She had been in deep despondency, almost certain that he would not find
time for a visit. Then, in the soft, sad light of the moon, his robes giving
off an indescribable fragrance, he made his way in. She came to the veranda
and looked up at the moon. They talked until dawn.
"What a short night it has been. I think how difficult it will be for us
to meet again, and I am filled with regrets for the days I wasted. I fear I
worried too much about the precedents I might be setting."
A cock was crowing busily as he talked on about the past. He made
a hasty departure, fearful of attracting notice. The setting moon is always
sad, and he was prompted to think its situation rather like his own. Catch-
ing the deep purple of the lady's robe, the moon itself seemed to be
weeping.
"Narrow these sleeves, now lodging for the moonlight.
Would they might keep a light which I do not tire of."
Sad himself, Genji sought to comfort her.
"The moon will shine upon this house once more.
Do not look at the clouds which now conceal it.
"I wish I were really sure it is so, and find the unknown future
clouding my heart."
He left as dawn was coming over the sky.
<N 5>
His affairs were in order. He assigned all the greater and lesser affairs
of the Nijo~ mansion to trusted retainers who had not been swept up in the
currents of the times, and he selected others to go with him to Suma. He
would take only the simplest essentials for a rustic life, among them a book
chest, selected writings of $$ Po Chu-i and other poets, and a seven-stringed
Chinese koto. He carefully refrained from anything which in its ostenta-
tion might not become a nameless rustic.
Assigning all the women to Murasaki's west wing, he left behind
<P 226>
deeds to pastures and manors and the like and made provision for all his
various warehouses and storerooms. Confident of Sho~nagon's perspicacity,
he gave her careful instructions and put stewards at her disposal. He had
been somewhat brisk and businesslike toward his own serving women, but
they had had security--and now what was to become of them?
"I shall be back, I know, if I live long enough. Do what you can in
the west wing, please, those of you who are prepared to wait."
And so they all began a new life.
To Yu~giri's nurse and maids and to the lady of the orange blossoms
he sent elegant parting gifts and plain, useful everyday provisions as well.
<N 6>
He even wrote to Oborozukiyo. "I know that I have no right to expect
a letter from you; but I am not up to describing the gloom and the bitter-
ness of leaving this life behind.
"Snagged upon the shoals of this river of tears,
I cannot see you. Deeper waters await me.
"Remembering is the crime to which I cannot plead innocent."
He wrote nothing more, for there was a danger that his letter would
be intercepted.
Though she fought to maintain her composure, there was nothing she
could do about the tears that wet her sleeves.
"The foam on the river of tears will disappear
Short of the shoals of meeting that wait downstream."
There was something very fine about the hand disordered by grief.
He longed to see her again, but she had too many relatives who
wished him ill. Discretion forbade further correspondence.
<N 7>
On the night before his departure he visited his father's grave in the
northern hills. Since the moon would be coming up shortly before dawn,
he went first to take leave of Fujitsubo. Receiving him in person, she spoke
of her worries for the crown prince. It cannot have been, so complicated
were matters between them, a less than deeply felt interview. Her dignity
and beauty were as always. He would have liked to hint at old resent-
ments; but why, at this late date, invite further unpleasantness, and risk
adding to his own agitation?
He only said, and it was reasonable enough: "I can think of a single
offense for which I must undergo this strange, sad punishment, and be-
cause of it I tremble before the heavens. Though I would not care in the
least if my own unworthy self were to vanish away, I only hope that the
crown prince's reign is without unhappy event."
She knew too well what he meant, and was unable to reply. He was
almost too handsome as at last he succumbed to tears.
"I am going to pay my respects at His Majesty's grave. Do you have
a message?"
She was silent for a time, seeking to control herself.
<P 227>
"The one whom I served is gone, the other must go.
Farewell to the world was no farewell to its sorrows.
But for both of them the sorrow was beyond words.
He replied:
"The worst of grief for him should long have passed.
And now I must leave the world where dwells the child."
The moon had risen and he set out. He was on horseback and had only
five or six attendants, all of them trusted friends. I need scarcely say that
it was a far different procession from those of old. Among his men was that
guards officer who had been his special attendant at the Kamo lustration
services. The promotion he might have expected had long since passed
him by, and now his right of access to the royal presence and his offices
had been taken away. Remembering that day as they came in sight of the
Lower Kamo Shrine, he dismounted and took Genji's bridle.
<P 228>
"There was heartvine in our caps. I led your horse.
And now at this jeweled fence I berate the gods."
Yes, the memory must be painful, for the young man had been the
most resplendent in Genji's retinue. Dismounting, Genji bowed toward the
shrine and said as if by way of farewell:
"I leave this world of gloom. I leave my name
To the offices of the god who rectifies."
The guards officer, an impressionable young man, gazed at him in
wonder and admiration.
Coming to the grave, Genji almost thought he could see his father
before him. Power and position were nothing once a man was gone. He
wept and silently told his story, but there came no answer, no judgment
upon it. And all those careful instructions and admonitions had served no
purpose at all?
Grasses overgrew the path to the grave, the dew seemed to gather
weight as he made his way through. The moon had gone behind a cloud
and the groves were dark and somehow terrible. It was as if he might lose
his way upon turning back. As he bowed in farewell, a chill came over him,
for he seemed to see his father as he once had been.
"And how does he look upon me? I raise my eyes,
And the moon now vanishes behind the clouds."
<N 8>
Back at Nijo~ at daybreak, he sent a last message to the crown prince.
Tying it to a cherry branch from which the blossoms had fallen, he ad-
dressed it to Omyo~bu, whom Fujitsubo had put in charge of her son's
affairs. "Today I must leave. I regret more than anything that I cannot see
you again. Imagine my feelings, if you will, and pass them on to the prince.
"When shall I, a ragged, rustic outcast,
See again the blossoms of the city?"
She explained everything to the crown prince. He gazed at her sol-
emnly.
"How shall I answer?" Omyo~bu asked.
"I am sad when he is away for a little, and he is going so far, and how
--tell him that, please."
A sad little answer, thought Omyo~bu.
All the details of that unhappy love came back to her. The two of them
should have led placid, tranquil lives, and she felt as if she and she alone
had been the cause of all the troubles.
"I can think of nothing to say." It was clear to him that her answer
<P 229>
had indeed been composed with great difficulty. "I passed your message
on to the prince, and was sadder than ever to see how sad it made him.
"Quickly the blossoms fall. Though spring departs,
You will come again, I know, to a city of flowers."
There was sad talk all through the crown prince's apartments in the
wake of the letter, and there were sounds of weeping. Even people who
scarcely knew him were caught up in the sorrow. As for people in his
regular service, even scullery maids of whose existence he can hardly have
been aware were sad at the thought that they must for a time do without
his presence.
So it was all through the court. Deep sorrow prevailed. He had been
with his father day and night from his seventh year, and, since nothing he
had said to his father had failed to have an effect, almost everyone was in
his debt. A cheerful sense of gratitude should have been common in the
upper ranks of the court and the ministries, and omnipresent in the lower
ranks. It was there, no doubt; but the world had become a place of quick
punishments. A pity, people said, silently reproving the great ones whose
power was now absolute; but what was to be accomplished by playing the
martyr? Not that everyone was satisfied with passive acceptance. If he had
not known before, Genji knew now that the human race is not perfect.
<N 9>
He spent a quiet day with Murasaki and late in the night set out in
rough travel dress.
"The moon is coming up. Do please come out and see me off. I know
that later I will think of any number of things I wanted to say to you. My
gloom strikes me as ridiculous when I am away from you for even a day
or two."
He raised the blinds and urged her to come forward. Trying not to
weep, she at length obeyed. She was very beautiful in the moonlight. What
sort of home would this unkind, inconstant city be for her now? But she
was sad enough already, and these thoughts were best kept to himself.
He said with forced lightness:
"At least for this life we might make our vows, we thought.
And so we vowed that nothing would ever part us.
How silly we were!"
This was her answer:
"I would give a life for which I have no regrets
If it might postpone for a little the time of parting."
They were not empty words, he knew; but he must be off, for he did
not want the city to see him in broad daylight.
Her face was with him the whole of the journey. In great sorrow he
boarded the boat that would take him to Suma. It was a long spring day
and there was a tail wind, and by late afternoon he had reached the strand
<P 230>
where he was to live. He had never before been on such a journey, however
short. All the sad, exotic things along the way were new to him. The Oe
station was in ruins, with only a grove of pines to show where it had
stood.
"More remote, I fear, my place of exile
Than storied ones in lands beyond the seas."
The surf came in and went out again. "I envy the waves," he whis-
pered to himself. It was a familiar poem, but it seemed new to those who
heard him, and sad as never before. Looking back toward the city, he saw
that the mountains were 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.
<P 231>
"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 as-
signed 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
Nijo~, whose forlorn figure was still before him. He thought too of the
crown prince, and of little Yu~giri, 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 Chu~nagon, 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.
<P 232>
"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
