Читать книгу The Tale of Genji - Murasaki Shikibu - Страница 8

Genji meanwhile thought about her continually. He was for ever calling back to memory each incident of that one meeting, and every recollection filled him with longing and despair. He remembered how sad she had looked when she spoke to him of herself, and he longed to make her happier. He thought of visiting her in secret. But the risk of discovery was too great, and the consequences likely to be more fatal to her even than to himself.

He had been many days at the Palace, when at last the Earth Star again barred the road to his home. He set out at once, but on the way pretended that he had just remembered the unfavourable posture of the stars. There was nothing to do but seek shelter again in the house on the Middle River. Ki no Kami was surprised but by no means ill-pleased, for he attributed Genji’s visit to the amenity of the little pools and fountains which he had constructed in his garden.

Genji had told the boy in the morning that he intended to visit the Middle River, and since he had now become the Prince’s constant companion, he was sent for at once to wait upon him in his room. He had already given a message to his sister, in which Genji told her of his plan. She could not but feel flattered at the knowledge that it was on her account he had contrived this ingenious excuse for coming to the house. Yet she had, as we have seen, for some reason got it into her head that at a leisurely meeting she would not please him as she had done at that first fleeting and dreamlike encounter, and she dreaded adding a new sorrow to the burden of her thwarted and unhappy existence. Too proud to let him think that she had posted herself in waiting for him, she said to her servants (while the boy was busy in Genji’s room) ‘I do not care to be at such close quarters with our guest, besides I am stiff, and would like to be massaged; I must go where there is more room,’ and so saying she made them carry her things to the maid Chūjō’s bedroom in the cross-wing.

Genji had purposely sent his attendants early to bed, and now that all was quiet, he hastened to send her a message. But the boy could not find her. At last when he had looked in every corner of the house, he tried the cross-wing, and succeeded in tracking her down to Chūjō’s room. It was too bad of her to hide like this, and half in tears he gasped out ‘Oh how can you be so horrid? What will he think of you?’ ‘You have no business to run after me like this’ she answered angrily, ‘It is very wicked for children to carry such messages. But’ she added, ‘you may tell him I am not well, that my ladies are with me, and I am going to be massaged....’ So she dismissed him; but in her heart of hearts she was thinking that if such an adventure had happened to her while she was still a person of consequence, before her father died and left her to shift for herself in the world, she would have known how to enjoy it. But now she must force herself to look askance at all his kindness. How tiresome he must think her! And she fretted so much at not being free to fall in love with him, that in the end she was more in love than ever. But then she remembered suddenly that her lot had long ago been cast. She was a wife. There was no sense in thinking of such things, and she made up her mind once and for all never again to let foolish ideas enter her head.

Genji lay on his bed, anxiously waiting to see with what success so young a messenger would execute his delicate mission. When at last the answer came, astonished at this sudden exhibition of coldness, he exclaimed in deep mortification ‘This is a disgrace, a hideous disgrace,’ and he looked very rueful indeed. For a while he said no more, but lay sighing deeply, in great distress. At last he recited the poem ‘I knew not the nature of the strange tree20 that stands on Sono plain, and when I sought the comfort of its shade, I did but lose my road,’ and sent it to her. She was still awake, and answered with the poem ‘Too like am I in these my outcast years to the dim tree that dwindles from the traveller’s approaching gaze.’ The boy was terribly sorry for Genji and did not feel sleepy at all, but he was afraid people would think his continual excursions very strange. By this time, however, everyone else in the house was sound asleep. Genji alone lay plunged in the blackest melancholy. But even while he was raging at the inhuman stubbornness of her new-found and incomprehensible resolve, he found that he could not but admire her the more for this invincible tenacity. At last he grew tired of lying awake; there was no more to be done. A moment later he had changed his mind again, and suddenly whispered to the boy ‘Take me to where she is hiding!’ ‘It is too difficult’ he said, ‘she is locked in and there are so many people there. I am afraid to go with you.’ ‘So be it’ said Genji, ‘but you at least must not abandon me’ and he laid the boy beside him on his bed. He was well content to find himself lying by this handsome young Prince’s side, and Genji, we must record, found the boy no bad substitute for his ungracious sister.

1 The hero of a lost popular romance. It is also referred to by Murasaki’s contemporary Sei Shōnagon in Chapter 145 of her Makura no Sōshi.

2 His father-in-law’s house, where his wife Princess Aoi still continued to live.

3 Japanese houses were arranged somewhat differently from ours and for many of the terms which constantly recur in this book (kichō, sudare, sunoko, etc.) no exact English equivalents can be found. In such cases I have tried to use expressions which without being too awkward or unfamiliar will give an adequate general idea of what is meant.

4 Provincial officials. Murasaki herself came of this class.

5 The tenth month.

6 From the saibara ballad, The Well of Asuka: ‘Sweet is the shade, the lapping waters cool, and good the pasture for our weary steeds. By the Well of Asuka, here let us stay.’

7 The ‘Japanese zithern’; also called wagon. A species of koto.

8 As opposed to the formal and traditional music imported from China.

9 See Encyclopédia de la Musique, p. 247. Under the name Nan-lü this mode was frequently used in the Chinese love-dramas of the fourteenth century. It was considered very wild and moving.

10 Goddess of Beauty.

11 A poem by Po Chü-i pointing out the advantages of marrying a poor wife.

12 There is a reference to an old poem which says: ‘I know that to-night my lover will come to me. The spider’s antics prove it clearly’ Omens were drawn from the behaviour of spiders. There is also a pun on hiru ‘day’ and hiru ‘garlic,’ so that an ordinary person would require a few moments’ reflection before understanding the poem.

13 The irises used for the Tango festival (5th day of 5th month) had to have nine flowers growing on a root.

14 The ‘Lord of the Centre,’ i.e. the planet Saturn.

15 I.e. people with whom one can be quite at ease. It was usual to unharness one’s bulls at the gate.

16 Ki no Kami’s step-mother.

17 We learn later that Genji courted this lady in vain from his seventeenth year onward. Though she has never been mentioned before, Murasaki speaks of her as though the reader already knew all about her. This device is also employed by Marcel Proust.

18 Chūjō means ‘Captain,’ which was Genji’s rank at the time.

19 Kokinshū 811, an anonymous love-poem.

20 The hahakigi or ‘broom-tree’ when seen in the distance appears to offer ample shade; but when approached turns out to be a skimpy bush.