The Tale of Genji, Page 60

  The long rains were worse this year than most, and to get through the endless wet the ladies amused themselves day and night with illustrated tales. The lady from Akashi made up some very nicely and sent them to her daughter. This sort of thing particularly intrigued the young lady in the west wing, who therefore gave herself all day long to copying and reading. She had several young gentlewomen suitably gifted to satisfy this interest.18 Among her assemblage of tales she found accounts, whether fact or fiction, of many extraordinary fates, but none, alas, of any like her own. The trials faced by the young lady in Sumiyoshi19 were remarkable, of course, and so, too, was her fame still in the present world, and her narrow escape from the Director of Reckoning certainly had a good deal in common with the terrors of that Audit Commissioner.

  Finding her enthralled by works like these, which lay scattered about everywhere, Genji exclaimed, “Oh, no, this will never do! Women are obviously born to be duped without a murmur of protest. There is hardly a word of truth in all this, as you know perfectly well, but there you are caught up in fables, taking them quite seriously and writing away without a thought for your tangled hair in this stiflingly warm rain!” He laughed but then went on, “Without stories like these about the old days, though, how would we ever pass the time when there is nothing else to do? Besides, among these lies there certainly are some plausibly touching scenes, convincingly told; and yes, we know they are fictions, but even so we are moved and half drawn for no real reason to the pretty, suffering heroine. We may disbelieve the blatantly impossible but still be amazed by magnificently contrived wonders, and although these pall on quiet, second hearing, some are still fascinating. Lately, when my little girl has someone read to her and I stand there listening, I think to myself what good talkers there are in this world, and how this story, too, must come straight from someone's persuasively glib imagination—but perhaps not.”

  “Yes, of course, for various reasons someone accustomed to telling lies will no doubt take tales that way, but it seems impossible to me that they should be anything other than simply true.” She pushed her inkstone away.

  “I have been very rude to speak so ill to you of tales! They record what has gone on ever since the Age of the Gods. The Chronicles of Japan20 and so on give only a part of the story. It is tales that contain the truly rewarding particulars!” He laughed. “Not that tales accurately describe any particular person, rather, the telling begins when all those things the teller longs to have pass on to future generations— whatever there is about the way people live their lives, for better or worse, that is a sight to see or a wonder to hear—overflow the teller's heart. To put someone in a good light one brings out the good only, and to please other people one favors the oddly wicked, but none of this, good or bad, is removed from life as we know it. Tales are not told the same way in the other realm,21 and even in our own the old and new ways are of course not the same; but although one may distinguish between the deep and the shallow, it is wrong always to dismiss what one finds in tales as false. There is talk of ‘expedient means’22 also in the teaching that the Buddha in his great goodness left us, and many passages of the scriptures are all too likely to seem inconsistent and so to raise doubts in the minds of those who lack understanding, but in the end they have only a single message, and the gap between enlightenment and the passions23 is, after all, no wider than the gap that in tales sets off the good from the bad. To put it nicely, there is nothing that does not have its own value.” He mounted a very fine defense of tales.

  “But do any of these old tales tell of an earnest fool like me?” He moved closer. “No, no cruelly aloof heroine in any of them could possibly pretend to notice nothing as heartlessly as you do. Come, let us make our story one like no other and give it to all the world!”

  She hid her face. “Even if we do not, I doubt that one so strange could help feeding everyone's talk.”

  “Strange? Is that what it is, for you? No, there can be no one like you!

  Though excess of care turns me to seek far and wide old stories like ours,

  I find none of any child so set against her father!

  Even the Buddha's teaching has much to say about those who offend filial piety!”

  When she failed to look up, he stroked her hair, so upset that at last she replied,

  “Yes, search as you please through the tales told of the past: you will never find

  in all the world a father with feelings resembling yours!”

  Her response shamed him, and he took no further liberties. As she was, though, what was to become of her?

  Lady Murasaki,24 too, invoked her young lady's wishes and found it hard to put down her tales. “What a beautifully done picture!” she said, examining one from The Tale of Kumano.25 The little girl, napping there so sweetly, reminded her of herself all those years ago.

  “How knowing they are, even such little children! I myself was so impossibly slow—I should have been famous for it!” Genji remarked.26 Famous, yes, he certainly should have been, for his rare collection of wanton adventures.

  “Please do not read our young lady naughty tales like that,” he said. “Not that a heroine secretly in love is likely to catch her interest, but she must not come to take it for granted that things like that really happen.” The lady in the west wing would have been outraged to hear him talk that way.

  “It is painful to see anyone mindlessly mimic this sort of thing,” she replied, “but then, look at the young Fujiwara lady in The Hollow Tree. Grave and sober as she is, she never goes astray, but her stiff speech and behavior are so unladylike that she might as well.”

  “That can happen in real life, too. People insist on having their own way and lose all sense of proportion. When a girl's perfectly respectable parents have carefully brought her up to nothing better than childish innocence, and she has little to offer otherwise, one unfortunately wonders what their idea of an upbringing can have been; but when a girl turns out just as she should, the effort is well worth it, and her parents then deserve every credit. It is very disappointing when nothing about a girl's words or deeds suggests that she merits the lavish praise she gets.27 One must manage never to let tedious people praise a girl.” His sole care was that no one should find fault with his daughter. He wanted to avoid putting ideas about evil stepmothers into her head, since the old tales are full of them, and so he was strict in his choice of the ones he had copied and illustrated for her.

  He kept the Captain well away from his own residence, but he did not forbid him his daughter's to anything like the same degree; in fact, he encouraged him to visit her.28 It does not matter so much while I am alive, he reflected, but an old closeness between those two might make a great difference once I am gone. He therefore allowed him inside her southern blinds,29 although he forbade him access to the gentlewomen's sitting room.30 Having so few children, he could afford to pay close attention to him. On the whole the young man was thoroughly dignified and serious, and Genji felt safe giving him this much latitude. When the young man saw how innocently preoccupied the little girl still was with her dolls, he remembered all the months and years he had spent playing with her,31 and he therefore gave yeoman service at the dolls' palace32 and sometimes even shed a tear as well. He kept up a casual correspondence with a good many ladies, as long as there was nothing about them to discourage him from doing so, but he was careful not to encourage false hopes. When he liked one well enough to think of courting her seriously, he made a joke of it to himself, since all that really absorbed him was still the wish that he had never worn those light blue sleeves.33 He suspected that His Excellency might well yield and grant his permission, if only he were to insist stubbornly enough, but whenever he thought over the wrong he had suffered, he found that he could not renounce his desire to have his tormentor acknowledge it, and the only one to whom he showed devoted attention, maintaining outward composure all the while, was that lady herself. Her brothers often felt fed up with him.34 The Right Captain35 was profoundly
under the spell of the lady in the west wing, but since his access to her was quite unreliable, he appealed instead to Genji's son, who coolly replied that in someone else this sort of preoccupation seemed to him no more than foolishness. The relationship between these two resembled the old one between their fathers.

  His Excellency the Palace Minister, who had many children by different mothers,36 brought them all up to the wealth and success that their quality and condition37 encouraged them to desire. Having had few girls, he greatly regretted both the Consort's failure to fulfill his hopes and the reverse that now affected his other daughter.38 Nor did he forget his little pink,39 and after having once had occasion to talk about her,40 he continued to wonder what had become of her. To think my little girl was caught up in her mother's unwarranted fears and simply vanished! No, when it comes to girls, you can never, never let them out of your sight. Why, she may be living in squalor and still calling herself my daughter! Well, he fondly decided, never mind what condition any girl who presents herself as mine may be in! He was always saying to his sons, “If any young woman turns up calling herself my daughter, listen to her! Of all the reprehensible things I did for mere amusement, this was one: a woman who meant much more to me than anyone else took offense at something or other, and suddenly I, who have so few daughters, actually lost one of them! I wish it had never happened!” Recently he had tended more often to forget about her, but what with other people looking so happily after their own daughters, he still bitterly lamented the collapse of his hopes.

  He had a dream and called in an expert at such things to divine its meaning. “My lord,” the man asked, “could you have heard of a child of yours, one lost to you years ago, who has now become someone else's daughter?”

  But people so seldom adopt a girl, he thought. What can this mean? This was when he began pondering the matter again in earnest and talking about it.

  26

  TOKONATSU

  The Pink

  Tokonatsu (“gillyflower”) is the same flower as nadeshiko (“pink”). Because of Tō no Chūjō's account of Yūgao and her daughter in “The Broom Tree,” nadeshiko refers particularly to Tamakazura, and tokonatsu to Yūgao. (The reason is explained in the glossary “gillyflower.”) This is not always obvious in “The Pink,” but it is clear in the poem by Genji that gives the chapter its title:

  “If he were to see all the inviting beauty of the little pink,

  he might wish to know as well more of the gillyflower.”

  RELATIONSHIP TO EARLIER CHAPTERS

  “The Pink” directly follows “The Fireflies,” covering the sixth month.

  PERSONS

  His Grace, the Chancellor, Genji, age 36

  His son, the Captain, 15 (Yūgiri)

  His Excellency, the Palace Minister (Tō no Chūjō)

  The Controller Lieutenant, his second son (Kōbai)

  The Right Captain, his eldest son, 20 to 21 (Kashiwagi)

  The Fujiwara Adviser, his third son

  The young lady in the west wing, his daughter, 22 (Tamakazura)

  His daughter, 17 (Kumoi no Kari)

  His eldest daughter, the Consort, 19 (Kokiden no Nyōgo)

  Gosechi, a gentlewoman attached to Ōmi no Kimi

  Chūnagon, the Kokiden Consort's gentlewoman

  Tō no Chūjō's newly discovered daughter (Ōmi no Kimi)

  One very hot day Genji went to enjoy the cool of the east fishing pavilion. His son the Captain was with him. Intimates of his from among the privy gentlemen attended him as well, preparing for him such delicacies as sweetfish sent from the western river and bullheads from the river nearby.1 His Excellency's sons arrived as usual to seek the Captain's company. “I was bored and sleepy,” Genji declared. “You have come just in time!” They all had some wine and called for iced water to make chilled rice,2 which they then ate noisily.

  There was a fine breeze, but when the sun began sinking toward the west in a bright and cloudless sky, the cicadas' singing became thoroughly oppressive. “A lot of good it does one in this heat to be on the water! I hope you will excuse me.” Genji stretched out on his side. “Music is not much fun in weather like this, but one wonders how else to get through the day. It must be almost unbearable for you young people when you are on duty. You cannot even loosen your sashes! At least make yourselves comfortable here, then, and if you have any good stories about what has been going on lately, stories that might wake me up a little, I want to hear them! I am so out of touch, I feel like an old man.”

  Somewhat shamefaced at having nothing worth telling, they sat there with their backs against the cool railing.

  “Someone, I forget who, told me His Excellency has found a daughter of his by an outside mother and is now looking after her. Is that true?” Genji's question was directed to the Controller Lieutenant.

  “My lord, there is really nothing very extraordinary about it. This spring His Excellency spoke of having had a dream, and a woman who distantly heard of it came forward to claim that she had something to say on the matter. When this came to the Captain's3 attention, he inquired to find out whether she had any proof. I myself hardly know what the upshot was. You are right, though, that people lately

  Veranda and railing

  have been making quite a thing of it. This sort of business does my father no good, nor of course his house either.”

  Genji agreed. “He has so many geese already on the wing with him, it is greedy of him to insist on searching for one that may have strayed. I have so few that I would love to come across one like that, but I have never heard of any—I suppose they see no point in making themselves known. Anyway, she must have some sort of connection with him. He used to flit about so busily here and there, no wonder the moon deep in unclean water is not entirely spotless.”4 He smiled. His son the Captain,5 who knew the whole story, could not keep a straight face. The Lieutenant and the Fujiwara Adviser were extremely put out.

  “You might pick up that fallen leaf, my friend,” Genji teased his son. “Rather than leave a dubious name, why not embellish it after all with the same ornament?”6 On this sort of matter, and despite their superficially cordial relationship, Genji and his old friend had actually long been at odds with each other. In this case particularly, Genji could not accept the way His Excellency had slighted the Captain and hurt him, and he did not at all mind if His Excellency found out how displeased he was.

  This news started Genji thinking that whenever he did show the young lady in the west wing to His Excellency, she would no doubt be received in a worthy manner. Her father is a perfect gentleman, he reflected, with much to be said in his favor, someone who discriminates sharply between what he approves of and what he does not and who metes out praise or condemnation accordingly, and he would not despise her if I were suddenly to give her to him out of nowhere, however annoyed he might be. He would treat her with the greatest consideration.

  The breeze turned very cool as evening came on, and the young men did not wish to leave. “I might just go and enjoy the cool at my ease. I am a bit old now for such company!” Genji returned to the west wing, and the young gentlemen all went with him. They were hard to tell one from another in the twilight because their dress cloaks were all the same color,7 so he asked the young lady to come forward a little and whispered to her in private, “I have brought the Lieutenant and the Adviser. They seemed eager to come—it was thoughtless of that solemn Captain not to bring them himself. I expect each has his own hopes. The most common woman is bound to attract whatever attention her condition encourages, as long as she remains sheltered at home, and the less my house does to feed gossip, the more people seem to entertain grand ideas about it. There are several ladies here, but they are not for anyone to court. Now that you are here, too, though, I thought I might pass the time testing the depth of their interest, and I seem to be succeeding.”

  He had planted no elaborate garden before her wing, because here Chinese and Japanese pinks bloomed in harmonious colors, weaving their
way charmingly through the low fence and catching the glow of the last light of day in the profusion of their flowers.8 The young gentlemen went to them and paused, disappointed not to be able to pick as many as they pleased.

  “There are our learned young men,” Genji went on. “Both are very pleasantly able. The Right Captain9 is a little quieter and more dignified than either of them. Is he writing to you already? I wonder. Do be careful not to embarrass him by just turning him away.”

  His son's grace and beauty stood out in such fine company. “I cannot understand what His Excellency dislikes about him. Perhaps someone of imperial descent hardly deserves notice amid the unadulterated brilliance that surrounds him.”10

  “Someone did say, though, ‘My lord, if you come.’”11

  “Now, now, I do not ask for any great welcoming feast.12 But the two of them have been fond of each other since they were children, and I resent the way he has kept them apart for years. If he feels the Captain is still too junior and too little considered, then I wonder—could it mean that something troubling did happen and that he has just left it all to me instead?” He sighed.

  Then they really do not get on well, she thought. The idea that in the end she might never come to her father's knowledge made her miserable.

  The lanterns were lit, since at this time of the month there was no moon. “It feels too hot to have them that close,” he said. “A cresset would be nicer.” He called someone over to order, “I want a cresset, just here.” There was a pretty wagon nearby. He drew it to him, touched the strings, and found it beautifully tuned in the richi mode. Its tone was lovely, too, and he played a little. “All this time I had been thinking less well of you because I assumed you had no interest in this sort of thing! It has a sweet, fresh sound when the moonlight is cool on an autumn night and you sit not too far from the veranda to play it while the crickets sing. Perhaps the instrument in full concert lacks character, but on the other hand it has the marvelous property of conveying the timbre and rhythm of all the others. What people dismiss as merely “the Japanese koto” is actually extremely cleverly made. They think it is just for women who know nothing of China. You should really apply yourself to practicing it in company with other instruments. It has no deep secrets, but I doubt that it is easy to play genuinely well. At the moment no one compares with His Excellency the Palace Minister. One hears the sound of every instrument in his slightest toying with the strings,13 and from there comes the most wonderful music.”