It was the one note of reproach in a quiet, undemanding letter. He
found it hard to put down, and for some nights he stayed away from the
house in the hills.
The Akashi lady was convinced once more that her fears had become
actuality. Now seemed the time to throw herself into the sea. She had only
her parents to turn to and they were very old. She had had no ambitions
for herself, no thought of making a respectable marriage. Yet the years had
gone by happily enough, without storms or tears. Now she saw that the
world can be very cruel. She managed to conceal her worries, however, and
to do nothing that might annoy Genji. He was more and more pleased with
her as time went by.
But there was the other, the lady in the city, waiting and waiting for
his return. He did not want to do anything that would make her unhappy,
and he spent his nights alone. He sent sketchbooks off to her, adding
poems calculated to provoke replies. No doubt her women were delighted
with them; and when the sorrow was too much for her (and as if by
thought transference) she too would make sketches and set down notes
which came to resemble a journal.
And what did the future have in store for the two of them?
The New Year came, the emperor was ill, and a pall settled over Court
life. There was a son, by Lady Sho~kyo~den, daughter of the Minister of the
<P 265>
Right, but the child was only two, far too young for the throne. The
obvious course was to abdicate in favor of the crown prince. As the em-
peror turned over in his mind the problem of advice and counsel for his
successor, he thought it more than ever a pity that Genji should be off in
the provinces. Finally he went against Kokiden's injunctions and issued an
amnesty. Kokiden had been ill from the previous year, the victim of a
malign spirit, it seemed, and numerous other dire omens had disturbed the
court. Though the emperor's eye ailment had for a time improved, perhaps
because of strict fasting, it was worse again. Late in the Seventh Month,
in deep despondency, he issued a second order, summoning Genji back to
the city.
Genji had been sure that a pardon would presently come, but he also
knew that life is uncertain. That it should come so soon was of course
pleasing. At the same time the thought of leaving this Akashi coast filled
him with regret. The old monk, though granting that it was most proper
and just, was upset at the news. He managed all the same to tell himself
that Genji's prosperity was in his own best interest. Genji visited the lady
every night and sought to console her. From about the Sixth Month she
had shown symptoms such as to make their relations more complex. A sad,
ironical affair seemed at the same time to come to a climax and to disinte-
grate. He wondered at the perverseness of fates that seemed always to be
bringing new surprises. The lady, and one could scarcely have blamed her,
was sunk in the deepest gloom. Genji had set forth on a strange, dark
journey with a comforting certainty that he would one day return to the
city; and he now lamented that he would not see this Akashi again.
His men, in their several ways, were delighted. An escort came from
the city, there was a joyous stir of preparation, and the master of the house
was lost in tears. So the month came to an end. It was a season for sadness
in any case, and sad thoughts accosted Genji. Why, now and long ago, had
he abandoned himself, heedlessly but of his own accord, to random, profit-
less affairs of the heart?
"What a great deal of trouble he does cause," said those who knew
the secret. "The same thing all over again. For almost a year he didn't tell
anyone and he didn't seem to care the first thing about her. And now just
when he ought to be letting well enough alone he makes things worse."
Yoshikiyo was the uncomfortable one. He knew what his fellows
were saying: that he had talked too much and started it all.
Two days before his departure Genji visited his lady, setting out
earlier than usual. This first really careful look at her revealed an astonish-
ingly proud beauty. He comforted her with promises that he would choose
an opportune time to bring her to the city. I shall not comment again upon
his own good looks. He was thinner from fasting, and emaciation seemed
to add the final touches to the picture. He made tearful vows. The lady
<P 266>
replied in her heart that this small measure of affection was all she wanted
and deserved, and that his radiance only emphasized her own dullness.
The waves moaned in the autumn winds, the smoke from the salt burners'
fires drew faint lines across the sky, and all the symbols of loneliness
seemed to gather together.
"Even though we now must part for a time,
The smoke from these briny fires will follow me."
"Smoldering thoughts like the sea grass burned on these shores.
And what good now to ask for anything more?"
She fell silent, weeping softly, and a rather conventional poem seemed
to say a great deal.
She had not, through it all, played for him on the koto of which he
had heard so much.
"Do let me hear it. Let it be a memento."
Sending for the seven-stringed koto he had brought from the city, he
played an unusual strain, quiet but wonderfully clear on the midnight air.
Unable to restrain himself, the old man pushed a thirteen-stringed koto
toward his daughter. She was apparently in a mood for music. Softly she
tuned the instrument, and her touch suggested very great polish and ele-
gance. He had thought Fujitsubo's playing quite incomparable. It was in
the modern style, and enough to bring cries of wonder from anyone who
knew a little about music. For him it was like Fujitsubo herself, the essence
of all her delicate awareness. The koto of the lady before him was quiet
and calm, and so rich in overtones as almost to arouse envy. She left off
playing just as the connoisseur who was her listener had passed the first
stages of surprise and become eager attention. Disappointment and regret
succeeded pleasure. He had been here for nearly a year. Why had he not
insisted that she play for him, time after time? All he could do now was
repeat the old vows.
"Take this koto," he said, "to remember me by. Someday we will play
together."
Her reply was soft and almost casual:
"One heedless word, one koto, to set me at rest.
In the sound of it the sound of my weeping, forever."
He could not let it pass.
"Do not change the middle string of this koto.
Unchanging I shall be till we meet again.
"And we will meet again before it has slipped out of tune."
Yet it was not unnatural that the parting should seem more real than
the reunion.
<P 267>
On the last morning Genji was up and ready before daybreak. Though
he had little time to himself in all the stir, he contrived to write to her:
"Sad the retreating waves at leaving this shore.
Sad I am for you, remaining after."
"You leave, my reed-roofed hut will fall to ruin.
Would that I might go out with these waves."
It was an honest poem, and in spite of himself he was weeping. One
could, after all, become fond of a hostile place, said those who did not
know the secret. Those who did, Yoshikiyo and others, were a little jeal-
ous, concluding that it must have been a rather successful affair.
There were tears, for all the joy; but I shall not dwell upon them.
The old man had arranged the grandest of farewell ceremonies. He
had splendid travel robes for everyone, even the lowliest footmen. One
marveled that he had found time to collect them all. The gifts for Genji
himself were of course the finest, chests and chests of them, borne by a
retinue which he attached to Genji's. Some of them would make very
suitable gifts in the city. He had overlooked nothing.
The lady had pinned a poem to a travel robe:
"I made it for you, but the surging brine has wet it.
And might you find it unpleasant and cast it off?"
Despite the confusion, he sent one of his own robes in return, and
with it a note:
"It was very thoughtful of you.
"Take it, this middle robe, let it be the symbol
Of days uncounted but few between now and then."
Something else, no doubt, to put in her chest of memories. It was a
fine robe and it bore a most remarkable fragrance. How could it fail to
move her?
The old monk, his face like one of the twisted shells on the beach, was
meanwhile making some of the younger people smile. "I have quite re-
nounced the world," he said, "but the thought that I may not see you back
to the city--
"Though weary of life, seasoned by salty winds,
I am not able to leave this shore behind,
and I wander lost in thoughts upon my child. Do let me see you at least
as far as the border. It may seem forward of me, but if something should
from time to time call up thoughts of her, do please let her hear from you."
"It is an impossibility, sir, for very particular reasons, that I can ever
forget her. You will very quickly be made to see my real intentions. If I
seem dispirited, it is only because I am sad to leave all this behind.
<P 268>
"I wept upon leaving the city in the spring.
I weep in the autumn on leaving this home by the sea.
"What else can I do?" And he brushed away a tear.
The old man seemed on the point of expiring.
The lady did not want anyone to guess the intensity of her grief, but
it was there, and with it sorrow at the lowly rank (she knew that she could
not complain) that had made this parting inevitable. His image remained
before her, and she seemed capable only of weeping.
Her mother tried everything to console her. "What could we have
been thinking of? You have such odd ideas," she said to her husband, "and
I should have been more careful."
"Enough, enough. There are reasons why he cannot abandon her. I
have no doubt that he has already made his plans. Stop worrying, mix
yourself a dose of something or other. This wailing will do no good." But
he was sitting disconsolate in a corner.
The women of the house, the mother and the nurse and the rest, went
on charging him with unreasonable methods. "We had hoped and prayed
over the years that she might have the sort of life any girl wants, and things
finally seemed to be going well--and now see what has happened."
<P 269>
It was true. Old age suddenly advanced and subdued him, and he
spent his days in bed. But when night came he was up and alert.
"What can have happened to my beads?"
Unable to find them, he brought empty hands together in supplica-
tion. His disciples giggled. They giggled again when he set forth on a
moonlight peregrination and managed to fall into the brook and bruise his
hip on one of the garden stones he had chosen so carefully. For a time pain
drove away, or at least obscured, his worries.
Genji went through lustration ceremonies at Naniwa and sent a mes-
senger to Sumiyoshi with thanks that he had come thus far and a promise
to visit at a later date in fulfillment of his vows. His retinue had grown to
an army and did not permit side excursions. He made his way directly back
to the city. At Nijo~ the reunion was like a dream. Tears of joy flowed so
freely as almost to seem inauspicious. Murasaki, for whom life had come
to seem of as little value as her farewell poem had suggested it to be, shared
in the joy. She had matured and was more beautiful than ever. Her hair
had been almost too rich and thick. Worry and sorrow had thinned it
somewhat and thereby improved it. And now, thought Genji, a deep peace
coming over him, they would be together. And in that instant there came
to him the image of the one whom he had not been ready to leave. It
seemed that his life must go on being complicated.
He told Murasaki about the other lady. A pensive, dreamy look passed
over his face, and she whispered, as if to dismiss the matter: "For myself
I do not worry."
He smiled. It was a charmingly gentle reproof. Unable to take his eyes
from her now that he had her before him, he could not think how he had
survived so many months and years without her. All the old bitterness
came back. He was restored to his former rank and made a supernumerary
councillor. All his followers were similarly rehabilitated. It was as if spring
had come to a withered tree.
The emperor summoned him and as they made their formal greetings
thought how exile had improved him. Courtiers looked on with curiosity,
wondering what the years in the provinces would have done to him. For
the elderly women who had been in service since the reign of his late
father, regret gave way to noisy rejoicing. The emperor had felt rather shy
at the prospect of receiving Genji and had taken great pains with his dress.
He seemed pale and sickly, though he had felt somewhat better these last
few days. They talked fondly of this and that, and presently it was night.
A full moon flooded the tranquil scene. There were tears in the emperor's
eyes.
"We have not had music here of late," he said, "and it has been a very
long time since I last heard any of the old songs."
<P 270>
Genji replied:
"Cast out upon the sea, I passed the years
As useless as the leech child of the gods."
The emperor was touched and embarrassed.
"The leech child's parents met beyond the pillar.
We meet again to forget the spring of parting."
He was a man of delicate grace and charm.
Genji's first task was to commission a grand reading of the Lotus Sutra
in his father's memory. He called on the crown prince, who had grown in
