The Tale of Genji . Murasaki Shikibu
was on horseback.
When they reached their destination one of his men pounded on the gate. Ignorant of what was afoot, the porter allowed Genji’s carriage to be pulled inside. Koremitsu went to a corner door and coughed. Shōnagon came out.
“My lord is here.”
“And my lady is asleep. You pick strange hours for your visits.” Shōnagon suspected that he was on his way home from an amorous adventure.
Genji had joined Koremitsu.
“There is something I must say to her before she goes to her father’s.”
Shōnagon smiled. “And no doubt she will have many interesting things to say in reply.”
He pushed his way inside.
“Please, sir. We were not expecting anyone. The old women are a dreadful sight.”
“I will go wake her. The morning mist is too beautiful for sleep.”
He went into her bedroom, where the women were too surprised to cry out. He took her in his arms and smoothed her hair. Her father had come for her, she thought, only half awake.
“Let’s go. I have come from your father’s.” She was terrified when she saw that it was not after all her father. “You are not being nice. I have told you that you must think of me as your father.” And he carried her out.
A chorus of protests now came from Shōnagon and the others.
“I have explained things quite well enough. I have told you how difficult it is for me to visit her and how I want to have her in a more comfortable and accessible spot; and your way of making things easier is to send her off to her father. One of you may come along, if you wish.”
“Please, sir.” Shōnagon was wringing her hands. “You could not have chosen a worse time. What are we to say when her father comes? If it is her fate to be your lady, then perhaps something can be done when the time comes. This is too sudden, and you put us in an extremely difficult position.”
“You can come later if you wish.”
His carriage had been brought up. The women were fluttering about helplessly and the child was sobbing. Seeing at last that there was nothing else to be done, Shōnagon took up several of the robes they had been at work on the night before, changed to presentable clothes of her own, and got into the carriage.
It was still dark when they reached Nijō, only a short distance away. Genji ordered the carriage brought up to the west wing and took the girl inside.
“It is like a nightmare,” said Shōnagon. “What am I to do?”
“Whatever you like. I can have someone see you home if you wish.”
Weeping helplessly, poor Shōnagon got out of the carriage. What would her lady’s father think when he came for her? And what did they now have to look forward to? The saddest thing was to be left behind by one’s protectors. But tears did not augur well for the new life. With an effort she pulled herself together.
Since no one was living in this west wing, there was no curtained bedchamber. Genji had Koremitsu put up screens and curtains, sent someone else to the east wing for bedding, and lay down. Though trembling violently, the girl managed to keep from sobbing aloud.
“I always sleep with Shōnagon,” she said softly in childish accents.
“Imagine a big girl like you still sleeping with her nurse.”
Weeping quietly, the girl lay down.
Shōnagon sat up beside them, looking out over the garden as dawn came on. The buildings and grounds were magnificent, and the sand in the garden was like jewels. Not used to such affluence, she was glad there were no other women in this west wing. It was here that Genji received occasional callers. A few guards beyond the blinds were the only attendants.
They were speculating on the identity of the lady he had brought with him. “Someone worth looking at, you can bet.”
Water pitchers and breakfast were brought in. The sun was high when Genji arose. “You will need someone to take care of you. Suppose you send this evening for the ones you like best.” He asked that children be sent from the east wing to play with her. “Pretty little girls, please.” Four little girls came in, very pretty indeed.
The new girl, his Murasaki, still lay huddled under the singlet he had thrown over her.
“You are not to sulk, now, and make me unhappy. Would I have done all this for you if I were not a nice man? Young ladies should do as they are told.” And so the lessons began.
She seemed even prettier here beside him than from afar. His manner warm and fatherly, he sought to amuse her with pictures and toys he had sent for from the east wing. Finally she came over to him. Her dark mourning robes were soft and unstarched, and when she smiled, innocently and unprotestingly, he had to smile back. She went out to look at the trees and pond after he had departed for the east wing. The flowers in the foreground, delicately touched by frost, were like a picture. Streams of courtiers, of the medium ranks and new to her experience, passed back and forth. Yes, it was an interesting place. She looked at the pictures on screens and elsewhere and (so it is with a child) soon forgot her troubles.
Staying away from court for several days, Genji worked hard to make her feel at home. He wrote down all manner of poems for her to copy, and drew all manner of pictures, some of them very good. “I sigh, though I have not seen Musashi,” he wrote on a bit of lavender paper. She took it up, and thought the hand marvelous. In a tiny hand he wrote beside it:
“Thick are the dewy grasses of Musashi,
Near this grass to the grass I cannot have.”
“Now you must write something.”
“But I can’t.” She looked up at him, so completely without affectation that he had to smile.
“You can’t write as well as you would like to, perhaps, but it would be wrong of you not to write at all. You must think of me as your teacher.”
It was strange that even her awkward, childish way of holding the brush should so delight him. Afraid she had made a mistake, she sought to conceal what she had written. He took it from her.
“I do not know what it is that makes you sigh.
And whatever grass can it be I am so near to?”
The hand was very immature indeed, and yet it had strength, and character. It was very much like her grandmother’s. A touch of the modern and it would not be at all unacceptable. He ordered dollhouses and as the two of them played together he found himself for the first time neglecting his sorrows.
Prince Hyōbu went for his daughter on schedule. The women were acutely embarrassed, for there was next to nothing they could say to him. Genji wished to keep the girl’s presence at Nijō secret, and Shōnagon had enjoined the strictest silence. They could only say that Shōnagon had spirited the girl away, they did not know where.
He was aghast. “Her grandmother did not want me to have her, and so I suppose Shōnagon took it upon herself, somewhat sneakily I must say, to hide her away rather than give her to me.” In tears, he added: “Let me know if you hear anything.”
Which request only intensified their confusion.
The prince inquired of the bishop in the northern hills and came away no better informed. By now he was beginning to feel some sense of loss (such a pretty child); and his wife had overcome her bitterness and, happy at the thought of a little girl to do with as she pleased, was similarly regretful.
Presently Murasaki had all her women with her. She was a bright, lively child, and the boys and girls who were to be her playmates felt quite at home with her. Sometimes on lonely nights when Genji was away she would weep for her grandmother. She thought little of her father. They had lived apart and she scarcely knew him. She was by now extremely fond of her new father. She