The Tale of Genji: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Junichiro Breakdown of Genji)

by Murasaki Shikibu

  The lanterns were lit, since at this time of the month there was no moon. “It feels too hot to have them that close,” he said. “A cresset would be nicer.” He called someone over to order, “I want a cresset, just here.” There was a pretty wagon nearby. He drew it to him, touched the strings, and found it beautifully tuned in the richi mode. Its tone was lovely, too, and he played a little. “All this time I had been thinking less well of you because I assumed you had no interest in this sort of thing! It has a sweet, fresh sound when the moonlight is cool on an autumn night and you sit not too far from the veranda to play it while the crickets sing. Perhaps the instrument in full concert lacks character, but on the other hand it has the marvelous property of conveying the timbre and rhythm of all the others. What people dismiss as merely “the Japanese koto” is actually extremely cleverly made. They think it is just for women who know nothing of China. You should really apply yourself to practicing it in company with other instruments. It has no deep secrets, but I doubt that it is easy to play genuinely well. At the moment no one compares with His Excellency the Palace Minister. One hears the sound of every instrument in his slightest toying with the strings,13 and from there comes the most wonderful music.”

  She understood him well enough, and she wanted so much to play nicely that she longed to hear more music. “Might I listen, too, whenever there is that sort of concert here? So many people, even mountain rustics, seem to learn it, and I always assumed it was easy. I suppose someone really good must be quite different, though.” She seemed curious and completely in earnest.

  “Yes, people have come to associate it with the East,14 but it is the first instrument ordered from the Library even for music performed before His Majesty. I cannot vouch for China, of course, but here it seems to be considered the father of all instruments. I am sure you will do extremely well if you learn how to play it properly from your father. He will probably come here when a suitable occasion arises, but I doubt that he will be likely then to display all his skill. The best practitioners of any art are reluctant to do that sort of thing. Still, I expect you will be able to hear him in the end.”

  He played a little. It was absolutely lovely and delightfully fresh in style. She did not see how any playing could be better, and she only longed the more to hear her father himself. Even so, she could only wonder when she would ever hear him play at ease.

  Genji sang very prettily, “Soft beyond the Nuki River's leaping waves, her pillowing arm…” He smiled a little when he got to “the lover her parents banish,”15 and the unaffected quaver16 he put in just there was simply enchanting.

  “Come, you play. A performer should never feel too embarrassed. Well, I hear someone once kept ‘I Love Him So’ to herself,17 but it is far better to play boldly with whomever you can.” However, she had learned to play only in her distant province, from an ancient woman who claimed a vague connection with the City and with the imperial house, and despite his insistence she was too afraid of making mistakes to touch it.

  I wish he would play a bit more, she thought; I might get it after all. She was eager enough just this once to slip closer to him. “What wind can be blowing, then, to make it sound so beautifully?”18 she said, head tipped to one side and quite enchanting in the lamplight.

  Genji smiled. “You have sharp ears after all, and for me the autumn wind blows more cuttingly than ever.”19 He pushed the instrument away. She was extremely put out.

  He could not joke with her as usual because her women were attending her closely. “Those young gentlemen are gone, and they never got enough of the pinks. Yes, I should like His Excellency to see this flower garden, too, and you never know when it may be too late. He talked about you once, long ago—it might have been just now, I remember it so well.” The mere mention moved him deeply.

  “If he were to see all the inviting beauty of the little pink,

  he might wish to know as well more of the gillyflower.

  This is why I have kept such a cocoon around you, for which I am very sorry.”

  She wept.

  “Who would wish to know where it was the little pink first of all took root,

  when she came into the world in a mountain rustic's hedge?”

  The way she veiled her feelings made her seem very young and sweet. “If he did not come,”20 Genji hummed, and his feelings rose to a pitch so painful that he did not think he could contain himself much longer.

  His intuition prompted him to desist when his many visits to her began to risk attracting attention, and instead he wrote to her on every possible occasion. She was all he thought of, day or night. Why am I so caught up in a venture in which I should not be engaged at all, and only making myself miserable at it? If I told myself that that was enough and had my way, it would be a disaster for her, quite apart from the widespread and humiliating denunciations to which I would be subjected. Whatever she may mean to me, even I know perfectly well that she could never challenge all I feel for my lady of spring; and what good would it do her just to join the others? Yes, I stand alone above the rest, but what sort of renown would she have, once she ended up merely as one of my women? No, she would be far better off marrying some perfectly innocuous Counselor, whose affection she need not share. The more he lectured himself, the more he felt for her. At other times he said to himself, Shall I let His Highness have her, then, or the Commander? Will I stop wanting her just because she is not here anymore and someone has taken her away? No, it is hopeless. I might as well do it. He continued his visits, though, and seeing her now inspired him to invoke teaching her music so as to spend time with her. At first she was nervous and apprehensive, but by and by, when she found him mild and not in the least disposed to alarm her, she gave in and no longer recoiled from him, conversing with him instead as necessary while still avoiding excessive intimacy. Meanwhile, she seemed to grow in charm and beauty before his very eyes, until he doubted that he could long resist her after all. Should I then insist on keeping her here21 and steal off to her whenever I can for a consoling word? I hate to think of pressing her further while she remains unfamiliar with men's ways, but of course if I put my heart into it once she understands things better, then nothing will keep me from her, no matter how often I go, and never mind the stern gatekeeper!22 That was his idea, and a thoroughly disgraceful one it was, too. It would be misery to go on more and more desperately wanting her. There is nothing for it; I just cannot give her up. Such was the improbable tangle in which both of them were caught.

  The Palace Minister had no sooner learned that his household staff were ignoring his new daughter and that all the world was treating her as a joke when the Lieutenant remarked in conversation that His Grace the Chancellor had been asking about her. “No doubt he has,” His Excellency replied. “Look at him: he has taken in a peasant girl of whom no one has ever heard and is doing everything for her. His Grace rarely speaks ill of anyone, but he never misses a chance to run us down. He does us too much honor.”

  “They say the lady he has there in that west wing is a raving beauty. His Highness of War and so on are extremely keen on her, but I hear they are not getting very far. People seem to assume she must be quite remarkable.”

  “Oh, come, they only carry on that way because she is supposed to be His Grace's daughter. People are like that. She cannot possibly deserve her reputation. If there really were anything to her, one would have heard of her long ago. There he is, spotless above all the rest in affluence and glory, but the lady who really matters to him has given him no daughter to bring up, no one to treasure as a genuinely perfect jewel. By and large it is a worry to have few children. The girl that woman from Akashi gave him is destined for great things, despite her mother's low birth—it seems to me there must be somewhere a reason for that. It would not surprise me if this new one of his is not really his daughter at all. He has his idiosyncrasies, that man, and I would not put it past him.” His Excellency had nothing kind to say about Genji.

  “And what is he going
to do with her anyway? I imagine His Highness will get her. They have always been especially close, and with the qualities they have, they should get on perfectly together.” He was still bitter about his own daughter. He, too, would have liked to show her off and sow turmoil in the hearts of her suitors, and being unable to do so was sufficiently annoying that he had no intention of allowing the marriage as long as that young man's rank remained so impossibly low. He thought he might perhaps give in after all if only Genji would earnestly plead his son's cause, but it was very irritating, the way the young man himself betrayed no impatience whatever.

  Wearing a silk gauze shift

  He was still pondering such matters as these when he casually and quite unexpectedly dropped over to see his daughter. The Lieutenant went with him. She was taking a nap at the time. She looked very slight and sweet, lying there in her gauze shift and not hot in the least. Her skin showed through very prettily, her head lay pillowed on her arm, and it was charming, too, the way her hand still held a fan, while her hair streamed out around her, not exceptionally long, it is true, but handsomely even at the ends. Her gentlewomen were resting, propped half upright behind screens and so on, and they did not immediately wake up. He rapped his fan, and the innocent way she looked up at him was lovely. To a father's eye the flush in her cheeks was pure enchantment.

  “Why are you lying heedlessly asleep this way, when I have warned you against taking naps? There is no one anywhere near you. No, this will not do. A woman must always be alert and watchful. It does not become her just to let herself go this way. Not that she need remain fiercely prim and spend her time chanting the Fudō darani and making mudras.23 That would be disagreeable, too. It may seem ever so ladylike to keep people too far off and to overdo talking from behind screens and blinds, but it is neither engaging nor kind. What I gather His Grace the Chancellor has taught that future Empress of his is not demanding, because he holds that a woman should be generally familiar with many things and yet single herself out as an expert at none, while at the same time remaining neither ignorant nor vague. No doubt he is right, but people have certain leanings in what they feel or do, and I am sure that her own will become clear as she grows up. I look forward to seeing what she is like when she is grown and he sends her into palace service.

  “As you are now, I am afraid that what I first wanted for you is no longer within reach, but whenever I hear what life has held in store for other people, I give careful thought to ensuring at least that you are never laughed at. For the time being, please do not respond to anyone's entreaties or offers of service. I have an idea of my own.” As he talked he dwelled fondly on how pretty she was.

  Remembering now how her thoughtlessness had had such painful consequences and how she had brazened it out with her father even then, she felt a sharp pang and was overcome by shame. Even Her Highness held it against her that she did not see her anymore, but she could not bring herself to go because she feared to encounter there the sort of advances of which her father had just spoken.

  What am I to do with this girl I have now in my north wing? His Excellency asked himself. I am the one who brought her here, and it would be both mad and unworthy of me simply to send her back on the grounds that people are speaking ill of her. I wish they would not assume that I mean seriously to do everything for her, just because I have her here. No, I shall send her off to the Consort's and make her the Consort's jester. After all, she is not such a fright that people can despise her as a monster.

  He put it this way, with a smile, to his daughter the Consort. “She is yours. You can have your dotty old women and so on correct her manners, and mind they give her no quarter. And please do not talk about her and encourage the younger ones to laugh at her. She has an unfortunate taste for misplaced levity.”

  “I do not see how she could very well be that odd,” the Consort replied. “Surely it is just that she does not come up to the Captain's24 glowing advance reports of her. She must hardly know what to do with herself, with people talking about her this way, and for one thing she must be feeling terribly self-conscious.”

  Her father was impressed. She had more noble simplicity than absorbing beauty, and with it a warmth of manner that recalled plum blossoms just opening at dawn; and he felt that her smile, which seemed to leave so much unsaid, distinguished her from anyone else. “I know what the Captain said,” he replied, “but he is young and he knows so little.” The poor girl they were discussing had a sad reputation.

  He went straight to look in on her, since he was in that part of the house anyway. There she was, fairly bursting through her blinds,25 playing backgammon26 with a lively young woman called Gosechi. “Keep it low, keep it low!” she prayed at breakneck speed, rubbing her hands briskly together.27

  Oh, no! His Excellency groaned. Motioning to suppress his escort's warning cries,28 he stood at the gap between the double doors and peered into the room through an open sliding panel. Gosechi was all worked up, too. “Do her in, do her in!” she cried, brandishing the cup and taking her time to release the dice. Perhaps the cup was hiding its own secret sorrows;29 at any rate, they both made a foolish spectacle. His daughter's lively presence, appealing manner, and well-groomed hair atoned for her failings, but her narrow forehead and giddy mode of speech accused her. Although she was not exactly a beauty, he could not deny his share in her traits. He remembered what he saw in his mirror and deplored the workings of karma.

  “Do you not feel awkward and uncomfortable here?” he asked. “I have so much to do that I am hardly ever able to visit you.”

  Her answer came at her usual, breakneck speed. “Why should I mind anything here? But it makes me feel the dice have let me down that I can't always see you, after all those years wondering about you and longing to see your face.”

  “I see. I have so few people in my intimate service that I had hoped originally to have you join them, but unfortunately that seems not really to be possible. An ordinary attendant mingles easily with the others, whoever she may be, and most of the time neither her words nor her looks attract much attention. That would have been safe enough for you, except that even then she is all too likely to embarrass her family when people are certain to know she is so-and-so's daughter, and so you see…” He said no more, and the confusion on his face meant nothing to her.

  “Why worry, though? I know there might be a problem if you put me on show that way, but I'd gladly just empty chamber pots!”

  This was too much, and he burst into laughter. “That duty would not become you. Please speak a little more slowly, if it means so much to you to serve the father you have been fortunate enough to find. It might help me to live longer.”

  To this taunt she responded, with a smile, “My tongue just works that way, I think. My late mother was always scolding me for it even when I was small. She complained I got it from His Reverence the Abbot of Myōhōji,30 when he came to the birthing room. How am I supposed to stop?”

  Despite her rush of words he was touched to see how anxious she was to serve him. “Well, then, we shall just have to blame that worthy cleric who, as you say, got a little too close. He himself must have owed it to misdeeds in former lives. They say being born deaf or mute comes from having slandered the Buddha's teaching, and I suppose this is the same sort of thing.” The Consort awed him, even though she was his own daughter, and the very idea of presenting this girl to her was embarrassing. She will wonder how I could possibly have failed to find out how odd she was before I decided to take her in, he reflected, and her women will spread their talk in all directions. He was reconsidering his plan.

  “The Consort is at home now,” he said. “You might visit her from time to time and learn from her. Someone who has nothing particularly wrong with her can still improve herself in one way or another by cultivating other's company.”

  “What a lovely idea! All I've ever dreamed of day and night for years and years has been to manage to have my sisters recognize me as one of them! I'll happily draw her
water, if you want, and bring it to her on my own head!” In her happiness she rattled off her words faster than ever. It was obviously no use.

  “Never mind slaving away collecting firewood.31 You need only go to her. Just make sure you stay away from that priest you seem to have caught it from.”

  She never knew he was making fun of her; it never entered her head that he of all the Ministers was the one whose looks, dignity, brilliant ways, and mighty presence overshadowed the rest. “Well,” she said, “when would it be a good time for me to get myself on over there?”32

  “It is only a matter of choosing a favorable day. No, why make a great thing of it? Today, if you want,” he concluded and left.

  His daughter watched him go, majestic in his slightest movement and eagerly escorted by fine representatives of the fourth and fifth ranks. “Just look at my father! To think I'm his daughter and I was still born into such a miserable little family!”

  “He's really too grand and intimidating. You should have found yourself a middling one who would have just loved you and looked after you,” Gosechi said in vain.

  “There you go again, spoiling everything I say! You're awful! Now, I don't want to hear another word out of you! I'm on my way to better things!”

  Her angry expression was engaging after all, and she had despite her outrageous prattle a charm that redeemed her misdeeds; it was just that she did not know how to speak, being so horribly countrified and having grown up among distressingly humble folk. Even quite uninteresting remarks sound worthy when delivered with gravity and composure, and a discussion of poems33 that are nothing in themselves may leave the heart of the matter veiled and yet at first hearing sound fascinating when done in the right sort of voice, leaving room for the imagination and seeming to withhold the beginnings and the endings. The most profound and absorbing remarks will find no audience when indifferently spoken. What with her accent as well, her giddy way of talking made her speech rough and hard to follow, and all that her nurse had proudly taught her had given her such peculiar manners that it did her a very great disservice. No, she was by no means hopeless, and she could string thirty-one syllables together into a disjointed poem at breathless speed.