The Tale of Genji

Lavender

1

Genji was suffering from repeated attacks of malaria. All manner of religious services were commissioned, but they did no good.

In a certain temple in the northern hills, someone reported, there lived a sage who was a most accomplished worker of cures. During the epidemic last summer all sorts of people went to him. He was able to cure them immediately when all other treatment had failed. You must not let it have its way. You must summon him at once.

Genji sent off a messenger, but the sage replied that he was old and bent and unable to leave his cave.

There was no help for it, thought Genji: he must quietly visit the man. He set out before dawn, taking four or five trusted attendants with him.

The temple was fairly deep in the northern hills. Though the cherry blossoms had already fallen in the city, it being late in the Third Month, the mountain cherries were at their best. The deepening mist as the party entered the hills delighted him. He did not often go on such expeditions, for he was of such rank that freedom of movement was not permitted him.

The temple itself was a sad place. The old man's cave was surrounded by rocks, high in the hills behind. Making his way up to it, Genji did not at first reveal his identity. He was in rough disguise, but the holy man immediately saw that he was someone of importance.

This is a very great honor. You will be the gentleman who sent for me? My mind has left the world, and I have so neglected the ritual that it has quite gone out of my head. I fear that your journey has been in vain. Yet he got busily to work, and he smiled his pleasure at the visit.

He prepared medicines and had Genji drink them, and as he went through his spells and incantations the sun rose higher.

2

Genji walked a fewsteps from the cave and surveyed the scene. The temple was on a height with other temples spread out below it. Down a winding path he saw a wattled fence of better workmanship than similar fences nearby. The halls and galleries within were nicely disposed and there were fine trees in the garden.

Whose house might that be?

A certain bishop, I am told, has been living there in seclusion for the last two years or so.

Someone who calls for ceremony and ceremony is hardly possible in these clothes. He must not know that I am here.

Several pretty little girls had come out to draw water and cut flowers for the altar.

And I have been told that a lady is in residence too. The bishop can hardly be keeping a mistress. I wonder who she might be.

Several of his men went down to investigate, and reported upon what they had seen. Some very pretty young ladies and some older women too, and some little girls.

3

Despite the sage's ministrations, which still continued, Genji feared a new seizure as the sun rose higher.

It is too much on your mind, said the sage. You must try to think of something else.

Genji climbed the hill behind the temple and looked off toward the city. The forests receded into a spring haze.

Like a painting, he said. People who live in such a place can hardly want to be anywhere else.

Oh, these are not mountains at all, said one of his men. The mountains and seas off in the far provinces, now they would make a real picture. Fuji and those other mountains.