The Tale of Genji

  When he reached the Fujiwara Adviser's room to voice his vain complaint, he found him reading a letter from his Minamoto colleague. The Adviser moved to hide it. I knew it! the Lieutenant thought and snatched it from him. The Adviser made no great effort to retain it, since his visitor might then only suspect the matter to be more serious than it was.

  The Minamoto Adviser's letter conveyed merely general dissatisfaction with the way things had gone.

  “One by one, alas, the indifferent months and days pass serenely by,

  leaving a vague bitterness to darken the close of spring.”

  How calm, how dignified some people are! The Lieutenant was annoyed. All that my ridiculous agitation earns me is dismissal or contempt. It was too much. He said nothing at all; instead he set off for the room occupied by Chūjō, the gentle-woman he normally saw, sighing meanwhile that he would get nowhere this time either. It enraged him to see the Minamoto Adviser go to show his answer to his mother, and he was overcome by youthful despair.

  His feelings were so violent that his intercessor found it all but impossible to carry on any banter with him; she hardly even ventured any replies. He brought up the evening he had watched the game of Go. “If only I could at least dream that dream again! Ah,” he cried portentously, “what do I now have to live for? I shall not even be in touch with you this way much longer. How true it is that bitter experience yields fond memories!”

  Chūjō was sympathetic, but she had nothing to say. It seemed unlikely that he would ever derive any pleasure from the sister who might console him. Yes, she noted without surprise, catching the elder exposed that evening had made him still madder for her. “My lady would despise you if she ever found out, and she would reject you even more firmly,” she retorted. “I am all but fed up with you. Your attitude is extremely unfortunate.”

  “So be it, then. I fear nothing anymore; my life is over now anyway. I am sorry she lost, though. Could she not just have called me in? She would have done very well if only I could have signaled to her with my eyes.

  Only tell me why I who am no one in life may not have the pride

  to honor within myself the will not to be outdone?”

  Chūjō smiled.

  “You ask for too much! Victory or loss depends on the strength you have:

  what could lead you to believe your own heart counts above all?”

  she answered, and he took offense even at that.

  “Then just have pity, leave me to do as I please, for such as I am,

  it is for you to decide whether I live or I die.”

  They spent their night together between tears and laughter.

  The next day was the first of the fourth month, and the Lieutenant's brothers went to the palace, but the Lieutenant himself stayed gloomily behind. This brought tears to his mother's eyes. “His Eminence must know about him,” His Excellency said. “I doubted that if I raised the matter the Mistress of Staff would simply agree, and I regret having said nothing about it when I met her. She could not very well have refused if I had made myself clear on the subject in person.”

  Yet another complaint arrived from the Lieutenant:

  “I spent all my spring gazing out at the blossoms, but after today

  I may be condemned to roam a thick forest of sorrows.”27

  The Mistress of Staff's senior gentlewomen appealed to her one way or another on the poor suitor's behalf, and Chūjō in particular insisted, “My lady, I am very much afraid that he means what he says when he talks of ‘whether I live or I die.’”

  Their mistress was sorry for him, too. She already knew how His Excellency and his wife felt on the subject and how angry the Lieutenant would be, and she was therefore prepared to offer something in return, but his attempt to thwart her elder daughter's marriage struck her as outrageous. Her husband had long ago decreed that this daughter should under no circumstances go to a commoner, however wellborn, but it was not as though going to His Eminence assured her a brilliant future. Her head was full of these thoughts when her women brought her that note and enlarged on its author's plight. She replied,

  “Now at last I know: you who feign such innocence with your skyward gaze

  all the time had lost your heart hopelessly to the blossoms.”

  “The poor man! Why, she is making a joke of it!” Chūjō complained, but she did not bother to redo the poem.28

  Their mistress's elder daughter went to His Eminence on the ninth. His Excellency of the Right gave her a carriage and a large escort. Despite her annoyance his wife did not want her correspondence with the Mistress of Staff now to lapse again over this affair, when it had been so scanty for years and had picked up only lately, and she accordingly contributed gifts29 of fine women's clothing. “It was unkind of you not to let me know,” she wrote, “because I was preoccupied with a son who seems strangely to have taken leave of his senses, and I never had a word about it.” The hint she dropped was mild enough, but the Mistress of Staff felt a pang of sympathy for her.

  His Excellency sent a letter, too. “It seemed to me that I should call on you, but there were certain penances, you see. I shall send my sons to wait upon you. Please do not hesitate to employ them.” He dispatched the Minamoto Lieutenant and the Second of the Watch. The Mistress of Staff thanked him warmly for his kindness.

  The Grand Counselor contributed carriages for the women. His wife, His Late Excellency's daughter Makibashira, should have been on close terms with both parties,30 but in reality she was not. The Fujiwara Counselor31 was the one who actually came and did everything, with the help of the Captain and the Right Controller. It was all too obviously a shame that His Late Excellency was no longer alive.

  Through his usual representative the Lieutenant sent a new, desperate plea. “This is the end for me today, and I have given up all thought of living, but I am still sad. Just one word from you, that you pity me, might after all give me the courage to linger on a little longer,” and so on. Chūjō delivered it. She found the two sisters talking very sadly to each other. They were used to being together day and night, and it so upset them to occupy separate rooms, east and west, with a single door between them, that they were going back and forth to each other constantly; and now they knew they were soon really to be parted. The elder, whom her mother had dressed and adorned with great care, looked perfectly lovely. The sorrow with which she recalled all that her father had wanted for her may explain why she picked up the Lieutenant's note and read it. It was a mystery to her how he could say such extraordinary things when he still enjoyed the security of having both his parents, and she wondered whether he could really mean his talk of “the end.” She immediately wrote in the margin:

  “To what sort of man would I then address myself, with that little word

  ‘pity’ people always use of this ever-changing world?32

  If sorrow and disappointment are what you mean, I know something about them.”

  “That is what you are to give him,” she said, and the woman passed her words straight to him.

  He was amazed, especially considering the day, and his tears flowed on and on. His reproachful reply mentioned “They will talk of no one else,”33 and so on.

  “In this life we live, death may all too easily come at any time,

  so that I may never hear that one word I ask of you.

  I would gladly hasten to my grave, if only I knew that you would speak it over me.”

  What an awful answer I sent! She must have given it to him without redoing a word! She thoroughly regretted it and said no more.

  Only the worthy were admitted to her company of page girls and grown-up gentlewomen, and the event entailed the same ceremony as if she had been going to the palace. She went first to call on the Consort, and her mother and the Consort talked. Night had fallen when she came to His Eminence. His Empress and his Consort were both older now, so that her captivating beauty could hardly fail to stir him, and she won his favor brilliantly. The ease and kindness of his manner,
so like a commoner's,34 were indeed as pleasant as anyone could wish. He had hoped that the Mistress of Staff might wait on him a little while as well, but to his chagrin she quickly and discreetly slipped away.

  The Minamoto Adviser stood just as high in favor as the Shining Genji had done long ago, and His Eminence desired his presence day and night. The young gentleman had good relations with all His Eminence's ladies. He, too, welcomed the new arrival warmly, although it occurred to him to wonder secretly what His Eminence might make of these attentions.

  One quiet evening at twilight he and the Fujiwara Adviser were out for a stroll together when they sat on mossy stones at the water's edge, gazing off toward a five-needled pine, entwined by beautifully blossoming wisteria, that stood near the new arrival's dwelling. The Minamoto Adviser's talk conveyed a veiled bitterness.

  “If it had been mine to reach out my hand to you, wisteria flowers,

  would I look on from afar while your hues surpass the pine's?”35

  he said, gazing up at the flowers.

  His friend found his figure touchingly pathetic, and he hinted that this outcome was not one he had encouraged:

  “Your murasaki is a hue I myself share, wisteria flowers,

  and yet you never embraced what I would have wished for you.”36

  Being an earnest young man, he felt extremely sorry for his friend. For the Minamoto Adviser the blow was not really that severe, but he was certainly disappointed.

  Meanwhile the Lieutenant was frantic to the point of seriously considering drastic action. The suitors now shifted their aspiration to the younger daughter. The Mistress of Staff let the Lieutenant's mother know that in view of the vehemence with which she had expressed herself on the subject, her son might well receive favorable consideration, but the young man himself was no longer calling. He and all his brothers had often haunted His Eminence's palace, but he hardly went there anymore after the new arrival came, and on the rare occasions when he showed his face there in the privy chamber, he soon fled in obvious distress.

  His Majesty was surprised that the elder daughter should have gone into service elsewhere, despite His Late Excellency's express wishes, and he therefore summoned the Captain to demand an explanation.

  “He is not pleased,” the Captain told the Mistress of Staff. “I knew that this would happen. I told you that people would have private reservations, but no, you had another idea, and your decision to proceed made it impossible for me to question it further, and considering what His Majesty now has to say on the matter, I am very much afraid that we will both suffer for it.” He was furious.

  “Now, now,” his mother replied. “I can assure you that I decided nothing in haste, but His Eminence insisted so pathetically, you see, and I thought that it might be risky for her to appear at the palace without assistance. That is why I made up my mind in favor of His Eminence's now-easier circumstances. I am afraid that I am in a very difficult position, because not one of you clearly warned me of the consequences, and now even His Excellency of the Right is letting it be known that he considers me to have acted wrongly. It is all just her destiny, I suppose.” She spoke calmly and without agitation.

  “No eye can see the destiny her past karma gives her, whatever it may be, and now that His Majesty is talking this way, how can I blandly submit to him that her fate meant her for someone else? Very well, you felt apprehensive about his Empress, but what, then, do you have to say about His Eminence's? For all I know, she may already have agreed to offer her ‘assistance,’ or whatever you prefer to call it, but I cannot imagine that such feelings go very far. Well, we shall have to wait and see. Other young ladies go to court, do they not, Empress or no Empress? Devoted service to our Sovereign is what makes life worthwhile; that is what has always been a genuine pleasure. As for His Eminence's Consort, once the slightest misstep offends her, everyone will say that she should never have gone to him in the first place.”

  With both brothers saying the same thing, the Mistress of Staff felt very uncomfortable indeed, but His Eminence nonetheless treasured her daughter more and more as time went by.

  In the seventh month she conceived. It is certainly no surprise that her indisposition prompted many gentlemen to send her expressions of sympathy. How could they possibly have remained indifferent to the plight of so lovely a lady? His Eminence called day and night for music, for which he had the Minamoto Adviser join him, and the Adviser therefore heard her play. To play the wagon His Eminence regularly summoned also the Chūjō to whose accompaniment the Adviser had once sung “The Plum Tree Branch.” The Adviser found all of this distinctly troubling.

  The New Year came, and with it the mumming. Many of the privy gentlemen then were very accomplished. His Majesty selected the best and named the Minamoto Adviser one of the song leaders of the Right. The Chamberlain Lieutenant was among the musicians. They all set out from the palace to appear before His Eminence under a brilliant, unclouded fourteenth-night moon. The Consort and the new Haven each had her screened-off space, and all the senior nobles and Princes came. There seemed to be no one in all the world but the late Chancellor's sons and those of the Minister of the Right who stood out in polish and looks. His Eminence's presence, as everyone agreed, commanded greater awe than any known at the palace, and people minded themselves very carefully indeed. The most agitated among them was the Lieutenant, since he felt her eyes on him. The tedious and unsightly white cotton flowers they all wore in their headdresses looked better on some than on others, and he was certainly commendable in looks and voice. When the dance took them to the foot of the stairway to perform “Bamboo River,” he nearly forgot the steps, and his eyes filled with tears as he recalled the same moment the year before. Then they moved on to appear before the Empress, and His Eminence followed them to watch. The moon rose high as the night wore on, and it shone untrammeled, brighter than day, while he wondered with what eyes she might have watched him. He felt drunk, as though treading on air, and the way they called on him alone, again and again, to accept the wine cup covered him with embarrassment.

  They roamed hither and thither all night long, and the exhausted Minamoto Adviser had just lain down at last when a call came from His Eminence. “Bother!” he grumbled as he went. “I just wanted to rest!”

  His Eminence asked how the mumming had gone at the palace. “Past song leaders have generally been men who are already getting on. You did very well to be chosen!” he said. He seemed quite delighted. Then he set off for the Haven's rooms, humming “Ten Thousand Springs.”37 The Adviser went with him. Many people from the women's homes were there to see the mumming, and the atmosphere was livelier and more stylish than usual.

  The Adviser sat awhile by the door onto a bridgeway, talking to a gentle-woman whose voice he knew. “The moon has been awfully bright all night,” he remarked, “but I doubt that the way the Chamberlain Lieutenant's face shone in its light had much to do with feeling picked out by the moon. That is not the way he looked at the palace.”

  Some of the listening women pitied the poor fellow. “No doubt the darkness is unavailing,38 but we all decided that the moonlight sets you off beautifully,” one said coyly; and another, from inside the door:

  “Do you remember that night, the one when you sang of Bamboo River?

  Not that any special passage really returns to mind.”39

  It was hardly a poem at all, but he knew by the tears that sprang again to his eyes how deeply he had been affected.

  “Ever flowing on, Bamboo River gave me hopes then dashed all too soon,

  whence I learned the lesson of the treachery of life,”

  he replied.

  The women were enchanted by his melancholy air. Actually, he was not one to grieve as fully as another might, but there was still something very touching about him.

  “Alas, I have said too much!” As he rose to go, he received an invitation to “please come this way,” and with some embarrassment he did so.40

  “Once,” His Eminence
remarked, “His Grace of Rokujō had his ladies make music for him on the morning after the mumming,41 and according to His Excellency of the Right it was lovely. One can hardly imagine anyone in our own time really carrying on after him. There were so many fine musicians then, even among the women around him, that the least concert must have been a delight.” This example inspired him to have the instruments tuned. The sō no koto went to the Haven and the biwa to the Adviser, while His Eminence himself took the wagon. They played “This Gentleman” and so on. The Haven's playing was still immature in some ways, but still, he had taught her successfully. She had a nicely fresh touch and did very well both at accompaniments and at instrumental pieces. One gathered that there was never any need to worry about her being a little slow. The Adviser of course knew very well that she was likely to be beautiful. There were many similar moments, but he managed a natural ease with her, was never tempted to misbehave, and never presumed on their closeness to express any complaint. Now and again, however, he lightly conveyed his disappointment. I have no idea what she thought about it.

  The fiftieth-day celebration of a birth

  A Princess was born in the fourth month. The event was not strikingly brilliant, but His Excellency of the Right and everyone else joined in the birth celebrations, in deference to His Eminence's feelings. The Mistress of Staff loved to fondle the baby and hold her,42 but His Eminence often reminded her that he wanted his daughter brought to him, and on the newborn's fiftieth day she complied. She was exceptionally attractive, and His Eminence, who became extremely attached to her despite already having his First Princess, spent all his time at her mother's. The Consort's women complained to each other that they could have done very well without that.