The Tale of Genji . Murasaki Shikibu
Princess Asagao answered, her tone was not at all unfriendly, though one might have taxed her with a certain inconsistency.
He read the sixty Tendai fascicles and asked the priests for explanations of difficult passages. Their prayers had brought this wondrous radiance upon their monastery, said even the lowliest of them, and indeed Genji’s presence seemed to bring honor to the Blessed One himself. Though he quietly thought over the affairs of the world and was reluctant to return to it, thoughts of the lady at Nijō interfered with his meditations and made it seem useless to stay longer. His gifts were lavish to all the several ranks in the monastery and to the mountain people as well; and so, having exhausted the possibilities of pious works, he made his departure. The woodcutters came down from the hills and knelt by the road to see him off. Still in mourning, his carriage draped in black, he was not easy to pick out, but from the glimpses they had they thought him a fine figure of a man indeed.
Even after this short absence Murasaki was more beautiful and more sedately mature. She seemed to be thinking about the future and what they would be to each other. Perhaps it was because she knew all about his errant ways that she had written of the “reeds of autumn.” She pleased him more and more and it was with deeper affection than ever that he greeted her.
He had brought back autumn leaves more deeply tinted by the dews than the leaves in his garden. Fearing that people might be remarking upon his neglect of Fujitsubo, he sent a few branches as a routine gift, and with them a message for Omyōbu:
“The news, which I received with some wonder, of your lady’s visit to the palace had the effect of making me want to be in retreat for a time. I have rather neglected you, I fear. Having made my plans, I did not think it proper to change them. I must share my harvest with you. A sheaf of autumn leaves admired in solitude is like ‘damasks worn in the darkness of the night.’ Show them to your lady, please, when an occasion presents itself.”
They were magnificent. Looking more closely, Fujitsubo saw hidden in them a tightly folded bit of paper. She flushed, for her women were watching. The same thing all over again! So much more prudent and careful now, he was still capable of unpleasant surprises. Her women would think it most peculiar. She Wad One of them put the leaves in a vase out near the veranda.
Genji was her support in private matters and in the far more important matter of the crown prince’s well-being. Her clipped, businesslike notes left him filled with bitter admiration at the watchfulness with which she eluded his advances. People would notice if he were suddenly to terminate his services, and so he went to the palace on the day she was to return to her family.
He first called on the emperor, whom he found free from court business and happy to talk about recent and ancient events. He bore a strong resemblance to their father, though he was perhaps handsomer, and there was a gentler, more amiable cast to his features. The two brothers exchanged fond glances from time to time. The emperor had heard, and himself had had reason to suspect, that Genji and Oborozukiyo were still seeing each other. He told himself, however, that the matter would have been worth thinking about if it had only now burst upon the world, but that it was not at all strange or improper that old friends should be interested in each other. He saw no reason to caution Genji. He asked Genji’s opinion about certain puzzling Chinese texts, and as the talk naturally turned to little poems they had sent and received he remarked on the departure of the high priestess for Ise. How pretty she had been that day! Genji told of the dawn meeting at the temporary shrine.
It was a beautiful time, late in the month. A quarter moon hung in the sky. One wanted music on nights like this, said the emperor.
“Her Majesty is leaving the palace this evening,” said Genji, “and I was thinking of calling on her. Father left such detailed instructions and there is no one to look after her. And then of course there is the crown prince.”
“Yes, Father did worry a great deal about the crown prince. Indeed one of his last requests was that I adopt him as my own son. He is, I assure you, much on my mind, but one must worry about seeming partial and setting a precedent. He writes remarkably well for his age, making up for my own awkward scrawl and general incompetence.”
“He is a clever child, clever beyond his years. But he is very young.”
As he withdrew, a nephew of Kokiden happened to be on his way to visit a younger sister. He was on the winning side and saw no reason to hide his light. He stopped to watch Genji’s modest retinue go by.
“A white rainbow crosses the sun,” he grandly intoned. “The crown prince trembles.”
Genji was startled but let the matter pass. He was aware that Kokiden’s hostility had if anything increased, and her relatives had their ways of making it known. It was unpleasant, but one was wise to look the other way.
“It is very late, I fear,” he sent in to Fujitsubo. “I have been with the emperor.
On such nights his father’s palace would have been filled with music. The setting was the same, but there was very little left by which to remember the old reign.
Omyōbu brought a poem from Fujitsubo:
“Ninefold mists have risen and come between us.
I am left to imagine the moon beyond the clouds.”
She was so near that he could feel her presence. His bitterness quite left him and he was in tears as he replied:
“The autumn moon is the autumn moon of old.
How cruel the mists that will not let me see it.
The poet has told us that mists are as unkind as people, and so I suppose that I am not the first one so troubled.”
She had numerous instructions for her son with which to delay her farewell. He was boo young to pay a great deal of attention, however, and she drew little comfort from this last interview. Though he usually went to bed very early, tonight he seemed determined to stay up for her departure. He longed to go with her, but of course it was impossible.
That objectionable nephew of Kokiden’s had made Genji wonder what people really thought of him. Life at court was more and more trying. Days went by and he did not get off a note to Oborozukiyo. The late-autumn skies warned of the approach of winter rains. A note came from her, whatever she may have meant by thus taking the initiative:
“Anxious, restless days. A gust of wind,
And yet another, bringing no word from you.”
It was a melancholy season. He was touched that she should have ventured to write. Asking the messenger to wait, he selected a particularly fine bit of paper from a supply he kept in a cabinet and then turned to selecting brush and ink. All very suggestive, thought the women. Who might the lady be?
“I had grown thoroughly weary of a one-sided correspondence, and now —‘So long it has been that you have been waiting too?’
“Deceive yourself not into thinking them autumn showers,
The tears I weep in hopeless longing to see you.
“Let our thoughts of each other drive the dismal rains from our minds.”
One may imagine that she was not the only lady who tried to move him, but his answers to the others were polite and perfunctory.
Fujitsubo was making preparations for a solemn reading of the Lotus Sutra, to follow memorial services on the anniversary of the old emperor’s death. There was a heavy snowfall on the anniversary, early in the Eleventh Month.
This poem came from Genji:
“We greet once more the day of the last farewell,
And when, in what snows, may we hope for a day of meeting?”
It was a sad day for everyone.
This was her reply:
“To live these months without him has been sorrow.
But today seems to bring a return of the days of old.”
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