At Rokujō, Genji felt somewhat oppressed and torn. Lady Murasaki27 had already heard talk of the decision, but she had difficulty believing it. She told herself that he had also seemed in earnest when he was courting the former Kamo Priestess but that he had avoided taking courtship to its extreme conclusion. She did not even bother to ask him about it.
Her unquestioning trust disturbed him. What will she make of this? he wondered. My own feeling for her will not change in the least; in fact, I will only love her more if it really happens. What doubts will she have toward me, though, until experience at last proves them wrong? He was worried. Nothing divided them by now, after all these years. They were remarkably close, and he did not for a moment like keeping things from her, yet that night he lay down to rest without a word.
Meal stand
The next day it snowed, and there was a deeply moving quality to the sky. They talked together of things past and things yet to come. “His Eminence is not at all well, and I called on him yesterday,” he remarked. “It was all very touching, you know. The thought of leaving Her Highness his third daughter has been a great worry to him, and he told me all about it. I felt so sorry for him that I simply could not refuse. I suppose people will make quite a thing of it. It is all rather embarrassing by now, and unbecoming as well; and when he first approached me through someone else, I managed somehow to get out of it. Face-to-face, though, he spoke so long and so earnestly that I just could not find any decent argument against it. He means to live far away in the hills,28 and when he does, it will be time for me to bring her here. Will you be very upset? Nothing will change for you in any way, no matter what happens. Please do not dislike me. She is the one for whom I feel sorry. I mean to look after her properly, though. Just as long as everyone involved gets on together…”
He wondered how she would feel, she who with her quick temper objected to the least of his little amusements; but her answer revealed nothing. “What an extraordinary thing for him to ask of you!” she said. “As for myself, why should I wish to dislike her? I shall be perfectly happy as long as she does not find my presence here offensive. Anyway, it may encourage her to look kindly on me that I am related to the Consort her mother.”
Her modesty took Genji by surprise. “Such exceedingly mild acquiescence worries me. I wonder what lies behind it. Really, though, you know, if you mean it, and if you and she can manage sensibly with each other, then I shall love you better than ever. Pay no attention to the nonsense people talk. No one ever knows where gossip starts, but it can badly misconstrue the relationship between people and have the strangest consequences. You would be wiser to keep your own counsel and take things the way they really are. Please do not be alarmed without good reason or entertain pointless jealousy.” He gave her a very fine sermon.
This came on him out of the blue, and he could hardly avoid it, she told herself; I refuse to say an unkind word in protest. It is not as though they hatched any sort of romantic plot together, or as though despite reluctance he was still amenable to persuasion. There was nothing he could do about it, and I will not have people gather that I am sulking. His Highness of Ceremonial's29 wife is forever calling down disaster on me—she is even madly jealous and bitter over that miserable business of the Commander.30 How she will gloat when she hears about this!
Hers was no doubt a heart without guile, but of course it still harbored a dark recess or two. In secret she never ceased grieving that her very innocence—the way she had proudly assumed for so long that his vagaries need not concern her—would now cause amusement, but in her behavior she remained the picture of unquestioning trust.
The New Year came. At the Suzaku Palace, His Eminence's daughter was preparing to move to Rokujō, and her other suitors were extremely disappointed. His Majesty had hoped for his part that she might come to the palace, but he gave up the thought now that the matter was settled.
Actually, this was Genji's fortieth year, and His Majesty for one did not mean to neglect the jubilee. The event promised to involve the entire court and was already causing a great stir, although Genji, who had never liked tiresomely solemn occasions, wanted no part of it.
On the twenty-third of the first month, the day of the Rat, her ladyship the Left Commander's wife offered Genji a repast of spring shoots.31 She had told him nothing about it beforehand and made all her arrangements in secret, so that he found himself caught and could not refuse. Despite her modesty she was too great a lady for her arrival not to cause a great stir.
The setting was the west extension in the main house of the southeast quarter. The screens, the lintel curtains, and all the other furnishings were new. Instead of a pompous throne,32 there were forty mats, cushions, and armrests, all by her wish especially handsome. There was also a pair of mother-of-pearl inlaid cabinets that supported four chests of summer and winter clothing, and besides these, incense jars, medicine boxes, inkstones, water vessels33 for dressing the sidelocks, and a chest of hairdressing implements. She had quietly made sure that everything was as pretty as it could be. The stands bearing headdress flowers were of aloes heartwood and red sandal carved with marvelously novel designs and in the height of fashion, even to their gold trim and colors; for she who was so clever and so profoundly elegant had given all these things a touch not seen before. She had stopped everywhere carefully short of ostentation.
The guests gathered, and Genji had a moment with her on his way to join them. All sorts of memories must have come back to him. He looked so young and handsome that one refused to believe the count of his years, and such was his grace that he hardly seemed a father. Although thoroughly abashed to find herself in his presence again after all this time, she marked no great distance between them, and they conversed. She had her pretty little sons with her. She herself had not wanted to show him two boys born so close together,34 but the Commander had insisted on taking advantage of this opportunity, so there they were, both innocently alike in dress cloaks and evenly parted hair.
“I myself hardly notice that I am getting older,” Genji said, “because I feel as young as ever, but it brings my age home to me to be entertained now and again this way by my children. The Counselor had a baby some time ago, but he is being very independent and has not yet allowed me to see it. I deplore this day of the Rat, though—you were the first to count up my years for it. I should have preferred to forget old age a little longer!”
The Mistress of Staff had matured very handsomely and acquired as well a new weightiness of presence. It was a pleasure to see her.
“I have brought today seedling pines plucked from meadows where such new shoots grow
to pray that eternity bless the great rock whence I sprang,”35
she said in her most motherly manner.
Genji partook ceremonially of spring shoots served in four aloeswood trays. Then he took up his wine cup.
“Those seedlings may yet, plucked from such happy meadows, draw a new shoot up
toward a still-longer span of endlessly happy years,”36
he said, and other such things besides, and meanwhile, the senior nobles arrived in the south aisle.
His Highness of Ceremonial had been reluctant to come, but he turned up after all later that morning, since he had been invited and since he was close to Genji;37 besides, he might do well to avoid giving the impression that he was somehow displeased. The way the Commander, smug looks and all, so visibly prided himself on his connection with His Grace was indeed very irritating, but His Highness of Ceremonial's grandsons made themselves admirably useful on both sides.38 The Counselor, and after him all those for whom it was proper to do so, offered Genji his forty fruit baskets and forty cypresswood boxes of delicacies. The wine cup went round, and everyone partook of spring shoots in clear broth. Four meal stands of aloes heartwood stood before Genji, and all the cups and utensils on them were as gracefully fresh in style as they could be.
No musicians were summoned, since His Eminence was still indisposed. His Excellency the
Chancellor had seen to providing the wind instruments. “Never in all the world could a celebration be prettier or more intriguing than this one,” he said, and a discreet concert followed. He had chosen only instruments with a superb tone. Among the ones presented for Genji's pleasure, the wagon was His Excellency's great favorite, and the music it yielded when played intently by so great a master was magnificent. When no one else would take it up, he overrode a strenuous refusal by the Intendant of the Watch,39 who indeed played it very nicely—in fact, hardly less well than his father. Everyone was deeply impressed, because although a son may indeed inherit his father's skill, it hardly seemed possible to do so to that degree. The set patterns associated with each mode, and the written transmission from China, actually make it relatively easy to master the pieces involved,40 whereas a wonderfully stirring and resonant music arises from successful improvisation among other instruments, in harmony with them all. His Excellency slackened the strings and tuned his instrument low to accompany the others, while his son played high and sweetly, with results that astonished Their Highnesses, who had heard nothing like it before. The kin went to His Highness of War. It was from the Imperial Stores and had been treasured by generations of Emperors; near the end His Late Eminence had bestowed it on his first daughter, who also loved music, and His Excellency had persuaded her to lend it in order to give the occasion a last touch of grace. Moved, Genji fondly remembered many scenes from the past. His Highness, who could not restrain drunken tears, found the right moment to cede the instrument to Genji himself, and Genji, too caught up in his feelings to decline, played just one rare piece. No, although not solemnly grand, the concert that evening was as beautiful as it could possibly be. The singers were called to the top of the steps, where they sang in magnificent voice until the mode change came.41 The later the night, the sweeter the music, until by the time they reached “Green Willow,”42 the very warbler on its perch might have wondered at such enchanting harmonies. The rewards and so on were particularly beautiful, since the event was private in character.43
Genji had gifts for the Mistress of Staff when she went home at daybreak. “Living as far out of touch as I do, as though I had abandoned the world, I hardly know that the months and years are passing, and it is a shock when you make it so plain how many have gone by. Do come sometimes to see how much older I look. I am very sorry, you know, that at my age I am so seldom at liberty to meet you.” She brought him many memories, both happy and sad, and it was a great sorrow and disappointment that she had to hurry away again after just that glimpse of her. She herself felt no more for her real father than any daughter might, but now that she had settled into her present life, her gratitude for all the kind attentions Genji had shown her only grew with the passage of time.
So it was that after the tenth of the second month Her Highness, His Eminence's daughter, moved to Rokujō. Here, too, she was splendidly accommodated. Her curtained bed was placed in the west extension, where Genji had partaken of the spring shoots, and the rooms for her gentlewomen were thoughtfully and prettily laid out in the two wings on that side and along the bridgeways. Furnishings were brought from the Suzaku Palace, too, just as when a woman goes to join His Majesty. One need hardly describe the ceremony attending her move, which was accompanied by a large number of senior nobles. The Grand Counselor, who had aspired to administer her household, waited upon her as well, although without pleasure. His Grace went to meet her when her carriage was brought up and helped her to alight, which differed from established protocol. He was a commoner after all, and she did not go to him as a Consort does when she enters the palace; nor were things done after all quite as they are when the bridegroom is a Prince. Their relationship to each other was highly unusual.
Both Genji and His Eminence saw to it that all things were done with the utmost pomp for three days thereafter. At times the mistress of Genji's east wing hardly knew where she stood. In truth, none of this meant that the new arrival now seriously overshadowed her, but she was not accustomed to seeing her position challenged, and she could not help feeling uneasy, since Her Highness had so many brilliant years before her and was so impossible to take lightly. She betrayed nothing of these feelings, however, and when Her Highness arrived, she even assisted Genji in all sorts of little ways, until he wondered more than ever at how dear she was.
Her Highness was indeed still very small and poorly grown, and she was also extremely girlish and immature. He remembered his kin to the noble murasaki,44 when he had first found her and made her his own, but she had been bright and attractive, whereas this girl was merely childish. Well, no doubt it is all for the best, he thought; at least she will not insist unpleasantly on her prerogatives. Still, he found her too dismally dull.
He went to Her Highness faithfully every night for the first three nights, and his Murasaki bore it, but she suffered, for she was unaccustomed to anything of the kind. She saw more faithfully than ever to the perfuming of his robes, but she often lapsed into melancholy daydreams, looking very dear and lovely as she did so. Why, Genji asked himself, why had he let anything persuade him to try setting another beside her? He had imprudently allowed a wanton weakness to get the better of him: that was why it had happened. His Eminence had not chosen the Counselor in the end, no, despite his youth. These bitter thoughts helplessly preoccupied him, and tears came to his eyes. “Please understand and forgive me for being away again tonight,” he said. “If I neglect you after this, I will really hate myself. Even then, though, there are His Eminence's feelings to consider.”
She pitied his confusion and replied with a little smile, “It appears that you yourself cannot decide what to do. How, then, can I advise you? I wonder what course you will choose in the end.” She would not discuss it, and he lay back ashamed, chin in hand. Drawing an inkstone to her, she wrote,
“Ah, how trustingly I believed that what we had would last on and on,
when your feelings in this world shift and change before my eyes.”
She had written it down among some old poems, and he picked it up and read it. It was slight enough, but he knew what she meant.
“Life, it is too true, must end when that moment comes, but this shifting world
never has known such a bond as the one between us two,”
he replied.
He could not bring himself to go. “No, no, I will not let you do this to me!” she insisted; and so off he went in his lovely, soft, deliciously perfumed robes.
She must have felt thoroughly uneasy as she watched him leave. There had been times over the years when she feared just this, but he seemed to have put all that behind him, and she had come at last to believe that that was the way things would always be; and then this had happened, to set the tongues of all the world wagging. I was wrong after all to be so sure of him, she thought, and I shall never be able to trust him again.
“This will not do!” her women sighed to each other despite her brave show of calm. “He has many ladies, it is true, but all cede pride of place to our mistress, and that is why things go so well. This one, though, values herself too much ever to put up with that! There could well be some sort of unpleasantness if any little incident happens to cause trouble.” Their mistress pretended not to notice anything wrong, and she went on conversing with them very nicely until late in the night.
She was not pleased to hear them speaking so apprehensively. “My lord does have a good many women,” she said, “but really, none of them has the fashionable brilliance he wants, and he felt that he had seen rather too much of all of us. It is just as well Her Highness has come. I must still be a girl at heart, because I should like to be close to her, but people seem to be talking instead as though there were a gulf between us. I wish they would not. Yes, one can imagine some sort of incident if she were my equal in the eyes of the world, or perhaps below me, but instead she commands the highest respect and very great sympathy as well, and I do not see how anyone could disapprove of her.”
Nakatsukasa, C
hūjō, and the others exchanged glances and murmured that she was being much too nice. Long ago they had served Genji particularly intimately, but for years now they had been in their mistress's service instead, and they were very fond of her. Messages came from his other ladies, wondering how she was taking it and hinting that it might be their turn now to feel like the lucky ones, since they saw so little of him anyway. But it is they who are making me miserable with these conjectures of theirs! she said to herself. Why should I be unhappy, when this world is so uncertain already?
Realizing guiltily that her women would wonder why she was staying up so long, she went to bed, and they drew the covers over her. It was true, though, these nights were lonely, and she was upset. She remembered when he was away at Suma. Yes, she thought, he was gone then, too, perhaps forever, and all that mattered was being sure that he was alive; never mind what happened to me—I only loved him and grieved for him. And if in all that turmoil he and I had just disappeared, that would have been the end of that. It was a windy, chilly night, and sleep eluded her, but she made not the smallest movement lest her women nearby hear her and wonder, and this, too, was a very great trial. A cock crowed forlornly in the depths of the night.
The Tale of Genji: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Junichiro Breakdown of Genji) Page 75