Japanese Literature

"Why do you grieve so uselessly? Every uncertainty is the result of a certainty. There is nothing in this world really to be lamented. If you do not wish the public to know anything of this matter, I, Koremitz, will manage it."

"I, also, am aware that everything is fated. Still, I am deeply sorry to have brought this misfortune on this poor girl by my own inconsiderate rashness. The only thing I have now to ask you, is to keep these events in the dark. Do not mention them to any one—nay, not even to your mother."

"Even from the priests to whom it must necessarily be known, I will conceal the reality," replied Koremitz.

"Do manage all this most skilfully!"

"Why, of course I shall manage it as secretly as possible," cried Koremitz; and he was about to take his departure, but Genji stopped him.

"I must see her once more," said Genji, sorrowfully. "I will go with you to behold her, before she is lost to my sight forever." And he insisted on accompanying him.

Koremitz, however, did not at all approve of this project; but his resistance gave way to the earnest desire of Genji, and he said, "If you think so much about it, I cannot help it."

"Let us hasten, then, and return before the night be far advanced."

"You shall have my horse to ride."

Genji rose, and dressed himself in the ordinary plain style he usually adopted for his private expeditions, and started away with one confidential servant, besides Koremitz.

They crossed the river Kamo, the torches carried before them burning dimly. They passed the gloomy cemetery of Toribeno, and at last reached the convent.

It was a rude wooden building, and adjoining was a small Buddha Hall, through whose walls votive tapers mysteriously twinkled. Within, nothing but the faint sound of a female's voice repeating prayers was to be heard. Outside, and around, the evening services in the surrounding temples were all finished, and all Nature was in silent repose. In the direction of Kiyomidz alone some scattered lights studding the dark scene betrayed human habitations.

They entered. Genji's heart was beating fast with emotion. He saw Ukon reclining beside a screen, with her back to the lamp. He did not speak to her, but proceeded straight to the body, and gently drew aside the mantle which covered its face. It still wore a look of tranquil calmness; no change had yet attacked the features. He took the cold hand in his own, crying out as he did so:—

"Do let me hear thy voice once more! Why have you left me thus bereaved?" But the silence of death was unbroken!

He then, half sobbing, began to talk with Ukon, and invited her to come to his mansion, and help to console him. But Koremitz now admonished him to consider that time was passing quickly.

On this Genji threw a long sad farewell glance at the face of the dead, and rose to depart. He was so feeble and powerless that he could not mount his horse without the help of Koremitz. The countenance of the dead girl floated ever before his sight, with the look she wore when living, and it seemed as if he were being led on by some mysterious influence.

The banks of the river Kamo were reached, when Genji found himself too weak to support himself on horseback, and so dismounted.

"I am afraid," he exclaimed, "I shall not be able to reach home."

Koremitz was a little alarmed. "If I had only been firm," he thought, "and had prevented this journey, I should not have exposed him to such a trial." He descended to the river, and bathing his hands,58 offered up a prayer to Kwannon of Kiyomidz, and again assisted Genji to mount, who struggled to recover his energy, and managed somehow to return to Nijiô, praying in silence as he rode along.

The people of the mansion entertained grave apprehensions about him; and not unnaturally, seeing he had been unusually restless for some days, and had become suddenly ill since the day before, and they could never understand what urgency had called him out on that evening.

Genji now lay down on his couch, fatigued and exhausted, and continued in the same state for some days, when he became quite weak.

The Emperor was greatly concerned, as was also Sadaijin. Numerous prayers were offered, and exorcisms performed everywhere in his behalf, all with the most careful zeal. The public was afraid he was too beautiful to live long.

The only solace he had at this time was Ukon; he had sent for her, and made her stay in his mansion.

And whenever he felt better he had her near him, and conversed with her about her dead mistress.

In the meantime, it might have been the result of his own energetic efforts to realize the ardent hopes of the Emperor and his father-in-law, that his condition became better, after a heavy trial of some three weeks; and towards the end of September he became convalescent. He now felt as though he had been restored to the world to which he had formerly belonged. He was, however, still thin and weak, and, for consolation, still resorted to talk with Ukon.

"How strange," he said to her, as they were conversing together one fine autumn evening. "Why did she not reveal to me all her past life? If she had but known how deeply I loved her, she might have been a little more frank with me."

"Ah! no," replied Ukon; "she would not intentionally have concealed anything from you; but it was, I imagine, more because she had no choice. You at first conducted yourself in such a mysterious manner; and she, on her part, regarded her acquaintance with you as something like a dream. That was the cause of her reticence."

"What a useless reticence it was," exclaimed Genji. "I was not so frank as, perhaps, I ought to have been; but you may be sure that made no difference in my affection towards her. Only, you must remember, there is my father, the Emperor, besides many others, whose vigilant admonitions I am bound to respect. That was the reason why I had to be careful. Nevertheless, my love to your mistress was singularly deep; too deep, perhaps, to last long. Do tell me now all you know about her; I do not see any reason why you should conceal it. I have carefully ordered the weekly requiem for the dead; but tell me in whose behalf it is, and what was her origin?"

"I have no intention of concealing anything from you. Why should I? I only thought it would be blamable if one should reveal after death what another had thought best to reserve," replied Ukon. "Her parents died when she was a mere girl. Her father was called Sammi-Chiûjiô, and loved her very dearly. He was always aspiring to better his position, and wore out his life in the struggle. After his death, she was left helpless and poor. She was however, by chance, introduced to Tô-no-Chiûjiô, when he was still Shiôshiô, and not Chiûjiô. During three years they kept on very good terms, and he was very kind to her. But some wind or other attacks every fair flower; and, in the autumn of last year, she received a fearful menace from the house of Udaijin, to whose daughter, as you know, Tô-no-Chiûjiô is married. Poor girl, she was terrified at this. She knew not what to do, and hid herself, with her nurse, in an obscure part of the capital. It was not a very agreeable place, and she was about removing to a certain mountain hamlet, but, as its 'celestial direction' was closed this year, she was still hesitating, and while matters were in this state, you appeared on the scene. To do her justice, she had no thought of wandering from one to another; but circumstances often make things appear as if we did so. She was, by nature, extremely reserved, so that she did not like to speak out her feelings to others, but rather suffered in silence by herself. This, perhaps, you also have noticed."

"Then it was so, after all. She was the Tokonatz of Tô-no-Chiûjiô," thought Genji; and now it also transpired that all that Koremitz had stated about Tô-no-Chiûjiô's visiting her at the Yûgao house was a pure invention, suggested by a slight acquaintance with the girl's previous history.

"The Chiûjiô told me once," said Genji, "that she had a little one. Was there any such?"

"Yes, she had one in the spring of the year before last—a girl, a nice child," replied Ukon.

"Where is she now?" asked Genji, "perhaps you will bring her to me some day. I should like to have her with me as a memento of her mother. I should not mind mentioning it to her father, but if I did so, I must reveal the whole sad story of her mother's fate, and this would not be advisable at present; however, I do not see any harm if I were to bring her up as my daughter. You might manage it somehow without my name being mentioned to any one concerned."

"That would be a great happiness for the child," exclaimed Ukon, delighted, "I do not much appreciate her being brought up where she is."

"Well, I will do so, only let us wait for some better chance. For the present be discreet."

"Yes, of course. I cannot yet take any steps towards that object; we must not unfurl our sails before the storm is completely over."

The foliage of the ground, touched with autumnal tints, was beginning to fade, and the sounds of insects (mushi) were growing faint, and both Genji and Ukon were absorbed by the sad charm of the scene. As they meditated, they heard doves cooing among the bamboo woods.

To Genji it brought back the cries of that strange bird, which cry he had heard on that fearful night in Rokjiô, and the subject recurred to his mind once more, and he said to Ukon, "How old was she?"

"Nineteen."

"And how came you to know her?"

"I was the daughter of her first nurse, and a great favorite of her father's, who brought me up with her, and from that time I never left her. When I come to think of those days I wonder how I can exist without her. The poet says truly, 'The deeper the love, the more bitter the parting.' Ah! how gentle and retiring she was. How much I loved her!"

"That retiring and gentle temperament," said Genji, "gives far greater beauty to women than all beside, for to have no natural pliability makes women utterly worthless."

The sky by this time became covered, and the wind blew chilly. Genji gazed intently on it and hummed:—

"When we regard the clouds above,        Our souls are filled with fond desire,To me the smoke of my dead love,        Seems rising from the funeral pyre."

The distant sound of the bleacher's hammer reached their ears, and reminded him of the sound he had heard in the Yûgao's house. He bade "Good-night" to Ukon, and retired to rest, humming as he went:—

"In the long nights of August and September."

On the forty-ninth day (after the death of the Yûgao) he went to the Hokke Hall in the Hiye mountain, and there had a service for the dead performed, with full ceremony and rich offerings. The monk-brother of Koremitz took every pains in its performance.

The composition of requiem prayers was made by Genji himself, and revised by a professor of literature, one of his intimate friends. He expressed in it the melancholy sentiment about the death of one whom he had dearly loved, and whom he had yielded to Buddha. But who she was was not stated. Among the offerings there was a dress. He took it up in his hands and sorrowfully murmured,

"With tears to-day, the dress she wore        I fold together, when shall IBright Elysium's far-off shore        This robe of hers again untie?"

And the thought that the soul of the deceased might be still wandering and unsettled to that very day, but that now the time had come when her final destiny would be decided,59 made him pray for her more fervently.

So closed the sad event of Yûgao.

Now Genji was always thinking that he should wish to see his beloved in a dream.

The evening after his visit to the Hokke Hall, he beheld her in his slumbers, as he wished, but at the same moment the terrible face of the woman that he had seen on that fearful evening in Rokjiô again appeared before him; hence he concluded that the same mysterious being who tenanted that dreary mansion had taken advantage of his fears and had destroyed his beloved Yûgao.

A few words more about the house in which she had lived. After her flight no communication had been sent to them even by Ukon, and they had no idea of where she had gone to. The mistress of the house was a daughter of the nurse of Yûgao. She with her two sisters lived there. Ukon was a stranger to them, and they imagined that her being so was the reason of her sending no intelligence to them. True they had entertained some suspicions about the gay Prince, and pressed Koremitz to confide the truth to them, but the latter, as he had done before, kept himself skilfully aloof.

They then thought she might have been seduced and carried off by some gallant son of a local Governor, who feared his intrigue might be discovered by Tô-no-Chiûjiô.

During these days Kokimi, of Ki-no-Kami's house, still used to come occasionally to Genji. But for some time past the latter had not sent any letter to Cicada. When she heard of his illness she not unnaturally felt for him, and also she had experienced a sort of disappointment in not seeing his writing for some time, especially as the time of her departure for the country was approaching. She therefore sent him a letter of inquiry with the following:—

"If long time passes slow away,        Without a word from absent friend,Our fears no longer brook delay,        But must some kindly greeting send."

To this letter Genji returned a kind answer and also the following:—

"This world to me did once appear        Like Cicada's shell, when cast away,Till words addressed by one so dear,        Have taught my hopes a brighter day."

This was written with a trembling hand, but still bearing nice traits, and when it reached Cicada, and she saw that he had not yet forgotten past events, and the scarf he had carried away, she was partly amused and partly pleased.

It was about this time that the daughter of Iyo-no-Kami was engaged to a certain Kurando Shiôshiô, and he was her frequent visitor. Genji heard of this, and without any intention of rivalry, sent her the following by Kokimi:—

"Like the green reed that grows on high        By river's brink, our love has been,And still my wandering thoughts will fly        Back to that quickly passing scene."

She was a little flattered by it, and gave Kokimi a reply, as follows:—

"The slender reed that feels the wind        That faintly stirs its humble leaf,Feels that too late it breathes its mind,        And only wakes, a useless grief."

Now the departure of Iyo-no-Kami was fixed for the beginning of October.

Genji sent several parting presents to his wife, and in addition to these some others, consisting of beautiful combs, fans, nusa,60 and the scarf he had carried away, along with the following, privately through Kokimi:—

"I kept this pretty souvenir        In hopes of meeting you again,I send it back with many a tear,        Since now, alas! such hope is vain."

There were many other minute details, which I shall pass over as uninteresting to the reader.

Genji's official messenger returned, but her reply about the scarf was sent through Kokimi:—

"When I behold the summer wings        Cicada like, I cast aside;Back to my heart fond memory springs,        And on my eyes, a rising tide."

The day of the departure happened to be the commencement of the winter season. An October shower fell lightly, and the sky looked gloomy.

Genji stood gazing upon it and hummed:—

"Sad and weary Autumn hours,        Summer joys now past away,Both departing, dark the hours,        Whither speeding, who can say?"

All these intrigues were safely kept in strict privacy, and to have boldly written all particulars concerning them is to me a matter of pain. So at first I intended to omit them, but had I done so my history would have become like a fiction, and the censure I should expect would be that I had done so intentionally, because my hero was the son of an Emperor; but, on the other hand, if I am accused of too much loquacity, I cannot help it.

CHAPTER V

YOUNG VIOLET

It was the time when Genji became subject to periodical attacks of ague, that many exorcisms and spells were performed to effect a cure, but all in vain. At length he was told by a friend that in a certain temple on the northern mountain (Mount Kurama) there dwelt a famous ascetic, and that when the epidemic had prevailed during the previous summer, many people had recovered through his exorcisms. "If," added the friend, "the disease is neglected it becomes serious; try therefore, this method of procuring relief at once, and before it is too late."

Genji, therefore, sent for the hermit, but he declined to come, saying that he was too old and decrepit to leave his retreat. "What shall I do?" exclaimed Genji, "shall I visit him privately?" Eventually, taking four or five attendants, he started off early one morning for the place, which was at no great distance on the mountain.

It was the last day of March, and though the height of the season for flowers in the capital was over, yet, on the mountain, the cherry-trees were still in blossom. They advanced on their way further and further. The haze clung to the surface like a soft sash does round the waist, and to Genji, who had scarcely ever been out of the capital, the scenery was indescribably novel. The ascetic lived in a deep cave in the rocks, near the lofty summit. Genji did not, however, declare who he was, and the style of his retinue was of a very private character. Yet his nobility of manners was easily recognizable.

"Welcome your visit!" cried the hermit, saluting him. "Perhaps you are the one who sent for me the other day? I have long since quitted the affairs of this world, and have almost forgotten the secret of my exorcisms. I wonder why you have come here for me." So saying, he pleasingly embraced him. He was evidently a man of great holiness. He wrote out a talismanic prescription, which he gave to Genji to drink in water, while he himself proceeded to perform some mysterious rite. During the performance of this ceremony the sun rose high in the heavens. Genji, meantime, walked out of the cave and looked around him with his attendants. The spot where they stood was very lofty, and numerous monasteries were visible, scattered here and there in the distance beneath. There was immediately beyond the winding path in which they were walking a picturesque and pretty building enclosed by hedges. Its well arranged balconies and the gardens around it apparently betokened the good taste of its inhabitants. "Whose house may that be?" inquired Genji of his attendants. They told him it was a house in which a certain priest had been living for the last two years. "Ah! I know him," said Genji. "Strange, indeed, would it be if he were to discover that I am here in this privacy." They noticed a nun and a few more females with her walking in the garden, who were carrying fresh water for their offerings, and were gathering flowers. "Ah! there are ladies walking there," cried the attendants in tones of surprise. "Surely, the Reverend Father would not indulge in flirtations! Who can they be?" And some of them even descended a little distance, and peered over the enclosure, where a pretty little girl was also seen amongst them.

Genji now engaged in prayer until the sun sank in the heavens. His attendants, who were anxious about his disease, told him that it would be good for him to have a change from time to time. Hereupon, he advanced to the back of the temple, and his gaze fell on the far-off Capital in the distance, which was enveloped in haze as the dusk was setting in, over the tops of the trees around. "What a lovely landscape!" exclaimed Genji. "The people to whom such scenery is familiar, are perhaps happy and contented." "Nay," said the attendants, "but were you to see the beautiful mountain ranges and the sea-coast in our various provinces, the pictures would indeed be found lovely." Then some of them described to him Fuji Yama, while others told him of other mountains, diverting his attention by their animated description of the beautiful bays and coasts of the Western Provinces; thus as they depicted them to him, they cheered and gladdened his mind. One of them went on to say: "Among such sights and at no great distance, there is the sea-coast of Akashi, in the Province of Harima, which is, I think, especially beautiful. I cannot, indeed, point out in detail its most remarkable features, but, in general, the blue expanse of the sea is singularly charming. Here, too, the home of the former Governor of the Province constitutes an object of great attraction. He has assumed the tonsure, and resides there with his beautiful daughter. He is the descendant of a high personage, and was not without hope of elevation at Court, but, being of an eccentric character, he was strongly averse to society. He had formerly been a Chiûjiô of the Imperial Guard, but having resigned that office, had become Governor of Harima. He was not, however, popular in that office. In this state of affairs he reflected within himself, no doubt, that his presence in the Capital could not but be disagreeable. When, therefore, his term of office expired, he determined still to remain in the province. He did not, however, go to the mountainous regions of the interior, but chose the sea-coast. There are in this district several places which are well situated for quiet retirement, and it would have seemed inconsistent in him had he preferred a part of the sea-coast so near the gay world; nevertheless, a retreat in the too remote interior would have been too solitary, and might have met with objections on the part of his wife and child. For this reason, it appears, that he finally selected the place which I have already alluded to for the sake of his family. When I went down there last time, I became acquainted with the history and circumstances of the family, and I found that though he may not have been well received in the Capital, yet, that here, having been formerly governor, he enjoys considerable popularity and respect. His residence, moreover, is well appointed and of sufficient magnitude, and he performs with punctuality and devoutness his religious duties—nay, almost with more earnestness than many regular priests." Here Genji interrupted. "What is his daughter like?" "Without doubt," answered his companion, "the beauty of her person is unrivalled, and she is endowed with corresponding mental ability. Successive governors often offer their addresses to her with great sincerity, but no one has ever yet been accepted. The dominant idea of her father seems to be this: 'What, have I sunk to such a position! Well, I trust, at least, that my only daughter may be successful and prosperous in her life!' He often told her, I heard, that if she survived him, and if his fond hopes for her should not be realized, it would be better for her to cast herself into the sea."

Genji was much interested in this conversation, and the rest of the company laughingly said, "Ah! she is a woman who is likely to become the Queen of the Blue Main. In very truth her father must be an extraordinary being!"

The attendant who had given this account of the ex-governor and his daughter, was the son of the present Governor of the Province. He was until lately a Kurand, and this year had received the title of Jugoi. His name was Yoshikiyo, and he, too, was a man of gay habits, which gave occasion to one of his companions to observe: "Ah! perhaps you also have been trying to disappoint the hopes of the aged father." Another said, "Well, our friend has given us a long account, but we must take it with some reserve. She must be, after all, a country maiden, and all that I can give credit to is this much: that her mother may be a woman of some sense, who takes great care of the girl. I am only afraid that if any future governor should be seized with an ardent desire to possess her, she would not long remain unattached."

"What possible object could it serve if she were carried to the bottom of the sea? The natives of the deep would derive no pleasure from her charms," remarked Genji, while he himself secretly desired to behold her.

"Ay," thought his companions, "with his susceptible temperament, what wonder if this story touches him."

The day was far advanced, and the Prince prepared to leave the mountain. The Hermit, however, told him that it would be better to spend the evening in the Temple, and to be further prayed for. His attendants also supported this suggestion. So Genji made up his mind to stay there, saying, "Then I shall not return home till to-morrow."