The Tale of Genji

  “Ah, the plume grass stem by the sighing of the wind knows now all too well

  how the fall has come at last to blight once-happy meadows.89

  Such things afflict me alone…“90 To her chagrin there were tears in her eyes, and she covered her face with her fan. He well understood how she felt and thought her very dear; but this, he could see, was exactly why he could not give her up either, and he felt acutely suspicious and angry.

  The chrysanthemums had not yet properly turned color, being slow to do so despite all the care he had them given, but it happened that one after all was beautifully transformed, and he had it picked. “Not alone among all flowers,”91 he hummed, and then went on to say, “One evening, you know, a long time ago, an Emperor's son was enjoying flowers like this one, and an angel came down and taught him some biwa music.92 Ah, it is a sad world, now that everything is so shallow!”

  “Hearts are shallow, yes,” she rejoined, “but surely not what has come down to us from the past!” She longed to hear music she did not know.

  “But there is nothing amusing about playing alone. Do accompany me!”

  He had brought her a sō no koto.

  “Once I had someone to give me lessons, but I never learned to play anything properly,” she protested modestly. She would not touch it.

  “Will you not humor me even in this? You are too cruel! The lady with whom I spend so much time these days has not completely given herself to me yet, but even so, she does not hide things that she has not quite mastered. A woman should be sweet and yielding, or so I hear that Counselor of yours has declared. No doubt you are less shy with him. You two seem just as friendly as you could be.”

  With a sigh at this blunt rebuke she played a little. Once she had retuned the slack strings to the banshiki mode, her touch in the modal prelude was very nice indeed. His voice singing “Sea of Ise” had a noble grace, and the women who moved closer to hear him behind their curtains and screens sat listening with broad smiles.

  “One so wishes that his affections were not divided, but it is only to be expected, and I still think my lady is fortunate,” one said.

  “I feel awfully sorry for her, though—she talks as though she wants to go home to that place where she could never normally have met His Highness at all.” They kept chatting until the younger ones asked them to be quiet.

  He spent three or four days there teaching her music and so on, and excusing himself elsewhere on the grounds of seclusion. At His Excellency's they were so little pleased that His Excellency himself soon appeared on his way home from the palace.

  “What is he doing here, all pomp and circumstance?” His Highness grumbled, but he went to the main house anyway to receive him.

  “It is such a shame that for so long nothing has brought me back to see this house again!” His Excellency remarked, and he talked for some time about his memories of the place until, soon enough, he swept His Highness off with him. The sight of the vast throng following in his train, including his sons and many other senior nobles, made it depressingly clear to her women how little their mistress could ever hope to stand beside his daughter.

  “His Excellency is such a fine-looking gentleman!”

  “And just look how young and handsome his sons are, every one—there is simply no one else like them! Yes indeed, he is a wonder!”

  Still, there were also unhappy sighs. “One could do without his coming so grandly to fetch His Highness, though. My lady had better look out.”

  She herself remembered what her life had once been and felt more than ever sadly convinced that she counted too little to belong in such brilliant company. It seemed to her that the right course would indeed be to go into peaceful seclusion among her hills.

  By and by the year came to a close.

  From the end of the first month on, she began to feel unusual discomfort, and His Highness, to whom such things were still quite unfamiliar, became sufficiently concerned about her to commission healing rites in temple after temple and then, time and again, to add still more. She was so unwell that Her Majesty sent inquiries after her health. This was her third year with His Highness, but while he himself remained devoted, the world at large had never accorded her much respect. Now, however, the news startled all and sundry, and messages reached her from far and wide.

  The Counselor was just as apprehensive as His Highness, and he sighed and fretted over what the outcome might be, but he kept the expressions of his concern within the bounds of propriety and did not call on her too often; instead he commissioned secret prayers on her behalf. Meanwhile the world busied itself preparing for the Second Princess's donning of the train, which was to take place soon. His Majesty took such interest in the preparations that he might as well have been directing them all himself, with the result that her lack of other support actually came to seem a blessing. Quite apart from the provisions already made for her by the Consort her mother, the Crafts Workshop and the provincial Governors concerned all offered her what she needed in great abundance. It was high time for the Counselor to give some thought to the matter, too, since he was to begin visiting her immediately afterward, but, being the man he was, he never thought about it, since he cared only about the lady at Nijō.

  At the Rectification,93 as it is apparently called, on the first day of the second month, the Counselor was named Acting Grand Counselor and concurrently Right Commander. The vacancy was due to the Minister of the Right's resignation as Left Commander.94 On his rounds of thanks he called also at Nijō, where he hastened to go because she was extremely unwell and His Highness was there with her. His Highness was surprised by his visit, since it was an awkward place for him to be with all these priests about. He donned a striking dress cloak over a train-robe, tidied himself up, and went down the steps to answer his caller's formal salutation with his own; and very fine indeed they both looked as they did it. The Commander then invited His Highness to the banquet he was to give that evening for his guardsmen, but His Highness hesitated to accept because of the concern that kept him at home.

  The event was held at Rokujō, following an example set by His Excellency of the Right. The attendants—Princes and senior nobles—were all there, as at the grandest banquets, in such numbers as to make the event very lively indeed. His Highness came, too, although his anxiety prompted him to leave early and hurry home. “I must say!” His Excellency exclaimed. “What nerve!” In principle, she was worth no less than His Excellency's own daughter, but the adulation accorded that young lady seems to have turned his head and flattered his vanity.

  His Highness was delighted and highly gratified when at dawn his son at last was born. This gave the Commander an added reason to rejoice. He went straight to His Highness's to express, standing,95 both his thanks for coming the evening before and his congratulations. Now that His Highness was sequestered at home, the whole court came to call on him there. The third night's birth celebration was done as usual privately, at home. For the fifth night the Commander supplied, according to custom, fifty sets of rice dumplings, coins to wager at Go, bowls of garnished rice, and so on, as well as thirty meals on double trays for the new mother and her gentlewomen and a five-layered costume and bedding for the infant. This was all quite discreet and unassertive, but he seems on reflection to have purposely avoided appearing too familiar. For His Highness he provided five-colored cakes96 on tall stands that rested on a tray of fragrant wood. The gentlewomen got their double trays, of course, but also thirty partitioned boxes filled with particularly good things. He did nothing to make them especially eye-catching. The birth celebration on the seventh night was Her Majesty's, and a great many people came. The Commissioner of the Empress's household was among them, as well as countless privy gentlemen and senior nobles. “I must do something, now that His Highness has at last grown up,” His Majesty had said when he heard about the preparations, and he presented the child with a dagger.

  His Excellency looked after the ninth day. He did not much like the occasion, but he did not wish to offend His Highness, and all his distinguished sons were present. Everything went so well that even she, whose gloom and ill health had made the future look dark to her for months, must have felt somewhat better amid these lively and magnificent rejoicings. Now that she was so fully a woman, the Commander feared she would keep farther away from him than ever and also, alas, that His Highness would be extremely attached to her. On the other hand, from the standpoint of what he had originally wished for her, he was delighted.

  The Second Princess's donning of the train was held after the twentieth of the same month. The Commander went to her the following day, and the event that night was kept private. It was a sad disappointment to see a Princess so ostentatiously favored by His Majesty paired after all with a commoner. “Even if he was not against it, he should never have been in such a hurry to get it over with now!” Such was the uncomplimentary opinion heard from certain distinguished quarters; but His Majesty was one to act swiftly once his mind was made up, and he seems to have decided that there was no reason why he should not accord the Commander unprecedented honor. Many men, past and present, have become the son-in-law of an Emperor, but there may be no other example of a reigning Emperor hastening to accept a commoner almost as though he had been one, too.

  His Excellency of the Right ventured to remark, “What an extraordinary destiny that young gentleman has! Even His Grace did not get Her Cloistered Highness, his mother, until late in His Eminence Suzaku's life, when he was on the point of leaving the world. And look at me: I simply scooped you up without leave from anyone at all.” His own Second Princess97 had to agree, but she was too embarrassed to reply.

  For the third night His Majesty instructed the Lord of the Treasury and all others responsible for Her Highness, as well as their retainers, discreetly to provide gifts for the Commander's escort, retinue, grooms, and guards. The thing was done all but privately.

  Thereafter he visited her more or less secretly. His heart held only the thought of her, whom he could never forget. After spending his melancholy time at home during the day, he hastened at dark most unwillingly to Her Highness, and this mode of life became such a burden that he considered bringing her to Sanjō instead. The idea pleased his mother, who declared that she would give up the main house. He protested that that would be too much and had an extension built onto the gallery between the main house and the chapel, presumably so that she could move to the west side of the house. The east wing and so on had been rebuilt to the most exacting standards after the fire, but he now had it all refined and done up even more beautifully.

  When His Majesty heard of this plan, he wondered whether it was not rather soon for his daughter to take so compliant a step. Emperor or not, his concern for her was that of any other father. A messenger brought Her Cloistered Highness a letter in which he spoke of nothing else. His Eminence Suzaku had commended Her Cloistered Highness particularly to his protection, and despite her renouncing the world, he remained as devoted to her as before, and as inclined to grant her any wish she cared to express. The honor of stirring such fond concern in two most exalted personages somehow gave the Commander no particular pleasure, for he was still given to many sighs. Meanwhile he pursued the work on the temple at Uji.

  His Highness's little son would soon be fifty days old, and the Commander took care to have the rice cakes done nicely, personally inspecting the fruit baskets and partitioned boxes and calling a large number of craftsmen to work in aloeswood, sandalwood, silver, and gold. They all strove to outdo one another in originality.

  He continued to call at Nijō as before, when His Highness was away, and he felt that unless he was imagining things, she had grown somewhat in noble dignity. She received him willingly enough, on the assumption that those old importunate ways of his would now be gone; but no, he had not changed at all, and his eyes straightaway filled with tears.

  “This marriage, which I never desired, is a sad and most unexpected trial, and I am more than ever heartily sick of the world,” he unabashedly complained.

  “I am extremely sorry to hear that,” she replied. “Do be careful, though, because someone might hear you.” Still, she was moved by a depth of heart that left him unconsoled despite his good fortune and made it impossible for him ever to forget; and she understood how deep his feelings ran. If only she were still alive! she said to herself with bitter regret; but if she were, she would only be lamenting her lot like me, and neither of us would have any reason to envy the other. No, without proper recognition it is impossible ever to be anyone in this world! She found herself more than ever impressed by her sister's decision never to yield her person to anyone.

  It seemed to her despite her reserve that she might as well allow the Commander to see the child when he begged to do so. Otherwise, she thought, I might seem cold. It may be all very well for me to be angry with him over that one painful incident, but I would much rather not offend him. Without answering him one way or the other, she therefore had a nurse bring the little boy out. Needless to say, he was a delight to behold. Almost eerily sweet and fair, he was all laughter and childish noises, and the watching Commander wished enviously that he were his own. Apparently he had not quite managed to renounce the things of this world. Ah, he kept thinking, if only she had been able after all to lead with me the life that others lead and to give me a child like this! How like him it was, since he was so impossible, never even to wonder whether the very great lady he had just married might not soon do the same for him! But it would be unkind to go on making petty complaints about him, for His Majesty would hardly have brought him into his intimacy that way if he had really been that hopeless, and one easily imagines that in serious matters he had thoroughly sound judgment.

  Touched that she had shown him her son while he was still so small, he talked on at greater than usual length until the light began to fail. Then he took his leave amid many sighs, for he knew that he could not stay on as he pleased into the night.

  “What a lovely fragrance he has!”

  “‘Now that I have plucked them,’98 as they say, I am sure the warbler will be round in no time.” Some young women can say very naughty things.

  That summer the Sanjō residence would be in a taboo direction, or so the almanac said, and he therefore brought her there early in the fourth month, before summer began. The day before, His Majesty went to the Fujitsubo and held a party to celebrate the wisteria blossoms. His throne stood in the south aisle, before raised blinds. Since the event was an official court function, Her Highness, the resident of the pavilion, did not preside. The banquet for the senior nobles and privy gentlemen was provided by the Chamberlains' Office. In attendance were His Excellency of the Right, the Inspector Grand Counselor,99 the Fujiwara Counselor, the Intendant of the Left Watch,100 His Highness of War, and His Highness of Hitachi. The privy gentlemen were seated beneath the wisteria blossoms in the southern garden. The palace musicians, called to their places east of the Kōrōden, played in the sō mode while the sun went down. The music for His Majesty himself was to be on flutes and strings provided by Her Highness, and His Excellency led other distinguished guests to place the instruments before him. His Excellency presented him with two scrolls of music for the kin that His Grace of Rokujō had written out and given to Her Cloistered Highness; they were attached to a branch of five-needled pine. Next came a sō no koto, a biwa, and a wagon that had once belonged to His Eminence Suzaku. The flute was the one bestowed in that dream.101 His Majesty had once praised the tone of this token from the past as unequaled, and the Commander had therefore chosen it to grace the occasion—for when, he wondered, would there ever come a finer one? His Majesty had His Excellency take the wagon and His Highness of War the biwa. The Commander himself played the flute with magnificent skill. His Majesty summoned privy gentlemen disposed to sing the solfège, and the result was pleasant indeed.

  The five-color cakes came from Her Highness. Their tall stands of red sandalwood rested on cloths dappled in wisteria purple and embroidered with wisteria flowers, and these were spread on four fragrant aloeswood trays. The vessels were silver, the wine cups glass, and the wine jars glass of a deep lapis lazuli blue. The Intendant of the Watch waited upon His Majesty. His Excellency, disconcerted by the idea of receiving the cup too often from His Majesty, ceded it to the Commander; none of the Princes present would do. The Commander modestly declined, but His Majesty must have had the same thought, for the cup came to him after all; and if the very way he called out, “Sire, your health!” seemed to set him apart, even at so conventionally formal a moment, perhaps it was because everyone on this occasion was so prepared to see something unique in him. He looked incomparable when, after returning the cup, he descended the steps to perform his obeisance of thanks.102 It was a great privilege even for a senior Prince or a Minister to receive the cup, and that His Majesty should so honor his son-in-law made plain the astonishing regard in which he held him. It was almost painful to see the Commander resume the humble seat to which his nominal rank assigned him.

  The Inspector Grand Counselor, who had aspired to this honor himself, was extremely put out. Long ago he had set his heart on the Consort herself, the Princess's mother, and he had kept in touch with her even after she went to the palace. In the end he let the Consort know that he would gladly accept her daughter instead, but to his intense chagrin she never conveyed this wish to His Majesty. “The Commander is undoubtedly blessed with good fortune,” he whispered bitterly, “but I cannot imagine why a reigning Emperor should make such a thing of taking him as a son-in-law. Surely nothing like this has ever been seen before. It is a bit much that a commoner should install himself almost next to His Majesty, at the very heart of the palace, and then to top it all be showered with banquets and whatnot.” Nonetheless, he had wanted to be there; and there he sat, secretly seething.

  Hand torches were lit, and the company presented His Majesty with poems. Each gentleman seemed pleased enough with himself as he approached the desk,103 but one easily imagines what crabbed, trite efforts they were, and I made no effort to hear them all and write them down. I just got one or two from the greatest lords present—not that these seemed likely to be any better than the others. This, I gather, is the Commander's, when he stepped down to pick a cluster of blossoms for His Majesty's headdress: