of Genji, by Murasaki Shikibu
Chapter 13
Akashi
The days went by and the thunder and rain continued. What was Genji to do? People would laugh if, in this extremity, out of favor at court, he were to return to the city. Should he then seek a mountain retreat? But if it were to be noised about that a storm had driven him away, then he would cut a ridiculous figure in history.
His dreams were haunted by that same apparition. Messages from the city almost entirely ceased coming as the days went by without a break in the storms. Might he end his days at Suma? No one was likely to come calling in these tempests.
A messenger did come from Murasaki, a sad, sodden creature. Had they passed in the street, Genji would scarcely have known whether he was man or beast, and of course would not have thought of inviting him to come near. Now the man brought a surge of pleasure and affection — though Genji could not help asking himself whether the storm had weakened his moorings.
Murasaki’s letter, long and melancholy, said in part: “The terrifying deluge goes on without a break, day after day. Even the skies are closed off, and I am denied the comfort of gazing in your direction.
“What do they work, the sea winds down at Suma?
At home, my sleeves are assaulted by wave after wave.”
Tears so darkened Iris eyes that it was as if they were inviting the waters to rise higher.
The man said that the storms had been fierce in the city too, and that a special reading of the Prajñāpāramitā Sutra had been ordered. “The streets are all closed and the great gentlemen can’t get to court, and everything has closed down.”
The man spoke clumsily and haltingly, but he did bring news. Genji summoned him near and had him questioned.
“It’s not the way it usually is. You don’t usually have rain going on for days without a break and the wind howling on and on. Everyone is terrified. But it’s worse here. They haven’t had this hail beating right through the ground and thunder going on and on and not letting a body think.” The terror written so plainly on his face did nothing to improve the spirits of the people at Suma.
Might it be the end of the world? From dawn the next day the wind was so fierce and the tide so high and the surf so loud that it was as if the crags and the mountains must fall. The horror of the thunder and lightning was beyond description. Panic spread at each new flash. For what sins, Genji’s men asked, were they being punished? Were they to perish without another glimpse of their mothers and fathers, their dear wives and children?
Genji tried to tell himself that he had been guilty of no misdeed for which he must perish here on the seashore. Such were the panic and confusion around him, however, that he bolstered his confidence with special offerings to the god of Sumiyoshi.
“O you of Sumiyoshi who protect the lands about: if indeed you are an avatar of the Blessed One, then you must save us.”
His men were of course fearful for their lives; but the thought that so fine a gentleman (and in these deplorable circumstances) might be swept beneath the waters seemed altogether too tragic. The less distraught among them prayed in loud voices to this and that favored deity, Buddhist and Shinto, that their own lives be taken if it meant that his might be spared.
They faced Sumiyoshi and prayed and made vows: “Our lord was reared deep in the fastnesses of the palace, and all blessings were his. You who, in the abundance of your mercy, have brought strength through these lands to all who have sunk beneath the weight of their troubles: in punishment for what crimes do you call forth these howling waves? Judge his case if you will, you gods of heaven and earth. Guiltless, he is accused of a crime, stripped of his offices, driven from his house and city, left as you see him with no relief from the torture and the lamentation. And now these horrors, and even his life seems threatened. Why? we must ask. Because of sins in some other life, because of crimes in this one? If your vision is clear, O you gods, then take all this away.”
Genji offered prayers to the king of the sea and countless other gods as well. The thunder was increasingly more terrible, and finally the gallery adjoining his rooms was struck by lightning. Flames sprang up and the gallery was destroyed. The confusion was immense; the whole world seemed to have gone mad. Genji was moved to a building out in back, a kitchen or something of the sort it seemed to be. It was crowded with people of every station and rank. The clamor was almost enough to drown out the lightning and thunder. Night descended over a sky already as black as ink.
Presently the wind and rain subsided and stars began to come out. The kitchen being altogether too mean a place, a move back to the main hall was suggested. The charred remains of the gallery were an ugly sight, however, and the hall had been badly muddied and all the blinds and
curtains blown away. Perhaps, Genji’s men suggested somewhat tentatively, it might be better to wait until dawn. Genji sought to concentrate upon the holy name, but his agitation continued to be very great.
He opened a wattled door and looked out. The moon had come up. The line left by the waves was white and dangerously near, and the surf was still high. There was no one here whom he could turn to, no student of the deeper truths who could discourse upon past and present and perhaps explain these wild events. All the fisherfolk had gathered at what they had heard was the house of a great gentleman from the city. They were as noisy and impossible to communicate with as a flock of birds, but no one thought of telling them to leave.
“If the wind had kept up just a little longer,” someone said, “abso- lutely everything would have been swept under. The gods did well by us.”
There are no words — “lonely” and “forlorn” seem much too weak — to describe his feelings. “Without the staying hand of the king of the sea
The roar of the eight hundred waves would have taken us under.”
Genji was as exhausted as if all the buffets and fires of the tempest had been aimed at him personally. He dozed off, his head against some nondescript piece of furniture.
The old emperor came to him, quite as when he had lived. “And why are you in this wretched place?” He took Genji’s hand and pulled him to his feet. “You must do as the god of Sumiyoshi tells you. You must put out to sea immediately. You must leave this shore behind.”
“Since I last saw you, sir,” said Genji, overjoyed, “I have suffered an unbroken series of misfortunes. I had thought of throwing myself into the sea.”
“That you must not do. You are undergoing brief punishment for certain sins. I myself did not commit any conscious crimes while I reigned, but a person is guilty of transgressions and oversights without his being aware of them. I am doing penance and have no time to look back towards this world. But an echo of your troubles came to me and I could not stand idle. I fought my way through the sea and up to this shore and I am very tired; but now that I am here I must see to a matter in the city.” And he disappeared.
Genji called after him, begging to be taken along. He looked around him. There was only the bright face of the moon. His father’s presence had been too real for a dream, so real that he must still be here. Clouds traced sad lines across the sky. It had been clear and palpable, the figure he had so longed to see even in a dream, so clear that he could almost catch an afterimage. His father had come through the skies to help him in what had seemed the last extremity of his sufferings. He was deeply grateful, even to the tempests; and in the aftermath of the dream he was happy.
Quite different emotions now ruffled his serenity. He forgot his immediate troubles and only regretted that his father had not stayed longer. Perhaps he would come again. Genji would have liked to go back to sleep, but he lay wakeful until daylight.
A little boat had pulled in at the shore and two or three men came up.
“The revered monk who was once governor of Harima has come from Akashi. If the former Minamoto councillor, Lord Yoshikiyo, is here, we wonder if we might trouble him to come down and hear the details of our mission.”
Yoshikiyo