The Tale of Genji . Murasaki Shikibu
enshrouded in mist. It was as though he had indeed come “three thousand leagues.” The spray from the oars brought thoughts scarcely to be borne.
“Mountain mists cut off that ancient village.
Is the sky I see the sky that shelters it?”
Not far away Yukihira had lived in exile, “dripping brine from the sea grass.” Genji’s new house was some distance from the coast, in mountains utterly lonely and desolate. The fences and everything within were new and strange. The grass-roofed cottages, the reed-roofed galleries — or so they seemed — were interesting enough in their way. It was a dwelling proper to a remote littoral, and different from any he had known. Having once had a taste for out-of-the-way places, he might have enjoyed this Suma had the occasion been different.
Yoshikiyo had appointed himself a sort of confidential steward. He summoned the overseers of Genji’s several manors in the region and assigned them to necessary tasks. Genji watched admiringly. In very quick order he had a rather charming new house. A deep brook flowed through the garden with a pleasing murmur, new plantings were set out; and when finally he was beginning to feel a little at home he could scarcely believe that it all was real. The governor of the province, an old retainer, discreetly performed numerous services. All in all it was a brighter and livelier place than he had a right to expect, although the fact that there was no one whom he could really talk to kept him from forgetting that it was a house of exile, strange and alien. How was he to get through the months and years ahead?
The rainy season came. His thoughts traveled back to the distant city. There were people whom he longed to see, chief among them the lady at Nijō, whose forlorn figure was still before him. He thought too of the crown prince, and of little Yūgiri, running so happily, that last day, from father to grandfather and back again. He sent off letters to the city. Some of them, especially those to Murasaki and to Fujitsubo, took a great deal of time, for his eyes clouded over repeatedly.
This is what he wrote to Fujitsubo:
“Briny our sleeves on the Suma strand; and yours
In the fisher cots of thatch at Matsushima?
“My eyes are dark as I think of what is gone and what is to come, and ‘the waters rise.’”
His letter to Oborozukiyo he sent as always to Chūnagon, as if it were a private matter between the two of them.” With nothing else to occupy me, I find memories of the past coming back.
“At Suma, unchastened, one longs for the deep-lying sea pine.
And she, the fisher lady burning salt?”
I shall leave the others, among them letters to his father-in-law and Yūgiri’s nurse, to the reader’s imagination. They reached their several destinations and gave rise to many sad and troubled thoughts.
Murasaki had taken to her bed Her women, doing everything they could think of to comfort her, feared that in her grief and longing she might fall into a fatal decline. Brooding over the familiar things he had left behind, the koto, the perfumed robes, she almost seemed on the point of departing the world. Her women were beside themselves. Shōnagon sent asking that the bishop, her uncle, pray for her. He did so, and to double purpose, that she be relieved of her present sorrows and that she one day be permitted a tranquil life with Genji.
She sent bedding and other supplies to Suma. The robes and trousers of stiff, unfigured white silk brought new pangs of sorrow, for they were unlike anything he had worn before. She kept always with her the mirror to which he had addressed his farewell poem, though it was not acquitting itself of the duty he had assigned to it. The door through which he had come and gone, the cypress pillar at his favorite seat — everything brought sad memories. So it is even for people hardened and seasoned by trials, and how much more for her, to whom he had been father and mother! “Grasses of forgetfulness” might have sprung up had he quite vanished from the earth; but he was at Suma, not so very far away, she had heard. She could not know when he would return.
For Fujitsubo, sorrow was added to uncertainty about her son. And how, at the thought of the fate that had joined them, could her feelings for Genji be of a bland and ordinary kind? Fearful of gossips, she had coldly turned away each small show of affection, she had become more and more cautious and secretive, and she had given him little sign that she sensed the depth of his affection. He had been uncommonly careful himself Gossips are cruelly attentive people (it was a fact she knew too well), but they seemed to have caught no suspicion of the affair. He had kept himself under tight control and preserved the most careful appearances. How then could she not, in this extremity, have fond thoughts for him?
Her reply was more affectionate than usual.
“The nun of Matsushima burns the brine
And fuels the fires with the logs of her lamenting,
now more than ever.”
Enclosed with Chūnagon’s letter was a brief reply from Oborozukiyo:
“The fisherwife burns salt and hides her fires
And strangles, for the smoke has no escape.
“I shall not write of things which at this late date need no saying.”
Chūnagon wrote in detail of her lady’s sorrows. There were tears in his eyes as he read her letter.
And Murasaki’s reply was of course deeply moving. There was this poem:
“Taking brine on that strand, let him compare
His dripping sleeves with these night sleeves of mine.”
The robes that came with it were beautifully dyed and tailored. She did everything so well. At Suma there were no silly and frivolous distractions, and it seemed a pity that they could not enjoy the quiet life together. Thoughts of her, day and night, became next to unbearable. Should he send for her in secret? But no: his task in this gloomy situation must be to make amends for past misdoings. He began a fast and spent his days in prayer and meditation.
There were also messages about his little boy, Yūgiri. They of course filled him with longing; but he would see the boy again one day, and in the meantime he was in good hands. Yet a father must, however he tries, “wander lost in thoughts upon his child.”
In the confusion I had forgotten: he had sent off a message to the Rokujō lady, and she on her own initiative had sent a messenger to seek out his place of exile. Her letter was replete with statements of the deepest affection. The style and the calligraphy, superior to those of anyone else he knew, showed unique breeding and cultivation.
”Having been told of the unthinkable place in which you find yourself, I feel as if I were wandering in an endless nightmare. I should imagine that you will be returning to the city before long, but it will be a very long time before I, so lost in sin, will be permitted to see you. ”Imagine, at Suma of the dripping brine,
The woman of Ise, gathering briny sea grass.
And what is to become of one, in a world where everything conspires to bring new sorrow?” It was a long letter.
”The tide recedes along the coast of Ise.
No hope, no promise in the empty shells.”
Laying down her brush as emotion overcame her and then beginning again, she finally sent off some four or five sheets of white Chinese paper. The gradations of ink were marvelous. He had been fond of her, and it had been wrong to make so much of that one incident. She had turned against him and presently left him. It all seemed such a waste. The letter itself and the occasion for it so moved him that he even felt a certain affection for the messenger, an intelligent young man in her daughter’s service. Detaining him for several days, he heard about life at Ise. The house being rather small, the messenger was able to observe Genji at close range. He was moved to tears of admiration by what he saw. The reader may be left to imagine Genji’s reply. He said among other things: “Had I known I was destined to leave the city, it would have been better, I tell myself in the tedium and loneliness here, to go off with you to Ise.
“With