His letter reached her as before with the usual precautions, but a reply today was really more than she could manage. She found it exceedingly trying when His Excellency turned up and read it, and her evil-tongued old gentlewomen poked each other in glee. The letter said, “The airs you still put on taught me my place more clearly than ever, but while that hurt may yet be the end of me,
Spare me your reproach, when my hands have lost the strength to wring secret tears,
if I come to you today with too plainly dripping sleeves.”
The tone was strikingly familiar.
His Excellency smiled. “How beautifully he writes now!” he remarked, among other things, with never a trace of his old wariness. When he saw her unprepared to reply, he reminded her of what appearances required and then went away again, since her reluctance was natural enough. He had the Consultant's messenger rewarded especially generously, and the Secretary Captain entertained him warmly. This gentleman had so far been obliged to go about in secret, keeping the letters well hidden, but today at last he could hold his head high. He was an Aide of the Right Palace Guards in whom the Consultant Captain had the greatest confidence.
Genji, who heard about all this, watched the Captain carefully when he turned up looking more radiant than ever. “How did you get on this morning? Did you do your letter? Even the wise may err over a woman, as many examples show, and to my mind the way you managed to avoid unseemly insistence or impatience shows that you are a little ahead of the others. His Excellency's position was really too unbending, and I suppose people will be talking about him now that he has given in so thoroughly. Still, you must not take liberties or gloat as though you had won. I know he seems liberal and openhearted, but underneath he has some unmanly quirks and certain traits that make him difficult.” Genji was holding forth as usual. It had gone well, he felt, and they made a lovely couple.
Genji much more resembled the young gentleman's older brother than his father, and even then not by much. When apart their faces seemed to be copied from each other, but when together each had a beauty of his own. Genji wore a light-colored dress cloak22 over a white, sharply patterned gown, rather Chinese in style and glossily translucent. Even now he made a figure of supreme distinction and grace. His lordship the Captain's dress cloak was somewhat darker,23 and he conveyed a nicely cultivated elegance in the deeply clove-dyed24 gown and shift of soft white silk twill that he wore with it.
The Lustration Buddha25 was brought in, and since the officiant had been late arriving, it was after sunset when the ladies sent page girls to him with whatever offerings it pleased them to make, and all as generous as any from the palace. The rite went forward exactly as in His Majesty's presence. Young gentlemen gathered from everywhere to attend it, and strangely enough they felt more flustered and timid there than they ever did in the formal setting of the palace.
The Lustration Rite
Some of the young gentlewomen the Captain had casually favored hated him when he restlessly set forth, more eager and more elaborately dressed than ever. After all those years of patience he and his wife seemed so perfectly pleased with each other that no one else could possibly have come between them. His Excellency, who found that he only improved on closer acquaintance, gladly showered him with attentions. He was still disappointed to have lost, but he willingly and wholeheartedly forgave a son-in-law whose single-minded constancy of purpose had never wavered. Some people, such as his wife and her gentlewomen, found reason to complain now that his younger daughter's situation was happier and more thoroughly gratifying than the Consort's, but that hardly mattered. The outcome thoroughly satisfied the Inspector's wife.26
The preparations at Rokujō27 now aimed at a day just past the twentieth of the fourth month. The mistress of Genji's east wing planned to go to the Divine Birth at Kamo,28 and as usual she invited the other ladies to come, too, but they preferred to avoid merely following her, and all stayed home. No officiously large escort accompanied her quite modest train of twenty carriages, to which this simplicity gave a charm all its own.
On the day of the Festival she set off before dawn, and on her way back she took her place in a viewing stand to see the procession. The other ladies' women all followed in their carriages, which occupied so vast a space before her that their imposing number made it plain from afar exactly who she was.
Genji remembered the time when the carriage of the Empress's mother, the Rokujō Haven, had been pushed back into the crowd. “It was cruel of her29 to let the
Imperial envoy
arrogance of passing favor encourage such a thing,” he said. “She who so despised another died herself under a burden of great suffering.” He passed over many things in silence. “Among those who remain, the Captain,30 a simple commoner, barely manages to rise, while Her Majesty stands supreme. I find this extremely moving. Life is treacherous, and that is exactly why I hope to spend the rest of mine doing as I please, but you know, I cannot help worrying that hardship may overtake you in the end, once I am gone.” The senior nobles then gathered in the viewing stands, and he went to join them.
The Palace Guards' envoy was the Secretary Captain. These gentlemen had gathered first at His Excellency's residence and then come from there to wait upon His Grace. Another envoy was the Fujiwara Dame of Staff.31 Highly regarded, she enjoyed such happy esteem that gifts in great numbers poured in to her from everywhere, including His Majesty, the Heir Apparent, and Rokujō itself. The Consultant Captain even sent her a congratulatory message as she set out. In private they had shared their intimacy, and the way he had settled down to such great advantage had upset her. He had written,
“What is it they call the leaf we all sport today? There it is, I see,
yet such ages have gone by, I no longer know its name.32
What a pity!”
He had not let the moment slip past him, no, and for one reason or another she managed even in the confusion of boarding her carriage to reply,
“As to that green leaf you sport merrily enough, ignorant or not,
surely he who won laurel could manage to know its name!33
It takes a Doctor, I suppose.” It was a slight reply, but it stung him. Yes, she certainly was the one he kept stealing off to after all.
A man's wife properly accompanied his daughter to the palace, but Genji reflected that his could not possibly stay there long and that the time might then be right to provide her assistance instead.34
The mistress of his east wing, too, had come to feel that this long separation, which was certain to end one day, must be very sad and trying for the young lady's mother and that by now it must be troubling the young lady herself. No, she did not like the thought of turning them both against her. “Do let her have her mother this time,” she said. “It worries me that she is still at a tender age and that many around her are also very young. Her nurses can only see to so much, and as long as I am not to stay with her myself, I should like to leave her in good hands.”
Genji was pleased that her thoughts matched his own so well, and he broached the subject with his daughter's mother. This was what she had hoped for, and she was very happy. She set about making sure that her daughter's gentlewomen were as well dressed and every detail as perfect as for that other, far greater lady. Her ladyship the Nun, to whom it meant so much to live to see her granddaughter settled, had clung stubbornly to life in the hope one day of meeting her again, but now she wondered sadly how that could ever be.
When the mistress of his east wing accompanied the young lady to the palace that night, the girl's mother walked humbly behind her hand carriage. This would have been humiliating if she had had any thought for herself, but she only regretted that she, the flaw in the gem Genji had polished, had nonetheless lived this long.
Genji had wanted to avoid turning his daughter's ceremonial arrival into a dazzling spectacle, but of course the event was extraordinary. The mistress of his east wing, who had looked after her with selfless devotion, really loved her
, and she just wished that she had a little girl of her own, one she need never send away. Both Genji and the Consultant Captain actually saw this as her only flaw. She withdrew from the palace three days later.
The two ladies met on the night when they changed places. “Seeing her suddenly so grown-up reminds one how many years it has been, and I hope that we need no longer remain distant from each other,” Genji's began cordially, and they talked. This was the start of their friendship. No wonder he took up with her, Genji's reflected, astonished by the elegance with which she spoke. Akashi, for her part, met this superbly distinguished lady with pleasure and saw how rightly His Grace loved her best and set her above all others. Is it not an honor, she thought, to address her as an equal this way? The ceremony surrounding the departure of Genji's lady was particularly splendid, and her license to board a hand carriage conferred on her nothing less than the dignity of a Consort, by which Akashi knew her own place after all.
She gazed as though in a dream at the dear, sweet, doll-like girl before her, and the tears streaming from her eyes by no means looked all the same.35 The life that had so tried and burdened her through the years, that had only moved her in a thousand ways to lament her lot, seemed precious, and in the glory of the moment she knew how much she owed to the God of Sumiyoshi. Her daughter was now hers to cherish as she wished, and while the young lady's quickness and rare intelligence naturally won her general esteem, her exceptional grace and looks appealed keenly to the Heir Apparent's boyish feelings. There were gentlewomen in her rivals' service who called it a blemish that her mother was looking after her, but no such talk could possibly do her any harm. That she had supreme nobility of presence goes without saying, and since her mother nurtured her charming distinction with attentions perfectly gauged to the finest detail, the privy gentlemen and so on centered on her the prodigies of their rivalry,36 while her mother lavished exquisite care even on the looks and deportment of those of her women whom they favored.
The mistress of Genji's east wing came visiting on appropriate occasions. The friendship between the two progressed wonderfully, but Akashi never presumed upon it, nor did her conduct ever invite the slightest disparaging comment, for in person and disposition she was very nearly ideal.
Genji had never expected to live long, and now that he had at last seen his daughter in grand style to the palace and that his son the Captain, whose purposely rootless life had so little become him, was admirably settled, he felt sufficiently at peace to decide to act at last on his cherished desire.37 He would find it hard to give up his dearest lady, but in Her Majesty she had no contemptible ally. In the eyes of the world she was also the mother of his daughter, to whom she undoubtedly came first; no, she would be well looked after. The lady of summer would miss the occasional brilliance of his visits, but she had the Captain. It seemed to him that he need not really worry about any of them.
The following year would be his fortieth, and people everywhere, His Majesty first of all, were preparing for the jubilee. That autumn he was granted a rank equivalent to Retired Emperor. His emoluments rose, and he enjoyed new sinecures and benefices. Life already offered him all he could wish, but a rare precedent from the past was invoked, a Retired Emperor's staff was appointed for his use, and he acquired such awesome dignity that to his chagrin he could hardly call at the palace anymore. Even so, His Majesty longed as always to do still-greater things for him, and he lamented day and night that in deference to the world's wishes he could not abdicate in Genji's favor.
The Palace Minister was promoted,38 while the Consultant Captain became a Counselor and set out on his round of thanks. Everything about him, not least the growing radiance of his face and person, was so far beyond reproach that his father-in-law was grateful after all not to have sent his daughter into a palace service in which she might only have lost out to someone else.
The new Counselor had occasion from time to time to remember the evening when Taifu, his wife's nurse, had whispered, “To think her fate was to start out with someone of the sixth rank!” He therefore tied this note to a very prettily turned chrysanthemum:39
“Did you ever dream before the chrysanthemum's young leaves of pale green
to see it put forth blossoms so richly purple in hue?40
That was a sad time, and there is one thing I heard then that I cannot forget.” He gave it to her with a dazzling smile.
She found him very attractive, despite her embarrassment and pain on his behalf.
“No chrysanthemum nurtured in such a garden from its seedling days
could long languish, that I knew, very long a mere pale green.
Where can you have got such an idea, my lord?” she protested smoothly.
So great a rise in dignity made the young couple's present mode of life rather cramped, and they therefore moved to Sanjō.41 The place had rather suffered from neglect, but the Counselor had it beautifully repaired and took up residence there after having the rooms that had been Her Highness's redone. The residence was filled with moving memories of the past. The garden trees along the house, so small then, now cast dense shade, and a clump of pampas grass had run wild. He put all this to rights. He also had the waterweeds cleared from the brook so that it ran gaily again.
One lovely dusk the two of them were gazing out over it all, talking about how young they had been and what sad times they had had, and his darling fondly recalled many things, although with twinges of shame at what her women may have thought. The ones who had always served Her Highness were still there, each in her own room, and they now came to gather happily before their new lord and lady.
“It is you, I know, whose rocks these are to protect, but, O limpid brook,
only tell me, if you can: where is she whom we once loved?”
he said, and she,
“I can see no sign of that figure we have lost, slender, flowing stream;
yet you still, and cruelly, babble on just as you please!”
The colors of the autumn leaves meanwhile captivated His Excellency on his way home from the palace, and he came to join them. The place had hardly changed since his parents lived there, and it was extremely moving to see the young couple now happily installed amid these peaceful surroundings. The Counselor's face was a little flushed; he looked unusually serious, and his manner was quite subdued. They made a delightfully handsome pair, but it seemed to His Excellency that her pretty face was of an order that might turn up anywhere, whereas his looks were exceptional. The old gentlewomen placed themselves at his disposal and entertained him with their antique remarks. The poems that his daughter and son-in-law had noted down a moment ago lay scattered about, and he wept to see them. “I, too, would gladly question the stream,” he said, “but an old man like me must refrain.42
It is no surprise that most venerable pine should at last have died,
but the seedling she planted gathers now a coat of moss.”43
The young gentleman's nurse, Saishō, had not forgotten how angry His Excellency had made her, and she added with obvious satisfaction,
“I shall look to both for the kindliest of shade: to these seedling pines
one at root long since and bound for long years of happiness.”
The old women then went on to offer similar verses of their own, which the Counselor found amusing. Their blushing young mistress listened in intense embarrassment.
After the twentieth of the tenth month there was to be an imperial progress to Genji's Rokujō estate. It promised to be delightful, since the autumn colors would be at their height, and His Majesty therefore invited Retired Emperor Suzaku to join him on the journey. The result was a rare and wondrous event that astonished everyone. Genji, their host, prepared such a welcome that one could hardly believe ones eyes.
When Their Majesties arrived, at the hour of the Serpent,44 the horses from the Left and Right Imperial Stables were immediately lined up before the riding ground pavilion, and the Left and Right Palace Guards assembled in ranks beside them
exactly as for the Sweet Flag Festival in the fifth month. As the hour of the Sheep45 drew to a close, the company moved to the main house of the southeast quarter. Genji had prepared the way magnificently, for the arched bridges and bridgeways along their path were spread with brocade, and cloth panels hung wherever Their Majesties might be exposed to view. He had invited the chief cormorant fisher attached to the Imperial Kitchen, as well as those from his own staff, to release their birds from boats on the eastern lake. The cormorants took little carp.46 Genji had not meant this as a spectacle in itself, however; he had only wanted to provide something of interest to see along the way. The autumn leaves were lovely on every hill, but particularly so the ones before the southwest quarter,47 and for this reason he had removed the walls of the intervening gallery and left its gate open, so as to give Their Majesties a perfectly clear view. A seat for each was prepared somewhat above Genji's own, but by His Majesty's decree this arrangement was rectified. This was an honor indeed, but His Majesty still regretted that he could not give His Grace all the formal respect that he longed to show him. A Left Lieutenant bore the fish from the lake, a Right Deputy carried a brace of birds taken at Kitano by the falconers of the Chamberlains' Office, and both came forward from the east to go down on one knee on either side of the steps48 and offer Their Majesties their bounty. The Chancellor ordered all this prepared and served to Their Majesties. There were intriguing refreshments, done in unusual ways, for the Princes and the senior nobles, too. Everyone became quite drunk. Toward sunset they called for the palace musicians, who played no grand ceremonial music; instead, the privy pages danced very nicely. As usual Genji could not help thinking back to the celebration beneath the autumn leaves at the Suzaku Palace. When the musicians struck up “Our Sovereign's Grace,”49 it was the Chancellor's youngest son, a boy in his tenth year, who danced it very prettily indeed. His Majesty doffed a robe and presented it to him, and the Chancellor descended the steps to perform his obeisance of thanks.
The Tale of Genji: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Junichiro Breakdown of Genji) Page 72