The Tale of Genji, Page 81

  She offered to help in whatever way she could. Through the young lady's brothers she kept in touch with her very nicely, ignoring what she heard of the situation, and the young lady's father by no means abandoned his sympathy and concern, but that evil woman, His Highness of Ceremonial's wife, remained angrily unforgiving. “I know a Prince has little enough to offer,” she grumbled, “but at least he could be loyal to the girl and cause no trouble!”

  Her complaints reached His Highness of War. I have never heard of such a thing! he said to himself. Then, too, I sought solace at times from women other than the one I really loved, but I never had to put up with accusations like these! He was thoroughly offended and only felt his loss the more, and he often shut himself up moodily at home. Still, the second year of the marriage came after all, and both made their peace with it, such as it was.

  The months and years sped by all too swiftly,14 and soon it was eighteen years since His Majesty had acceded to the imperial dignity. “It is sad not to have a son to follow me, and life is a disappointment,” he often said. “I would so much rather spend my time talking to people I like and doing as I please!” At last he fell gravely ill, and suddenly he abdicated. People were very sorry indeed to see him do so when still in his prime, but the Heir Apparent was sufficiently grown-up by now to succeed to the throne, and the way the realm was governed hardly changed.

  His Excellency the Chancellor announced his resignation and entered retirement. “What could be wrong with my hanging up my hat,”15 he said, “life being as treacherous as it is, when our most gracious Sovereign has renounced his high office?” The Left Commander became the Minister of the Right and took government in hand.16 His sister the Shōkyōden Consort, who had not lived to see her son's reign, was appointed to the highest rank,17 but alas, she had always been overshadowed, and the gesture seemed rather empty. The Consort's18 eldest son was named Heir Apparent. This was no surprise, but the reality was gratifying nonetheless, and the ceremony was a wonder to behold. The Right Commander became a Grand Counselor. He and the new Minister of the Right got on better than ever.

  Genji, at Rokujō, nursed his disappointment that Retired Emperor Reizei had no successor of his own. The Heir Apparent was his direct descendant, too, it was true, but while no trouble had ever arisen to disturb His Eminence's reign, so that Genji's transgression had not come to light and now would never be known, as fate would have it, that line was not to continue. Genji regretted this very much, and since he could hardly discuss the matter with anyone else, it continued to weigh on his mind.

  The Consort, who had several children, enjoyed His Majesty's highest regard. People objected to the prospect of yet another non-Fujiwara Empress,19 but Her Majesty20 reflected on the kindness with which His Eminence Reizei had appointed her when she lacked any particular claim to the honor,21 and as the months and years passed, she felt more keenly how much she owed to support from Rokujō. It was easier now for His Eminence to call there, as he had hoped it would be, and this made his life much more pleasant than before.

  The Third Princess22 still preoccupied His Majesty particularly. She had never surpassed the mistress of Genji's east wing, despite the widespread esteem that she enjoyed. The passing months and years had only brought those two more perfectly together, until nothing whatever seemed to come between them.

  “I would now much rather give up my present commonplace existence and devote myself instead to quiet practice,” that lady quite seriously said to Genji again and again. “At my age I feel as though I have learned all I wish to know of life. Please give me leave to do so.”

  “You are too cruel!” he would reply. “I could not consider it! That is exactly what I long to do myself, and if I am still here, it is only because I cannot bear to imagine how you would feel once I had left you behind, and what your life would be then. Once I have taken that step, you may do as you please.” He would not have it.

  The Consort saw her as her real mother, and it was the way her natural mother modestly helped from the shadows that so splendidly assured her future. Meanwhile the Nun shed tears of excessive joy at every excuse, presenting as she wiped her reddened eyes the very picture of a happy old age.

  Genji opened that box23 in preparation for the Consort's pilgrimage to pray at Sumiyoshi, and he found in it many demanding vows. To his offerings of kagura24 each year in spring and autumn the old man had joined such promised inducements to everlasting good fortune that he had clearly never imagined anyone less wealthy than Genji seeking to provide them. His rapid, fluent writing showed masterly learning, and the buddhas and gods could hardly have failed to heed his words. How had a mere mountain ascetic managed even to conceive of such things? Genji was at once moved and shocked. Perhaps the old man had been a holy man from ages past, called by destiny to enter this world again in humble guise for a little while. Genji thought of him with growing awe.

  For the present he said nothing of what these documents contained and set out on the pilgrimage as though it were his own. He had long since fulfilled all the vows he had made in those tumultuous days when he moved on down the shore,25 but his continued enjoyment of life and great good fortune made the deity's assistance difficult to forget. The news that he would take the mistress of his east wing with him caused a great stir. He kept it all as simple as he could and omitted a great deal so as not to put anyone out, but his position imposed certain requirements, and the event went forward with striking brilliance.

  All the senior nobles except the two Ministers joined him.26 He had chosen the Seconds of the Watch and so on as dancers27—fine-looking men all, and equal in height. Certain young gallants felt doleful and ashamed not to have been included. By his order the musicians were drawn from the best of those normally called to the special festivals at Iwashimizu, Kamo, and elsewhere, and to these were added two celebrated musicians from the Palace Guards. A large number of men turned out to perform the kagura. The three bands of privy gentlemen—His Majesty's, His Highness the Heir Apparent's, and His Eminence's—were all in attendance. The senior nobles' horses, saddles, grooms, retainers, footmen, and various servants were matched to one another, and they made an endlessly rich and colorful spectacle.

  The Consort and the mistress of Genji's east wing rode in the same carriage, followed by another bearing the lady from Akashi and, discreetly, her mother the Nun. The Consort's nurse rode with them, since she knew their story. The lady from the east wing was accompanied by five carriages of gentlewomen, the Consort likewise, and Akashi by three. Needless to say, all the carriages were dazzlingly adorned.

  “As long as your mother is to make this pilgrimage at all,” Genji had said, “I should like her to do so with sufficient honor to smooth away the wrinkles of old age.”

  “It would not be a good idea to have her join so public an event,” the lady replied discouragingly. “Perhaps she might wait until things have really gone as one hopes they will.” Still, it was impossible to know how long the Nun might yet have to live, and she was so eager to see everything for herself that she went, too. One plainly saw in her, far more than in those always meant for glory, the workings of an exceptional destiny.

  It was the middle of the tenth month; the kudzu vines clambering along the sacred fence had turned, and the reddened leaves beneath the pines announced not only in sound the waning of autumn.28 The familiar Eastern Dances,29 so much more appealing than the solemn pieces from Koma or Cathay, merged with wind and wave; the music of the flutes soared on the breeze through the tall pines, conveying a shiver of awe not to be felt elsewhere; the rhythm, marked on strings rather than on drums, was less majestic than gracefully stirring; and the place lent its own magic to the whole. The musicians in their bamboo pattern dyed with wild indigo30 mingled with the deep green of the pines, and the many-colored flowers in their headdresses so resembled the flowers of autumn that one hardly knew one from the other. When “Motomego” ended, the senior nobles each bared a shoulder and stepped out to dance.31 From dull, blac
k formal cloaks burst sappan or grape layered sleeves, while the deep scarlet sleeves of gowns moistened by a touch of winter rain eclipsed the pines and recalled a carpet of autumn leaves. All these lovely figures then decked themselves with tall white reeds to dance just once more and bring the music to a close. One would have wished to watch them forever.

  The past returned to Genji, who seemed to see before his eyes all that he had known in his disgrace those short years before, and he fondly recalled His Retired Excellency,32 having no one else with whom to share such memories. He went back in and privately sent this to the second carriage:33

  “Who else but we two knows all that has brought us here and so may address

  the pines of Sumiyoshi, witness to the gods' own time?”

  It was on folding paper. The Nun began to weep. Her present life brought back to her how His Grace had left them on that shore when the Consort was already on the way, and she reflected again on their unmerited fortune. She also missed the man who had renounced the world, but she turned from that and other ill-omened sorrows to answer in purposely felicitous language,

  “Today an old nun is to learn a great lesson: that Sumiyoshi

  is a most generous coast rich in many, many boons!

  The words were whatever had come into her head, for she feared more than anything else being slow to reply. To herself she murmured,

  “I cannot forget all that I know from the past when before my eyes

  I behold these witnesses to the Sumiyoshi God.”

  The dances and music went on until dawn. A twentieth-night moon shone on high, the ocean stretched magnificently into the distance, and one shivered to see the pines whitened by a heavy frost that lent the scene a still more moving beauty. The mistress of the east wing had of course seen and heard something of the dances of each season at home within her own garden fence, but she had hardly been beyond her gate before, and this novel trip outside the confines of the City filled her with wonder and delight.

  “In the depths of night, frost upon the noble pines of Sumiyoshi

  gathers like a sacred wreath34 conferred by the deity!”

  She thought of the morning snow in Lord Takamura's poem “Mount Hira, too,”35 and she felt more than ever confident that the honor rendered the divine presence had been accepted.

  The Consort:

  “To sakaki leaves priestly hands reverently offer to the god,

  frost in the depths of the night adds sacred streamers of white!”

  Nakatsukasa: 36

  “Yes, the pure white frost that might be sacred streamers in such priestly hands

  shows off visibly to all that the god accepts our prayers.”

  A great many more followed, but there was no point in noting them all. The poems composed on such occasions generally fall flat, even those by men who greatly fancy their skill, and these were just not worth the trouble—there is simply no stylish way around “the pine's thousand years”37 and whatnot.

  Dawn broke slowly, and the frost lay thicker still. While the cressets burned low, kagura musicians too drunk by now to know what they were singing gave themselves to merrymaking, oblivious to the spectacle they made, yet still waving their sakaki wands and crying “Ten thousand years! Ten thousand years!” until one imagined endless years of happy fortune. These pleasures had lasted all too briefly, and a night of which one would have gladly had a thousand passed blandly into day. The young gentlemen regretted having to leave again, like the returning waves.

  The line of carriages stretched away among the pines, and one glimpsed through their blinds, tossing in the breeze, something like a brocade of flowers beneath the everlasting green, while the delighted servants watched gentlemen in formal cloaks of many colors take pretty meal stands to each in turn.38 “Destiny has certainly done well by her!” they muttered as they brought the Nun a tasting meal on an aloeswood tray spread with blue-gray paper.

  The journey to Sumiyoshi had been a solemn one, burdened with a great profusion of sacred treasures, but on the way back they wandered about to see the sights. Going through them would be a bore, though. Only the Novice, alas, was not there to see it all, having sequestered himself bravely in a world none of them knew—not that his presence might not have been awkward, too. It appears that by now the Nun's success gave others as well greater pride in themselves. Her happiness aroused wonder and admiration at every turn, and everyone cited her as a model of great good fortune. Whenever His Retired Excellency's Ōmi daughter demanded that the dice favor her at backgammon, she would cry, “Akashi Nun! Akashi Nun!”

  A meal on a tray

  His Cloistered Eminence39 devoted himself wholly to pious practice and ignored events at court. The spring and autumn progresses40 were what brought him memories of the past. The only care he had not yet renounced was his concern for Her Highness his daughter. For her general welfare he counted on Genji, but he also asked His Majesty quietly to do what he could. She rose to the second rank and her emoluments increased, which gave her a more commanding brilliance than ever.

  Seeing her prestige rise in time so high above that of everyone else at Rokujō the mistress of Genji's east wing continually reflected that although the personal favor she enjoyed was equal to anyone's, age by and by would dull her in his eyes, and that she preferred to leave the world on her own before that should happen; but she found it impossible to say so clearly, because she feared that he might condemn her for being too forward. Even His Majesty was especially fond of Her Highness, and Genji, who did not want to be called remiss, came after all to divide his nights equally between them. The lady in his east wing understood and accepted this, but it confirmed her fears, although she never allowed them to show. She had undertaken to look after the First Princess, His Majesty's second child, and this responsibility was a comfort on the lonely nights when Genji was away. In fact, she gave equally tender affection to all His Highness's children.

  The lady of summer envied her having all these grandchildren to look after, and she insisted on taking on the Commander's daughter by the Dame of Staff.41 The girl was extremely pretty, and very lively and grown-up for her age. Genji was fond of her as well. He had always felt that he had too few children, but his descendants had multiplied, and now there were so many on one hand and on the other that minding them and playing with them relieved the monotony of his days.

  The Minister of the Right visited more often and more familiarly than in the past, and now that his wife42 was a matron, she, too, came calling on suitable occasions—no doubt especially because Genji had given up his wanton fancies. She and the mistress of the east wing would then meet and talk very nicely. Only Her Highness continued to be as girlishly complacent as before. As for the Consort, Genji now left her entirely to His Majesty, it was Her Highness who aroused his sympathy, and he took care of her like a young daughter of his own.

  His Cloistered Eminence was apprehensive now that he felt his end so near, and he had resolved to turn away from the things of this world, but he wanted to see his daughter a last time, and lest profane desires arise in him once more, he asked Genji to have her come to him without pomp or ceremony.

  “Yes, you must do that,” Genji told her. “You should have already without prompting from him. I am very sorry that you have made him wait.” He considered how the visit should proceed. She cannot just go, he decided; there must be some sort of reason. What can one do to provide an occasion for her to visit him? Ah! he thought, he will soon begin his fiftieth year: she might offer him the new spring shoots. The different vestments required, the fasting meal, and many other things made this event unusual, and he sought his ladies' advice to plan it.

  He was particularly careful to choose only the best dancers and musicians, for His Eminence had always loved music. In order to prepare for a large number of dances he sent to the privy chamber two sons of His Excellency of the Right and three of the Commander's, including one by the Dame of Staff—in other words, all the little ones over the age of seven43—
and he also chose the sons of His Highness of War, those of all the Princes who mattered, and those of the highest nobles, to whom he further added any good-looking sons of privy gentlemen who were likely to dance well. This was to be an outstanding event, you see, and everyone involved did his very best. The music and dancing masters never had a moment's rest.

  Her Highness had begun learning the kin long ago, but His Eminence was concerned because she had been parted from him at a very young age. “I hope that I shall hear her play when she comes,” he said privately. “I am sure she has at least mastered the kin.”44

  “Quite so,” said His Majesty; “her playing will have a particular quality at any rate. I should like to be there to hear her when she shows Your Eminence what she can do.”

  These remarks reached Genji, who had been giving her lessons for years whenever he had a chance to do so, and she had indeed improved. However, he reflected, she does not yet know anything worthy of his ears, and it would be extremely embarrassing if she turned up quite unprepared and he then insisted that she play. He was worried enough now to begin teaching her in earnest.

  He saw to it that she should learn two or three striking melodies and the most beautiful major pieces,45 including all the noble devices to convey in music the changes of the four seasons or of warm or cold weather, and although she lacked confidence at first, she gradually gained it and did very well indeed. “There are too many people about in the daytime, and every time you think you might after all try putting a quaver to a note, something comes up,” he said. “I shall teach you what you need to know in the evening.” He excused himself from the east wing and gave her lessons day and night.