The Tale of Genji: 5

In the generation after the Shining Prince, the world belongs to two young men whose natures could not be more opposed. Kaoru, raised at the Rokujo-in, carries an inexplicable fragrance that clings to him without perfume - and an inwardness, a spiritual gravity, that keeps the world at arm's length. Niou, the imperial grandson, blazes with beauty and desire, careless of the havoc he leaves behind.

Both men are drawn to the remote Uji estate on the River Uji, where the Eighth Prince, a prince the world has passed over, lives in Buddhist retirement with his two daughters. Kaoru finds in Oigimi, the Elder Princess, a mind that matches his own - and discovers, through the dying prince's aged confidante, the secret of his own birth. But Oigimi, who has watched her younger sister's ruin in Niou's arms, refuses every form of happiness offered to her, and wills herself toward death.

In the second half of this final volume the story turns to Ukifune - the Elder Princess's half-sister, illegitimate and displaced, who is brought to Uji as a kind of substitute. Caught between Kaoru's careful devotion and Niou's overwhelming passion, she cannot choose and cannot flee, until a snowy night on the river offers her a way out that is neither life nor death. She survives, is found by monks, takes the veil, and refuses - in absolute silence - to be recovered by those who loved her.

This volume contains chapters 43 through 54, from "Red Plum Blossoms" to "The Floating Bridge of Dreams" - including the celebrated Uji chapters, in which the psychological depth and lyrical restraint of The Tale of Genji reach their final, unresolved intensity.

Written at the dawn of the eleventh century by a lady-in-waiting at the imperial court, The Tale of Genji has been read for a thousand years as the world's oldest full-length psychological novel.