The Tale of Genji

1) "His Majesty, who could no longer keep her by him, suffered acutely to think that he could not even see her off. There she lay, lovely and ever so dear, but terribly thin now and unable to tell him of her deep trouble and sorrow because she lingered in a state of semiconsciousness – a sight that drove from his mind all notion of time past or to come and reduced him simply to assuring her tearfully, in every way he knew, how much he loved her.
When she still failed to respond but only lay limp and apparently fainting, with the light dying from her eyes, he had no idea what to do. Even after issuing a decree to allow her the privilege of a hand carriage, he went in to her again and could not bring himself to let her go. 'You promised never to leave me, not even at the end,' he said, 'and you cannot abandon me now! I will not let you!' She was so touched that she managed to breathe:
'Now the end has come, and I am filled with sorrow that our ways must part:
the path I would rather take is the one that leads to life.
If only I had known...'"

2) "'A wife's main duty is to look after her husband, so it seems to me that one can do quite well without her being too sensitive, ever so delicate about the least thing, and all too fond of being amused. On the other hand, with a dutiful, frumpish housewife who keeps her sidelocks tucked behind her ears and does nothing but housework, the husband who leaves in the morning and comes home at night, and who can hardly turn to strangers to chat about how so-and-so is getting on in public or private or about whatever, good or bad, may have happened to strike him and is entitled to expect some understanding from the woman who shares his life, finds instead, when he feels like discussing with her the things that have made him laugh or cry, or perhaps have inflamed him with righteous indignation and are now demanding an outlet, that all he can do is avert his eyes, and that when he then betrays private mirth or heaves a sad sigh, she just looks up at him blankly and asks, 'What is it, dear?' How could he not wish himself elsewhere? It is probably not a bad idea to take a wholly childlike, tractable wife and form her yourself as well as you can. She may not have your full confidence, but you will know your training has made a difference. Certainly, as long as you actually have her with you, you can let her pretty ways persuade you to overlook her lapses; but you will still regret her incompetence if, when you are away, you send her word about something practical or amusing that needs doing, and her response shows that she knows nothing about it and understands nothing either. Sometimes a wife who is not especially sweet or friendly does very well when you actually need her.' The Chief Equerry's far-ranging discussion of his topic yielded no conclusion but a deep sigh.
'In the end, I suppose,' he went on, 'one should settle on someone wholly dependable, quiet, and steady, as long as there is nothing especially wrong with her, and never mind rank or looks. If beyond that she has any wit or accomplishment, simply be grateful, and if she lacks anything in particular, by no means seek to have her acquire it. Provided she is distinctly trustworthy and forgiving, you know, she will gain a more superficially feminine appeal all on her own."

3) "In he came, and to his relief he found her lying alone. Two of her women were asleep outside on the level below. When he drew the cover aside to join her, it seemed to him that there was rather more of her than he had expected, but even so the truth never dawned on him. What alerted him in the end was the strange soundness with which she slept, and despite his shocked recoil he understood that if this young woman ever guessed his mistake, she would be hurt and he would look a dunce. Never mind now pursuing the lady he had come for, because she would only evade him again and think him a fool for trying. But if this is that pretty girl in the lamplight, he decided, then so be it! – which was no tribute to his seriousness of character.
At last she awoke, in dismay and surprise, and she seemed frightened, too, but she gave no sign of deep or upsetting alarm. Her inexperience encouraged playful compliance, and she kept her head. Genji preferred not to say who he was, but he knew that once she began to wonder what he had been doing there, her conclusion, which to him would not matter, might damage that cruel woman who so fiercely protected her name, and he therefore gave her a smooth explanation of just why that taboo had brought him here again and again. Anyone with a little wit would have seen through him, but for all her forwardness she was too young to understand."

4) "While peaceful twilight dimmed to evening beneath a lovely sky, a cricket sang falteringly from the fading garden, and here and there the autumn colors glowed. Surveying the pleasures of this scene, so like a painting, Ukon wondered to find twilight beauties.
A dove's throaty call from amid the bamboo brought back to Genji, with an affectionate pang, her look of terror when one had called that night at the old mansion. 'How old was she? I suppose it was clear enough from her extraordinary frailty that she was not to live long.'
'I believe my lady was nineteen. Her nurse's death left me an orphan, and when I remember now how kind my lady's father was, and how he brought me up with his own daughter, I hardly know how I shall go on living. By now I wish I had not been so close to her. I spent such long years depending on a mistress who was after all so very fragile!'
'It is frailty that gives a woman her charm, though. I do not care for a woman who insists on valuing her own wits. I prefer someone compliant, perhaps because I myself am none too quick or self-assured – someone easy for a man to take advantage of if she is not careful, but still circumspect and happy enough to do as her husband wishes. I know I would like such a woman more, the more I lived with her and formed her to my will.'
'I am very, very sorry, my lord,' said the weeping Ukon, 'when I think how perfectly my mistress matched your ideal.'
The sky had clouded over, and the breeze had turned cold. Genji murmured in blank despair,
'When the clouds to me seem always to be the smoke that rose from her pyre,
how fondly I rest my gaze even on the evening sky!'"

5) "He kept up a stream of pleasantries, bantering or serious, but nothing worked. In frustration before this evidence that she must be odd in some way or her feelings engaged elsewhere, he gently slid the panel open and entered. How awful of him! And he promised he wouldn't! Taifu felt such pain for Her Highness that she averted her eyes and went off to her room. The young gentlewomen forgave his behavior, so famous were his supreme good looks, and they could not bring themselves to raise any serious outcry, even though it certainly was all very sudden and their mistress was pitifully unprepared. Her Highness herself was numb with shame and wounded modesty, for which Genji did not blame her, since the moment was one in which her state easily touched his tenderest feelings and since she still led so sheltered and so virtuous a life; yet he also found her comportment peculiar and somehow pathetic. What about her could possibly have attracted him?
Groaning, he took his leave late in the night. Taifu was lying awake, listening for clues to how things were going, but she did not rouse anyone to see him off because she did not wish to betray her involvement. He stole away very quietly indeed."

6) "'I haven't a moment these days,' he said, sighing. 'I really cannot help it.' He added with a smile, 'She knows so little of the sorrows of love, you see; I want only to make her wiser.' His smiles and his youthful charm made Taifu smile, too. It is hopeless, she thought. He is of just the age to make women suffer, and no wonder he is often thoughtless and does as he pleases."

7) "The Dazaifu Deputy was then on his way back up to the City. Traveling in grand style, with a vast entourage, he could not accommodate his many daughters, and his wife was therefore going by sea. They came along the coast from harbor to harbor and were pleased by Suma, for it was prettier than elsewhere; and the news of the Commander's presence there in such a plight made the younger, more romantic daughters blush most fancifully to be aboard ship, until they began in their hearts to primp and preen. The Gosechi Dancer was hoping desperately, and no wonder, that they would not be towed straight past, when there reached them from afar, down the wind, the notes of a kin; and such were the place, the man, and the poignancy of the music that all those alive to finer feelings wept."

8) "The wine went round and round until the riverbank became such a threat that in their drunkenness they all spent the day at the villa instead. Each contributed his share of Chinese verses, and the music began when a brilliant moon rose. It was very lively. The biwa and the wagon were the only stringed instruments, but there were several expert flutists whose music nicely caught the mood of the moment, while the wind sang with them along the river and the moon soared high into a carefree night."

9) "The southeast quarter boasted high hills, every tree that blossoms in spring, and a particularly lovely lake; and in the near garden, before the house, he took care to plant not only five-needled pines, red plums, cherry trees, wisteria, kerria roses, and rock azaleas, all of which are at their best in spring, but also, here and there, discreet touches of autumn. In Her Majesty's quarter he planted the hill already there with trees certain to glow in rich autumn colors, turned springs into clear streams, added rocks to the brook to deepen its voice, and contrived a waterfall, while on the broad expanse of his new-laid meadow, flowers bloomed in all the profusion of the season. The result was an autumn to put to shame the moors and mountains of Saga and Ōi. The northeast quarter, with its cool spring, favored summer shade. Chinese bamboo grew in the near garden, to freshen the breeze; tall groves offered welcoming depths of shade, as in a mountain village; the hedge was of flowering deutzia; and among the plantings of orange, fragrant with the past, of pinks and roses and peonies, there also grew spring and autumn flowers. The east edge of this quarter was divided off into a riding ground with a pavilion and surrounded by a woven fence. Sweet flag had been induced to grow thickly beside the water, for the games of the fifth month, and the nearby stables housed the most superb horses. The northwest quarter's northern sector was given over to rows of storehouses. Along the dividing fence grew a dense stand of pines intended to show off the beauty of snow. There was a fence entwined with chrysanthemums to gather the morning frosts of early winter, a grove of deep-hued oaks, and a scattering of nameless trees transplanted from the fastnesses of the mountains."

10) "Finding her enthralled by works like these, which lay scattered about everywhere, Genji exclaimed, 'Oh, no, this will never do! Women are obviously born to be duped without a murmur of protest. There is hardly a word of truth in all this, as you know perfectly well, but there you are caught up in fables, taking them quite seriously and writing away without a thought for your tangled hair in this stiflingly warm rain!' He laughed but then went on, 'Without stories like these about the old days, though, how would we ever pass the time when there is nothing else to do? Besides, among these lies there certainly are some plausibly touching scenes, convincingly told; and yes, we know they are fictions, but even so we are moved and half drawn for no real reason to the pretty, suffering heroine. We may disbelieve the blatantly impossible but still be amazed by magnificently contrived wonders, and although these pall on quiet, second hearing, some are still fascinating. Lately, when my little girl has someone read to her and I stand there listening, I think to myself what good talkers there are in this world, and how this story, too, must come straight from someone's persuasively glib imagination – but perhaps not.'"

11) "As autumn advanced, His Highness's thoughts became still gloomier, until he decided as before to devote himself in peace to calling the Name, and with this in mind he spoke the inevitable words to his daughters. 'Such is this life that no one escapes the final parting, but it helps to look forward to finding comfort. It is tragic that I should now have to leave you alone when you have no one else to look after you, and yet it will not help for me to wander for that reason the darkness of the eternal night. I cannot say what may happen after I am gone, in a world that I renounced even while I was still with you, but I warn you, do nothing ill considered that might bring shame not only on me but on your late mother. Never let yourselves be persuaded to leave this mountain village unless by someone worthy of you. Simply accept that your destiny is not that of others and decide to remain here all your lives. As long as you persist in that resolve, you will find that the months and years pass smoothly. What matters above all, particularly for a woman, is to remain unseen and never to arouse such criticism as to bring her to others' unfriendly attention.'"

12) "The young woman was his now, and the Commander certainly found her very nice, but under such skies his sense of loss only mounted, and the farther they went into the hills, the more thickly the mists seemed to rise around him. His sleeves as he leaned on an armrest, lost in thought, trailed away out of the carriage, one on the other, wet with the mists of the river. The scarlet of the gown looked wrong against the petal blue of the dress cloak: he noticed it at the top of a steep slope and drew them both in.
'Now that she is mine, to keep fresh that memory,
how the morning dew settles in fast-falling drops on these sadly moistened sleeves!'"

13) "For him to stay on until evening would only have been a foolish imposition, and he prepared to leave. Bitterly disappointed not even to have seen her, when secretly he had longed to meet her again, he returned to the Commander with a heavy heart.
The Commander, who had awaited him eagerly, was confounded by this inconclusive outcome. He reflected that he would have done better to refrain and went on to ponder, among other things, the thought that someone else might be hiding her there, just as he himself had once, after full deliberation, consigned her to invisibility.
That appears to be what is in the book."