CHAPTER XIIEXILE AT SUMA
THE intrigue against him was becoming every day more formidable. It was evident that he could not in any case go on living much longer where he was, and by a voluntary withdrawal he might well get off more lightly than if he merely allowed events to take their course.
There was Suma. It might not be such a bad place to choose. There had indeed once been some houses there; but it was now a long way to the nearest village and the coast wore a very deserted aspect. Apart from a few fishermen’s huts there was not anywhere a sign of life. This did not matter, for a thickly populated, noisy place was not at all what he wanted; but even Suma was a terribly long way from the Capital, and the prospect of being separated from all those whose society he liked best was not at all inviting. His life hitherto had been one long series of disasters. As for the future, it did not bear thinking of! Clearly the world held in store for him nothing but disappointment and vexation. But no sooner had he proved to himself convincingly that he was glad to leave the Capital than he began to recollect a thousand reasons for remaining in it. Above all, he could not imagine what would become of Murasaki if he were to leave her. Even when for one reason or another he was obliged to pass a few days away from his palace, he spent so much of the time wondering how she was getting on without him that henever really enjoyed himself and in the end dreaded even these short absences almost as much as she did. Now he was going away not for a fixed number of days or even years, but for a huge, incalculable period of time; perhaps (for who knew what might not happen either to him or her?) forever. The thought that he might never see her again was unendurable and he began to devise a scheme for hiding her in his retinue and secretly taking her with him. He soon saw however that this was quite impracticable. First there was the difficult sea-journey; and then, at Suma, the total lack of amusements and society. The waves and winds of that desolate shore would make poor companions for one used to the gaieties of a fashionable house. It would moreover be utterly impossible in such a place to make adequate provision for the comfort of a fastidious and delicately-nurtured lady. Her presence would soon involve him in all sorts of difficulties and anxieties. She herself felt that she would rather face every danger, every hardship, than be left behind at the Nijō-in, and that he should doubt her courage wounded her deeply.
The ladies at the ‘village of falling flowers,’ though in any case they saw him but seldom, were dismayed at the news of his departure, not for personal reasons only, but also because they had come to depend in numerous ways on his patronage and support. Many others whose acquaintance with him was very slight, were, though they would not have confessed it, shattered at the prospect of his disappearance from the Court. The abbess1herself feared that if she showed him any open mark of sympathy at this turn in his fortunes she would give new life to rumours which had already been used against him by his enemies. But from the time when his decision was first announced she contrived to send him constant secret messages. Hecould not help reflecting with some bitterness that she might sometimes have shown an equal concern while it was still possible for her to console him in more concrete ways. But it seemed to be fated that throughout all this long relationship each, however well disposed, should only cause torment to the other. He left the City about the twentieth day of the third month. The date of his departure had not been previously disclosed and he left his palace very quietly, accompanied only by some seven or eight intimate retainers. He did not even send formal letters of farewell but only hasty and secret messages to a few of those whom he loved best, telling them in such words as came to him at the moment what pain it cost him to leave them. Those notes were written under the stress of deep emotion and would doubtless interest the reader; but though some of them were read to me at the time, I was myself in so distracted a state of mind that I cannot accurately recall them. Two or three days before his departure he paid a secret visit to Aoi’s father. He came in a rattan-coach such as women use, and heavily disguised. When they saw that it was indeed Prince Genji who had stepped out of this humble equipage the people at the Great Hall could hardly believe that this was not some strange dream. Aoi’s old room wore a dismal and deserted air; but the nurses of his little boy and such of Aoi’s servants as were still in the house soon heard the news of his unexpected arrival and came bustling from the women’s quarters to gaze at him and pay him their respects. Even the new young servants who had not seen him before and had no reason to take his affairs particularly to heart were deeply moved at this farewell visit, which brought home to them so vividly the evanescence of human grandeurs. The little prince recognized him and at once ran up to him in the prettiest and most confiding way. This delighted Genji; taking the child onhis knee he played with it so charmingly that the ladies could hardly contain their emotion. Presently the old Minister arrived: ‘I have often meant,’ he said, ‘during these last months when you have been living so much at home, to come round and talk over with you various small matters connected with the past; but first I was ill and for a long time could not attend to my duties, and then at last my resignation was definitely accepted. Now I am merely a private person, and I have been afraid that if I came to see you it would be said that it must be to promote some personal intrigue that I was bestirring my aged bones. As far as I am concerned I am out of it all, and have really nothing to be afraid of. But these new people are very suspicious and one cannot be too careful.... I am distressed beyond measure that you should be obliged to take the course which you are now contemplating; I would gladly not have lived to witness such a day. These are bad times, and I fully expected to see a great deal of mischief done to the country. But I confess I did not foresee that you would find yourself in such a situation as this, and I am heart-broken about it, utterly heart-broken....’ ‘We are told,’ answered Genji, ‘that everything which happens to us in this life is the result of our conduct in some previous existence. If this is to be taken literally I suppose I must now accept the fact that in a previous incarnation I must have misbehaved myself in some way. It is clear, at any rate, that I am in bad odour at Court; though, seeing that they have not thought it necessary to deprive me of my various offices and titles, they cannot have very much against me. But when the Government has shown that it mistrusts a man, he is generally considered much to blame if he continues to flaunt himself at Court as though nothing were amiss. I could cite many instances in the history both of our ownand other countries. But distant banishment, the penalty which I hear is contemplated in my case, has never been decreed except as the penalty of scandalous and open misdemeanour. My conscience is of course perfectly clear; but I see that it would be very dangerous to sit down and await events. I have therefore decided to withdraw from the Capital, lest some worse humiliation should befall me.’ He gave the Minister many further details of his proposed flight. The old man replied with a multitude of reminiscences, particularly of the late Emperor, with anecdotes illustrating his opinions and policies. Each time that Genji tried to go his father-in-law gripped his sleeve and began a new story. He was indeed himself deeply moved by these stories of old days, as also by the pretty behaviour of his little son, who while they were talking of policies and grave affairs constantly ran up to one or the other with his absurd, confiding prattle. The Minister continued: ‘Though the loss of my dear daughter is a sorrow from which to my dying day I shall not recover, I find myself now quite thankful that she did not live to see these dreadful days. Poor girl, she would have suffered terribly. What a nightmare it all is! More than anything else I am distressed that my grandson here should be left with us elderly people and that for months or even years to come you will be quite cut off from him.
‘As you say, exile has hitherto been reserved as a punishment for particularly grave offences. There have indeed been many cases both here and in China of innocent persons being condemned to banishment, but always in consequence of some false charge being made against them. But against you a threat of exile seems to have been made without any cause being alleged. I cannot understand it....’
Tō no Chūjō now joined them and wine was served. It was very late, but Genji showed no signs of going, andpresently all the gentlewomen of the household collected round him and made him tell them stories. There was one among them, Chūnagon by name, who, though she never spoke of it, had always cared for Genji far more deeply than did any of her companions. She now sat sad and thoughtful waiting to say something to him but unable to think of anything to say. He noticed this and was very sorry for her. When all the rest had gone to their rooms he kept her by him and talked to her for a long while. It may perhaps have been for her sake that he stayed so long. Dawn was beginning to come into the sky and the moon, which had not long risen, darted its light among the blossom of the garden trees, now just beyond their prime. In the courtyard leafy branches cast delicate half-shadows upon the floor, and thin wreaths of cloud sank through the air till they met the first flicker of the white grass-mists which, scarcely perceptible, now quivered in the growing light.
He hung over the balustrade outside the corner room and for a while gazed in silence at this scene, which transcended even the beauty of an autumn night. Chūnagon, that she might watch him go, had opened the main door and stood holding it back. ‘I shall return,’ Genji said, ‘and we shall surely meet again. Though indeed, when I think about it, I can find no reason to suppose that I shall ever be recalled. Oh, why did I not make haste to know you in better days, when it would have been so easy for us to meet?’ She wept but made no answer.
Presently Aoi’s mother sent a message by Saishō, the little prince’s nurse: ‘There are many things that I want to talk over with you, but my mind is nowadays so clouded and confused that I hesitate to send for you. It is kind of you to have paid us so long a visit and I would ask you to come to me; but I fear that to talk with you would remind me too much of all that is now so changed. However,pray do not leave the house till your poor little son is awake.’ He answered with the poem: ‘To a shore I go where the tapering smoke of salt-kilns shall remind me of the smoke that loitered by her pyre.’ He wrote no letter to go with the poem, but turning to the nurse he said: ‘It is sad at all times to leave one’s friends at dawn. How much the more for one such as I, who goes never to return!’ ‘Indeed,’ she answered, ‘“farewell” is a monster among words, and never yet sounded kindly in any ear. But seldom can this word have had so sinister an import as to all of us on this unhappy morning.’
Touched by her concern at his departure he felt that he must give her what she evidently expected,—some further message for her mistress, and he wrote: ‘There is much that I should like to say, but after all you will have little difficulty in imagining for yourself the perplexity and despair into which my present situation has plunged me. I should indeed dearly like to see the little prince before I go. But I fear that the sight of him might weaken my resolution to forsake the fleeting world, and therefore I must force myself to leave this house without further delay.’
The whole household was now awake and every one was on the watch to see him start. The moon shone red at the edge of the sky, and in its strange light he looked so lovely, yet so sad and thoughtful, that the hearts of wolves and tigers, nay of very demons, would have melted at the sight of him. It may be imagined then with what feelings those gentlewomen watched him drive away, many of whom had known and loved him since he was a child. But I had forgotten to say that Aoi’s mother replied with the poem: ‘Seek not another sky, but if you love her,2stay beneath these clouds with which her soul is blent.’ When hereached his own palace he found that none of the gentlewomen there had slept a wink. They were sitting a few here, a few there, in frightened groups, looking as though they would never lift their heads again. Those officers of his household and personal retainers who had been chosen to go with him to Suma were busy preparing for their departure or saying good-bye to their friends, so that the retainers’ hall was absolutely deserted; nor had the gentlewomen whom he was leaving behind dared to present themselves on the occasion of his departure, for they knew that any demonstration of good will towards an enemy of those in power would be remembered against them by the Government. So that instead of his doors being thronged, as once they had been, by a continual multitude of horsemen and carriages, he found them that morning utterly deserted and realized with bitterness how frail is the fabric of worldly power. Already his great guest-tables, pushed against the wall, were looking tarnished and dusty; the guest-mats were rolled up and stowed away in corners. If the house looked like this now, what sort of spectacle he wondered would it present when he had been absent for a few months?
On reaching the western wing he found the partition door still open. Murasaki had sat there watching till dawn. Some of the little boys who waited upon her were sleeping on the verandah. Hearing him coming they now shook themselves and rose with a clatter. It was a pleasant sight to see them pattering about in their little pages’ costumes; but now he watched them with a pang at his heart, for he could not help remembering that while he was away they would grow up into men and in the end have to seek service elsewhere. And indeed during those days he looked with interest and regret on many things which had never engaged his attention before. ‘I am so sorry about last night,’ he said. ‘One thing happened after another,and by the time I was free to come back it would not have been worth while. You must have thought it horrid of me. Now that there is so little time left, I hate to be away from you at all. But my departure from the Court naturally involves me in many painful duties, and it would be quite impossible for me to remain shut up here all the time. There are other people, some of whom I may very likely never see again, who would think it unkind of me if I did not even bid them good-bye....’ ‘It is your going away that matters,’ she answered; ‘nothing else is of any consequence now....’ She said no more, but sat staring before her in an attitude of the profoundest despair. And indeed, as Genji realized, she had every possible reason to dread his departure. Her father Prince Hyōbukyō had never put himself out for her, and since Genji’s disgrace he stopped writing and no longer even enquired about her. She was ashamed of his worldly caution and dreaded lest others should notice it. For her part she was resolved that, since he showed no interest in her, she would be the last to remind him of her existence. Some one told her that her step-mother3went about saying: ‘This is what comes of trying to get on too quickly in the world. Look how she has been punished! All her relatives expire and now her lover takes flight!’ She was deeply distressed and felt that she could not ever communicate with her step-mother again. There was indeed no one to whom she could turn for help, and her position was likely to be in every way unhappy and difficult. ‘I promise,’ said Genji to comfort her, ‘that if my exile seems likely to last for a considerable time, I will send for you to join me, even if I can offer you nothing better to live in than a hole in the rocks. But it would be considered most improper for me to take you with me now. People who are disapproved ofby the Government are expected to creep about miserably in the dark, and if they try to make themselves happy and comfortable it is considered very wicked. I have not of course done anything wrong, but my misfortune must certainly be due to some sin in a previous life, and I am sure that if I did anything so unusual as to take my lady into exile with me, fate would find some yet more cruel way to punish me for the presumption.’
He then lay down and slept till noon. Later in the day his half-brother Prince Sochi no Miya and Tō no Chūjō called and offered to help him dress. He reminded them that he had resigned his rank and they brought him a cloak of plain silk without any crest or badge. This costume had an informal air which became him better than they had expected. When he went to the mirror that his servants might do his hair he could not help noticing how thin his face had lately grown, and he said ‘What a fright I look! Can I really be such a skeleton as this? It is indeed a bad business if I am.’ Murasaki, her eyes full of tears, came and peeped at the mirror. To distract her he recited the poem: ‘Though I wander in strange lands and far away, in this mirror let me leave my image, that it may never quit your side.’ ‘That, yes, even so little as that, would comfort me, if indeed this mirror might hold the image of your distant face.’ So she answered, and without another word sank into a seat behind the roof-pillar, that her tears might not be seen. His heart went out to her, and he felt at this moment that among all the women he had known she was indeed the most adorable.
His step-brother now fell to reminding him of scenes in their common childhood, and it was already growing dark when he left Genji’s room. The lady at the ‘village of falling flowers’ had written to him constantly since she heard the news of his approaching departure. He knewthat she had many reasons for dreading his absence and it seemed unfeeling not to pay her one more visit before he left. But if he spent another evening away from his palace Murasaki would be very disappointed, and he therefore did not start till late in the night. He went first to the room of Princess Reikeiden, who was flattered and delighted beyond measure that hers should be the only house to which he paid the honour of a farewell visit. But what passed between them was not of sufficient interest to be recorded. He remembered that it was only through his help and protection that she had managed to overcome the difficulties and anxieties of the last few years. Now matters would go from bad to worse. In the house nothing stirred. The moon had risen and now shimmered faintly through the clouds. The lake in front of the building was large and wild, and dense thickets of mountain-trees surrounded it. He was just thinking that there could hardly in all the world be a lovelier, stranger place, when he remembered the rocky shore of Suma,—a thousand times more forbidding, more inaccessible!
The younger sister had quite made up her mind that Genji was going to leave the house without visiting her, and she was all the more surprised and delighted when at last, more lovely than ever by moonlight and in the grave simplicity of his exile’s dress, he stole into her room. At once she crept towards the window and they stood together gazing at the moonlight. They talked for a while, and found to their astonishment that it was nearly day. ‘How short the night has been,’ said Genji. ‘Yet even such a hasty meeting as this may never be ours again. Why did I not know you better in all those years when it would have been so easy to meet? Never have such misfortunes befallen an innocent man before, nor ever will they again. I go from torment to torment. Listen ...’ and he wasbeginning to recount to her the disasters and miscalculations of the past when the cock crowed, and fearing detection he hastened away.
The moon was like last night, just on the point of setting; it seemed to him a symbol of his own declining fortunes. Shining through the dark purple of her dress the moonlight had indeed, as in the old poem, ‘the leaden look of those who weep,’ and she recited the poem: ‘Though to the moonlight my sleeve but narrow lodging can afford, yet might it dwell there for ever and for ever, this radiance4of which my eyes can never tire.’ He saw that she was deeply moved by this parting and in pity sought to comfort her with the poem: ‘In its long journeying the moon at last shall meet a clearer sky; then heed not if for a while its light be dimmed.’ ‘It is foolish,’ he added, ‘to spoil the present with tears for sorrows that are still to come,’ and with that he hurried away, that he might be out of the house while it was still dark.
At home he had a great many things to arrange before his departure. First of all he had to give instructions concerning the upkeep of his palace to the few faithful retainers who had taken the risk of remaining in his service. When these had at last all been assigned their functions, difficulties arose about some of the attendants who were to have gone with him into exile, and a fresh choice had to be made. Then there was the business of deciding how much luggage he should take with him to his mountain fastness. Some things were obviously indispensable; but even when he cut down his equipment to the barest possible necessities there were still all kinds of odds and ends, such as writing-materials, poems, Chinese books, which all had to be fitted into the right sort of boxes. And then there was his zithern; he could not leave that behind. But he tookno large objects of furniture nor any of his more elaborate costumes, having resigned himself to the prospect of a completely bucolic existence. Finally he had to explain to Murasaki all the arrangements he had made about the servants who were to stay behind, and a hundred other matters. Into her charge too he put all the documents concerning his various estates and grazing-lands in different parts of the country. His granaries and store-houses he put into the keeping of the nurse Shōnagon whose vigilance and reliability he had often noted, giving her the help of one or two trusted household officers. And here again there were numerous arrangements to be made.
With the gentlewomen of his palace he had never been on intimate terms. But he kept them in a good humour by sending for them occasionally to talk with him, and he now summoned them all, saying to them: ‘I am afraid it will be rather dull here while I am away. But if any of you care to stay in my service on the chance that I may one day return to the Court, which if I live long enough is indeed certain to happen sooner or later,—please consider yourselves at the disposition of the Lady in the western wing.’ So saying he sent for all the other servants, high and low, and distributed suitable keepsakes among them.
No one was forgotten; to the nurse of Aoi’s little son and even to the servants at the ‘village of falling flowers’ he sent tokens of his appreciation, chosen, you may be sure, with the greatest taste and care.
To Oborozuki, despite a certain reluctance, he wrote at last: ‘That after what happened between us you should have ceased to communicate with me was both natural and prudent. But I would now have you know that the unparalleled ferocity of my enemies has at last driven me from the Court. “The rising torrent of your reproachful tears has carried me at last to the flood-mark of exile anddisgrace.” I cannot forget that this folly alone was the instrument of my undoing.’ There was some danger that the letter might fall into wrong hands before it reached its destination, and for that reason he made it brief and vague.
The lady was heart-stricken, and though she strove to hide her tears, they flowed in a torrent that her sleeve was not broad enough to dam. She sent him the poem: ‘Long ere I reach the tide of your return shall I, poor scum upon the river of tears, be vanished out of sight.’ She was weeping violently when she wrote it, and there were many blotches and mistakes, but her writing was at all times elegant and pleasing. He would very much have liked to see her once more before his departure, and he many times thought of arranging it. But she was too intimately connected with just those people who had been chiefly responsible for his undoing, and somewhat regretfully he put the idea aside.
On the evening of the day before his departure he went to worship at his father’s tomb on the Northern Hills. As the moon did not rise till after midnight he found himself with time on his hands, and went first to visit the Abbess Fujitsubo. She allowed him to stand close up to her curtain, and on this occasion spoke to him with her own mouth. She naturally had many questions to talk over concerning the future of her son, which was now more than ever uncertain. But apart from this, two people who had once lived on such terms as this prince and princess, could not now fail to have much to say to one another of a far more intimate and tender character. He thought her every bit as charming and graceful as in old days, and this made him allude with bitterness to her heartless treatment of him. But he remembered in time that her present state made any such complaints in the highest degree unseemly and inappropriate. He was allowing his feelings to get outof hand, and withdrawing for a while into his own thoughts, he said at last: ‘This punishment has come upon me quite unexpectedly, and when I try to account for it, one possible explanation of a most alarming character presents itself to my mind. I am not thinking of the danger to myself should a certain fact be known, but of the disastrous consequences of such a disclosure upon the career of the young prince, your son....’ The same possibility had of course occurred to her. Her heart beat wildly, but she did not answer. The many painful scenes in which he had recently taken part had broken his spirit and he now wept unrestrainedly. ‘I am going to the Royal Tombs,’ he said at last. ‘Have you any message?’ She answered with the poem: ‘He that was, is not; and he that is, now hides from the afflictions of the world. What increase but of tears did my renunciation bring?’
At last the moon rose, and he set out. Only five or six attendants were with him, men of low rank, but all of them deeply attached to him. Genji himself rode on horseback like the rest. This was quite natural on such an occasion, but his companions could not help contrasting this melancholy cavalcade with the splendours of his retinue in former days. Among them the most downcast was Ukon,5who had formed part of his special escort on the occasion of the Kamo festival a few years ago. This gentleman had since that time seen himself repeatedly passed over at the annual distribution of honours, and finally his name disappeared altogether from the lists. Being without employment he had been obliged to go into service, and was now acting as Genji’s groom. As they rode along Ukon’s eye lighted on the Lower Shrine of Kamo which lay quite near their road, and remembering that wonderful day of the festival he leapt from his horse andholding Genji’s bridle he recited the verse: ‘Well I remember how, crowned with golden flowers, we rode together on that glorious day! Little, alas, they heed their worshippers, the churlish gods that in the Shrine of Kamo dwell.’
Genji well knew what was passing through the man’s mind. He remembered with indignation and pity how Ukon had been the gayest, the most resplendent figure among those who had ridden with him on that day. Genji too alighted from his horse and turning his face towards the Shrine repeated this parting poem: ‘Thou who art called the Righter of Wrongs, to Thee I leave it to clear the name that stays behind me, now that I am driven from the fleeting haunts of men.’ Ukon was a very impressionable youth, and this small episode thrilled and delighted him beyond measure.
At last they reached the Tombs. Genji’s mind was full of long-forgotten images. He saw his father seated on the throne in the days of his prime, the pattern of a kindly yet magnificent king. Who could then have guessed that death would in an instant deface all memory of that good and glorious reign? Who could have foreseen that the wise policies which, with tears in his eyes, he had time and again commended to those about him, would in an instant be reversed, and even his dying wishes contemptuously cast aside? The path to the Royal Tomb was already overgrown with tall thick grass, so that in pressing his way along it he became soaked with dew. The moon was hidden behind clouds, dank woods closed about him on either hand, such woods as give one the feeling one will never return through them alive. When at last he knelt at the tomb, his father’s face appeared so vividly before him that he turned cold with fear. Then murmuring the verse: ‘How comes it that thy vanished image looms before me, though the bright moon, symbol of thy high fortunes, ishidden from my sight?’ he set out towards the town, for it was now broad daylight. On his return he sent a message to the Heir Apparent. Ōmyōbu had taken charge of the child since Fujitsubo’s retirement and it was through her that Genji now addressed his son: ‘I leave the City to-day. That I have been unable to visit you once more is the greatest of my many vexations. You indeed know better than I can tell what thoughts are mine in this extremity, and I beg you to commend me to your little master in such terms as you deem best.’ With this letter he enclosed a spray of withered cherry-blossoms to which was tied the poem: ‘When again shall I see the flowers of the City blossoming in Spring, I whom fortune has cast out upon the barren mountains of the shore?’ This she passed on to the boy who, young though he was, quite well understood the import of the message, and when Ōmyōbu added ‘It is hard at present to say when he will return...!’ the young prince said sadly ‘Even when he stays away for a little while I miss him very much, and now that he is going a long way off I do not know how I shall get on.... Please say this to him for me.’
She was touched by the simplicity of his message. Ōmyōbu often called to mind all the misery which in past days had grown out of her mistress’s disastrous attachment. Scene after scene rose before her. How happy they might both have been, if only.... And then she would remember that she and she alone had been the promoter of their ruin. She had pleaded for Genji, arranged those fatal meetings! And a bitter remorse filled her soul. She now sent the following reply: ‘His Highness dictated no formal answer. When I informed him of your departure, his distress was very evident....’ This and more she wrote, somewhat incoherently, for her thoughts were in great confusion. With the letter was the poem: ‘Though sadit is to mark how swift the flowers fall, yet to the City Spring will come again and with it, who can tell....’ ‘Oh if that time were come!’ she added, and spent the hours which followed in recounting such moving tales of Genji’s wisdom and kindness that every one in the Palace was soon dissolved in tears. If these people who but seldom caught sight of him were distressed at the prospect of his departure, it may be imagined what were the feelings of those whose duties brought them constantly into his presence. At the Nijō-in every one down to the mere scullery-maids and outdoor servants, who could never hope to exchange a single word with him and had thought themselves very lucky if they obtained an occasional glance or smile, had always been in despair when it was known that he would be absent from the palace even for a few days. Nor was his downfall by any means welcome in the country at large. Since his seventh year he had enjoyed the privilege of running in and out of the old Emperor’s rooms just as he felt inclined. Everything he asked for had been granted without question, and there were few who had not at one time or another found themselves beholden to his boundless good-nature and generosity. Even among the great nobles and Ministers of the Crown there were some who owed their first promotion to Genji’s good offices; and countless persons of less importance knew quite well that they owed everything to him. But such was their dread of the present Government, with its ruthless methods of persecution and suppression, that not one of them now came near him. Expressions of regret were everywhere heard; but it was only in the secrecy of their own hearts that these sympathizers dared blame the Government for happenings which they universally deplored. After all, what was the good of risking their own positions by showing to the exiled prince civilities which could be of no real useto him? There was some sense in this, but on Genji their prudence made a most painful and dispiriting impression. He suddenly felt the world was inhabited by a set of mean and despicable creatures, none of whom were worth putting oneself out for in any way at all.
He spent the whole of that day quietly with Murasaki at his palace. He was to start soon after midnight. She hardly knew him as he stood before her dressed in his queer travelling clothes. ‘The moon has risen,’ he said at last. ‘Come out to the door and see me start. I know that at the last minute I shall think of all kinds of things I meant to say to you to-day. Even when I am only going away for a few nights, there are always so many things to remember....’ He raised the curtain-of-state behind which she was sitting and drew her with him towards the portico. She was weeping bitterly. Her feet would not obey her and she stumbled haltingly at his side. The moonlight fell straight upon her face. He looked down at her tenderly. The thought came to him that he might die at Suma. Who would look after her? What would become of her? He was indeed no less heart-broken than she; but he knew that if he gave way to his feelings her misery would only be increased and he recited the verse: ‘We who so long have sworn that death alone should part us, must suffer life for once to cancel all our vows.’ He tried to speak lightly, but when she answered: ‘Could my death pay to hold you back, how gladly would I purchase a single moment of delay,’ he knew that she was not speaking idly. It was terrible to leave her, but he knew that by daylight it would be harder still, and he fled from the house. All the way down to the river her image haunted him and it was with a heart full to bursting that he went aboard the ship. It was a season when the days are long, and meeting with a favourable wind they found themselvesat Suma between three and four o’clock in the afternoon.6It was indeed a trifling journey, but to Genji, who had never crossed the sea before, the experience was somewhat alarming, though his fears were mingled with wonder and delight. As they came in sight of that wild and lonely headland where stands the Hall of Ōye7marked by its solitary pine, he recited the verse: ‘A life more outcast shall be mine among these hills than all those exiles led whose sufferings the books of Kara8have rehearsed.’ He watched the waves lapping up over the sands and then creeping back again. It put him in mind of the ancient song: ‘Oh would that like the tides I went but to return!’ Those who were with him knew the song well enough, but never before had it moved them as now when Genji murmured to himself the long-familiar words. Looking back he saw that the mountains behind them were already melting into the hazy distance, and it seemed to him that he had indeed travelled the classical ‘three thousand leagues’ of which the Chinese poets so often speak. The monotonous dripping of the oars now became almost unendurable. ‘Now is my home hid from me by the mist-clad hills, and even the sky above me seems not the lovely cloudland that I knew.’ So he sang, being for the moment utterly downcast and dispirited.
His new home was quite close to the place where in ancient days Ariwara no Yukihira9once lived in exile, ‘trailing his water-buckets along the lonely shore.’ At thispoint the sea bends back, forming a shallow inlet, encompassed by desolate hills.
He proceeded to inspect the hut which had been prepared for his reception. Never had he seen such a place before. Even the hedge was built in quite a different way from what he was used to; and the hut itself, with its thatched roof and wide-spreading gables covered with wattled bull-rushes, seemed to him the most extraordinary place to live in. But he could not help admiring the ingenuity with which it was constructed, and he knew that if he had come there under different circumstances the prospect of staying in such a cottage would have fascinated and delighted him. How, in the old days, he had longed for such an experience!
Many repairs and alterations were necessary, and Genji sent at once for the bailiffs of some of his estates which lay in the neighbourhood. They and their workmen, directed by the faithful Yoshikiyo, soon carried out Genji’s plans, and the place began to assume a much more habitable air. The pond was dredged and deepened, plantations were laid out. Soon he settled down to his new life in a way that he would never have dreamed to be possible. The Governor of the province had formerly been attached to his household, and though he did not dare to give him a public welcome, he made it clear in private that his sympathies were on Genji’s side. Thus even in this remote spot he was not entirely deprived of society; but there was no one with whom he was really intimate and such conversation as he could get was of the most superficial and uninteresting kind. He felt almost as isolated as if he had been cast up on a desert island, and the prospect of spending months, nay years, buried away amid these uncivilized surroundings still appalled him. He was just beginning to reconcile himself a little to his rustic employments when the summer rainsset in. During this tedious period of inactivity he thought much of his friends at the Capital. Often he called to mind the picture of Murasaki’s misery in those last hours, of the Heir Apparent’s infant beauty or the heedless antics of Aoi’s little son. He determined to send a courier to the City, and began writing letters to everybody. While he wrote to the Lady of his palace and again while he wrote to Fujitsubo in her cloister he wept so bitterly that the letters had many times to be put aside. To Oborozuki he dared not write direct, but as he had sometimes done before enclosed a message to her in a letter to Lady Chūnagon, with the acrostic poem: ‘That I, though cast like weed upon the barren margin of the sea, am unrepentant still, how should they guess,—these fisherfolk that tend their salt-kilns on the shore?’ To the retired Minister and to Nurse Saishō he sent many instructions concerning the upbringing of the child. It may well be imagined that the arrival of his post-bag in the City set many hearts a-flutter.
The condition of Murasaki after his departure had gravely alarmed her attendants. She lay for many days utterly overcome by the shock of his departure. Every effort to cheer her was in vain. The sight or mention of things which she connected with him, a zithern which he had once played, the perfume of a dress which he had left behind, threw her at once into a new paroxysm of grief. She behaved indeed for all the world as though he were not merely exiled but already in his grave. At last Shōnagon, becoming seriously alarmed, sent for her uncle the priest and begged his aid. The liturgy of intercession which he conducted had for its aim both the recovery of Lady Murasaki from her present prostration and the early recall of Genji himself. For a while she was somewhat calmer and began to go about the house again. She spent muchtime at her devotions, praying fervently that he might soon return and live with her as before. She sent him sleeping-clothes and many other comforts which she feared he might not otherwise be able to secure. Among the garments which she packed were a cloak and breeches of plain homespun. She folded them with a sigh, remembering his Court apparel with its figured silks and glittering badges. And there was his mirror! He had left it behind as in his poem he had jestingly promised to do; but his image he had taken with him, and much good was a mirror that reflected another face than his! The places where he used to walk, the pinewood pillar against which he used to lean,—on these she could still never look without a bitter pang. Her situation might well have dismayed even a woman long inured to the world; for an inexperienced girl the sudden departure of one who had taken the place of both father and mother, to whom she had confided everything, to whom she had looked on every occasion for comfort and advice, was a blow from which it could hardly be expected that she would quickly recover. Deep down in her heart there was the haunting fear that he might die before his recall. But apart from this dread (which did not bear thinking of), there was the possibility that gradually, at such a distance as this, his affection for her would cease. True, she could write to him, and had his absence been fixed at a few weeks or months she would have had no great anxiety. But as it was, year might follow year without the slightest change in his prospects, and when he found that this was so who knew what might not come...?
The Lady Abbess too was at this time in great distress. The sin of the Heir Apparent’s birth was a constant weight upon her heart. She felt that she had up to the present escaped more lightly than herkarmain any degree warranted and that a day of disastrous reckoning might still beat hand. For years she had been so terrified lest her secret should become known that she had treated Genji with exaggerated indifference, convinced that if by any sign or look she betrayed her partiality for him their attachment would at once become common knowledge at Court. She called to mind countless occasions when, longing for his sympathy and love, she had turned coldly away. The result of all her precautions did indeed seem to be that, in a world where everything that anyone knows sooner or later gets repeated, this particular secret had, so far as she could judge by the demeanour of those with whom she came in contact, remained absolutely undivulged. But the effort had cost her very dear, and she now remembered with pity and remorse the harshness which this successful policy had involved. Her answer to the letter which he sent from Suma was long and tender; she sought indeed to explain and expiate her seeming heartlessness in former days.
An answer also came from Oborozuki: ‘Not even to fishers that on the shore of Suma their faggots burn must we reveal the smouldering ashes of our love.’ ‘More I have no heart to write,’ she added in the margin of this poem, which was on a tiny strip of paper discreetly hidden between the pages of a note from Lady Chūnagon. In her own letter this lady gave a most melancholy account of her mistress’s condition. All these tales of woe made the arrival of Genji’s return post-bag a somewhat depressing event.
Murasaki’s letter was full of the tenderest allusions and messages. With it was the poem: ‘Look at the sleeves of the fisherfolk who trail salt-water tubs along the shore: you will not find them wetter than mine were on the night you put out to sea.’ The clothes and other odds and ends which she sent him were all of the most delicate make and colour. She had evidently taken immense trouble, and hereflected that she could now have little indeed to employ her. No doubt she had in her loneliness deliberately prolonged this task. Day and night her image floated before him and at last, unable to endure any longer the idea of her remaining by herself in that dull lonely palace, he began to make fresh plans for bringing her out to join him. But after further reflection he changed his mind. Such a step would at once bring down upon him the full retribution of his offences, and putting the idea out of his head he took to prayer and fasting, in the hope that Buddha would have pity on him and bring his exile to a speedy end. He was also somewhat distressed at being separated from Aoi’s son. But here the case was different from that of older people. There was every probability that he would eventually see the child again, and meanwhile he had the comfort of knowing that it was in excellent hands.
But stay! There has been so much to tell that one important matter had quite escaped me. I ought to have told you that before his departure he sent a message to Ise with a letter informing Lady Rokujō of the place at which she must in future address him. An envoy now arrived at Suma with her reply. It was long and intimate. Both the handwriting and mode of expression showed just that extraordinary distinction and fineness of breeding which he had always admired in her. ‘I find it impossible,’ she wrote, ‘to conceive of you in such a place as that at which you bid me to address you. Surely this must be some long, fantastic dream! I cannot but believe that I shall soon hear of you as again at the Capital; alas, even so it will be far longer beforemyfault is expiated and we can meet face to face. “Forget not those who for salvation dredge their misery by Ise’s shore, while you with fisherfolk drag dripping buckets to the kiln.”’ This and much more was written, not as it seemed at one time, but bit by bit as freshwaves of feeling prompted her. There were altogether four or five large sheets of white Chinese paper, and there were many passages which in the handling of the ink were quite masterly. This woman, whom he once so passionately admired, had, after the fatal outcome of her jealousy, become utterly distasteful to him. He knew well enough that she was not to blame for what had occurred and that his own feelings towards her were utterly unreasonable, and now that he was himself suffering the penalty of exile he felt more than ever ashamed of having driven her away by his sudden coldness. Her present letter moved him so deeply that he detained the messenger for several days, questioning him upon every detail of the life at Ise. The man was a young courtier of good family and was enchanted at the opportunity of living in the company of this famous prince at such close quarters as the limited accommodation of the cottage made necessary. In his reply Genji said: ‘Had I known that I was to be driven from the Court, I might have done well to join you in your journey. “Were I but in the little boat that the men of Ise push along the wave-tops of the shore, some converse would at least be mine.”... Now, alas, there is less prospect even than before that we shall ever meet again....’
He had now acquitted himself of all his epistolary duties, and no one had any right to complain. Meanwhile a letter arrived from the lady in the ‘village of falling flowers,’ or rather a journal in which she had from time to time noted down her impressions since his departure. The manner in which she recorded her despondency at his absence was both entertaining and original. The letter was a great distraction and aroused in him a quite new interest in this lady. It had come to his ears that the summer rains had done considerable damage to the foundations of her house and he sent word to his people at the Capital to get materials fromsuch of his farms as were nearest to the ladies’ home and do whatever was necessary in the way of repairs.
The Emperor still showed no signs of summoning Princess Oborozuki to his side. Her father imagined that she felt her position and, since she was his favourite daughter, was most anxious to get matters put right. He spoke about it to Kōkiden, begging her to use all her influence, and indeed went so far as to mention his daughter’s disappointment to the Emperor himself. It was hoped that he might be prevailed upon to instal her, if not as a regular mistress, at any rate in some dignified capacity in his immediate entourage. The Emperor had hitherto neglected her solely because of her supposed attachment in another direction. When at last, yielding to the persuasion of her relatives, he summoned her to him, she was as a matter of fact more than ever absorbed in her unlucky passion. She moved into the Inner Palace during the seventh month. As it was known that the Emperor had previously been very much in love with her, no surprise was felt when he began immediately to treat her as a full lady-in-waiting. From the first he showered upon her a multitude both of endearments and reproaches. He was by no means distasteful to her either in person or character, but a thousand recollections crowded to her mind and continuously held her back. He did not fail to notice this, and once when they were at music together he said to her suddenly: ‘I know why you are unhappy. It is because that man has gone away. Well, you are not the only one who misses him; my whole Court seems to be plunged in the darkest gloom. I see what it is; I ought never to have let him go. The old Emperor on his death-bed warned me of all this, but I took no notice, and now I shall suffer for it.’ He had become quite tearful. She made no comment, and after a while he continued: ‘I get very little pleasureout of my life. I am fast realizing that there is no point in any of the things I do. I have the feeling that I shall probably not be with you much longer.... I know quite well that you will not be much upset; certainly much less than you were recently. That poet was a fool who prayed that he might know what happened to his mistress after he was gone. He cannot have cared much about her, or he would certainly rather not have known.’ He really seemed to set such store by her affection and spoke in so bitter and despondent a tone that she could bear it no longer and burst into tears. ‘It is no good your crying like that,’ he said peevishly, ‘I know well enough that your tears are not in any way connected with me.’ For a while he was silent. Then he began again: ‘It is so depressing not to have had any children. Of course I shall keep Lady Fujitsubo’s son as my Heir Apparent, since the old Emperor desired it. But there is sure to be a great deal of opposition, and it is very inconvenient....’
In reality, the government of the country was not in his hands at all; at every turn he saw his own wishes being violated and a quite contrary policy pursued by men who knew how to take advantage of his inexperience and weakness of character. All this he deplored but was powerless to alter.
At Suma autumn had set in with a vengeance. The little house stood some way back from the sea; but when in sudden gusts the wind came ‘blowing through the gap’ (the very wind of Yukihira’s poem10) it seemed as though the waves were at Genji’s door. Night after night he lay listening to that melancholy sound and wondering whether in all the world there could be any place where the sadness of autumn was more overwhelming. The few attendants who shared the house with him had all gone to rest. Only Genji layawake, propped high on his pillow, listening to the storm-winds which burst upon the house from every side. Louder and louder came the noise of the waves, till it seemed to him they must have mounted the fore-shore and be surging round the very bed on which he lay. Then he would take up his zithern and strike a few notes. But his tune echoed so forlornly through the house that he had not the heart to continue and, putting the zithern aside, he sang to himself the song: