The Tale of Genji . Murasaki Shikibu
which of these brooding clouds may I look to find her?
Neither can I say,” he added, as if to himself.
“It is a time of storms when even the clouds
To which my lady has risen are blotted away.”
Genji’s grief was clearly unfeigned. Very odd, thought Tō no Chūjō. Genji had so often been reproved by his father for not being a better husband, and the attentions of his father-in-law had made him very uncomfortable. There were circumstances, having largely to do with his nearness to Princess Omiya, which kept him from leaving Aoi completely; and so he had continued to wait upon her, making little attempt to hide his dissatisfaction. Tō no Chūjō had more than once been moved to pity him in this unhappy predicament. And now it seemed that she had after all had a place in his affections, that he had loved and honored her. Tō no Chūjō’s own sorrow was more intense for the knowledge. It was as if a light had gone out.
Gentians and wild carnations peeped from the frosty tangles. After Tō no Chūjō had left, Genji sent a small bouquet by the little boy’s nurse, Saishō, to Princess Omiya, with this message:
“Carnations at the wintry hedge remind me
Of an autumn which we leave too far behind.
Do you not think them a lovely color?”
Yes, the smiling little “wild carnation” he now had with him was a treasure.
The princess, less resistant to tears than the autumn leaves to the winds, had to have someone read Genji’s note to her.
She sent this answer:
“I see them, and my sleeves are drenched afresh,
The wild carnations at the wasted hedge.”
It was a dull time. He was sure that his cousin Princess Asagao, despite her past coolness, would understand his feelings on such an evening. He had not written in a long time, but their letters had always been irregularly spaced. His note was on azure Chinese paper.
“Many a desolate autumn have I known,
But never have my tears flowed as tonight.
Each year brings rains of autumn.”
His writing was more beautiful all the time, said her women, and see what pains he had taken. She must not leave the note unanswered.
She agreed. “I knew how things must be on Mount Ouchi, but what was I to say?
“I knew that the autumn mists had faded away,
And looked for you in the stormy autumn skies.”
That was all. It was in a faint hand which seemed to him — his imagination, perhaps — to suggest deep, mysterious things. We do not often find in this world that the actuality is better than the anticipation, but it was Genji’s nature to be drawn to retiring women. A woman might be icy cold, he thought, but her affections, once awakened, were likely to be strengthened by the memory of the occasions that had called for reluctant sympathy. The affected, overrefined sort of woman might draw attention to herself, but it had a way of revealing flaws she was herself unaware of. He did not wish to rear his Murasaki after such a model. He had not forgotten to ask himself whether she would be bored and lonely without him, but he thought of her as an orphan he had taken in and did not worry himself greatly about what she might be thinking or doing, or whether she might be resentful of his outside activities.
Ordering a lamp, he summoned several of the worthier women to keep him company. He had for some time had his eye on one Chūnagon, but for the period of mourning had put away amorous thoughts. It seemed most civilized of him.
He addressed them affectionately, though with careful politeness. “I have felt closer to you through these sad days. If I had not had you with me I would have been lonelier than I can think. We need not brood over what is finished, but I fear that difficult problems lie ahead of us.”
They were in tears. “It has left us in the blackest darkness, “ said one of them, “and the thought of how things will be when you are gone is almost too much to bear.” She could say no more.
Deeply touched, Genji looked from one to another. “When I am gone — how can that be? You must think me heartless. Be patient, and you will see that you are wrong. Though of course life is very uncertain.” Tears came to his eyes as he looked into the lamplight. They made him if anything handsomer, thought the women.
Among them was a little girl, an orphan, of whom Aoi had been especially fond. He quite understood why the child should now be sadder than any of the others. “You must let me take care of you, Ateki.” She broke into a violent sobbing. In her tiny singlet, a very dark gray, and her black cloak and straw-colored trousers, she was a very pretty little thing indeed.
Over and over again he asked the women to be patient. “Those of you who have not forgotten — you must bear the loneliness and do what you can for the boy. I would find it difficult to come visiting if you were all to run off.”
They had their doubts. His visits, they feared, would be few and far between. Life would indeed be lonely.
Avoiding ostentation, the minister distributed certain of Aoi’s belongings to her women, after their several ranks: little baubles and trinkets, and more considerable mementos as well.
Genji could not remain forever in seclusion. He went first to his father’s palace. His carriage was brought up, and as his retinue gathered an autumn shower swept past, as if it knew its time, and the wind that summons the leaves blew a great confusion of them to the ground; and for the sorrowing women the sleeves that had barely had time to dry were damp all over again. Genji would go that night from his father’s palace to Nijō. Thinking to await him there, his aides and equerries went off one by one. Though this would not of course be his last visit, the gloom was intense.
For the minister and Princess Omiya, all the old sorrow came back. Genji left a note for the princess: “My father has asked to see me, and I shall call upon him today. When I so much as set foot outside this house, I feel new pangs of grief, and I ask myself how I have survived so long. I should come in person to take my leave, I know, but I fear that I would quite lose control of myself. I must be satisfied with this note.”
Blinded with tears, the princess did not answer.
The minister came immediately. He dabbed at his eyes, and the women were weeping too. There seemed nothing in the least false about Genji’s own tears, which gave an added elegance and fineness of feature.
At length controlling himself, the minister said: “An old man’s tears have a way of gushing forth at the smallest provocation, and I am unable to stanch the flow. Sure that I must seem hopelessly senile and incontinent, I have been reluctant to visit your royal father. If the subject arises, perhaps you can explain to him how matters are. It is painful, at the end of your life, to be left behind by a child.” He spoke with great difficulty.
Genji was weeping only less openly. “We all of course know the way of the world, that we cannot be sure who will go first and who will remain behind, but the shock of the specific instance is all the same hard to bear. I am sure that my father will understand.”
“Well, then, perhaps you should go before it is too dark. There seems to be no letting up of the rain.”
Genji looked around at the rooms he was about to leave. Behind curtains, through open doors, he could see some thirty women in various shades of gray, all weeping piteously.
“I have consoled myself,” said the minister, “with the thought that you are leaving someone behind in this house whom you cannot abandon, and that you will therefore find occasion to visit in spite of what has happened; but these not very imaginative women are morbid in their insistence that you are leaving your old home for good. It is natural that they should grieve for the passing of the years when they have seen you on such intimate and congenial terms, indeed that they should grieve more than for the loss of their lady. You were never really happy