you did after all go off in secret. Suppose you have a few days’ rest at Sanjō. I will go with you, immediately.”
Genji was not enthusiastic, but he left with his father-in-law all the same. The minister had his own carriage brought up and insisted that Genji get in first. This solicitude rather embarrassed him.
At the minister’s Sanjō mansion everything was in readiness. It had been polished and refitted until it was a jeweled pavilion, perfect to the last detail. As always, Genji’s wife secluded herself in her private apartments, and it was only at her father’s urging that she came forth; and so Genji had her before him, immobile, like a princess in an illustration for a romance. It would have been a great pleasure, he was sure, to have her comment even tartly upon his account of the mountain journey. She seemed the stiffest, remotest person in the world. How odd that the aloofness seemed only to grow as time went by.
“It would be nice, I sometimes think, if you could be a little more wifely. I have been very ill, and I am hurt, but not really surprised, that you have not inquired after my health.”
“Like the pain, perhaps, of awaiting a visitor who does not come?”
She cast a sidelong glance at him as she spoke, and her cold beauty was very intimidating indeed.
“You so