The Tale of Genji, Page 76

  Here and there snow lay in patches that still merged with the whiteness of the garden.46 “Snow still lies against the wall,”47 he hummed to himself, tapping at a shutter. Nothing like this had happened for a long time, though; the women pretended to be asleep and made him wait before they raised it.

  “It took them so long!” he said. “I am frozen! I suppose that is what comes of being afraid of you. I have done nothing, though!” He pulled her covers aside, and she drew her damp sleeves away to hide them. Her simple warmth stopped well short of an open welcome, which daunted and delighted him all at once. Talk about the greatest lady in the land, he thought, remembering the one he had just left—she could never do that!

  He spent a day filled with memories reproaching her for refusing to forgive him, and after that he could not go there again. Instead he sent a note to the main house: “The snow this morning left me feeling too unwell, and I am lazily enjoying the comforts of home.”

  “I have informed my lady.” The nurse's reply came by word of mouth.

  What an answer! I should hate to have His Eminence hear of this. I must put a brave face on it for the time being. He could not, though. I knew it! he went on to himself. Now what am I to do? His thoughtlessness troubled even his darling.

  In the morning he rose as usual and sent Her Highness a letter. Though not particularly in awe of her, he still wrote it carefully, on white paper:48

  “It is no great way that lies between where you are and I am myself,

  yet I suffer this morning from this sprinkling of snow!”49

  He attached it to a branch of blossoming plum and summoned a messenger. “Present this from the west bridgeway,”50 he said; then he sat in his white gowns looking out from near the veranda, toying with white blossoms and meanwhile gazing up at a sky from which snowflakes drifted down to join the lonely few that still lingered below.51 When a warbler sang its earliest song from the tip of a red plum bough, he hid his blossoms and murmured, “My very sleeves are perfumed!”52 Gazing out into the distance that way, past the raised blinds, he looked nothing at all like a father or like someone who held a weighty title. One saw only youth and grace.

  When her answer seemed a little long in coming, he went back in and showed off his flowers. “This is how blossoms should smell,” he said. “If only one could give cherry blossoms this perfume, I doubt that people would care any longer for any other kind.”53 And he went on, “I suppose these catch the eye because there is little else now to look at. I should like to put them beside cherry blossoms at their best.” He was going on like this when an answer arrived, gaudily wrapped in thin scarlet paper. His heart sank. Her writing is so much a little girl's, he thought; I had better not show it off just yet. Not that I mean to keep her letters to myself, but really, considering who she is, I may harm her if I am not careful. He left it just slightly open, since his darling would only be hurt if he hid it, and she caught a sidelong look at it from where she lay propped on an armrest:

  “Wandering the wind in a swift flurry of flakes, so light a spring snow,

  pitifully frail, must soon melt away into the sky.”54

  The hand was indeed thoroughly childish. No one Her Highness's age should write like that, she thought, and she pretended not to have seen it.

  Just look at that! Genji would have remarked if it had been anyone else, but he could not bear to do so; he only said, “You need not fear.”

  Today he went to Her Highness in daylight. He had dressed with special care, and he must have impressed her women, since they had not actually seen him before. Some of the older and more experienced ones, her nurses and so on, thought to themselves, Come, he at least is a pleasure to look at; but there is going to be trouble!

  Charmingly girlish, Her Highness lived amid the proudest and most imposing magnificence, but at her tender age she had hardly a thought in her head, and she was so slight that she all but disappeared under her layers of gowns. She was not especially shy with him; she merely failed to be put off by a new face, as so many children are, and her manner remained sweetly serene. People have often felt that His Eminence unfortunately lacks manly gravity and learning, Genji reflected, although he excels in lighter matters of taste and sensibility. What can he have meant by bringing her up to this degree of ingenuousness? Nonetheless, I gather that she is his favorite daughter. It was all very disappointing, but he looked on her kindly enough. She would meekly do whatever he asked, and in the way of an answer she would simply blurt out whatever came into her head. No, he could not abandon her. As a young man I would have felt betrayed, he reflected, but wider experience has made me more tolerant; women can be this or that, I know, but they are only what they are and no more. There are simply all kinds. I suppose any outsider would assume she is ideal. Yes, the mistress of my east wing continues to astonish me after all our years together—I certainly brought her up properly, if I say so myself. After a night or just a morning away he worried about her and missed her, and the longer he lived, the more he loved her, though it was almost with dread that he wondered why.

  His Eminence moved to his temple that same month. Many affecting letters from him reached Rokujō. He spoke of his daughter, of course, and he repeatedly urged Genji to do whatever he thought best for her, without regard to his own opinion on the matter. In reality, though, she was so young that she continued to weigh on his mind.

  There was a letter for Lady Murasaki as well. “Please look indulgently on the young girl who has gone in all innocence to join you, and give her the assistance she needs,” he had written. “I believe that you may have a particular reason to call upon her.55

  This fond heart of mine, lingering still in a world that I had renounced,

  detains me yet, when I would now enter on the mountain path.

  You may think me very foolish for so failing to dispel a father's darkness.”

  Genji read it, too. “What a touching letter!” he said. “You must respect his wishes.” Through the gentlewomen he plied the messenger with wine. He did not feel that he could very well tell her how to reply, and since this was no time for anything clever, she simply confined herself to what she felt:

  “If the world you left burdens you with such concern and the tie you feel

  is so difficult to break, do not try too hard to go.”

  She presented the messenger with a long dress and a set of women's gowns. When His Eminence saw her beautiful writing, he deeply regretted that his all too childish daughter should have come into the company of anyone so impressive.

  His Eminence's Consorts and Intimates now all received leave to go, and there were many moving scenes. His Mistress of Staff, who meant more to him than anyone except his daughter, occupied the Nijō residence once inhabited by the Empress Mother. She had considered becoming a nun, but he reminded her that so hasty a gesture would suggest that she had nothing more in mind than following him, and in the end she only commissioned the making of holy images.

  Losing her had been a painful wrench for Genji, who had not forgotten her and who had long wanted to find a way to see her again and talk over the past they shared. Unfortunately, both were obliged by their circumstances to wish to avoid causing gossip, and the memory of that tragic scandal still made him extremely cautious. Still, he longed to know how she was, now that she was her own mistress again and that life was no doubt much quieter for her, and accordingly, he began despite his misgivings to write to her warmly under the pretext merely of civil inquiries after her health. She replied, since they could no longer be to each other what they were when they were young. It was always more than he could bear to see her writing, expansively full and generous as it was, and he would then send off an imploring letter to the Chūnagon of old.

  He summoned Chūnagon's brother, formerly the Governor of Izumi, and talked over the past with youthful fervor. “I have something to tell her,” he said, “but in person, just through a curtain. You must persuade her to allow that, and then I will pay her a very secret visi
t. I shall have to be extremely careful, since in my position I cannot really do this sort of thing anymore, and I know that you will not speak of it to anyone. I am certain we can trust each other.”

  Oh, dear me, no! the Mistress of Staff sighed to herself; I know a bit more about life now, and after all the misery those ways of his have caused me over the years, I cannot imagine what of the past we would find to talk about, apart from commiserating with each other over His Eminence. I would still have my own conscience to answer to, even if his visit remained a secret forever. She replied that she could not consider it.

  It is hardly as though we were not in it together back then when we took those risks, Genji reflected. Yes, I can see she might be anxious about His Eminence, now that he has renounced the world, but all that did happen, and no modesty of hers now will save her good name from the scandal that touched it then. His mind was made up, and he would follow the path through Shinoda Forest.56

  He said to his darling, “Her Highness of Hitachi in the east pavilion57 has been ill for a long time now, and you know, I feel rather guilty for having let all the recent commotion prevent me from going to see her. It would be tactless of me to go too obviously, though, during the day; I think I shall go more discreetly instead, at night. I do not want anyone to know.” She was surprised to note his intense excitement, since this was not a visit that would normally have affected him this way, and she guessed something of what was going on; but things were no longer as they had been since Her Highness appeared, and a certain distance had come between them. She let the matter pass.

  He did not go to the main house58 that day but only exchanged notes. Until nightfall he spent the time perfuming his clothes, and then, once the early evening was past, he set off in a basketwork carriage that recalled his surreptitious expeditions of long ago, accompanied by four or five of his closest retainers. The Governor of Izumi announced his arrival.

  The whispered news astonished the Mistress of Staff. “I do not understand!” she said reproachfully. “What on earth did the Governor tell him?” Chūnagon insisted, however. “It would be most unfortunate to mistake the spirit of my lord's visit and to send him away,” she said, and by hook or crook she got him admitted.

  Genji inquired politely after the lady's health. “Do come here,” he pressed her. “The panel can stay. Those wicked old ways of mine are all gone now.” With sighs of bitter reluctance she slipped out toward him. I knew it! he thought. She still cannot resist! Each was acutely aware of the other's movements, and the level of feeling rose.

  The setting was the east wing.59 He was seated where she had placed him, in the southeast corner of the aisle, and the bottom of the sliding panel was firmly fixed in place. “I feel like a callow youth!” he complained. “Oh, I could tell you exactly how many months and years it has been, and it is awful of you, you know, to pretend you could not!”

  The night grew late. Mandarin ducks sported with suggestive cries among the waterweeds, and the silent, all but deserted dwelling set him to pondering the world's endless changes; not that he meant to mimic Heichū, but he felt inclined to weep.60 He spoke to her reasonably, as he had not done then, but he tugged at the panel nonetheless, as though to say, Do you really mean to leave it like this?

  “With such months and years already lost between us, and our meeting now

  an Ōsaka Barrier, no rampart can stop my tears!”61

  She replied,

  “Tears, yes, they may well flow as imperiously as any clear spring,

  but the path we took to meet vanished a long time ago.”62

  She tried with this sort of talk to keep her distance, but when she looked back over the past and asked herself just whose fault that dreadful scandal had really been, it seemed to her that yes, she had always known that they would meet again, and she faltered; gravity of deportment had never been her strength anyway, and while all that life had taught her over the years, all her regrets and her wide experience at home or at court, had encouraged her to live beyond reproach, this meeting so reminiscent of the old days brought their times together very close again, and she found it impossible to sustain her resistance. She still had youth and warmth and her lively wit, and the conflict between prudent restraint and passionate feeling drew from her such sighs as to enchant Genji even more than at a first encounter. The coming of dawn was misery to him, and he did not want to leave.

  At daybreak the air beneath an entrancing sky rang with the sweet singing of birds. The cherry blossoms were all gone, and in their place a pale green haze swathed the trees. That party of his63 under the wisteria—it must have been at about this time! he reflected. Many years had passed since then, but what had happened still stirred him. Chūnagon opened the double doors to watch him go, and he turned back toward her. “Ah, this wisteria!” he said. “Where can it have got its color? Such beauty surely suggests a rare grace of spirit! How can I possibly leave it?” He simply could not bring himself to go.

  The light of the sun just then rising over the hills gave him a dazzling beauty, and after all this time it was still such a wonder to see him in his full magnificence that she could hardly believe he belonged to this world. Why, oh why, had her mistress not been married to a man like him? Chūnagon remembered how certain constraints had kept her mistress from rising particularly high in His Eminence's service, for the late Empress Mother had made much too much of what had happened, and the ensuing scandal had tarnished her name forever. Oh, I hope that this will not be all, she thought, when they must have so much more to tell each other! But Genji feared watching eyes too much merely to please himself, and his anxiety grew as the sun rose. His men had brought his carriage up to the gallery door, and he could hear them discreetly clearing their throats.

  He called one and had him pick a cluster of those blossoms.

  “Not that I forget the disgrace I suffered then, but I have not learned

  and feel poised to cast myself into your blossoms' abyss.”64

  Sorrowfully she watched him lean on the railing in an anguish of indecision. Despite the troubled modesty that overcame her, she longed for those blossoms, too.

  “That fatal abyss, yawning to swallow you, is not one at all,

  for I would not wet my sleeves in such unrepentant waves.”65

  Genji could not condone his own boyish behavior, but perhaps the gatekeeper's laxness had set his mind at rest,66 because before leaving he secured her consent to meet again. She had meant a great deal to him in the old days, too, but after all they had had little time together, and he could hardly fail now to be deeply stirred.

  He made his way home again very stealthily indeed and all too clearly just out of bed, and his darling was there to greet him. She had a good idea what he had been up to, but she did not allow herself to show it, and this actually bothered him more than the fit of jealousy he had expected. Wondering why his doings concerned her so little reduced him to promising her eternal love and devotion more earnestly than ever before. He could not very well talk about the Mistress of Staff elsewhere, but she knew what had once happened, and he therefore told her just a little. “She and I were screened from each other, you know, and there was not much to our meeting. It was disappointing, really. I should like to go again if I can keep from being seen.”

  She gave him a little smile. “Why, you are quite the young gallant again! There you are, reliving your past, only to leave me wondering what is to become of me.” Tears came to her eyes after all, and she looked very dear indeed.

  “This pettishness of yours makes things very difficult. I would rather you just came straight at me and pinched me to let me know how you feel. I never taught you to keep things to yourself, and I cannot imagine where this attitude comes from.” He did all he could to bring her round, and in the end he apparently had to confess everything.

  He did not immediately go to Her Highness but instead remained where he was, consoling his beloved. To Her Highness this meant nothing, but those entrusted with her care let him
know that they considered him delinquent. He would have felt even worse if Her Highness had expressed displeasure herself, but as it was, she was nothing more to him than a fetching, obedient toy.

  For ages the Kiritsubo Consort67 could not withdraw from the palace. Never having leave to go was hard for someone so young and hitherto always able to please herself. That summer she began to feel unwell, and she was outraged when the Heir Apparent would not allow her to go straight home. Her condition was delicate, and those most concerned must have been apprehensive, since she was still very small and frail. At last she withdrew, and space was prepared for her at the front of the main house, on the east side, where Her Highness lived. To be so much with her daughter now was a fate that represented the sum of the Akashi lady's wishes.

  The mistress of Genji's east wing intended to visit the Consort. “I should like to open the door in between and call on Her Highness, too,” she said with a smile. “For some time I have been thinking of doing so, but I felt that I should wait for the proper moment. Things will be easier after this, if she and I can make friends now.”

  “That would be just the thing. She is so young. Do see that she learns what she needs to know.”

  It was the prospect of meeting less Her Highness than Akashi that she found daunting, and she washed her hair and dressed so beautifully that Genji thought her clearly beyond compare.

  He went to talk to Her Highness beforehand. “The lady from the east wing is coming to see the Kiritsubo Consort this evening,” he explained, “and I gather that she would like to become acquainted with you at the same time. Please be good enough to receive her. She is very nice. She is still young, too, and you might enjoy amusing yourself with her.”