here, and I have given myself up to prayers to the exclusion of everything
else, and so I fear that I will have struck you as spiritless. Though reports
had reached me of the lady of whom you have spoken, I had feared
that she would want to have nothing to do with an outcast
<P 258>
like myself. You will be my guide and intermediary? May I look forward
to company these lonely evenings?"
The old man was thoroughly delighted.
"Do you too know the sadness of the nights
On the shore of Akashi with only thoughts for companions?
"Imagine, if you will, how it has been for us through the long months
and years." He faltered, though with no loss of dignity, and his voice was
trembling.
"But you, sir, are used to this seacoast.
"The traveler passes fretful nights at Akashi.
The grass which he reaps for his pillow reaps no dreams."
His openness delighted the old man, who talked on and on--and
became rather tiresome, I fear. In my impatience I may have allowed
inaccuracies to creep in, and exaggerated his eccentricities.
In any event, he felt a clean happiness sweep over him. A beginning
had been made.
At about noon the next day Genji got off a note to the house on the
hill. A real treasure might lie buried in this unlikely spot. He took a great
deal of trouble with his note, which was on a fine saffron-colored Korean
paper.
"Do I catch, as I gaze into unresponsive skies,
A glimpse of a grove of which I have had certain tidings?
"My resolve has been quite dissipated."
And was that all? one wonders.
The old man had been waiting. Genji's messenger came staggering
back down the hill, for he had been hospitably received.
But the girl was taking time with her reply. The old man rushed to
her rooms and urged haste, but to no avail. She thought her hand q
unequal to the task, and awareness of the difference in their station
dismayed her. She was not feeling well, she said, and lay down.
Though he would certainly have wished it otherwise, the old man
finally answered in her place. "Her rustic sleeves are too narrow to encom-
pass such awesome tidings, it would seem, and indeed she seems to have
found herself incapable of even reading your letter.
"She gazes into the skies into which you gaze.
May they bring your thoughts and hers into some accord.
"But I fear that I will seem impertinent and forward."
<P 259>
It was in a most uncompromisingly old-fashioned hand, on sturdy
Michinoku paper; but there was something spruce and dashing about it
too. Yes, "forward" was the proper word. Indeed, Genji was rather startled.
He gave the messenger a "bejeweled apron," an appropriate gift, he
thought, from a beach cottage.
He got off another message the next day, beautifully written on soft,
delicate paper. "I am not accustomed to receiving letters from ladies' secre-
taries.
"Unwillingly reticent about my sorrows
I still must be--for no one makes inquiry.
"Though it is difficult to say just what I mean."
There would have been something unnatural about a girl who refused
to be interested in such a letter. She thought it splendid, but she also
thought it impossibly out of her reach. Notice from such supreme heights
had the perverse effect of reducing her to tears and inaction.
She was finally badgered into setting something down. She chose
delicately perfumed lavender paper and took great care with the gradations
of her ink.
"Unwillingly reticent--how can it be so?
How can you sorrow for someone you have not met?"
The diction and the handwriting would have done credit to any of the
fine ladies at court. He fell into a deep reverie, for he was reminded of days
back in the city. But he did not want to attract attention, and presently
shook it off.
Every other day or so, choosing times when he was not likely to be
noticed, and when he imagined that her thoughts might be similar to his
--a quiet, uneventful evening, a lonely dawn--he would get off a note to
her. There was a proud reserve in her answers which made him want more
than ever to meet her. But there was Yoshikiyo to think of. He had spoken
of the lady as if he thought her his property, and Genji did not wish to
contravene these long-standing claims. If her parents persisted in offering
her to him, he would make that fact his excuse, and seek to pursue the
affair as quietly as possible. Not that she was making things easy for him.
She seemed prouder and more aloof than the proudest lady at court; and
so the days went by in a contest of wills.
The city was more than ever on his mind now that he had moved
beyond the Suma barrier. He feared that not even in jest could he do
without Murasaki. Again he was asking himself if he might not bring her
<P 260>
quietly to Akashi, and he was on the point of doing just that. But he did
not expect to be here very much longer, and nothing was to be gained by
inviting criticism at this late date.
In the city it had been a year of omens and disturbances. On the
thirteenth day of the Third Month, as the thunder and winds mounted to
new fury, the emperor had a dream. His father stood glowering at the stairs
to the royal bedchamber and had a great deal to say, all of it, apparently,
about Genji. Deeply troubled, the emperor described the dream to his
mother.
"On stormy nights a person has a way of dreaming about the things
that are on his mind, " she said." If I were you I would not give it a second
thought."
Perhaps because his eyes had met the angry eyes of his father, he came
down with a very painful eye ailment. Retreat and fasting were ordered
for the whole court, even Kokiden's household. Then the minister, her
father, died. He was of such years that his death need have surprised no
one, but Kokiden too was unwell, and worse as the days went by; and the
emperor had a great deal to worry about. So long as an innocent Genji was
off in the wilderness, he feared, he must suffer. He ventured from time to
time a suggestion that Genji be restored to his old rank and offices.
His mother sternly advised against it. "People will tax you with shal-
lowness and indecision. Can you really think of having a man go into exile
and then bringing him back before the minimum three years have gone
by?"
And so he hesitated, and he and his mother were in increasingly poor
health.
At Akashi it was the season when cold winds blow from the sea to
make a lonely bed even lonelier.
Genji sometimes spoke to the old man. "If you were perhaps to bring
her here when no one is looking?"
He thought that he could hardly be expected to visit her. She had her
own ideas. She knew that rustic maidens should come running at a word
from a city gentleman who happened to be briefly in the vicinity. No, she
did not belong to his world, and she would only be inviting grief if she
pretended that she did. Her parents had impossible hopes, it seemed, and
were asking the unthinkable and building a future on nothing. What they
were really doing was inviting endless trouble. It was good fortune enough
to exchange notes with him for so long as he stayed on this shore. Her own
prayers had been modest: that she be permitted a glimpse of the gentleman
of whom she had heard so much. She had had her glimpse, from a distance,
to be sure, and, brought in on the wind, she had also caught hints of his
unmatched skill (of this too she had heard) on the koto. She had learned
rather a great deal about him these past days, and she was satisfied. Indeed
a nameless woman lost among the fishermen's huts had no right to expect
even this. She was acutely embarrassed at any suggestion that he be invited
nearer.
<P 261>
Her father too was uneasy. Now that his prayers were being answered
he began to have thoughts of failure. It would be very sad for the girl,
offered heedlessly to Genji, to learn that he did not want her. Rejection was
painful at the hands of the finest gentleman. His unquestioning faith in all
the invisible gods had perhaps led him to overlook human inclinations and
probabilities.
"How pleasant," Genji kept saying, "if I could hear that koto to the
singing of the waves. It is the season for such things. We should not let
it pass."
Dismissing his wife's reservations and saying nothing to his disciples,
the old man selected an auspicious day. He bustled around making prepa-
rations, the results of which were dazzling. The moon was near full. He
sent off a note which said only: "This night that should not be wasted."
It seemed a bit arch, but Genji changed to informal court dress and set forth
late in the night. He had a carriage decked out most resplendently, and
then, deciding that it might seem ostentatious, went on horseback instead.
The lady's house was some distance back in the hills. The coast
<P 262>
lay in full view below, the bay silver in the moonlight. He would have
liked to show it to Murasaki. The temptation was strong to turn his horse,s
head and gallop on to the city.
"Race on through the moonlit sky, O roan-colored horse,
And let me be briefly with her for whom I long."
The house was a fine one, set in a grove of trees. Careful attention had
gone into all the details. In contrast to the solid dignity of the house on
the beach, this house in the hills had a certain fragility about it, and he
could imagine the melancholy thoughts that must come to one who lived
here. There was sadness in the sound of the temple bells borne in on pine
breezes from a hall of meditation nearby. Even the pines seemed to be
asking for something as they sent their roots out over the crags. All manner
of autumn insects were singing in the garden. He looked about him and
saw a pavilion finer than the others. The cypress door upon which the
moonlight seemed to focus was slightly open.
He hesitated and then spoke. There was no answer. She had resolved
<P 263>
to admit him no nearer. All very aristocratic, thought Genji. Even ladies
so wellborn that they were sheltered from sudden visitors usually tried to
make conversation when the visitor was Genji. Perhaps she was letting
him know that he was under a cloud. He was annoyed and thought of
leaving. It would run against the mood of things to force himself upon her,
and on the other hand he would look rather silly if it were to seem that
she had bested him at this contest of wills. One would indeed have wished
to show him, the picture of dejection, "to someone who knows."
A curtain string brushed against a koto, to tell him that she had been
passing a quiet evening at her music.
"And will you not play for me on the koto of which I have heard so
much?
"Would there were someone with whom I might share my thoughts
And so dispel some part of these sad dreams."
"You speak to one for whom the night has no end.
How can she tell the dreaming from the waking?"
The almost inaudible whisper reminded him strongly of the Rokujo~
lady.
This lady had not been prepared for an incursion and could not cope
with it. She fled to an inner room. How she could have contrived to bar
it he could not tell, but it was very firmly barred indeed. Though he did
not exactly force his way through, it is not to be imagined that he left
matters as they were. Delicate, slender--she was almost too beautiful.
Pleasure was mingled with pity at the thought that he was imposing
himself upon her. She was even more pleasing than reports from afar had
had her. The autumn night, usually so long, was over in a trice. Not
wishing to be seen, he hurried out, leaving affectionate assurances behind.
He got off an unobtrusive note later in the morning. Perhaps he was
feeling twinges of conscience. The old monk was equally intent upon
secrecy, and sorry that he was impelled to treat the messenger rather
coolly.
Genji called in secret from time to time. The two houses being some
distance apart, he feared being seen by fishermen, who were known to
relish a good rumor, and sometimes several days would elapse between his
visits. Exactly as she had expected, thought the girl. Her father, forgetting
that enlightenment was his goal, quite gave his prayers over to silent
queries as to when Genji might be expected to come again; and so (and it
seems a pity) a tranquillity very laboriously attained was disturbed at a
very late date.
Genji dreaded having Murasaki learn of the affair. He still loved her
more than anyone, and he did not want her to make even joking reference
to it. She was a quiet, docile lady, but she had more than once been
<P 264>
unhappy with him. Why, for the sake of brief pleasure, had he caused her
pain? He wished it were all his to do over again. The sight of the Akashi
lady only brought new longing for the other lady.
He got off a more earnest and affectionate letter than usual, at the end
of which he said: "I am in anguish at the thought that, because of foolish
occurrences for which I have been responsible but have had little heart, I
might appear in a guise distasteful to you. There has been a strange,
fleeting encounter. That I should volunteer this story will make you see,
I hope, how little I wish to have secrets from you. Let the gods be my
judges.
"It was but the fisherman's brush with the salty sea pine
Followed by a tide of tears of longing."
Her reply was gentle and unreproachful, and at the end of it she said:
"That you should have deigned to tell me a dreamlike story which you
could not keep to yourself calls to mind numbers of earlier instances.
"$$ Naive of me, perhaps; yet we did make our vows.
And now see the waves that wash the Mountain of Waiting!"
