Chapter 36 - Kashiwagi - 柏木

"Kashiwagi" is Chapter 36 of The Tale of Genji, named for the young courtier whose forbidden affair with the Third Princess has been discovered by Genji. Consumed by guilt and shame under Genji's cold, knowing gaze, Kashiwagi falls ill and dies — his body refusing to survive the dishonor. The chapter is among the most psychologically complex in the novel: Genji himself is no stranger to illicit passion, and his persecution of Kashiwagi carries the irony of a man punishing in another what he could never punish in himself. Ebina renders the weight of this moral complexity.