The Tale of Genji . Murasaki Shikibu
all these years, she came to the palace again. She had entered the late crown prince’s household at sixteen and at twenty he had left her behind; and now, at thirty, she saw the palace once more.
“The things of the past are always of the past.
I would not think of them. Yet sad is my heart.”
The priestess was a charming, delicate girl of fourteen, dressed by her mother with very great care. She was so compelling a little figure, indeed, that one wondered if she could be long for this world. The emperor was near tears as he put the farewell comb in her hair.
The carriages of their ladies were lined up before the eight ministries to await their withdrawal from the royal presence. The sleeves that flowed from beneath the blinds were of many and marvelous hues, and no doubt there were courtiers who were making their own silent, regretful farewells.
The procession left the palace in the evening. It was before Genji’s mansion as it turned south from Nijō to Dōin. Unable to let it pass without a word, Genji sent out a poem attached to a sacred branch:
“You throw me off; but will they not wet your sleeves,
The eighty waves of the river Suzuka?”
It was dark and there was great confusion, and her answer, brief and to the point, came the next morning from beyond Osaka Gate.
“And who will watch us all the way to Ise,
To see if those eighty waves have done their work?”
Her hand had lost none of its elegance, though it was a rather cold and austere elegance.
The morning was an unusually sad one of heavy mists. Absently he whispered to himself:
“I see her on her way. Do not, O mists,
This autumn close off the Gate of the Hill of Meeting.”
He spent the day alone, sunk in a sad reverie entirely of his own making, not even visiting Murasaki. And how much sadder must have been the thoughts of the lady on the road!
From the Tenth Month alarm for the old emperor spread through the whole court. The new emperor called to inquire after him. Weak though he was, the old emperor asked over and over again that his son be good to the crown prince. And he spoke too of Genji:
“Look to him for advice in large things and in small, just as you have until now. He is young but quite capable of ordering the most complicated public affairs. There is no office of which he need feel unworthy and no task in all the land that is beyond his powers. I reduced him to common rank so that you might make full use of his services. Do not, I beg of you, ignore my last wishes.”
He made many other moving requests, but it is not a woman’s place to report upon them. Indeed I feel rather apologetic for having set down these fragments.
Deeply moved, the emperor assured his father over and over again that all of his wishes would be respected. The old emperor was pleased to see that he had matured into a man of such regal dignity. The interview was necessarily a short one, and the old emperor was if anything sadder than had it not taken place.
The crown prince had wanted to come too, but had been persuaded that unnecessary excitement was to be avoided and had chosen another day. He was a handsome boy, advanced for his years. He had longed to see his father, and now that they were together there were no bounds to his boyish delight. Countless emotions assailed the old emperor as he saw the tears in Fujitsubo’s eyes. He had many things to say, but the boy seemed so very young and helpless. Over and over again he told Genji what he must do, and the well-being of the crown prince dominated his remarks. It was late in the night when the crown prince made his departure. With virtually the whole court in attendance, the ceremony was only a little less grand than for the emperor’s visit. The old emperor looked sadly after the departing procession. The visit had been too short.
Kokiden too wanted to see him, but she did not want to see Fujitsubo. She hesitated, and then, peacefully, he died. The court was caught quite by surprise. He had, it was true, left the throne, but his influence had remained considerable. The emperor was young and his maternal grandfather, the Minister of the Right, was an impulsive, vindictive sort of man. What would the world be like, asked courtiers high and low, with such a man in control?
For Genji and Fujitsubo, the question was even crueler. At the funeral no one thought it odd that Genji should stand out among the old emperor’s sons, and somehow people felt sadder for him than for his brothers. The dull mourning robes became him and seemed to make him more deserving of sympathy than the others. Two bereavements in successive years had informed him of the futility of human affairs. He thought once more of leaving the world. Alas, too many bonds still tied him to it.
The old emperor’s ladies remained in his palace until the forty-ninth-day services were over. Then they went their several ways. It was the twentieth of the Twelfth Month, and skies which would in any case have seemed to mark the end of things were for Fujitsubo without a ray of sunlight. She was quite aware of Kokiden’s feelings and knew that a world at the service of the other lady would be difficult to live in. But her thoughts were less of the future than of the past. Memories of her years with the old emperor never left her. His palace was no longer a home for his ladies, however, and presently all were gone.
Fujitsubo returned to her family palace in Sanjō. Her brother, Prince Hyōbu, came for her. There were flurries of snow, driven by a sharp wind. The old emperor’s palace was almost deserted. Genji came to see them off and they talked of old times. The branches of the pine in the garden were brown and weighed down by snow.
The prince’s poem was not an especially good one, but it suited the occasion and brought tears to Genji’s eyes:
“Withered the pine whose branches gave us shelter?
Now at the end of the year its needles fall.”
The pond was frozen over. Genji’s poem was impromptu and not, perhaps, among his best:
“Clear as a mirror, these frozen winter waters.
The figure they once reflected is no more.”
This was Omyōbu’s poem:
“At the end of the year the springs are silenced by ice.
And gone are they whom we saw among the rocks.”
There were other poems, but I see no point in setting them down.
The procession was as grand as in other years. Perhaps it was only in the imagination that there was something forlorn and dejected about it. Fujitsubo’s own Sanjō palace now seemed like a wayside inn. Her thoughts were on the years she had spent away from it.
The New Year came, bringing no renewal. Life was sad and subdued. Sadder than all the others, Genji was in seclusion. During his father’s reign, of course, and no less during the years since, the New Year apPointments had brought such streams of horses and carriages to his gates that there had been room for no more. Now they were deserted. Only a few listless guards and secretaries occupied the offices. His favorite retainers did come calling, but it was as if they had time on their hands. So, he thought, life was to be.
In the Second Month, Kokiden’s sister Oborozukiyo, she of the misty moon, was appointed wardress of the ladies’ apartments, replacing a lady who in grief at the old emperor’s death had become a nun. The new wardress was amiable and cultivated, and the emperor was very fond of her.
Kokiden now spent most of her time with her own family. When she was at court she occupied the Plum Pavilion. She had turned her old Kokiden Pavilion over to Oborozukiyo, who found it a happy change from her rather gloomy and secluded rooms to the north. Indeed it quite swarmed with ladies-in-waiting. Yet she coul snot forget that strange encounter with Genji, and it was on her initiative that they still kept up a secret correspondence. He was very nervous about it, but excited (for such was his nature) by the challenge which her new position seemed to offer.
Kokiden had bided her time while the old emperor lived, but she was a willful,