The Tale of Genji: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Junichiro Breakdown of Genji)

by Murasaki Shikibu

  One of the Counselor's men had ingratiated himself with a young woman of the household, and the two were chatting when he happened to remark, “His Highness of War will be making no more secret trips here: he has been confined to the palace. I hear they mean to marry him to the daughter of His Excellency of the Right. Since that has been the idea all along on her side, His Excellency will hardly object, and they say it is to happen before the end of the year. His Highness is not at all pleased; he spends all his time in gallant pastimes at the palace and seems to show little sign of behaving himself as Their Majesties would like him to do. My master, on the other hand, continues to distinguish himself by being so awfully serious that people hardly know what to do with him. The way he keeps coming here surprises them a good deal, and they say that he must be rather deeply involved.”

  Taking a nap

  The woman repeated this to the others, and Her Highness, who overheard her, was devastated. This is the end! she thought. I suppose that he was pleased enough to amuse himself here as long as he was not yet settled with a great lady, and that he carried on about deep devotion only out of deference to the Counselor. However, she had not the strength to dwell on how hateful His Highness was, because she lay there overwhelmed by the growing conviction that she herself had failed completely, and in her weakness she felt more than ever certain that she could not go on living.

  Her sister lay as though asleep and oblivious to their talk, since their thoughts were painful to imagine, even if in fact they hardly mattered. She had heard that people sometimes doze off like that when profoundly troubled, and her sleeping form was very dear. Her head rested on her arm, and the nearby mass of her hair was enchanting. While she gazed at her, the instructions their father had left them passed again and again through her mind. Surely he cannot have sunk to the depths they say await those who are immersed in sin!70 Gather me to you, wherever you are! You have abandoned us to despair and no longer come to us even in dreams!

  The dreary twilight sky was heavy with rain, and the sound of the wind sweeping through the trees beggared description. Her recumbent figure, pondering what had been and what was to be, conveyed immeasurable distinction. She was in white,71 and her hair, long uncombed, nevertheless streamed over her shoulders with not a strand out of place. The slight pallor she had lately acquired only enhanced her delicate grace, and one would have loved to show someone who cared the perfect line of her forehead as she gazed out into the dusk.

  A violent gust startled the sleeping sister awake. Her pale gray-violet and golden yellow looked bright and lively together, and her face, as beautifully rosy as though dyed, showed no trace of care. “I just dreamed of our father,” she said. “I just saw him, there, looking terribly sad.” Her elder sister felt a renewed weight of sorrow. “I have longed to dream of him ever since he died, but I never have,” she said. Both wept bitterly. He had been in their thoughts day and night lately, and it had occurred to them that they might have such a dream. Oh, to go to him! But how could we, when we are so deep in sin?72 They knew that their grief would last into the life to come. How they yearned for the smoke of that incense they are said to have across the sea!73

  It was quite dark when a messenger arrived from His Highness, which under the circumstances was a slight comfort. The lady addressed did not read it immediately. “Please answer him nicely and thoughtfully, though,” her sister urged her. “If it happened that I were no longer here, you see, someone might turn up who would treat you far worse than he does. I know that nothing like that could happen as long as His Highness remembers you now and again, and it seems to me that he is still good for that, however hateful you may think him.”

  “What is awful is the very idea that you might leave me!” She buried her face even deeper in her sleeves.

  “That time will come when it comes; I did not want to live on a moment longer, then, but here I still am after all. Who do you think even now makes my life worthwhile,74 when I know that I may never see tomorrow?”75 She had the lamp brought up, and they looked at the letter.

  As usual it was a long one.

  “When my eyes behold every day the selfsame skies, why now should it be

  that as the rains of winter fall, so my longing for you grows?”

  he had written, and no doubt with it “these sleeves have never been so wet!”76 or something of the sort, because it was all rather trite, and Her Highness detested him more than ever when she saw how little he meant it; but he showed off his wonderfully rare good looks to such winning advantage that it was no wonder the younger sister should still feel drawn to him nonetheless. The longer he stayed away, the more she missed him, and what with all the promises he had made her, she could not believe that there would really never be any more to it than this.

  When the messenger let it be known that he planned to return that night, they all pressed her to write a reply. She gave him just this:

  “Deep in these mountains, in a village lashed by hail, the heavens themselves

  before my eyes dawn and dusk are darkness and lowering cloud.”77

  This was on the last day of the tenth month. When it dawned on His Highness that another month had gone by, he became anxious enough every night to want to go to Uji, but many obstacles rose before him,78 and besides, the Gosechi Festival was early this year,79 and he could not help letting more days slip by when the court was constantly distracted by the brilliant preparations. Her wait became dreadfully long. He never for a moment forgot her through all his passing encounters.

  Her Majesty said to him on the matter that concerned His Excellency of the Right,80 “Once you have achieved so sound an alliance, then behave yourself and bring anyone else you may be keen on to you.”81

  “Please be patient. I still need to think,” he replied discouragingly. To the sisters, who had no idea that he wanted at all costs to spare the younger this disaster, the months and days brought only further gloom.

  He is less trustworthy than he looks! the Counselor reflected, regretting having given him the benefit of the doubt, and he all but stopped calling on him. Again and again he sent to the mountain village for news. He learned that she was a little better this month, but then for five or six days he was so taken up in public and private that he sent nobody there, until he wondered again with a start how she was and dropped all other urgent affairs to hurry to Uji himself.

  He had ordered the healing rites continued until she was wholly recovered, but she had sent the Adept back to his temple on the grounds that she was much improved, and few people were about. The old woman appeared as usual and gave him a report. “My lady feels no particular pain anywhere,” she said, “and her illness is not alarming; it is just that she will not eat. She has always been unusually frail, and now, ever since this began with His Highness, her spirits have sunk lower and lower, till she will not look at the smallest bit of fruit—I am sure that that is why she is so very weak and seems unlikely to live. It has been my misfortune to survive long enough to see this, and my only wish now is to go before she does.” She was weeping before she could finish, and no wonder.

  “This is very bad news. Why did you not let me know? This is an extremely busy time at His Eminence's as well as at the palace, and I was so worried when day after day I could not send her any message at all!”

  He went in to her as before and spoke from close to her pillow, but she could not answer him; it was as though she had no voice at all. “I am outraged that no one should have told me anything until you were as ill as this. It is enough to make a mockery of all my concern for you!” he said reproachfully, and as always he sent for the Adept, as well as for all others known to the world for their healing power. His retainers gathered in large numbers, since the rites and scripture readings were to begin the next day, and with so many people of all degrees rushing busily about, the desolate mood of the place yielded to one of confidence.

  After sundown they sought to take him to his usual room, offering him hot watered rice82 and so
on, but he declared that he would stay with her, and since the southern aisle was occupied by the priests, he went in to sit a little nearer to her, on the east side, behind a screen. This upset her younger sister, but the women all agreed that he and their elder mistress were too close to each other to be parted now. He had a perpetual reading of the Lotus Sutra begun at the evening service. The chanters were twelve monks with particularly fine voices, and the effect was awe-inspiring.

  The lamp was lit near him, in the space to the south, while all remained dark farther in.83 He lifted her standing curtain and slipped inside it a little to look at her, at which two or three of the older women moved to attend her. Their younger mistress meanwhile moved swiftly to hide and lay all alone with almost no one beside her.

  “Will you not let me at least hear your voice?” he pleaded, taking her hand to rouse her.

  “I would, but it is difficult to talk,” she murmured under her breath. “You have not come for so long. I thought I might go in the end without seeing you again, and I was very sorry.”

  “To think that I kept you waiting so long!” He was sobbing now. Her forehead felt a little warm. “What wrong did you do to bring this on?” he whispered in her ear. “They say that this is what happens when you make someone unhappy!” She covered her face in embarrassment and annoyance when he went on talking. He wondered as he watched her lying there, ever more frail and weak, with what feelings he would look on her if she were gone, and a sharp pang oppressed him.

  “It must have been so difficult for you, looking after her all this time. Do at least get a good rest tonight,” he said to her sister. “I shall be on duty.” She did not like the idea, but she supposed that he must have his reasons and withdrew a little.

  He was not really supposed to be with her face-to-face, but when he crept nearer to look at her, she felt despite her repugnance and shame that what they were to each other was fated, for his wonderfully loyal patience, compared to that other gentleman's ways, told her well enough how worthy he was. She could not abruptly send him away, no; she would not have him remember her after her death as obstinate or unkind. All night he kept the women at work bringing her medicines and so on, but she seemed to take nothing at all. He sat confounded and despairing. This was too cruel a blow. What could he do to keep her from leaving him?

  Just before dawn new monks took up the perpetual scripture chanting, and at this most holy sound the Adept, dozing on night attendance, woke up and chanted a darani. His voice, although hoarse with age, inspired trust and awe.

  “How did she get on during the night?” he asked, and then began to talk of His Late Highness, meanwhile frequently blowing his nose. “I wonder what sort of place he is in now,” he said. “I had been sure it was a serene one after all,84 but a little while ago I dreamed about him. He was dressed as a layman, and he said, ‘I never set my heart on this world, for I loathed it and all its works, and yet little affections have confused me, and I shall remain for some time far removed from where I long to go. It is a bitter thought. Do what you must to help me move on!’ He spoke very distinctly, and since I did not immediately know what to do, I had as many monks as I could, five or six, begin calling the Name. Then I had another idea and set some to saluting all people everywhere as imminent buddhas.”85 The Counselor wept copiously as well. To Her Highness, already in profound despair, it seemed that she must now breathe her last for the sin of having hindered him even in the life to come. As she lay there listening, she wanted only to find him before his destination was certain and to go there with him.

  The Adept finished his brief account and left. Having gone round the neighboring villages and even as far as the City, those sent to salute all people as buddhas now found the dawn gales too much for them, and they gathered where the Adept had been previously called, to sit by the middle gate and continue bowing in a most holy manner. The way they ended their prayer86 was very moving. The Counselor, who deeply shared their faith, was intensely affected. He heard the desperately anxious younger sister approach the curtain that stood far back in the room and sat up straight. “How did the monks' chanting impress you?” he asked. “That is not the most weighty of practices, but it can leave one struck with awe.” He added as though in simple speech,

  “Plovers all forlorn, caught here at the water's edge thick with early frost:

  how sorrowfully their cries ring out in the coming dawn!”

  In what she gathered of his presence he resembled that other gentleman whom she found so cruel, and she silently compared the two; but a direct answer was beyond her, and she had it conveyed to him by Ben:

  “Do they know so well, those plovers who from their wings brush the frosts of dawn,

  all that weighs upon the heart of one in thrall to sorrow?”

  The messenger is unworthy, he reflected, but certainly not the message. And she— what warmth she gives the slightest exchange! Ah, his troubled thoughts ran on, what would my feelings be if she were to be taken from me!

  Considering the way His Highness had appeared in that dream, he could well imagine how this pathetic spectacle must look to him, gazing down from on high, and he had scriptures read also at the temple where His Highness had stayed. He sent men to order prayers in other temples, too, excused himself from all engagements public or private, and neglected no rite of celebration or purification.87 However, these things did no good, because the illness did not proceed from any wrong she had done.

  It would have been one thing if Her Highness had prayed to the buddhas for her own recovery, but instead her mind was made up to die. I cannot possibly keep him away, now that he is close beside me and knows everything about me,88 she reflected, but even so, what seems to be strong affection would fade on both sides with familiarity and end in misery and grief. If I live after all, I must appeal to this illness to become a nun. That is the only way for him and me to remain to each other what we are now. She could not give such complexities open expression, however, despite having decided to act on her decision. Instead she said to her sister, “I feel less and less that I shall survive, and, you know, they say that the Precepts really can help one live longer. Please tell the Adept.”

  They all wept and cried out. “My lady, that is impossible! Here is my lord the Counselor, beside himself with anxiety for you—just think what a blow it would be to him!” They vigorously disapproved and would not pass it on even to the gentleman on whom they all depended. She was acutely disappointed.

  Word of the way he had secluded himself got about, and some gentlemen took the trouble to come and visit him. His close retainers and household officials commissioned prayers on their own when they saw how affected he was, and all of them shared his grief.

  His thoughts went to the City, and he realized that the Warmth of Wine banquet was today. A fierce wind was blowing, and falling snow swirled madly by. It would be different if I were there, he reflected, yielding to loneliness. Then are she and I never to be together? It is a hard fate for us both, but I shall not complain. She was so dear and sweet to me—oh, I must make her well awhile and tell her all these thoughts of mine! Meanwhile night came without a gleam of light.

  “Deep in these mountains where thick clouds cover the sky, shutting out the sun,

  how through all these long, long days darkness comes to fill the heart!”

  The women found no strength but in his presence. He sat near her as usual, and the wind blew the curtains about so much that her sister retired farther back into the room. When the disreputable-looking creatures went to hide from him in embarrassment, he moved closer still. “How do you feel?” he asked through his tears. “I have prayed for you in every way I know, but none of it has done any good, and you will not even let me hear your voice. It is so painful! I shall never forgive you for leaving me this way.”

  Although apparently unaware of what went on around her, she still had her face well hidden. “There are things I should like to tell you if I felt a little better, but I am afraid that I may g
o at any moment.” Her manner conveyed great sadness. His tears flowed faster and faster now, as his well-meant effort to conceal his grief failed, and he sobbed aloud.

  What has destiny made her to me, he wondered, contemplating her, that despite my endless love I should now be close to losing her, after so many sorrows? She might mean less to me if she could only betray the slightest blemish! But she seemed only dearer and more precious, and lovelier as well. Her thin arms, as weak as shadows, still had all their pale, slender grace, and in soft white robes, with the covers off her, she lay like a bodiless doll. Her hair, not excessively long, gleamed most beautifully where it streamed away from the pillow. Oh, what is to become of her? he asked himself in desperate anguish, for she did not look as though she could last. Ungroomed throughout her long illness, she nevertheless retained a dignity inaccessible to those who go about making so much of themselves, and it seemed to him as he watched her that his very spirit might wander away.

  “If you leave me, I shall not linger on long either,” he said; “or if the term of my life is more distant, I shall wander the depths of the mountains. I shall regret only the plight of the one I leave behind.” He mentioned her sister in the hope of eliciting an answer from her.

  She drew away a little of the sleeve that concealed her face. “My life is over,” she said, “and since there is no help for it now that you have thought me cruel, I would have peace if only you had not ignored what I ventured to ask of you, that you should regard my sister, who will survive me, as myself; that is the one bitter thought that may detain me.”

  “I was certainly born to great sorrow,” he replied, “because I have never been able to love anyone but you, and that is the reason why I did not obey you. Now I regret it, and for your sake wish that I had done otherwise. I assure you, though, that you need not worry.” He sought to comfort her, but she seemed to be suffering so much that he called in the Adepts performing the healing rites and had them work the most powerful of their spells. He himself prayed to the Buddha with all his heart.