The Tale of Genji, Page 63

  Genji raised the shutters himself. Alarmed to be so near, the Captain withdrew to a respectful distance. “Well?” Genji said. “Was Her Highness glad to see you yesterday evening?”

  “Yes, she was. I felt awfully sorry for her—anything can put her in tears.”

  Genji smiled. “I doubt that she will be with us much longer. Do what you can to make her happy. She must wish His Excellency were more attentive. He is lively and manly in character, and he has made a great show of being scrupulously filial, but there is very little depth to him, you know. Still, he is also remarkably clever and complex, and so much more learned than this degenerate age deserves that despite his testiness there can hardly be anyone as far beyond reproach as he.

  “I wonder whether Her Majesty has anyone reliable attending her in this awful wind,” he went on, and he gave his son this message for her: “What did you think of the noise the wind made last night? A wind has caught me, too,9 with a storm like this going on, and I have been very low. I am afraid I am obliged for the time being simply to look after myself.”

  The Captain stepped down from the veranda and started toward Her Majesty's through the door onto the connecting gallery. He looked very splendid in the breaking dawn. Standing to the south of Her Majesty's east wing, he saw that her main house had two shutters raised and the blinds rolled up, and that there were women sitting there in the faint early-morning light. There were a lot of them, young ones, leaning on the railing. The freedom of their behavior left some doubt about how they might be dressed, but their varied colors made them a pretty picture in the half-light. Her Majesty was having her page girls go down into the garden to feed dew to the crickets in their cages. Four or five of them in aster and pink, with light or dark gowns and maidenflower dress gowns perfect for the season, were wandering here and there with variously colored cages, picking such charming flowers as pinks and bringing them to their mistress. They all looked quite lovely as their colors blurred into the mists. The wind brought him a scent as of asters, and such a fragrance of incense that he thought that it must have caressed Her Majesty's own sleeves.10 Such exquisite elegance overwhelmed him, and he hesitated to go farther, but after discreetly clearing his throat he stepped forward nonetheless. The women slipped back inside without visible dismay or haste. As a page, when Her Majesty first went to the palace, he had been allowed in to see her, so that her gentlewomen were not that shy of him. After delivering his message he took the opportunity to give Naishi and Saishō messages of his own,11 since he had divined their presence there. Even so, the lofty dignity of their surroundings brought to mind other, sad preoccupations.

  All the shutters were up in the southeast quarter, where she was gazing at the flowers she had found so hard to leave the evening before—flowers that now lay ravaged as though they had never been. The Captain delivered Her Majesty's reply from the steps: “I had hoped like a fearful child that you might keep me from the storm, but I feel better now.”

  “How strangely timid Her Majesty is!” Genji said. “I must have disappointed her—a night like that could have frightened any woman.” He went to her straightaway.

  Genji rolled up the blinds and went in to put on a dress cloak, and the Captain just glimpsed a sleeve moving a low standing curtain closer. It must be she! The thought set his heart pounding all too loudly, or so it seemed to him, and he looked away.

  “The Captain is very handsome this morning,” Genji remarked quietly, contemplating the mirror. “He should properly still be a mere boy; perhaps it takes a father's eye to see such a worthy young man.” He appeared pleased with the lasting youthfulness of his own face. “Meeting Her Majesty always makes me nervous. There is nothing obviously intimidating about her, but I cannot help it; she has such subtle depths. However gently feminine she may be, there is more to her than meets the eye.”

  On his way out he noticed how abstracted the Captain was, to the point of hardly noticing his father, and whatever it was his sharp eye had caught, he turned back to his darling and said, “I wonder whether the Captain might have seen you yesterday in that wind. The doors were open, you know.”

  She blushed. “How could he? I never heard anyone on the bridgeway.”

  There is something odd about him even so, Genji reflected as he set off.

  The Captain detected the presence of Her Majesty's women at the door onto the bridgeway once his father had gone in through her blinds, and he went up to them to exchange a few bantering remarks. However, his cares made him more subdued than usual.

  Genji went straight north from there to the lady from Akashi's, where instead of proper household staff he saw only experienced servant women moving about in the garden. The low fences entwined with her specially planted bluebells and gentians were scattered far and wide, and the simply dressed page girls in their pretty gowns seemed to be looking for them and putting them back up as well as they could. She was sitting near the veranda, sadly toying with her sō no koto, when she heard the warning cries from his escort, and the way she then dropped a dress gown over her soft, casual attire12 to mark the deference she owed him was deeply impressive. To her disappointment he abruptly left again after sitting with her a moment to ask how she had got on during the storm.

  “The sound of the wind passing as the wind will do, rustling the reeds,

  seems, unhappy as I am, to bring a new touch of chill,”13

  she murmured to herself.

  The lady in the west wing had slept late, after a terrified and sleepless night, and she was only now looking into her mirror. Genji told his escort not to cry warnings, and he purposely entered in silence. There she sat, picked out in dazzling beauty by a brilliant shaft of sun, with her folded screens leaning in a corner and the room around her in complete disarray. He sat beside her and turned even the storm into one more occasion to embarrass her with his usual banter, which upset her so much that she burst out at last, “This awful obsession of yours is exactly why I wished last night that the wind would just take me away!”

  Genji smiled with delight. “You want to go with the wind? You cannot be serious. Still, I suppose you have somewhere else in mind. So this is how you have come gradually to feel about me. Well, I can hardly blame you.”

  She, too, smiled when she realized how frankly she had spoken, giving lovely color and expression to the face that peeped out, full as a Chinese lantern pod,14 from between the strands of her beautiful hair. So broad a smile lacked a certain dignity, but nothing else about her could possibly be faulted.

  The Captain longed to see her himself, now that his father was talking to her so intently. A standing curtain was in place behind the corner blind, but a little untidily, and he found when he gently lifted a panel that every barrier was gone and he had a perfect view. It took him aback to see Genji clearly flirting with her, and he was fascinated. He is supposed to be her father, he thought, but she is much too old for him to take in his arms! The startling strangeness of the scene kept him watching despite his fear of discovery. She was hidden behind a pillar and looking a little away from Genji, but he drew her toward him, and her hair spilled forward like a wave. The yielding way she leaned on him suggested complete familiarity, despite her obvious trouble and distress. No! This is impossible! What does it mean? He did not bring her up himself— that must explain why he feels that way about her now. He has never left any corner unexplored. Who can blame him? I do not like it, though! The Captain was ashamed of his own thoughts. She was his sister, yes, but considering her looks he could easily imagine himself stepping back a little, deciding that, after all, they had different mothers, and straying in exactly the same way himself. Although not up to the lady he had glimpsed the day before, she certainly was of the same order; to see her was to smile with pleasure. There came to his mind all at once a picture of richly blooming kerria roses, laden with dew in the light of the setting sun. The image did not match the present season, but still, it felt right. Flowers do not last, though, and their stamens all too soon begin to
droop. Her beauty was really beyond such comparisons. No one came to disturb their intent whisperings, but for some reason he could not catch, Genji presently stood up with a grave look on his face.

  Making a robe

  She said,

  “Caught up in the wind's wandering and willful ways, a maidenflower

  feels she has no other hope than at last to wilt and die.”

  He could not actually hear her, but Genji repeated the poem. Mingled pleasure and revulsion urged him to go on watching, but he drew back nonetheless, since he did not wish Genji to see how close he had been.

  Genji replied,

  “If she would just yield to the hidden dew's appeal, the maidenflower

  at the touch of the wild wind need not ever wilt or die.15

  Just reflect on the pliant bamboo.”

  The Captain must have misheard him. No one should overhear such things.

  From there Genji went on to the northeast. For one reason or another, perhaps the early-morning chill, several older gentlewomen were busy sewing before their mistress, while younger ones stretched cloth on what looked like narrow chests. All about her the lady had scattered some very pretty ocher silk gauze and some plum-red stuff beaten to a most beautiful luster.

  “Is this a train-robe for the Captain?” Genji asked. “I expect His Majesty's garden-court16 party will be canceled. What would be the point, after what this wind has done? I think we are in for a sad autumn.” What could it be? he wondered. All the colors were exquisitely lovely, and he realized that she was just as good at this sort of thing as the lady to the south.

  A dress cloak for him, in a pattern of floral circles, had been lightly dyed to an absolutely perfect hue with freshly picked dayflower blossoms. “It is for the Captain to wear this sort of thing,” he said. “It looks better on a young man.” After various other remarks of this nature he continued on his way.

  The Captain was beginning to tire of accompanying his father on this tedious series of visits; besides, he had a letter to write, and it worried him to see the sun already so high. Meanwhile, they came to the residence of Genji's daughter.

  “My lord, she is still with my lady,” her nurse said. “The wind frightened her, and she could not get up this morning.”

  “The uproar of the storm made me hope that I could be of assistance here,” the Captain put in, “but Her Highness was too distressed. How is her doll's house?”

  The gentlewomen smiled. “The mere breeze from a fan makes her fear disaster, and this wind nearly destroyed it. We are not quite sure how to mend it.”

  “Do you have some modest paper? I need that, and your inkstone.”

  One went to a cabinet and took out a roll of paper that she gave him in the inkstone box lid. “Oh, no,” he said, “I would not presume.”17 Still, he felt a little better when he considered where the lady in the northwest stood,18 and he proceeded with his letter. It was on thin purple paper. He ground the ink carefully and wrote intently, pausing now and again to inspect the tip of the brush. He made a very nice picture. Still, his poem was awfully trite, and it certainly deserved no praise:

  “Let the wild winds blow this evening, and lowering clouds wander the heavens,

  there is no forgetting you, no, not even when I try!”

  He tied it to some storm-tossed beardgrass.19

  “The Katano Lieutenant made sure his plant or flower matched his paper,” they objected.

  “Oh, I never thought of considering the color! What would you recommend instead?”20 He seemed to have little to say to women like these, and he did not play up to them, treating them instead with haughty pride. Next, he wrote another letter and gave both to the Second Equerry, who, amid much whispering, passed one each to a pretty page and to a thoroughly reliable-looking retainer. The young women were desperate to know whom they were for.

  They sprang to life at the news that their mistress was returning, and they began straightening the standing curtains and so on. The Captain, who never normally showed such interest, was eager to pursue comparing the flowerlike faces he had seen, and he went to some lengths to conceal most of himself behind the blind near the double doors and to peer through a gap in the standing curtain; and all at once there she was, just coming in from behind a screen. There were too many women in the way, and he was thoroughly annoyed to find that he could make out very little. Her hair, which did not yet reach the floor, fanned out over her pale gray-violet gown, and she looked so engagingly slender and small that he liked her very much. He had not had a glimpse of her for two years, and he thought how nicely she seemed to have grown out since then. What will she be like when she is grown-up? Beside the cherry blossoms and kerria roses he had seen, she might be called wisteria—yes, he decided, hers was the rich beauty of wisteria blooming on some mighty tree and swaying in the breeze. If only I could be with such women as these all I like, day and night! And it should be possible, too, if it were not for this hateful barrier between us! The stalwart young man could hardly contain himself.

  He found Her Highness his grandmother quietly occupied with her devotions. Many fine young women attended her, but none yet resembled in bearing, grace, or dress the ladies he had just seen in their glory. It was the handsome nuns, in the modesty of their inky habits,21 who really gave the scene its moving quality. His Excellency was there as well. The lamps were lit, and the two were talking quietly.

  “It has been so long since I last saw my girl!” Her Highness said, openly weeping. “It is so hard!”

  “Oh, yes, I shall have her come to you soon. She seems to be pining in some way and looks decidedly reduced. To tell the truth, I think one can do without daughters. They are nothing but trouble.” He spoke with the same obstinate disapproval as ever, hurting her so much that she did not press him further. “And now that I have one who is completely hopeless, I have no idea what to do with her,” he continued with a bitter smile.

  “Oh, no, surely not! No daughter of yours could be as bad as that!”

  “That is just it,” they say he replied. “She is a disaster! I must manage to let you see her.”

  29

  MIYUKI

  The Imperial Progress

  Miyuki means “imperial progress.” In this chapter Emperor Reizei goes on a winter outing to Ōharano, just southwest of the city. The word appears (as a wordplay on miyuki, “snow”) in a poem that Genji sends in reply to one by the Emperor:

  “Never as today can the slopes of Oshio, where repeated snows

  weigh upon the forest pines, have seen true magnificence.”

  RELATIONSHIP TO EARLIER CHAPTERS

  “The Imperial Progress” begins in the twelfth month of the year covered in the previous six chapters and goes through the second month of the following year (Genji's thirty-seventh).

  PERSONS

  His Grace, the Chancellor, Genji, age 36 to 37

  The lady in the west wing, 22 to 23 (Tamakazura)

  Genji's lady, the lady of the southeast quarter, 28 to 29 (Murasaki)

  His Majesty, the Emperor, 18 to 19 (Reizei)

  His Excellency, the Palace Minister (Tō no Chūjō)

  His Highness of War, Genji's brother (Hotaru Hyōbukyō no Miya)

  The Commander of the Right, early 30s (Higekuro)

  The Captain, Genji's son, 15 to 16 (Yūgiri)

  Her Highness, Tō no Chūjō's mother (Ōmiya)

  The Captain, Tō no Chūjō's eldest son, early 20s (Kashiwagi)

  The Controller Lieutenant, around 20 (Kōbai)

  The Kokiden Consort, Tō no Chūjō's daughter, 19 to 20

  The girl from Ōmi, Tō no Chūjō's daughter (Ōmi no Kimi)

  Thus Genji examined every possibility in the hope of having things turn out well, but that “silent waterfall” of his1 made a sad and troubling burden for the young person in the west wing, and his fair name was in grave peril, just as the mistress of the southeast quarter2 surmised. No doubt His Excellency, who always reacted so sharply and could not tolerate t
he smallest slip, would give him a welcome for all the world to see, but Genji knew that that might only make him look foolish, and he thought better of the idea.

  In the twelfth month His Majesty was to make a progress to Ōharano,3 and everyone in the world longed to be there. All the ladies from Rokujō went to watch. His Majesty set off at the hour of the Hare4 and turned west from Suzaku along Gojō.5 The sightseeing carriages stood in an unbroken row all the way to the Katsura River. Not every imperial progress achieved this, by any means. On the day, the Princes and senior nobles all gave special attention to preparing their mounts and saddles and chose tall, handsome retainers and grooms whom they dressed lavishly, so that they presented a spectacle of rare magnificence. Naturally their Excellencies of the Left and Right, His Excellency the Palace Minister, the Counselors, and all those below them attended without exception. The privy gentlemen down even to the fifth and sixth ranks wore leaf-green formal cloaks over grape trainrobes. The lightest of snows was falling, so that the very sky along the way lent the occasion its own grace. The Princes and senior nobles who were to join the hawking each had brought a striking hunting costume. The falconers from the Palace Guards wore a riot of unusual rubbed patterns6 that gave the scene a special touch. Everyone had rushed out to witness the spectacle, and some pitifully humble carriages that belonged to people one did not know made a sad sight with their broken wheels. Many fine carriages were driving imposingly about near the very start of the floating bridge.7

  The young lady from the west wing was there, too. Among all the gentlemen before her in their finery, she still found none to compare with His Majesty seen in profile, stock-still in his red robes. She secretly paid particular attention to His Excellency her father, but despite his dazzling looks and weighty presence there was only so much and no more to be said for him. He was by far the most impressive figure among the commoners, but she could not keep her eyes off that One in the palanquin. Captain, Lieutenant, or Privy Gentleman So-and-so, for whom other young women were swooning and sighing, Isn't he handsome! or I love his style! naturally meant nothing to her, for His Majesty eclipsed them all. Genji so resembled him that they could have been the same man, but to her mind His Majesty somewhat surpassed Genji in dignity, and it was he whose looks and bearing were truly a marvel to behold. Surely there had never been anyone like him. She had assumed that all noble gentlemen were comely, accustomed as she was to the grace of Genji and the Captain, but such company as this cast a shadow over them, for they seemed not even to have the same eyes or noses, and they hardly deserved a glance. His Highness of War was there, too. The Commander of the Right, ever weighty and imposing, served His Majesty in great style today with a quiver on his back, but his heavy black beard was thoroughly unprepossessing.8 What could such a face ever have had in common with a prettily made-up woman's? She had grave doubts about what Genji had in mind for her, because palace service might turn out to be hideously demeaning,9 but apart from the intimacies involved, the mere prospect of serving him and being with him seemed to her very pleasant indeed.