The Tale of Genji

  Meanwhile the Lieutenant could not wait for the agreed day. He insisted that they might as well go ahead now until she, who had been so keen to press forward all on her own, began gingerly to reflect how hard it was to be certain of his intentions. When the man who represented him came round, she called him into a private conversation to voice her misgivings.

  “He has been urging his cause for months now this way, over my many reasons for caution,” she said, “and since he is not just anyone, I decided to agree, I felt that it would be wrong of me not to. But my daughter has no father, you see, and I am afraid now that it might seem forward of me, and somewhat thoughtless as well, if I were actually to proceed on my own. The Governor has several young daughters, but I trust they will all do well with him to look after them, whereas this one is a very great worry, considering how fickle life can be. I am sure that I need not feel anxious, since I gather that the Lieutenant is a man of understanding, but you know, it would be so hard if by chance he should ever turn out to feel otherwise about her and she were then exposed to ridicule.”

  The intermediary went to the Lieutenant and explained the situation. The Lieutenant looked dark. “If she is not the Governor's daughter, then this is the first I have heard of it!” he said. “It is all very well, but I doubt that this will do me any good if anyone hears about it, and visiting her there is hardly an attractive prospect either. Look what you got me into, without even checking properly!”

  “But this is all new to me!” his embarrassed friend replied. “I only began passing your notes because I know one of their women, and when I learned that that daughter was the favorite, I of course assumed she must be the Governor's. I certainly never inquired whether one of them was somebody else's. All I heard was that she is exceptionally bright and pretty, and that her mother adores her and has her heart set on doing her particular credit. You said you wanted someone to represent you there, and I simply let you know that I was able to do so. You have no reason at all to accuse me of being remiss.”

  To this heated and voluble speech the Lieutenant replied without tact or measure, “For me to take up with a house like that is not something anyone could approve of, but they are all doing it these days, and no one could blame me; why, some with awestruck fathers-in-law only too eager to please them do very well indeed at disguising their lapse. For all I know, the Governor may cherish her as though she were his own, but other people will just assume that I am currying favor with him. With men like the Minamoto Junior Counselor and the Governor of Sanuki strutting in and out there the way they do, I would look perfectly hopeless if I were to join them in a way that suggests he does not respect me!”

  The intermediary, who was excessively anxious to please and in some ways quite unpleasant, thoroughly regretted what both sides were likely to feel. “The Governor's own daughters are young,” he said, “but if you really want one, I will pass the message on. The next one down is the one they call ‘our young lady,’4 and he is extremely fond of her.”

  “Hmm—it would be one thing if I had been after her from the beginning, but it would not be very nice to ask for another one now. Still, what started me off in the first place was the happy prospect of his support, since he is a man of such weight and substance. A pretty face makes no difference to me. If grace and distinction were what I wanted in a woman, I could have them easily enough. Look at what happens, though, to people with elegant tastes who fall behind and fail to make ends meet—they can do nothing right, and people simply ignore them. No, never mind a little carping. What I want is to live in comfort. Just let the Governor know that, and why worry if he then seems disposed to agree?”

  The man had begun taking the Lieutenant's letters to the house because his younger sister was in service there in the west wing,5 but he hardly knew the Governor at all. Off he went to him at once and had it announced that he had something to discuss. “I understand that he sometimes calls here,” the Governor said, “but he has never been introduced to me. What can he possibly want?” He did not look at all pleased.

  “I have come to wait on you on behalf of his lordship, the Lieutenant of the Left Palace Guards,” the man had him told.

  The Governor received him. The man seated himself nearby, looking as though he hardly knew how to begin. “For some months, sir,” he ventured, “his lordship has been in touch with your esteemed wife, and she has granted his wish; they have agreed that the event is to take place during the course of this month. He has been considering the day and has been eager that it should be soon. However, sir, he recently learned that although the young lady in question is indeed your wife's daughter, she is not actually yours, and he fears that if a gentleman such as himself were to accept her, the world might take it that he was fawning upon you. A young nobleman who becomes the son-in-law of a provincial governor counts on full honor within the family and also on devoted support as though he were, so to speak, a prized jewel; and that really is often what happens. As many people have urgently warned him, however, it would do him no credit at all to be received so scantily here that any such hope was plainly deluded and to frequent the house as the last among others. He is therefore now in a quandary. What he chose from the very start was the great renown that you, sir, enjoy, one that inspires the utmost trust in the brilliant prospects you offer; that is why he undertook to press his suit. Not for a moment did he imagine that the young lady might not be yours, and he would therefore be most grateful if you were kind enough to grant him what he originally desired, even though he understands that some of your daughters are still very young. It is in that spirit that he asked me to come and sound you out on the matter.”

  “I myself know hardly anything about such an approach,” the Governor replied. “She is just like one of my own to me, but I have quite a few foolish girls, and while I do my poor best for them all, her mother accuses me of treating her like a foreigner and gives me no say in anything touching her, so that although I heard a distant rumor of this gentleman's approach, I had no idea that I was the one who had particularly attracted his interest. In fact, I may say that I am delighted by what you have told me. There is one of my daughters whom I love very much, one for whom I would give my life gladly. She has her suitors, but men these days are not to be trusted, judging from what I hear, and I have been too worried that any decision might only mean disaster ever really to make up my mind. Day and night I wonder fondly what I can do to secure her future. As to his lordship the Lieutenant, though, in my youth I served his father, the late Commander.6 I knew the Lieutenant as one of his father's retainers. He is a very fine gentleman, and I would have been pleased to serve him, too, but I felt that all those years I spent in one far-flung post after another rendered me unfit to appear before him, and I never presented myself to him again. It would be the easiest thing in the world to offer him my daughter, since that is what he himself wishes, but I cannot help being wary of what my wife may feel about it, since for months now she has had quite different intentions.” He kept back nothing of what he had to say.

  This is promising nicely, his delighted visitor told himself. “Surely you have no reason to worry,” he said. “Your permission, sir, is all the Lieutenant desires, and even if the young lady is not actually quite old enough yet, he will be fully satisfied with a daughter who means that much to you. As he said himself, this is not a decision that anyone else can properly make for you. He is a very distinguished gentleman and very highly regarded. He may be young, but he does not put on airs, and he well understands the ways of the world. Moreover, he has a large number of estates. These do not seem to yield a great deal at present, but when all is said and done, the scion of so noble a lineage confers luster worth far more than the might of any common gentleman's boundless wealth. He will have the fourth rank next year, and, as His Majesty himself says, he is certain to be the next Secretary. ‘There you are,’ His Majesty tells him, ‘a handsome young lord with every advantage, and you do not yet have a wife! Then waste no more time: pick out
someone worthy and get yourself some proper backing! As for your rising to senior noble, well, here I am—I shall be making you one any day!’ That, I gather, is the sort of thing His Majesty says. The Lieutenant is the only one who always serves him so intimately. He has such quality, you see, and such imposing dignity. Now that you know how eager he is, you really should make up your mind immediately in favor of so perfect a son-in-law. People everywhere seem to be after him with just that in mind, and if you are slow, you may lose him. I say this, sir, only because I have your best interests at heart.” His flattering speech went on and on, and the horribly countrified Governor just sat there smiling, taking it in.

  “If he is strapped for revenue lately, I do not want to know about it,” he replied. “He will have it from me, with the greatest respect, while I have life and breath. I promise he will lack nothing. Even if something happens to me and I can no longer provide for him, no one else will be able to claim one jot or tittle of what I leave behind in property and estates. No doubt I have a good many other children, but she is the one who has always really mattered to me. All he need do is put his heart into looking after her, and say he has his eye on appointment as Minister and for that must lay out a vast fortune: he will have it, every bit. If His Majesty is that eager to do things for him, he certainly need not worry about being provided for. For all I know, this may be the very best thing both for him and for my girl.”

  Although thoroughly satisfied by this favorable reception the intermediary said not a word about it to his sister, nor did he call on the ladies concerned; he went intead, bursting with glee, to report the Governor's words to the Lieutenant. The Lieutenant thought the man rather a bumpkin, but he was not ill pleased and sat listening with a smile. The business about meeting the cost of becoming a Minister particularly struck him as a bit much. “Have you let his wife know?” he asked. “She seems to have been keen on me from the start, and some people may think me a strange sort of cad if I switch now. I don't know.” He was wavering.

  “But why? I hear she is absolutely devoted to this other daughter, the Governor's. It is just that she directed you to the first one because she is the eldest, and she felt sorry for her.”

  It occurred to the Lieutenant that this story was suddenly quite different from the one he had been hearing for months, about how the eldest was by far her mother's favorite, and this gave him pause; but he was a sensible young man, and he decided that it was worth suffering a moment's hatred and a little criticism in exchange for long years of secure comfort. He did not even change the day. Off he went on the evening agreed for his first night with his bride.

  The Governor's wife secretly continued her preparations. She had her women dressed and everything done up just right. She also had her daughter's hair washed and got her all ready. Ah, what a miserable shame it is to let her go to the likes of that Lieutenant! she reflected, contemplating her. If she had only had her father's recognition while she grew up, then even now when he is gone there would be no reason not to presume just a little and to accept the Commander's proposal. I may think highly of her, but to everyone else she is just another of the Governor's daughters, and, poor thing, anyone who found out the truth would only despise her for it. What else can I do? I cannot just let the flower of her beauty go to waste, especially when there is a perfectly decent, respectable man who is eager to have her.” As far as her deciding the matter all on her own was concerned, the intermediary had been wonderfully persuasive, and in any case, it may well be that a woman is just there to be fooled.

  While she was rushing hither and yon to see to this or that, all aflutter because the great day was almost upon her, the Governor came in and made her an interminable speech. “Who do you think you are, trying to steal my girl's suitor like that behind my back?” he demanded to know. “No gentleman will have any use for that fancy daughter of yours. I may be low and thick in the head, but I gather the one this fellow wants is mine. You planned it all very nicely, but no, he was not interested, and it seems that he was about to go elsewhere, so I thought I might as well get him back, and I let him know he can have the one he actually wants.” He blurted all this out with astonishing bluntness and never a thought for her feelings. Speechless with shock, she remained for a moment lost in thought. Then the bitterness of it brought tears to her eyes, and she stole away.

  She went to her daughter, and when she saw again how sweet and lovely she was, she took comfort from the thought that she was still every bit as worthy as anyone else. “Other people can be so cruel!” she said, weeping, when she was alone with her daughter's nurse. “Of course I wish to treat all my sons-in-law the same, but I know that I would give my life for her husband. I suppose he must look down on her because she has no father; that must be why he prefers a girl who is still hardly more than a child. I want no sight or sound of this horrible business anywhere near me, but the Governor takes it as a great honor, and he is making such a fuss that I suppose he and the Lieutenant deserve each other. I shall not say a word. I only wish I could go elsewhere for a while.”

  The nurse was furious, and she decided that it was just as well her young mistress had been insulted this way. “Oh, no, my lady,” she exclaimed, “I expect that she is fortunate to have had this go wrong! No one as dreary as that could possibly appreciate her anyway. I would like to see my dear young mistress go to someone good and kind, someone who really understands things. I felt as though the little glimpse I caught of the Commander had added years to my life, and just look, he is actually interested in her! Why not simply accept him and let her destiny take its course?”

  “What a thing to say! I hear he said for years that he would never marry any ordinary woman. What kind would it take really to attract him, considering that His Excellency of the Right, the Inspector Grand Counselor, and His Highness of Ceremonial all let him know they were serious about him and that he ignored them and got His Majesty's own cherished daughter instead? He probably just wants to have her serve Her Highness, his mother, and to see her from time to time; and there might be a lot to be said for that, except that it would be so painful. They call her sister at His Highness of War's extraordinarily fortunate, but I realized when I saw how unhappy she is that the only really worthy, reliable husband is the one who does not divide his affections. In fact, my own experience has taught me that. His Late Highness was a very fine and handsome gentleman and very kind, but I meant nothing at all to him, and you can imagine how that hurt. The Governor is a difficult man, inconsiderate and uncouth, but his affections have never been divided, and that has always been a great comfort to me. Sometimes his abruptness and his discourtesy are a great trial, as they are now, but he has never made me suffer from jealousy, and even when we have quarreled, we have made it clear where we disagreed. Insignificant as I am, I could never get on with a senior noble or a Prince, however elegant or distinguished. The poor thing, I feel so sorry for her when I think that it is all because of me! I must do something to make sure no one ever feels like laughing at her!”

  The Governor got to work. “Lend me some women,” he said. “I hear you have lots of pretty ones. And the bed curtains, the new ones you just had done—this has all happened so fast, I shall take them. They will do just as they are.” He came to the west wing and charged about giving orders. Into the nice, cleanly furnished room his wife had designed so carefully, he busily stuffed a strange profusion of screens, cabinets, and two-tiered shelves, with results that she found deplorable. Having declared that she would not say a word, however, she only watched. Her beloved daughter was to the north.7

  Two-tiered shelves

  “Now I know how you feel!” he said. “I never thought you would just turn your back on my girl. She is yours, too, you know. All right, there are other girls in this world who get on without their mothers!” At midday he and her nurse started dressing her, and the result was not bad at all. At fifteen or sixteen she was very small and plump, with beautiful hair the length of her dress gown and rich and thic
k at the ends. Her father, who thought it a treasure, stroked it smooth. “Well, now, I really shouldn't have made off this way with a gentleman your mother meant for someone else,” he said, “but in rank he is a prize, and in personal quality he is so outstanding that many people are desperate to have him as a son-in-law, and I hated the thought of losing him.” The fool! He was repeating exactly what the intermediary had put into his head.

  The Lieutenant gathered from such evidence of the Governor's headlong enthusiasm that he could do no wrong. He turned up for the first night without even changing the date. The Governor's wife was horrified, as was her favorite daughter's nurse. Not wishing to lend herself further to anything so crass, she addressed an appeal to the wife of His Highness of War.

  “In the absence of any particular reason to get in touch with you, the fear of seeming to presume has hitherto restrained me from acting on my wish to do so,” she wrote. “Now, however, I find that my daughter has come under a directional taboo and that I must take her elsewhere for a time. I would therefore be extremely grateful if she might avail herself of a hidden corner in which briefly to remain unnoticed. Alas, it is more than I can do alone to provide her with the shelter she needs, and what with all the troubles there are in this world, I have no choice but to turn to you.”

  The letter, written in tears, certainly moved His Highness's wife, but now that she was the only sister left, she hesitated to admit her acquaintance with someone whom her late father had never recognized, although she also recoiled from the thought of merely ignoring someone who had fallen into such sad difficulties. It would not honor her father's memory either, unnecessarily to estrange herself from her half sister. At a loss what to do, she sent Taifu an urgent message.

  “There must be a reason for this,” Taifu replied. “You should not put her off too readily or embarrass her. There is nothing unusual about a lesser daughter mingling with her betters. The position His Late Highness took was really too unkind.”