The dance “The Royal Deer”
“The older you are, the harder it gets to stop drunken tears,” Genji said. “Look at the Intendant of the Right Gate Watch, smiling away to himself—it is so embarrassing! Never mind, though, his time will come. The sun and moon never turn back. No one escapes old age.” He peered at the Intendant, who seemed far less cheerful than the others and really did look so unwell that the wonders of the day were lost on him. The way Genji singled him out in mock drunkenness appeared to be simple teasing, but it deepened his despair, and by the time the wine cup came round, he had such a headache that he took no more than a token sip, which Genji did not fail to miss. Genji had him keep the cup and made him drink again and again, to his discomfort and embarrassment, even though in that state he still cut a finer figure than most.
Too miserable to bear up any longer, he withdrew before the evening was over, feeling perfectly awful. I am not that drunk, though, he said to himself. What is the matter with me? Have anxiety and fright made me light-headed? There is no reason to feel completely destroyed, just because he talked to me that way. Why, this is ridiculous!
No, he was not suffering from any passing intoxication. Soon his condition was grave. His dismayed parents moved him to their own residence on the grounds that they would worry too much as long as he remained elsewhere, which was a cruel blow to the Princess, his wife. All through their uneventful life together he had entertained no more than a wan hope that he might eventually warm to her, but sorrow filled him now that he was going, perhaps forever, and he felt keenly the affront of leaving her to her grief.
Her mother the Haven was distraught. “A son certainly owes his parents their due,” she said, “but as a rule a tie such as the one you have with my daughter does not permit you to leave her under any ordinary circumstances. It can only be very painful to her that you should propose to do so until you recover. Please stay here longer and see whether that will not be good enough.” She spoke to him through a mere curtain that stood beside where he lay.
“I understand,” he answered. “Having been permitted the undeserved honor of intimacy with your daughter, unworthy as I am, I had hoped to acknowledge my debt by living long and allowing you to watch me rise from my present insignificance to a somewhat more honorable station, but under the circumstances I am afraid that I may never be able to make all my devotion to her clear, and even now, when I feel myself called away, I doubt that the regret I feel will leave me free to go.”117 By now both were in tears.
His failure to move to his father's house immediately provoked an indignant appeal from his mother. “Why do you not hasten here so that I may see you? Whenever my spirits are a little low, you are the one among all the others whom I most long to see and who brings me the greatest comfort. As things are, I worry so!”
He well understood her feelings, too. “I mean something special to them,” he told his wife, “perhaps because I am their eldest, and they still feel strongly about me and miss me very much when they do not see me for some time, so that I would feel deeply remiss if I were not to go to them now, when I feel that my end is near. Please come with all discretion and visit me there if you hear that the time has come to despair of my life. I promise you that we shall then meet again. I am a strangely dull and feckless man, and I regret having sometimes given you reason to feel that I neglected you. To think that I never knew my life might soon be over, and that I assumed I still had many, many years before me!” He left bathed in tears, and the Princess remained behind, missing him beyond words.
His Excellency's household was expecting him, and his arrival caused a great stir. It is not as though his condition there rapidly became alarming, however. Rather, he had eaten nothing for some months, and now he would no longer touch even a tangerine or anything else of the kind, so that he simply wasted away as though absorbed by an unseen power. All the world grieved to see one of the most gifted men of his time laid low, and no one failed to visit him. His Majesty and His Cloistered Eminence both inquired after him often, and their great affliction only added to the wretchedness of his parents. His Grace at Rokujō thought with surprise what a shame it was, and he sent His Excellency warm and frequent inquiries. The Commander, who was such an old friend, was of course far closer to him than that, and he went about in a state of profound grief.
His Eminence's jubilee celebration took place on the twenty-fifth of the month. There was little enthusiasm for it at a time when the most highly esteemed senior noble of the day was gravely ill, and his parents, brothers, sisters, and many other distinguished persons connected to him were lost in sorrow, but the event had already been postponed repeatedly, and Genji felt that it simply could not at last be canceled. He sadly imagined how Her Highness must feel. He had scriptures read, properly enough, in fifty temples, and more at His Cloistered Eminence's own in order to dedicate an image of Mahavairochana.118
36
KASHIWAGI
The Oak Tree
Kashiwagi means “oak tree.” After Kashiwagi's death, his widow's mother uses the word in an answer to Yūgiri:
“He indeed is gone, the god who stood watchful guard over this oak tree,
but may such familiar boughs start a new intimacy?”
This oak tree is less Kashiwagi than his widow, but the poem gave Kashiwagi and the chapter their name.
RELATIONSHIP TO EARLIER CHAPTERS
“The Oak Tree” continues from “Spring Shoots II” without a break.
PERSONS
His Grace, the Honorary Retired Emperor, Genji, age 48
The Intendant of the Right Gate Watch, then Acting Grand Counselor, 32 or 33 (Kashiwagi)
Her Highness, the Third Princess, then Her Cloistered Highness, 22 or 23 (Onna San no Miya)
Kojijū, Onna San no Miya's gentlewoman
His Retired Excellency (Tō no Chūjō)
Her Majesty, the Empress, 40 (Akikonomu)
His Majesty, the Emperor, 22
His Cloistered Eminence, the Retired Emperor, 51 (Suzaku In)
His Retired Excellency's wife, Kashiwagi's mother (Shi no Kimi)
The Right Commander, Genji's son, 27 (Yūgiri)
Her Highness, the Second Princess (Ochiba no Miya)
The Right Grand Controller, son of Tō no Chūjō
The son of Onna San no Miya and Kashiwagi, born (Kaoru)
The Consort, Genji's daughter, 20 (Akashi no Nyōgo)
The Haven, mother of Ochiba no Miya (Ichijō no Miyasudokoro)
The Intendant of the Right Gate Watch remained as ill as before, and meanwhile the New Year came. He saw his parents' grief and knew that willing himself to go would not help, since that would be a grave sin;1 but where was he to find the wish to cling to life? Even as a boy, he reflected, I nursed high ambition and strove in all things to stand above my peers, and I therefore approached every matter, public or private, with particular pride; but then a failure or two taught the likes of me how little to expect success, and all of life turned to disappointment. I longed more and more to prepare for the life to come,2 except that my parents' distress would then seriously hinder me from wandering moor and mountain, and I managed one way or another to put the idea aside. Whom but myself have I to blame, if knowing I can never show my face in the world again has brought me in the end to the last pitch of despair? Yes, the error was mine alone. I have no one else to accuse, nor do I have any complaint to lay before the gods and buddhas, because all this must have been destiny. No one in this world is a thousand-year pine,3 no one lingers forever, and as long as there is someone to remember me a little, someone to give me some slight, pitying thought, let that be my reward for having burned with a single flame.4 If I were to live, my name would be dishonored, and she and I would both be held up to scandal, while this way I may even find forgiveness where now I am only condemned! All is well that ends well. Perhaps the warmth that moved His Grace to desire my company so often through the years will restore his feeling for me, as long I do nothing else to of
fend him. So the Intendant's idle thoughts ran on and on—and yet, he felt, it was just too cruel.
He wondered in anguish why he had trapped himself this way. His pillow might have floated away,5 so endlessly did he weep over his own lapse, until a slight respite gave his family a moment to be away, and he sent her a letter. “You must have had occasion to hear that everything may well be over for me soon. The news means so little to you that you do not even ask how I am, and I understand that, but still, your silence is bitterly unkind!” he wrote, but his hand was trembling badly, and he gave up trying to say all he wished.
“When the end has come, and from my smoldering pyre smoke rises at last,
I know this undying flame even then will burn for you.
Oh, tell me at least that you pity me! Your comforting words will light my way on the dark road I have chosen to follow.”
He also sent an unrepentantly passionate appeal to Kojijū. “I must speak to her one last time in person,” he wrote; and despite her shock at his presumption, Kojijū was overcome with sorrow to gather that he would soon be no more, for she had run errands between his household and Her Highness's ever since she was a child, and she knew both well. “Oh, please answer him, my lady!” she pleaded in tears. “I am afraid that it may be for the very last time.”
“I sympathize with him in a general sort of way, because I, too, suffer from the feeling that each day may be my last, but what happened was too awful, and I want no more of it. No, I just cannot risk it.” Her Highness absolutely refused. Although neither sensible nor sober by nature, she was probably frightened of the displeasure betrayed at times by the gentleman who so overawed her. Kojijū placed the inkstone before her nonetheless, and she begged and pleaded until Her Highness grudgingly wrote after all. She took the letter to its destination secretly, under cover of darkness.
His Retired Excellency had called in a powerful ascetic from the Kazuraki Mountains, and now he received the man and set him to working his prayers. The Great Rite and the chanting of scriptures went forward amid a tremendous din. He also sent his younger sons to look for others as well, wherever people said they might be found—more or less holy men of every kind, hidden deep in the hills and hardly known to the world at all—and he summoned these, too, until odious, repellent mountain ascetics began gathering to his residence in large numbers. The patient just suffered from vague fears and at times only sobbed. Most of the yin-yang masters reported after divination that the cause was a woman's spirit, which His Excellency found easy enough to believe. The spirit's refusal to declare itself was baffling, though, and that was why he searched every corner of the hills.
The tall, fierce ascetic from Kazuraki chanted the darani6 with wild and fearful power. “Oh, I cannot bear it!” the Intendant cried. “Surely my sins are very great, because the darani chanted so loud is terrifying, and I feel certain that I must die!” He stole away to talk to Kojijū. His Excellency did not know this, however, and he believed it when he was told the Intendant was asleep.
He therefore had a discreet talk with the ascetic. Lively and merry though he still was, despite his advancing age, he now received such people as this face-to-face, describing how his son's illness had first declared itself and how in a meandering way it had then grown worse and worse. It was a sad thing to hear him beg, “Do something, please, to make this spirit appear!”
“Listen to him!” the Intendant said. “Why, he has no idea what I have done! I would value myself a lot more than I do if this woman's spirit their divination is supposed to have hit on really were she, clinging to me. There is no point, though, in arguing that this is hardly the first time a man has had the face to blunder as I did, hold up someone else's name to scandal, and destroy himself as well, because I still feel guilty toward him, and now that he knows what I did, I shrink from the prospect of living—which I should say only confirms what a special light he has. My crime is not really that serious,7 but as soon as I met his gaze that evening, my soul fled in anguish, and it has never come back. Please, if it is haunting Rokujō, please bind it for me!” He wept and laughed feebly as he spoke, like an empty shell.
Kojijū described how guilt and shame continually overwhelmed Her Highness, too. He felt as though he could actually see her, with her despondent air and her wasted face. Then his wandering soul must really be going to her! The idea made him more wretched than ever. “No,” he said, “I shall never speak of her again. The little she and I shared is over now, and it is awful to think that it may detain me forever. I just want to know that the event that concerns me so has gone smoothly for her. I have told no one else about that dream of mine, but I have thought about it on my own, and I am extremely anxious.” The depth of his despair was too much for Kojijū, despite the awful folly of what he had done, and she, too, wept bitterly.
The Intendant called for a hand torch and read Her Highness's reply. She had written it quite nicely, although her writing was still uncertain. “I am very sorry to hear how you are, but what can I really say? I know that you will understand. ‘Even then will burn for you,’ you wrote:
I would rise with you, yes, and vanish forever, that your smoke and mine
might decide which one of us burns with the greater sorrows.
Do you suppose that I could survive you?”
That was all, but he was moved and grateful. “Very well,” he said, “her smoke will be all I retain of this life. How fragile it was!” His tears flowed faster now, and he wrote his reply lying down, between bouts of weeping. The words made no sense and resembled the tracks of strange birds.
“Though I turn to smoke and forever melt away into the wide sky,
I shall never leave your side, who remain all my desire.
Gaze upward, then, especially in the evening. Never mind that he may see you and understand: only let me always have your unavailing pity.”
He felt even worse after this confused effort at writing. “Very well, go back to Her Highness before too much of the night is over and tell her that I am all but gone. It hurts to look even past my own death to people's shock when they understand. What old tie between her and me can have so enslaved my heart?” He slipped away in tears to retire. Usually he kept Kojijū with him interminably to chat on and on about nothing at all, and seeing him so silent now upset her until she felt unable to leave.
Double trays
The Intendant's nurse described his condition to her, too, weeping profusely. The grief of His Excellency and the others was heartrending. “But you were feeling a little better yesterday and today!” His Excellency protested. “Why do you seem so much weaker now?”
“What can I say?” His son was in tears as well. “It is just that I seem to have no more time left.”
That evening Her Highness felt a discomfort that her excited women recognized as meaning that the moment was at hand, and the startled Genji came immediately when they let him know. It is too bad! he reflected. How very glad I would be if I could assist her without dwelling on my doubts! He wished to keep his thoughts to himself, however, and he therefore summoned healers and commissioned a perpetual Great Rite. Every monk with healing powers came to offer up noisy prayers.
She gave birth at sunrise, after a long and painful night. The secret is still safe, Genji thought when he heard the news that it was a boy, but things could be very difficult if he looks too much like his father. A girl would be much safer, since one could always divert attention from her and since few people would see her in any case. On the other hand, considering this painful suspicion, it is just as well the child is one who needs less care rather than more. But how strange! This must be retribution for what has terrified me so long. Perhaps my sins will be lighter in the next life, now that I have reaped so surprising a reward in this one. The women, who knew nothing of all this, assumed that a child born late in his life to so special a mother would mean a great deal to him, and they busied themselves dutifully in his service.
The rites attending the birth8 were done
with great pomp and splendor. At the birth celebrations offered by his ladies the usual trays, double trays,9 and tall stands10 showed how keenly each vied with the others. On the fifth evening it was Her Majesty's turn magnificently to provide, as a government gesture, the meal for the new mother and suitably graded gifts for each of her gentlewomen. She saw to it that each detail was perfect, from the gruel to the fifty sets of rice dumplings and the meals for the different estate officials, servants, and grooms. The Commissioner and the rest of her household gentlemen were all there, and so were His Eminence Reizei's privy gentlemen.
The seventh evening was provided by His Majesty, also as a government gesture. His Excellency should have been eager to attend, but he now had only one thing on his mind, and he sent no more than the customary congratulations. A great many Princes and senior nobles were present. Appearances conveyed the impression that Genji held mother and child in the highest regard, but he had reason to be bitter at heart, and he did not greatly put himself out for the guests. There was no music.
The Tale of Genji: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Junichiro Breakdown of Genji) Page 87