And he added softly, as always: "Here, and perhaps not here at all."
<W Murasaki Shikibu>{Translated by Edward G.Seidensticker}
<T The Tale of Genji>
<K 6>
<C 53>{The Writing Practice}
<N 1>
<P 1043>
The bishop of Yokawa, on Mount Hiei, a holy and learned man, had a
mother some eighty years old and a sister in her fifties. In fulfillment of
a vow made long ago, they had been on a pilgrimage to Hatsuse. The
bishop's favorite disciple had been with them. Having finished their pray-
ers and offered up images and scriptures, they were climbing the Nara
Slope on the return journey when the old woman was taken ill. She was
in such discomfort that they could not ask her to go on. What were they
to do? An acquaintance had a house at Uji, and it was decided to stop there
for a day or two. When the old woman failed to improve, word was sent
to the bishop. He had determined to remain in his mountain retreat until
the end of the year, not even venturing down to the city, but there seemed
a danger that his mother, of such an age that she could go at any time,
might die on the journey. He hurried to her side. He himself and certain
of his disciples whose ministrations had on other occasions been successful
set about prayers and incantations--though one might have told them, and
they would not have denied it, that she had lived a long enough life
already.
The Uji acquaintance was troubled. "I have plans for a pilgrimage to
Mitake, and for a week now I have been fasting and otherwise getting
ready. Can I risk having a very old and ailing lady in the house?"
The bishop understood, and the house was in any case small and
shabby. They would proceed back towards Hiei by easy stages. Then it
<P 1044>
was discovered that the stars were against them, and that plan too had to
be abandoned. The bishop remembered the Uji villa of the late Suzaku
emperor. It would be in the vicinity, and he knew the steward. He sent to
ask whether they might use it for a day or two.
The messenger came back to report that the steward and his family
had left for Hatsuse the day before.
The caretaker, a most unkempt old man, came with him. "Yes, if it
suits your convenience, do please come immediately. The main hall is
vacant. Pilgrims are always using it."
"Splendid." The bishop sent someone to make an inspection." It is a
public building, you might say, but it should be quiet enough."
The caretaker, used to guests, had simple accommodations ready.
<N 2>
The bishop went first. The house was badly run-down and even a
little frightening. He ordered sutras read. The disciple who had been to
Hatsuse and another of comparable rank had lesser clerics, to whom such
tasks came naturally, prepare torches. For no very good reason, they wan-
dered around to the unfrequented rear of the main hall. Under a grove of
some description, a bleak, forbidding place, they saw an expanse of white.
What could it possibly be? They brought their torches nearer and made
out a seated human figure.
"A fox? They do sometimes take human shapes, filthy creatures. If we
don't make it come out I don't know who else will." One of the lesser
monks stepped forward.
"Careful, careful," said another. "We can be sure it's up to no good."
Not letting his eyes wander for an instant from the thing, he made motions
with his hands towards exorcising it.
The bishop's favored disciple was sure that his hair would have been
standing on end if he had had any. The bold torchbearer, however, ad-
vanced resolutely upon the figure. It was a girl with long, lustrous hair.
beaning against the thick and very gnarled root of a tree, she was weeping
bitterly.
"Why, this is strange. Maybe we should tell the bishop."
"Very strange indeed," said another, running off to report the discov-
ery.
"People are always talking about foxes in human form," said the
bishop," but do you know I have never seen one?" He came out for a look.
All the available domestics were at work in the kitchen and elsewhere,
seeing to the needs of the unexpected guests. These postern regions were
deserted save for the half-dozen men watching the thing. No change was
to be detected in it. The hours passed, the night seemed endless. Daylight
would tell them whether or not it was human, thought the bishop, silently
going over appropriate spells, and seeking to quell whatever force it might
be with mystic hand motions.
Presently he reached a conclusion. "It is human. It is no monstrous
apparition. Go ask her who she is and why she is here. Don't be afraid.
<P 1045>
She is no ghost--though possibly a corpse thrown away hereabouts has
come back to life."
"A corpse thrown away at the Suzaku emperor's own villa? No, Your
Reverence. At the very least it is someone a fox spirit or a wood spirit or
something of the sort has coaxed away from home and then abandoned.
The place will be contaminated, and for our purposes the timing could
hardly be worse."
Someone called for the caretaker, and the summons echoed menac-
ingly across the empty grounds. He came running out, a somewhat ludi-
crous figure with his cap perched high on his head.
"Do you have any young women living here? Look at this, if you
will."
"Ah, yes. The foxes are at it again. Strange things are always turning
up under this tree. Two years or so ago, in the fall it would have been, a
little boy, maybe two years old, he lived up the road. They dragged him
off and left him right here at the foot of this tree. It happens all the time."
He did not seem in the least upset.
"Had the child been killed?"
"Oh, no. He's still alive, I'd imagine. Foxes are always after people,
<P 1046>
but they never do anything really bad." His manner suggested that such
occurrences were indeed commonplace. The emergency domestic arrange-
ments seemed to weigh more heavily on his mind.
"Suppose we watch for a while," said the bishop, "and see whether
or not we observe foxes at work."
He ordered the brave torchbearer to approach and challenge the
strange figure.
"Who are you? Tell us who you are. Devil, fox, god, wood spirit?
Don't think you can hold out against His Reverence. He won't be cheated.
Who are you? Come on, now, tell us who you are."
He tugged at a sleeve. The girl pressed it to her face and wept all the
more bitterly.
"Come on, now. The sensible thing would be to tell us." He tugged
more assertively, though he rather hoped he would not be permitted a view
of the face. It might prove to be the hideous mask of the eyeless, noseless
she-devil he had heard about. But he must give no one reason to doubt
his mettle. The figure lay face in arms, sobbing audibly now.
"Whatever it is, it's not the sort of thing you see just every day." He
peered down at the figure. "But we're in for a storm. She'll die if we leave
her out in it, that's for sure. Let's move her in under the fence."
"She has all the proper limbs," said the bishop," and every detail
suggests that she is human. We cannot leave her to die before our eyes.
It is sad when the fish that swim in the lake or the stag that bays in the
hills must die for want of help. Life is fleeting. We must cherish what we
have of it, even so little as a day or two. She may have fallen into the
clutches of some minor god or devil, or been driven from home, a victim
of foul conspiracy. It may be her fate to die an unkind death. But such,
even such, are they whom the Blessed One will save. Let us have a try at
medicines and seek to revive her. If we fail, we shall still have done our
best."
He had the torchbearer carry her inside.
"Consider what you are doing, sir," objected one of the disciples.
"Your honored mother is dangerously ill and this will do her no good."
"We do not know what it is," replied another, "but we cannot leave
it here for the rain to pound to death."
It would be best not to let the servants know. The girl was put to bed
in a remote and untenanted part of the hall.
<N 3>
The old nun's carriage was brought up, amid chatter about the stub-
bornness of her affliction.
"And how is the other?" asked the bishop when the excitement had
somewhat subsided.
<P 1047>
"She seems to have lost her very last ounce of strength--sometimes
we wonder if she is still breathing--and she has not said a word. Some-
thing has robbed her of her faculties."
"What is this?" asked the younger nun, the bishop's sister.
"Not in my upwards of six decades have I seen anything so odd." And
the bishop described it.
"I had a dream at Hatsuse." The nun was in tears. "What is she like?
Do let me see her."
"Yes, by all means. You will find her over beyond the east door."
The nun hurried off. No one was with the girl, who was young and
pretty and indefinably elegant. The white damask over her scarlet trousers
gave off a subtle perfume.
"My child, my child. I wept for you, and you have come back to me."
She had some women carry the girl to an inner room. Not having
witnessed the earlier events, they performed the task equably.
The girl looked up through half-closed eyes.
She did not seem to understand. The nun forced medicine upon her,
but she seemed on the point of fading away.
They must not let her die after she had been through so much. The
nun called for the monk who had shown himself to be the most capable
in such matters. "I am afraid that she is not far from death. Let her have
all your best spells and prayers."
"I was right in the first place," he grumbled. "He should have let well
enough alone." But he commenced reading the sutra for propitiating the
local gods.
"How is she?" The bishop looked in. "Find out what it is that has been
at her. Drive it away, drive it away."
"She will not live, sir, I am sure of it. And when she dies we'll be in
for a retreat we could perfectly well have avoided. She seems to be of good
rank, and we can't just run away from the corpse. A bother, that is what
I call it."
"You do talk a great deal," said the nun. "But you are not to tell
anyone. If you do you can expect an even worse bother." She had almost
forgotten her mother in the struggle to save the girl. Yes, she was a stran-
ger, nothing to them, if they would have it so; but she was a very pretty
stranger. Everyone who saw her joined in prayers that she be spared.
Occasionally she would open her eyes, and there would be tears in them.
"What am I to do? The Blessed One has brought you in place of the
child I have wept for, I am sure of it, and if you go too, I shall have to weep
again. Something from another life has brought us together. I know that
too. Speak to me. Please. Say something, anything."
"I have been thrown out. I have nowhere to go." The girl barely
managed a whisper. "Don't let anyone see me. Take me out when it gets
dark and throw me back in the river."
"She has spoken to me! But what a terrible thing to say. Why must
you say such things? And why were you out there all by yourself?"
<P 1048>
The girl did not answer. The nun examined her for wounds, but found
none. Such a pretty little thing--but there was a certain apprehension
mingled with the pity and sorrow. Might a strange apparition have been
dispatched to tempt her, to challenge her calm?
<N 4>
The party remained in seclusion for two days, during which prayers
and incantations went on without pause. Everyone was asking who this
unusual person might be.
Certain farmers in the neighborhood who had once been in the service
of the bishop came to pay their respects.
"There has been a big commotion over at the prince's place," one of
them remarked by way of apology. "The General of the Right was seeing
the prince's daughter, and then all of a sudden she died, of no sickness at
all that anyone could see. We couldn't come yesterday evening when we
heard Your Reverence was here. We had to help with the funeral."
So that was it. Some demon had abducted the Eighth Prince's daugh-
ter. It scarcely seemed to the bishop that he had been looking at a live
human being. There was something sinister about the girl, as if she might
at any moment dissolve into thin air.
"The fire last night hardly seemed big enough for a funeral."
"No, it wasn't much to look at. They made it as small as they could."
The visitors had been asked to remain outside lest they communicate the
defilement.
"But who might it be? The prince's daughter, you say--but the prin-
cess the general was fond of has been dead for some years. He has another
princess now, and he is not the sort to go out looking for new wives."
<N 5>
The old nun was better and the stars no longer blocked the way.
Everything that had happened made them want to leave these inhospitable
precincts as soon as possible.
"But the young lady is still very weak," someone objected. "Do you
really think she can travel?"
They had two carriages. The old nun and two others were in the first
and the girl was in the second, with an attendant. They moved at an easy
pace with frequent stops. The nuns were from Ono, at the west foot of
Mount Hiei. It was very late when they arrived, so exhausted that they
regretted not having spent another night along the way. The bishop helped
