The Tale of Genji

  It was a matter of considerable disappointment to His Excellency that His Highness had no interest in his Sixth Daughter,36 but His Highness was in no mood to yield. As he privately observed, “There is nothing attractive about the proposal, and besides, His Excellency's pompous ways are such a nuisance—I could never get away with the smallest indiscretion.”

  That year Her Cloistered Highness's37 Sanjō residence burned down, and she moved to Rokujō. In the confusion the Counselor failed for a long time to visit Uji. With his exceptionally stalwart disposition he remained calmly persuaded that the elder sister38 was his, but he meant to do nothing brusque or offensive as long as she failed to soften toward him, and he wanted to make sure that she knew he had not forgotten what her father had asked of him.

  The unusual heat that summer was very trying, and when it occurred to him that the air beside the river might be cool, he set off straightaway. Dazzling sunlight was pouring in when he arrived, for he had started out in the cool of the morning. He rested in the western aisle, which had been His Highness's, and called for the watchman. The sisters, who were before the altar in the chamber, slipped off to their own rooms because they did not wish to be so close to him, but despite their attempt to evade notice, he of course detected their movement nearby and could not sit still. He found a small hole beside the lock at one edge of the sliding panel into the aisle where he was, moved the screen that stood there aside, and peered through. There was a standing curtain on the other side, which was very disappointing, and he was just about to withdraw again when a gust of wind lifted the blinds. “Why, anyone could see us!” a woman exclaimed. “Slide that curtain out here!” Her blunder delighted him, and he peered through again. Standing screens tall and short had been placed inside the blinds, and the sisters were just then passing into the room beyond, through the open panel opposite his own.

  The first39 stepped into view to look round a standing curtain and watch his men roaming about in the cool. The bright, unusual effect of leaf gold trousers with a dark gray shift no doubt suggested what she was like. Her shoulder cords40 were casually tied, and she carried a half-hidden rosary. Her slender height gave her a lovely carriage, and he admired the lustrous, perfectly ordered sweep of her abundant hair, which appeared to him nearly to reach the hem of her gown. Her enchanting profile, all fresh and yielding innocence, recalled the First Princess,41 whom he had glimpsed in passing and whom he imagined with a sigh to look very similar.

  Girl in a shift and trousers

  The second now slipped into view. “There is nothing in front of that sliding panel!” she said, glancing toward it with wary vigilance, and her manner seemed to him to promise real distinction. In felicitous poise and line, her head and hair conveyed a somewhat nobler grace than her sister's.

  “There is a screen on the other side,” the thoughtless young woman replied. “He could not peek through so soon!”

  “It would be awful if he did, though,” she said, slipping out of sight again with a worried look, and her proud elegance struck him vividly. The colors she wore were dominated by mourning gray and very like her sister's, but she had a more winning loveliness, and his heart went to her in sympathy. She seemed to have lost just enough hair to give what she had a clean sobriety, and while the ends were a little thin, it fell as perfectly as combed thread, showing those prized glints of kingfisher blue that he particularly liked. The hand that held her sutra text, written on purple paper, was less plump than the other's, for she seemed to have become very thin. The one who had been standing before was now seated in front of the opening of the far sliding panel, and for some reason she looked around, straight at him, smiling. She was extremely attractive.

  47

  AGEMAKI

  Trefoil Knots

  Agemaki (“trefoil knots,” used to decorate a gift) is the chapter title because of the word's occurence in a poem by Kaoru:

  “In these trefoil knots may you secure forever our eternal bond,

  that our threads may always merge in that one place where they meet.”

  The poem is based in turn on a saibara song also known as “Trefoil Knots.”

  RELATIONSHIP TO EARLIER CHAPTERS

  “Trefoil Knots,” which continues “Beneath the Oak” without a break, overlaps with parts of “The Ivy” and “Red Plum Blossoms.”

  PERSONS

  The Counselor, age 24 (Kaoru)

  The Adept (Uji no Ajari)

  Her Highness, the elder daughter of Hachi no Miya, 26 (Ōigimi)

  The Princess, the younger daughter of Hachi no Miya, 24 (Naka no Kimi)

  Ben, a gentlewoman of Hachi no Miya's daughters, around 60

  His Highness of War, 25 (Niou)

  Her Majesty, the Empress, 43 (Akashi no Chūgū)

  His Excellency, the Minister of the Right, 50 (Yūgiri)

  The Consultant Captain, earlier the Chamberlain Lieutenant, son of Yūgiri

  His elder brother, the Intendant of the Gate Watch

  Her Majesty's Commissioner

  His Majesty, the Emperor, 45

  That autumn the wind along the river, a sound so familiar for years, troubled and saddened them while they prepared for the first anniversary of their father's death. The Counselor and the Adept looked after most of the arrangements. Frail and sorrowing, the sisters pursued the fine work of making the vestments and the adornments for the scripture texts, under the guidance of their gentlewomen, and one imagined all too easily their plight without this help. The Counselor himself arrived and presented heartfelt greetings on an occasion that marked for them the end of mourning. The Adept came as well.

  The sisters were just then arranging the threads for presenting the incense1 and saying to each other, “I follow even in this guise the thread of the days.”2 The Counselor understood them, because past the edge of the blind he spied a full winding frame, just visible through a gap in a standing curtain. “O that I might thread on it the gleaming beads of my own tears,”3 he said, struck to imagine Lady Ise feeling the same way. The elder sister within the blinds, too shy to show by her reply that she knew the poem, answered, “No, it is nothing”;4 for Tsurayuki had evoked his misery on losing someone he loved in terms of courage as slender as a thread, and the memory reminded her how well an old poem may speak for oneself.

  The Counselor was already engaged in composing the dedicatory prayer, and to explain his intention in offering these images and scriptures he wrote,

  “In these trefoil knots may you secure forever our eternal bond,

  that our threads may always merge in that one place where they meet.”5

  He gave it to her, and despite dismay over his renewed appeal she replied,

  “What thin thread of life, too weak for long to sustain gleaming beads of tears,

  could bear the steady weight of an everlasting bond?”

  Trefoil knots

  Her disheartened and resentful visitor rejoined, “Then ‘on what, if they do not meet’?”6

  Now that she had removed herself so forbiddingly as a topic from their exchange, he gave up approaching her directly and instead spoke earnestly of His Highness of War. “Observing him in various ways, I can hardly doubt that as he is, perhaps a little more given to certain pursuits than you would wish, he is bent on success with the correspondence that I gather he has begun. Why must you always be so distant, when there seems really to be nothing that need alarm you? I do not see how you could fail to understand the way of the world, and I am afraid that your stubborn insistence on removing yourself from him is very disappointing to me, who address you in good faith. I hope that you will let me know clearly what you intend, one way or another.”7

  “A wish not to disappoint you is precisely what has led me to receive you this informally, at the risk of starting a good deal of talk. Your failure to understand that also suggests a certain shallowness on your part. It is quite true that no one with feelings, living in a place like this, could fail to know every variety of melancholy, but we have n
ever been very clever, and besides, on the issue you mention, my father never said a word about anything of the kind when he discussed what we were to do in this future case or that. I gather therefore that he wished us to remain as we are and to renounce any thought of marrying; and alas, for that reason I have no answer to give you, one way or the other. Still, I regret that my sister, who is a little younger, should be hidden away among these hills, and I would much rather not have her languish here forever. Personally, that worries me very much, but I have no idea what to do for her.” She sighed, and her troubled manner touched him extremely.

  It was perfectly natural, he felt, that she should not be up to deciding the matter, despite being so grown-up, and, as often before, he summoned the old woman. “For years all that brought me here was the desire to prepare for the life to come,” he began, “but toward the end, when His Highness seemed very discouraged, he enjoined me to make whatever dispositions I wished with respect to his daughters, and I promised to do so; and yet they themselves contravene what His Highness decided for them by remaining so stubbornly intractable that I even find myself wondering whether he might have settled on other alliances for them. You would of course know about it if he had. Being as peculiar as I am, I have never before been much interested in the things of this world, and I suppose it must be karma that has brought me so close to them. Considering that others, too, seem now to be talking about it, I would just as soon honor His Highness's wishes and share a respectable intimacy with his elder daughter. I concede the mismatch,8 but it is not as though such a thing were unheard of.” And he continued somberly, “I speak on behalf also of His Highness of War, and the elder's refusal to accept my reassurances suggests to me that privately she may have other plans for her sister. Does she? Please tell me!”

  Many a deplorable gentlewoman might have answered him with a mixture of flattery and impertinent advice, but not she, because although at heart she desired nothing else, she only said, “It has always been their way to be contrary in these matters, my lord, and perhaps that is why they have never shown any sign of the sort of leanings one would expect. We who serve them, such as we are, have for years lacked any sturdy tree to shelter us. All those with a mind to look after themselves have gone elsewhere, wherever they could, and even those with an old tie to His Highness have in the main abandoned the house as well, until the ones left complain more bitterly than ever that they cannot bear to stay one moment longer. ‘It was all very well when His Highness was alive,’ they say; ‘then he had your dignity to uphold, and he might insist on an old-fashioned standard for fear of demeaning you. Now, though, you have no one else, and anyone who blamed you for giving the world its due in whatever way you can would understand nothing and deserve no respect. Who would want to spend her life this way? Even mountain ascetics, who live off pine needles, are so keen to look after themselves that they divide practice of the Buddha's teaching into different paths.’ This is the sort of unkind speech they keep making to my mistresses, who, young as they are, have every reason to be troubled. The elder concedes nothing, but she seems to long to give her sister a proper place in the world. Your kindness in coming here, so far into the hills, has made you a familiar figure for her over the years, and she feels so little removed from you that, since you are now talking seriously with her, I believe she would welcome any hint of interest in my younger mistress. As to all the notes and messages from His Highness of War, she cannot believe that he really means what he says.”

  “I heeded His Highness's last, moving injunction and mean to remain in touch as long as I draw breath, and I would therefore gladly give myself to either, since they are equally deserving; and I am delighted that your elder mistress should think so well of me. Nonetheless, my heart will continue to draw me in a certain direction, despite my wish to renounce the world, and I know that I can do nothing to change that. The attraction I feel is no ordinary one. It would please me best of all, you know, if she no longer kept blinds and so on between us, as she does now, so that a great deal remains unsaid, but received me face-to-face so that I might tell her whatever I please about this treacherous world and she in turn open to me the heart that at present she withholds. I greatly miss having brothers or sisters to be close to in that way, and since, as I am, I can only keep to myself the things that crop up in life to move, amuse, or pain me, I feel sufficiently alone to hope that she will admit me to her confidence. I can hardly confide everything that comes into my head that way to Her Majesty.9 Her Cloistered Highness at Sanjō is still so youthful that I can hardly think of her as my mother, but still, she is who she is,10 and I cannot very well speak freely to her either. As to other women, I am so distant, reserved, and timid with them all that in truth I feel extremely lonely. I am hopelessly awkward, to the point that the most casual flirtation repels and disconcerts me; I am tongue-tied with anyone I genuinely like; and I am sorry to say that as far as I am concerned, your elder mistress's failure even to notice how she upsets and frustrates me is extremely unfortunate. With respect to His Highness of War, I wonder whether she might not leave the matter to me, with the understanding that he means no harm.”

  The old woman longed to satisfy both, considering how admirably they would fill the void of the household's present life, but they were too daunting, and she could not approach her mistresses adequately on the subject.

  The Counselor let the day drift by, for he wished to spend the night and engage the elder in quiet conversation. This troubled her, since the vague irritation she detected in his manner was becoming obvious, and she disliked more and more the idea of conversing with him privately; yet in most respects he was so wonderfully kind that she found she could not turn him away and received him after all.

  She had the panel between the altar room and the aisle slid open and the altar lamps raised high, and she doubled the blinds she sat behind with a screen. A lamp was lit outside as well, in the aisle, at which he protested that he was unwell and in no state to be seen. “Why, I am in full view!” he said. He stretched out on his side. She had him discreetly brought refreshments, and she sent out very nice garnishes to the men with him as well, for their wine. The men were together in a gallery of some sort, while her gentlewomen kept their distance, and the two therefore talked undisturbed. He detected no sign of softening toward him, but he found her so sweet and charming that he liked her very much indeed and soon began after all to burn for her.

  He kept thinking how silly it was of him, with no more than a screen and a blind between them, to remain so slow to act on his ardent desire, but he betrayed nothing and went on talking instead about one thing after another, touching or amusing, that had caught his attention in the world. Inside the room she called her women nearer, but they had no wish to intrude and made no real move to obey; on the contrary, they retreated still farther and lay down. Not one even raised the wicks of the altar lamps. She called to them again in some distress but got no response.

  “I am not feeling very well,” she said, “and so I shall retire for now. I shall talk to you again closer to dawn.” He heard her preparing to withdraw.

  Lamp

  “Such conversation as we have been having is a great comfort for one who has come here over mountain paths and who is less well even than you, and you will therefore leave me disconsolate.” Silently, he swept the screen aside and entered. She, already halfway into the next room, was aghast to feel herself being drawn back again. She was furious and extremely put out.

  “Is this what you meant by ‘keeping nothing between us’? What an appalling way to behave!” she cried, her scorn only adding to her appeal.

  “You will not understand that to me nothing does come between us, and I only want to convince you of that! What do you mean by calling my behavior appalling? I shall gladly swear otherwise before the Buddha. Now, now, please do not be afraid of me! I have never had the least intention of violating your wishes, and I remain the strange fool I have always been, though I am sure that no one would ever beli
eve it!” By the intriguingly dim lamplight he swept her streaming hair aside and looked at her face. She was as deliciously beautiful as anyone could wish.

  In so horribly lonely a house a lustful man would find nothing to stand in his way, he reflected, and he certainly would not stop here! How awful! Even his own past wavering could obviously have gone just as easily another way, but the spectacle of her weeping with outrage was too pathetic, and he did nothing of the kind; no, he kept up his hope that in time she would yield to him on her own. It would be too painful to force her, and he did his best to soothe her instead.

  “I allowed you near enough even to court scandal because I never even imagined such a thing of you,” she said accusingly, “and now the churlishness that has shown you the unfortunate color of my sleeves has taught me how little I myself am worth.11 Nothing can console me for that.” The thought of her innocently worn mourning gray, caught in the lamplight, was misery to her.

  “I quite understand that you should feel as you do, and I am too ashamed of myself to know what to say. Nothing could be more natural than your appeal to the color of your sleeves, yet the goodwill that let you see me so often through the years might dispense you from rejecting me so and from treating me as though you had never met me before. I am afraid that you have the matter quite wrong.” He told her about many, many times when the thought of her had inspired unbearable longing, including the one when that music had reached him beneath the moon at dawn. All this embarrassed and repelled her. She kept saying to herself, To think that he was acting so serious and detached and all the while actually felt that way!