The Tale of Genji, Page 77

  “But I shall be so embarrassed! What shall I say to her?” Her Highness replied artlessly.

  “You must answer people according to what they say to you. Please do not be shy!” He carefully told her what to do. Oh, I hope they get on together! he said to himself. He knew that it would be embarrassing to reveal Her Highness's blank innocence, but it would also be wrong of him to discourage their meeting.

  Here I am soon to call on Her Highness, Murasaki reflected pensively in her east wing, but is she really above me? Yes, he kindly took me under his care at a time when my future was uncertain, but even so… The old poems she found herself writing out for practice would evoke whatever weighed on her mind, and she would then read her own preoccupation in them.

  Genji came in, and he who found Her Highness and his daughter the Consort each charming in her own way saw that he would not feel anything like what he did for his familiar companion if hers were any common beauty: no, she really was peerless. Pride and dignity were hers to just the right degree, and vivid freshness, and all the loveliest touches of delicious grace, for she was in her richest and most glorious flower. How, he wondered, was it possible that year to year and day to day she always had about her something marvelous, something new?

  She slipped her casually written sheets under the inkstone, but he found them, took them back out, and had a look. There was nothing self-conscious about her skill, her writing simply had a sweet elegance. His eye fell particularly on the lines,

  “Is autumn for me coming nearer every day? Here before my eyes

  all the green leaves on the hills have turned the colors of fall”;

  and beside them, as though playfully, he added,

  “Why, the waterbird in the color of his wings sports the same old green;

  but the hagi's lower leaves look indeed not quite the same.”68

  This distressing mood of hers betrayed itself on occasion, but he loved and admired her for keeping it so well under control.

  He would not be needed that evening either in the east wing or in the main house, and he therefore managed somehow or other to set off for his secret assignation. He knew quite well that he should not and tried hard to reconsider, but he failed.

  The Kiritsubo Consort loved and trusted the mistress of the east wing more than she did her own mother, and that lady felt great affection for her when she saw how exquisitely pretty she had grown up to be. Once they had chatted happily together, she opened the intervening door and went in to meet Her Highness. It was reassuring to find Her Highness so obviously still a child, and in a quiet, motherly way she took up with her the question of how they were related. Then she summoned Chūnagon, Her Highness's nurse. “I have spoken to Her Highness about the ancestry she and I share, and I regret that despite our being closely related,69 if I may presume so to express myself, I should have felt unable to call on her except when a suitable occasion arose. I hope that from now on she will feel free to visit me and to bring any thoughtlessness of mine to my attention.”

  “My lady seems to feel quite abandoned after losing the protection of those whom she trusted most,” Chūnagon answered, “and I am extremely grateful for your kind indulgence toward her. I am certain that His Eminence hopes you will both be close in just that way, now that he has renounced the world, and that you will be good enough also to look after my lady while she is young.”

  “Ever since receiving his most gracious communication I have longed to do just that, but alas, I often have occasion to regret my own lack of capacity.” She spoke with a fine, quiet poise. Then she went on in a youthful tone to please Her Highness by talking about pictures and about how she herself had never been able to give up her dolls. How young she is, and how very nice! Her Highness thought, and she liked her a great deal. After that they wrote to each other often and took pleasure in each other's company whenever some charming entertainment gave them the opportunity to do so.

  People gossip impudently about anyone that exalted, and they had wondered at first what thoughts the mistress of Genji's east wing might be having. “Surely His Grace no longer favors her as he used to,” they said. “He must think less of her than before.” When it turned out that all this had if anything heightened his devotion to her, some made much of that as well, but such pleasant relations between the two ladies then put an end to all these rumors and restored a happy harmony.

  In the tenth month the mistress of the east wing dedicated an image of the Buddha Yakushi at Genji's temple on Saga Moor, to honor his fortieth year. She had planned a discreet event, since he had forbidden anything too grand. The style of the image, the scripture boxes, and the wrappings70 suggested paradise itself. The prayers offered were ample indeed, for they included the Sutra of the Victorious King, the Diamond Wisdom Sutra, and the Sutra of Eternal Life.71 A great many of the senior nobles were present. The temple was extremely handsome, and the many sights along the way, including the path there through the fields and beneath trees in their autumn colors, no doubt helped also to encourage them to attend. There was a great clatter of horses and carriages passing each other on their way across meadows withered by frost. Each lady from Rokujō had commissioned her own solemn scripture reading.

  The fast72 was over on the twenty-third, and Rokujō was already so full that the sponsor held the banquet at Nijō, which she considered her home. She made there the robes and everything else required, and the other ladies contributed whatever else they could, each as she pleased. The wings, which had been given over to gentlewomen's rooms, were cleared to provide space for entertaining the privy gentlemen, the Commissioners,73 the Rokujō household officers, and even the servants in grand style. The extension in the main house was done up as usual for such an occasion and furnished with a mother-of-pearl throne. In the west room there were twelve costume tables, each bearing the customary summer and winter clothing and nightclothes, and decorously covered with purple figured silk so that one could not tell what was underneath. The two accessory tables before the seat of honor were covered with Chinese silk that darkened in color toward the bottom. The blossom-foot aloeswood stand for headdress flowers, with its golden birds perched on silver branches, was from the Kiritsubo Consort; Akashi had had it made according to her own profoundly ingenious design.74 It was His Highness of Ceremonial75 who had seen to the four folding screens behind the seat of honor. Their paintings showed the four seasons, as one would expect, but they were extremely ingenious, and their mountains, valleys, and waters had a pleasing freshness of invention. Two pairs of cabinets supporting chests full of things stood against the north wall. The other furnishings were the usual ones. The senior nobles, the Ministers of the Left and Right, His Highness of Ceremonial, and so on were seated in the south aisle, and of course every gentleman of lesser rank was present as well. To the left and right of the stage there were curtained-off spaces for the musicians, while to the east and west there stood in rows eighty sets of rice dumplings and forty chests of gift cloth.

  The dancers and musicians arrived at the hour of the Sheep.76 They performed “Ten Thousand Years” and “The Royal Deer,” and then toward sundown danced the Koma prelude,77 followed by the rarely seen “Twin Dragons.” When it was over, the Counselor and the Intendant of the Gate Watch went down into the garden and danced a little encore,78 after which they disappeared among the autumn trees. The delighted gentlemen were sorry to see them go. Those who remembered “Blue Sea Waves” on that marvelous evening of Emperor Suzaku's excursion found them both worthy of their fathers, whom they equaled in reputation, looks, and wit and slightly surpassed in rank and office—which in view of their ages suggested that their birth had long destined them to such heights. Genji was moved nearly to tears, and many memories returned to him.

  Rice dumpling

  When night came, the musicians withdrew. The senior officers of the household led them to the chests, and each received his gift. Seen against the garden hill as they passed along the lake, the white garments across their shoulders lo
oked like the feather raiment of cranes enjoying their thousand years of life. The gentlemen's music then began, and it, too, was delightful. Genji had the stringed instruments from the Heir Apparent; the biwa and kin came from His Cloistered Eminence's palace and the so no koto from His Majesty. All had a tone that recalled times gone by, and Genji, joining in the concert as he rarely did anymore, found himself remembering how His Late Eminence had looked at one time or another, and his own life at court, and he reflected with bitter sorrow and regret: If only Her Cloistered Eminence had lived, I would have given her a celebration like this one myself! How could I have shown her otherwise how much she meant to me?

  Her Cloistered Eminence's absence cast a pall over life for His Majesty, too, and the passing years only made him feel more troubled that he could not, as he should, show Genji all the respect that was a father's due. He had decided that the present celebration would give him an opportunity to visit Genji this year, but Genji repeatedly advised him against any course of action that people might find disturbing, and he had been disappointed to have to give up the idea.

  After the twentieth of the twelfth month Her Majesty withdrew from the palace, and as her last act of devotion on his behalf for the year she commissioned scripture chanting at the seven great temples of Nara,79 to which she had distributed four thousand bolts of cloth; and she gave out four hundred bolts of silk to forty temples closer to the City. She recognized her debt to him and had looked forward to showing him her gratitude whenever circumstances might allow her to do so, for she knew that she would have done no less for her mother and father if they had still been alive; but Genji's severe remarks even to His Majesty had obliged her to give up most of her plans. “What I gather from past example is that after celebrating one's fortieth year one can seldom expect to live much longer, and I should therefore prefer you on this occasion to curtail all ostentatious display and to save yourself for celebrations yet to come.” Those had been his words, but His Majesty still meant to mark the occasion with due solemnity.

  The main house of Her Majesty's quarter was decorated for an event that had all the grandeur of the earlier ones.80 The rewards for the senior nobles and so on emulated those specified for major court festivals; Their Highnesses received women's gowns, while gentlemen of the fourth rank qualified for Consultant, as well as privy gentlemen in His Majesty's service, got a white, layered long dress and also a roll of silk. The costumes were extremely beautiful, and famous sashes and swords inherited from the Late Heir Apparent81 also gave the occasion a moving touch. The event seems to have brought together every celebrated property from earlier reigns. The old tales make a great thing of the gifts presented on such occasions, but such lists are a bore, and I could not possibly go through all the people to whom Genji was obliged to make them.

  His Majesty could not accept giving up the plan he had formed, and he entrusted the Counselor with executing it. The incumbent in the post of Right Commander had recently resigned because of illness, and His Majesty had intended to award the office to the Counselor in conjunction with his own event for Genji, but he now made the appointment immediately. Genji thanked him, but with modest circumspection. “I cannot help feeling that this sudden honor is premature,” he said, “since it far exceeds what he deserves.”

  The new Commander oversaw the preparations in the northeast quarter.82 He tried to keep them discreet, but this was no ordinary ceremony, and he brought in for it and the others taking place in the other quarters whatever was needed from the Court Repository and the Imperial Granary.83 The Secretary Captain84 received His Majesty's order to provide the rice dumplings and so on, just as for an event at the palace. Present were five Princes, the Ministers of the Left and Right, two Grand Counselors, three Counselors, five Consultants, and almost all the privy gentlemen who served His Majesty, the Heir Apparent, and His Eminence. The Chancellor had seen to the room's decoration and furnishings, under His Majesty's detailed guidance, and he joined the company today at His Majesty's express command. Gratified and astonished, His Grace took his seat as well. They faced each other in the chamber of the main house. His Excellency, by now a handsome and imposingly weighty figure, visibly enjoyed the fullness of prosperity and success, while His Grace was still the young Genji of old. The four folding screens behind him bore inscriptions in His Majesty's own hand, on grass green Chinese figured silk, written over paintings that were also of exceptional interest. In ink and line the writing had a dazzling quality that the identity of the writer only enhanced. The stringed and wind instruments, and the cabinets upon which they rested, all came from the Chamberlains' Office. The day's events were particularly impressive because the Commander's personal authority was now much greater than before. The sun set while men from the Left and Right Imperial Stables and the officers of the Six Guards Headquarters85 ranged forty horses before the guests, in order of the guests' precedence.

  Dances like “Ten Thousand Years” and “Our Sovereign's Grace” were done as usual, although only in token form, because His Excellency's presence inspired them all to put their hearts instead into the music that he so much enjoyed. His Highness of War as always took the biwa, for he was a rare and peerless master. Genji received the kin, and His Excellency the wagon. Genji found His Excellency's music very fine and moving indeed, perhaps because they had been playing so long together, and he therefore kept back nothing of his own mastery of the kin, which at his touch gave forth the most marvelous sound. Then they talked over old times and drank often, since the ties between them at last encouraged the friendliest intimacy, until the pleasures of the occasion moved them to drunken tears that they could not withhold.

  The dance “Ten Thousand Years”

  As parting gifts Genji sent out to His Excellency's carriage a superb wagon, together with a Koma flute of which he was fond, and a pair of red sandalwood boxes, one containing admirable examples of calligraphy from China and the other similarly fine pieces of running script from Japan. The men from the Right Imperial Stables, there to fetch the horses, boisterously danced a Koma piece. The officers from the Six Guards Headquarters received their rewards from the Commander. Genji had discouraged any pomp or display, for he wished to keep everything simple, but his close ties with the Emperor, the Heir Apparent, the Retired Emperor, and the Empress as well gave him such overwhelming prestige that a magnificent tribute to him had seemed inevitable. It was disappointing that the Commander should be his only son, but the young man enjoyed particularly high regard among his peers and stood alone in ability, although the destiny consequent upon the fiercely jealous rivalry between his mother and the Rokujō Haven had nonetheless declared itself in the end in various ways.86

  The Commander was dressed that day by the lady of the northeast quarter, while one gathers that his wife at Sanjō prepared the rewards. Seen from the northeast quarter, these occasional festive events, even the prettiest and most intimate of them, seemed very far off indeed, and the lady there had wondered whether she would ever be admitted to such grand company; but her tie to the Commander accomplished this for her very well.

  The New Year came. The Kiritsubo Consort's time was approaching, and from the first of the first month Genji accordingly commissioned continuous performance of the Great Rite. Prayers beyond counting were made at temples and shrines everywhere. That appalling experience87 had instilled in him a terror of these things, and despite regret and disappointment he was glad that neither the mistress of his east wing nor the others had been through anything similar. The Consort was so slight that he was already thoroughly apprehensive about how she would get on, when to general consternation a striking change came over her in the second month, and she became quite unwell. The diviners recommended penance for her elsewhere,88 but he knew that he would worry if she were to go anywhere else, and he therefore moved her to the middle wing of Akashi's quarter. The residence consisted of two large wings surrounded by several galleries89 along which rows of earthen altars were now erected, and powerful ascetics
were summoned to work their rites loudly before them.90 The Consort's mother knew that her own fate hung in the balance, and she was very anxious indeed.

  The venerable Nun must have been very old and odd by now, because for her it was like a dream to see her granddaughter this way, and she went straight to be with her in the hope that the event would be soon. The Consort's mother had never really told her daughter about the past, despite her long attendance on her, and the Nun, bursting with happiness, therefore approached her now and described in a trembling voice, amid frequent tears, what their life had once been. The Consort at first thought her strange and horrid and only stared, but she had heard talk of such an old woman and was nice to her after all. The Nun went on about the circumstances surrounding her birth and about how His Grace had lived there on the shore. “We were very upset when the time came for him to go back to the City, because we thought that that was the end and that it was all over between them, but then you came along with your marvelous destiny and changed everything!” She was weeping.

  Yes, the Consort said to herself, I would never have known the sad story of my past if she had not told it to me! She began to cry. I really have been in no position to flaunt myself—it is the mistress of His Grace's east wing who brought me up to be more or less what people expect. I think myself superior, and even in service at the palace I have looked down on everyone else. How excessively proud I have been! I suppose that that is just what people have been secretly saying about me. At last she knew who she was. She had always known that her mother was not as highly considered as she might be, but as far as her own birth was concerned, she had never associated it with anywhere so remote. Perhaps she had simply given the matter too little thought. It distressed her to learn that the Novice was living beyond the world, like an immortal, and this and everything else she had heard troubled her greatly.