The Tale of Genji, Page 8

  “I was pleased with my sermon, but when I boldly began to elaborate, she gave me a thin smile and had the effrontery to say, ‘I do not in the least mind seeing you through these years when you have little credit or standing, or waiting until you matter. No, that does not bother me at all. But I do hate the thought of spending year after year putting up with your cruelty in the vain hope that you will reform, and so I suppose it is time for us to part.’

  “Now I was really angry, and I began saying awful things that she could hardly accept. Instead, she pulled one of my fingers to her and bit it, at which I flew into a rage. ‘I can't go out in society wounded like this!' I roared. ‘My office, my rank of which you seem to think so little—just how, my fine lady, do you expect me now to hold my head up at all? As far as I can see, all that is left for me is to leave the world!’ and so on.

  “‘Very well,’ I went on, ‘as of today you and I are finished,’ and I started to leave, hurt finger crooked. I said,

  ‘Fingers crooked to count the many times you and I have been together

  show that this outrage of yours is certainly not the first.20

  You can hardly hold it against me!’

  “Sure enough, she burst into tears and retorted,

  ‘Talk of outrages: when in my most private thoughts I count up your own,

  I believe this time at last I must take my hand from yours.’

  “She and I had had a good fight, and although I still did not actually mean to leave her, I wandered here and there for several days without sending her a line. It was not until late one miserably sleety night, after the rehearsal for the Special Kamo Festival,21 as we were all leaving the palace, that I realized I had no other home to go to than hers. The thought of spending the night at the palace did not appeal to me at all, and I knew how cold the company of some coy woman might be; so off I went, by way of just looking in on her to sound out her feelings, brushing away the snow and biting my nails with embarrassment, but still assuming that on a night like this she would welcome me after all.

  “Her dimmed lamp was turned to the wall; a thick, comfortable robe was warming over a large censer frame; all the curtains you would expect to find raised were up; and everything looked as though this was the night when she was expecting me back. Well, well! I thought, very pleased, until I noticed that she herself was not there. I saw only her usual women, who answered that at dark she had moved to her parents' house. She had left no touching poem, no encouraging note, nor any evidence whatever of thoughtfulness or consideration. I felt betrayed, and although I could not really believe that her merciless complaining had been meant only to make me hate her, I was annoyed enough to entertain the idea. Still, what she had left for me to wear was even more beautifully made than before, and its colors were even more pleasing. Even after I stormed out of the house, she had still been looking out for my every need.

  “Nonetheless, I could not imagine her to be serious about giving me up, and I did my best to mend things with her, but while she did not exactly reject me, did not pester me by going into hiding, and sent me tactfully worded answers, her attitude amounted to saying, ‘I cannot go on with you as you have been. I will not have you back unless you reform.’ I still did not believe she would let me go, though, and to teach her a lesson I said nothing about wanting to change. Instead, I put on a show of headstrong independence. She was so hurt that she died. That taught me that these things are no joke.

  “I remember her as the model of a dependable wife. It was well worth discussing anything with her, whether a passing fancy or something important. At dyeing cloth she could have been called a Tatsuta Lady, at sewing she ranked with Tanabata,22 and her skill at both made her a wonder.” The Chief Equerry remembered her with feeling.

  “I would have taken her faithfulness over her wonderful sewing,” the Secretary Captain remarked to lighten the conversation. “I have no doubt her marvelous dyeing was a real prize, though. The simplest blossoms or autumn leaves are dull and dreary when their colors fail to suit the season. That is why choosing a wife is so very hard.”

  Wagon

  “Anyway,” the Chief Equerry went on, “I was visiting at the same time a very gifted woman who made poems with genuine wit and grace, wrote a beautiful running hand, had a lovely touch on the koto, and had a way with everything she did. And since there was nothing wrong with her looks either, I kept my scold to feel at home with and secretly went on seeing this other woman until I was quite attached to her. After the one I told you about had died, I was of course very sorry, but now that was behind me, and I saw the other one often until I noticed, as I had not before, that she was inclined to be vain and flirtatious, and so, to my mind, not to be trusted. After that I visited her less often, and meanwhile I discovered that secretly she had another lover.

  “One beautifully moonlit night in the tenth month I was withdrawing from the palace when one of the privy gentlemen joined me in my carriage. I myself meant to spend the night at the Grand Counselor's,23 but the fellow insisted he was concerned about a house where someone was expecting him that very evening, and the place was just on the way to where she lived. You could see the lake through a break in the garden wall, and it seemed a shame to go straight past a house favored even by the moon,24 so I got out as well.

  “He must have arranged it all with her beforehand, because he was excited when he sat down on the veranda, I suppose it was, of the gallery near the gate. For some time he watched the moon. The chrysanthemums had all turned very nicely,25 and the autumn leaves flitting by on the wind were really very pretty. Taking a flute from the fold of his robe, he began to play and to sing snatches of ‘You will have shade,’ 26 and so on, while she accompanied him expertly on a fine-toned wagon that she had all ready and tuned. The two of them were not at all bad. The richi mode, softly played by a woman from behind blinds,27 sounded like the height of style, and in the brilliant moonlight the effect was very pleasant indeed.

  “The delighted fellow moved right up to her blinds. ‘No footsteps seem to have disturbed the fallen leaves in your garden,’ he teased her,28 and then, picking a chrysanthemum,

  ‘With all the beauty of a house filled with music and a lovely moon,

  have you yet successfully played to catch that cruel man?

  I would never have thought it of you! Do play on, though. You must not be bashful, now that you have an audience eager for more!’

  “To all this shameless banter she replied archly,

  ‘Why, I have no words to play to keep by my side music of a flute

  that joins in such harmonies with the wild and wandering wind.’29

  “Little knowing how distasteful a show she was putting on, she next tuned a sō no koto to the banshiki mode and played away in the best modern style, and very nicely, too, but I was thoroughly put off. The come-hither ways of a gentlewoman you meet now and again may have their charm for as long as you continue to see her, but when you are calling on someone you do not mean to forget, even if you do not do so all that often, anything silly or loose about her can put you off, and that is why I made that night my excuse to end it.

  “Looking back on those two experiences, I note that even then, young as I was, I found that sort of uncalled-for forwardness strange and upsetting. In the future I will no doubt feel that way even more. Perhaps your lordships take pleasure only in the tender, willing fragility of the dewdrop fated to fall from the plucked flower or in the hail that melts when gathered from the gleaming leaf,30 but I know you will understand me once you have seen seven more years pass by.31 Please take my humble advice and beware of the pliant, easy woman. Any slip of hers can make her husband look a fool.”

  The Secretary Captain nodded as usual, while Genji smiled wryly in seeming agreement. “From what you say, you made a fine spectacle of yourself both times!” he remarked. They all laughed.

  “I will tell you a fool's tale,” the Secretary Captain said.32 “I had secretly begun seeing a woman who struck me as well wor
th the trouble, and although I assumed the affair would not last, the more I knew her, the more attached to her I became. Not that I necessarily visited her often, but I never forgot her, and things went on long enough that I saw she trusted me. There were of course times when even I supposed she might be jealous, but she seemed to notice nothing. She never complained about how seldom I came, even when it had been ages; instead she acted just as though I were setting out from her house every morning and coming home every evening. This touched me so much that I promised never to leave her. She had no parents, which made her life difficult, and it was quite endearing, the way she showed me now and again that for her I was indeed the one.

  “Once, when I had not seen her for a long time (she was so quiet that I rather took her for granted), my wife, as I found out only later, managed to send her some veiled but extremely unpleasant threats. I had never imagined anything like that, and at heart I had not forgotten her, but she took it hard because she had had only silence from me so long; and what with her painful circumstances and, you see, the child she had as well, she finally resorted to sending me a pink—” He was almost in tears.

  “But what did her letter say?” Genji asked.

  “Oh, you know, nothing very much, really:

  ‘Yes, ruin has come to the mountain rustic's hedge, but now and again

  O let your compassion touch this little pink with fresh dew!’33

  “That reminder brought me straight to her. She was as open and trusting with me as ever, but her expression was very sad, and as she sat in her poor house, gazing out over the dewy garden and crying in concert with the crickets’ lament, I felt as though I must be living in some old tale. I answered,

  ‘I could never choose one from the many colors blooming so gaily,

  yet the gillyflower I feel is the fairest of them all.’34

  I set aside the ‘pink’ for the time being, so as first to soothe her mother's feelings with ‘No speck of dust’ and so on. She replied mildly,

  ‘To a gillyflower brushing a deserted bed with her dewy sleeves,

  autumn has come all too soon, and the sorrows of its storms.’35

  “I saw no sign that she was seriously angry with me, because even when she cried, she shyly hid her tears from me as well as she could, and her keen reluctance to let me see she knew I had neglected her made me so sure all was well that I again stayed away for a long time, during which she vanished without a trace. Life can hardly be treating her kindly if she is still alive. If she had just clung to me in any obvious way, while I loved her, I would never have allowed her to disappear as she did. Instead of neglecting her, I would have looked after her well and gone on seeing her indefinitely. The “little pink” was very sweet, and I wish I could somehow find her, but so far I have not come across a single clue.

  “This is a small illustration of just what you were talking about. She seemed so serene that I never knew she was hurt, and my lasting feeling for her went completely to waste. Even now, when I am beginning to forget her, she probably still thinks of me and has evenings when she burns with regret, although she has no one but herself to blame. She is a perfect example of the woman you cannot keep long and cannot actually depend on.

  “All in all, the scold, though not easily forgotten, was so demanding to live with that anyone would probably have tired of her; the ever-so-clever woman with her koto music was guilty of sheer wantonness; and there is every reason, too, to doubt the fragile one I just told you about.36 And so, in the end, it is simply impossible to choose one woman over another. That is how it is with them: each is bound to be trying, one way or another. Where will you find the one who has all the qualities we have been talking about and none of the faults? Set your heart on Kichijōten37 herself, and you will find her so pious and stuffy, you will still be sorry!” They all laughed.

  “Come,” the Secretary Captain urged the Aide of Ceremonial, “you must have a good story. Let us hear it!”

  “How could your lordships take an interest in anything that a nobody like me might have to say?” But the Secretary Captain only muttered, “Come, come,” and kept at him until after due thought he began. “I was still a student at the Academy38 when I knew a brilliant woman. Like the one the Chief Equerry wanted, you could talk over public affairs with her, her grasp of how to live life was penetrating, and on any topic her daunting learning simply left nothing further to add.

  “It all started when I was visiting a certain scholar's home to pursue my studies. Having gathered that he had several daughters, I seized a chance to make this one's acquaintance, which he had no sooner discovered than in he came, bearing wine cups and declaiming insinuatingly, ‘Hark while I sing of two roads in life…’39 I had no such wish, but I still managed somehow to go on seeing her, in order not to offend him.

  “She was very good to me. Even while we lay awake at night, she would pursue my edification or instruct me in matters beneficial to a man in government service, and no note from her was ever marred by a single one of those kana letters, being couched in language of exemplary formality.40 What with all this I could not have left her, because it was she who taught me how to piece together broken-backed Chinese poems and such,41 and for that I remain eternally grateful. As to making her my dear wife, however, a dunce like me could only have been embarrassed to have her witness his bumbling efforts. Your lordships undoubtedly need that sort of conjugal tutelage even less than I did.42 All this was foolish of me, I agree, and I should have forgone my involvement with her, but sometimes destiny just draws you on. I suppose the men are really the foolish ones.”

  “But what an extraordinary woman!” The Secretary Captain wanted to get him to finish. The Aide of Ceremonial knew he would have to, but he still wrinkled up his nose before complying.

  “Well, I had not been to see her for a long time when for some reason I went again. She was not in her usual room; instead she spoke to me through an absurd screen. Is she jealous, then? I wondered, at once amused by this nonsense and perfectly conscious that this might be just the chance I was looking for. But no, my paragon of learning was not one to indulge in frivolous complaints. She knew the world and its ways too well to be upset with me. Instead she briskly announced, ‘Having lately been prostrate with a most vexing indisposition, I have for medicinal purposes been ingesting Allium sativum,43 and my breath, I fear, is too noxious to allow me to entertain you in my normal fashion. However, while I cannot address you face-to-face, I hope that you will communicate to me any services you may wish me to perform on your behalf.’

  “It was an imposing oration. What could I possibly answer? I just said, ‘Very well,’ got up, and started out. I suppose she had been hoping for something better, because she called after me, ‘Do return when the odor has abated!’ I hated to pretend I had not heard her, but this was no time to waver, and besides, the smell really was rather overpowering, so in desperation I glanced back at her and replied,

  ‘When the spider's ways this evening gave fair warning I would soon arrive,

  how strange of you to tell me, Come after my garlic days!44

  What kind of excuse is that?’

  “I fled once the words were out, only to hear behind me,

  ‘If I meant to you enough that you came to me each and every night,

  Why should my garlic days so offend your daintiness?’

  Oh, yes, she was very quick with her tongue,” the Aide calmly concluded.

  The appalled young gentlemen assumed that he must have made up his story, and they burst into laughter. “There cannot be any such woman!” cried the Secretary Captain. “You might as well have made friends with a demon. It is too weird!” He snapped his fingers45 and glared at the Aide in mute outrage. “Come,” he finally insisted, “you will have to do better!”

  However, the Aide stood fast. “How do you expect me to improve on that?” he said.

  “I cannot stand the way mediocrities, men or women, so long to show off all the tiny knowledge they may possess,�€
 the Chief Equerry put in. “There is nothing at all attractive about having absorbed weighty stuff like the Three Histories and the Five Classics, and besides, why should anyone, just because she is a woman, be completely ignorant of what matters in this world, public or private? A woman with any mind at all is bound to retain many things, even if she does not actually study. So she writes cursive Chinese characters after all and crams her letters more than half full of them, even ones to other women, where they are hopelessly out of place, and you think, Oh no! If only she could be more feminine! She may not have meant it that way, but the letter still ends up being read to her correspondent in a stiff, formal tone, and it sounds as though that was what she had meant all along. A lot of senior gentlewomen do that sort of thing, you know.

  “The woman out to make poetry becomes so keen on it that she stuffs her very first line with allusions to great works from the past, until it is a real nuisance to get a poem from her when you have other things on your mind. You cannot very well not reply, and you look bad if circumstances at the moment prevent you from doing so.

  “Take the festivals, for example. Say it is the morning of the Sweet Flag Festival. You are off to the palace in such a rush that everything is a blur, and she presents you with one of her efforts, quivering with incredible wordplays;46 or it is time for the Chrysanthemum Festival, you are racking your brains to work out a tricky Chinese poem, and here comes a lament from her, full of ‘chrysanthemum dew’47 and, as usual, quite out of place. At other times, too, her way of sending you out of season a poem that afterward you might admit is not actually at all bad, without pausing to think that you may be unable even to give it a glance, can hardly be called very bright. She would do better to refrain from showing off her wit and taste whenever her failure to grasp your circumstances leaves you wondering why she had to do it, or cursing the fix she has put you in. A woman should feign ignorance of what she knows and, when she wants to speak on a subject, leave some things out.”