Yu~giri'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. Sho~nagon 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 him-
self 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 Chu~nagon's letter was a brief reply from Oborozukiyo:
"The fisherwife burns salt and hides her fires
And strangles, for the smoke has no escape.
<P 233>
"I shall not write of things which at this late date need no saying."
Chu~nagon 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 distrac-
tions, 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, Yu~giri. 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
Rokujo~ 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 your-
self, 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. Detain-
ing him for several days, he heard about life at Ise. The house being
<P 234>
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 the lady of Ise I might have ridden small boats
That row the waves, and avoided dark sea tangles.
"How long, dripping brine on driftwood logs,
On logs of lament, must I gaze at this Suma coast?
"I cannot know when I will see you again."
But at least his letters brought the comfort of knowing that he was
well.
<P 235>
There came letters, sad and yet comforting, from the lady of the
orange blossoms and her sister.
"Ferns of remembrance weigh our eaves ever more,
And heavily falls the dew upon our sleeves."
There was no one, he feared, whom they might now ask to clear away
the rank growth. Hearing that the long rains had damaged their garden
walls, he sent off orders to the city that people from nearby manors see
to repairs.
Oborozukiyo had delighted the scandalmongers, and she was now in
very deep gloom. Her father, the minister, for she was his favorite daugh-
ter, sought to intercede on her behalf with the emperor and Kokiden. The
emperor was moved to forgive her. She had been severely punished, it was
true, for her grave offense, but not as severely as if she had been one of
the companions of the royal bedchamber. In the Seventh Month she was
permitted to return to court. She continued to long for Genji. Much of the
emperor's old love remained, and he chose to ignore criticism and keep her
near him, now berating her and now making impassioned vows. He was
a handsome man and he groomed himself well, and it was something of
an affront that old memories should be so much with her.
"Things do not seem right now that he is gone," he said one evening
when they were at music together. "I am sure that there are many who feel
the loss even more strongly than I do. I cannot put away the fear that I have
gone against Father's last wishes and that it is a dereliction for which I must
one day suffer." There were tears in his eyes and she too was weeping. "I
have awakened to the stupidity of the world and I do not feel that I wish
to remain in it much longer. And how would you feel if I were to die? I
hate to think that you would grieve less for me gone forever than for him
gone so briefly such a short distance away. The poet who said that we love
while we live did not know a great deal about love." Tears were streaming
from Oborozukiyo's eyes. "And whom might you be weeping for? It is sad
that we have no children. I would like to follow Father's instructions and
adopt the crown prince, but people Will raise innumerable objections. It all
seems very sad."
There were some whose ideas of government did not accord with his
own, but he was too young to impose his will. He Passed his days in
helpless anger and sorrow.
At Suma, melancholy autumn winds were blowing. Genji's house was
some distance from the sea, but at night the wind that blew over the
barriers, now as in Yukihira's day, seemed to bring the surf to his bedside.
Autumn was hushed and lonely at a place of exile. He had few compan-
ions. One night when they were all asleep be raised his head from his
pillow and listened to the roar of the wind and of the waves, as if at his
<P 236>
ear. Though he was unaware that he wept, his tears were enough to set
his pillow afloat. He plucked a few notes on his koto, but the sound only
made him sadder.
"The waves on the strand, like moans of helpless longing.
The winds--like messengers from those who grieve?"
He had awakened the others. They sat up, and one by one they were
in tears.
This would not do. Because of him they had been swept into exile,
leaving families from whom they had never before been parted. It must be
very difficult for them, and his own gloom could scarcely be making things
easier. So he set about cheering them. During the day he would invent
games and make jokes, and set down this and that poem on multicolored
patchwork, and paint pictures on fine specimens of figured Chinese silk.
Some of his larger paintings were masterpieces. He had long ago been told
of this Suma coast and these hills and had formed a picture of them in his
mind, and he found now that his imagination had fallen short of the
<P 237>
actuality. What a pity, said his men, that they could not summon
Tsunenori and Chieda and other famous painters of the day to add colors
to Genji's monochromes. This resolute cheerfulness had the proper effect.
His men, four or five of whom were always with him, would not have
dreamed of leaving him.
There was a profusion of flowers in the garden. Genji came out, when
the evening colors were at their best, to a gallery from which he had a good
view of the coast. His men felt chills of apprehension as they watched him,
for the loneliness of the setting made him seem like a visitor from another
world. In a dark robe tied loosely over singlets of figured white and aster-
colored trousers, he announced himself as "a disciple of the Buddha" and
slowly intoned a sutra, and his men thought that they had never heard a
finer voice. From offshore came the voices of fishermen raised in song. The
barely visible boats were like little seafowl on an utterly lonely sea, and
as he brushed away a tear induced by the splashing of oars and the calls
of wild geese overhead, the white of his hand against the jet black of his
rosary was enough to bring comfort to men who had left their families
behind.
<P 238>
"Might they be companions of those I long for?
Their cries ring sadly through the sky of their journey."
This was Yoshikiyo's reply:
"I know not why they bring these thoughts of old,
These wandering geese. They were not then my comrades."
And Koremitsu's:
"No colleagues of mine, these geese beyond the clouds.
They chose to leave their homes, and I did dot."
And that of the guards officer who had cut such a proud figure on the
day of the Kamo lustration:
"Sad are their cries as they wing their way from home.
They still find solace, for they still have comrades.
It is cruel to lose one's comrades."
His father had been posted to Hitachi, but he himself had come with
Genji. He contrived, for all that must have been on his mind, to seem
cheerful.
A radiant moon had come out. They were reminded that it was the
harvest full moon. Genji could not take his. eyes from it. On other such
nights there had been concerts at court, and perhaps they of whom he was
thinking would be gazing at this same moon and thinking of him.
"My thoughts are of you, old friend," he sang, "two thousand leagues
away." His men were in tears.
His longing was intense at the memory of Fujitsubo's farewell poem,
and as other memories came back, one after another, he had to turn away
to hide his tears. It was very late, said his men, but still he did not come
inside.
"So long as I look upon it I find comfort,
The moon which comes again to the distant city."
He thought of the emperor and how much he had resembled their
father, that last night when they had talked so fondly of old times. "I still
have with me the robe which my lord gave me," he whispered, going
inside. He did in fact have a robe that was a gift from the emperor, and
he kept it always beside him.
"Not bitter thoughts alone does this singlet bring.
Its sleeves are damp with tears of affection too."
The assistant viceroy of Kyushu was returning to the capital. He had
a large family and was especially well provided with daughters, and since
<P 239>
progress by land would have been difficult he had sent his wife and the
daughters by boat. They proceeded by easy stages, putting in here and
there along the coast. The scenery at Suma was especially pleasing, and the
news that Genji was in residence produced blushes and sighs far out at sea.
The Gosechi dancer would have liked to cut the tow rope and drift ashore.
The sound of a koto came faint from the distance, the sadness of it joined
to a sad setting and sad memories. The more sensitive members of the
