Genji thought the two boys sweet because they had played very nicely and put their hearts into it, too. “You must be sleepy,” he said. “I thought we would have just a little music this evening—I never meant it to go on so long, but it would have been a shame to stop it, and while I tried with my dull ears to tell which instrument I liked best, it has become very late. I am sorry.” He offered the boy who had played the shō a cup of wine and laid a robe of his own across his shoulders. The one who had played the flute got a figured long dress and trousers—a discreet, token gift72— from the mistress of the house,73 while Her Highness sent a wine cup to the Commander and presented him with a full set of women's gowns.
“What is this? You are to honor your teacher first! I am shocked!” Genji protested, whereupon he was offered a flute from behind Her Highness's standing curtain. He took it with a grin. It was a very beautiful Koma flute.74 He played it a little, and everyone began to leave, but the Commander then stopped, picked up the flute his son had played, and drew from it such exquisite notes that Genji saw how superbly his own teaching had succeeded with each, and he congratulated himself on the magnificence of his accomplishment.
The Commander got the boys into his carriage and set out under a clear moon. On the way he still heard, after that lady's wagon, her marvelous sō no koto, and he thought of her with longing. His own wife had received instruction from Her Highness her grandmother,75 but she had been taken away before it really bore fruit, so that she could not play with confidence and was too embarrassed to do so at all in his presence. Instead she forever maintained an air of artless innocence, left herself no time for anything but minding one child after another, and seemed to him to lack any interest at all. She was at her most beguiling when jealous or angry.
Genji went to the east wing, while his lady stayed behind talking to Her Highness. She did not return until daybreak, and they slept until the sun was high in the sky. “It is remarkable how well Her Highness does at the kin, isn't it!” Genji remarked. “How did it strike you?”
“I wondered about her when I first heard her play a little, over there, but she has become very good. How could she fail to, when you have been giving all your time to her lessons?”
“You are quite right. For step-by-step progress I suppose I am not a bad teacher. I have not taught it to the others because it is so demanding and tricky and takes so much time, but I was troubled to hear His Cloistered Eminence and His Majesty both assume that I must at least be teaching her the kin, so I resolved to do that much at any rate, since His Eminence had done me the honor of entrusting her to me in the first place.”
He went on in this connection, “I never gave you any quiet lessons in the old days, when you were young and I was looking after you, because I hardly ever had the leisure for it, and one thing after another has kept me distracted more recently as well; I have never even paused to hear you play, which you did so beautifully in company that I was proud of you. The look on the Commander's face, as though he could hardly get over it, made me very pleased and happy, too.”
With such accomplishments as these, and the authority with which she looked after His Majesty's children, she was a success in every way, so much so that Genji even feared for her, remembering the example of others, equally perfect, whose lives had not been long, for she was that rarity: someone who in every single thing she did remained beyond cavil or reproach. His wide experience of women convinced him that all her qualities made her incomparable. She was thirty-seven this year.76
He looked back fondly over the years they had spent together. “Do be especially careful this year and have more of the necessary prayers done than usual,” he said. “I have so much on my mind that I may sometimes forget things, but please think about it yourself, and if you plan anything large, I shall of course look after it. What a pity that His Reverence77 is no longer with us. He was someone to trust in matters of this nature.”
He went on, “As for me, I grew up from my earliest youth amid grandeur that others never know, and by now I enjoy such honor as has seldom been known before. At the same time, though, I have also seen more tragedy than most. First, I lost the people I loved, and then all these years later, after surviving them, I still have many reasons for sorrow and regret. My own worst transgressions have brought me extremes of misery, and I have also suffered many disappointments, which suggests that my reward may well be precisely having remained alive until today, so much longer than I ever expected. For you, though, it seems to me that apart from that time when we were separated there has been little either before or after it really to cause you serious unhappiness. The greatest lady in the land, all the way up to the Empress herself, is certain to have reason to be anxious. One is never at ease in exalted company, where the spirit of rivalry is a constant torment, but you have always lived with your father, as it were, and you have had less of that than anyone, ever. Do you see how in that sense you have been more fortunate than others? I am sure that it was difficult for you to have Her Highness turn up here suddenly, but since it directly affects you, you cannot have failed to notice how much more devoted I am to you since she came. You who understand so many things must have grasped that.”
“As you say,” she replied, “I expect that to others I seem to enjoy favor beyond what I deserve, but by now more sorrow than I can bear has entered my life, and that is what has inspired all my prayers.”78 She seemed to have much more to say but to be too shy to do so. “Seriously, though, I feel as if I have little time left, and the thought of spending this year, too, pretending otherwise worries me very much. If you would kindly permit what I once asked…”79
“That is out of the question, I tell you. What would my life mean without you? My greatest joy over all these years has always been simply to be with you day and night. What I feel for you is extraordinary. Please see my devotion through to the end!” That was all he said, which hurt her, since she had heard that much before; meanwhile he was moved to see her eyes fill with tears, and he talked on so as to turn her mind to other things.
“I do not know that many women, but the more I have learned that each has something to say for herself, the more I have had to conclude that a woman genuinely quiet and mild through and through is exceedingly rare. I took up with the Commander's mother when I was still very young, but things never went well between us, although she always meant a great deal to me, and now I am sorry both for her sake and for mine that it should have ended when she and I were estranged—not that I personally believe it was all my fault. She was just too unassailably correct—admirable from a distance, one might say, but really quite difficult in intimacy.
“Her Majesty's mother the Haven comes to mind as someone of unusual grace and depth, but she made painfully trying company. I agree that she had reason to be angry with me, but the way she brooded so interminably over the matter, and with such bitter rancor, made things very unpleasant. There was something so daunting about her that I could never enjoy with her the daily intimacies of life; I could never drop my guard, lest informality invite her contempt, and so she and I soon drifted apart. I regretted her distress when scandal touched her and her good name suffered, and in fact, considering who she was, I felt in the end that I was to blame; but to make it up to her I ensured that her daughter, who of course was so destined anyway, rose to be Empress, ignoring by the way a good deal of slander and resentment, and I expect that by now, in the afterworld, she has come to think better of me. Casual amusements always risk grave and painful consequences.”
Little by little he went over the women in his past. “I looked down at first on our Consort's mother as being unworthy of me, and I assumed that she was a passing amusement, but her heart is an abyss beyond sounding. She has immeasurable depth. On the surface she yields and seems mild, but within she has such imposing dignity that she can be quite forbidding.”
“I do not know the others because I have not met them, but of course I have seen her now and again, though never for long, and th
ere is clearly something remarkably austere and intimidating about her; I hate to imagine what a simpleton like me must look like to her, and I only hope that the Consort is good enough to overlook my shortcomings after all.”
Genji was greatly moved to reflect that she who had once sharply resented this lady now, out of pure devotion to the Consort, admitted her indulgently to her presence. “You are not without your dark recesses,”80 he said, “but it is a wonder how well you adapt your feelings to person and circumstance. I have known a good many women, but never anyone else like you. There is just that one thing about you, though.” He smiled.
Toward evening he went to Her Highness's. “I must let her know how pleased I was with her playing,” he said.
It had never occurred to Her Highness that anyone might dislike her, and she was giving her heart like a child to playing the kin. “I hope that you will now allow me some time away from our lessons,” he said. “You must give your teacher a rest. All your work has had its reward, and I need no longer worry about you.” He pushed their instruments away and retired to bed.
As usual on the nights when he was away, the lady in his wing sat up late and had her women read her tales. These old stories are all about what happens in life, she thought, and they are full of women involved with fickle, wanton, or treacherous men, and so on, but each one seems to find her own in the end. How strange it is, the insecure life I have led! Yes, it is true, as he said, that I have enjoyed better fortune than most, but am I to end my days burdened with these miseries that other women, too, find hateful and unendurable? Oh, it is too hard! She went to bed very late, and as dawn came on, she began to suffer chest pains. Her women did what they could for her. “Shall we inform His Grace?” they asked, but she would not have it, and she bore her agony until it was light. She became feverish and felt extremely ill, but no one told Genji as long as he failed to come on his own.
A messenger from the Consort got the answer that the lady was unwell, and she then informed Genji, who hastened home in shock to find her clearly very ill. “How do you feel?” he asked, putting his hand to her forehead. She was burning with fever, and he remembered with terror warning her just the day before about all the precautions she needed to take. Breakfast was served, but he never even glanced at it. He stayed with her all day, tending her and sighing. For days she refused the slightest nourishment, until she no longer even sat up. Desperately anxious about what the matter might be, he ordered countless prayers begun and summoned priests to perform healing rites. Her suffering seemed to be unbearable, for she hurt everywhere, and sometimes she felt agonizing chest spasms. Countless penances did no good at all. The gravest illness may still leave room for hope as long as some possibility of recovery remains, but as far as Genji could see, she felt only fear and despair. He was far too preoccupied to think of anything else, and there was no more talk of His Eminence Suzaku's jubilee. The news of her illness elicited many expressions of concern from His Eminence, who sent her repeated messages.
The second month passed, and her condition remained as before. In unspeakable distress Genji decided that a change might do her good, and he moved her to Nijō. His Rokujō estate was in turmoil, and great numbers of people mourned. The news saddened His Eminence Reizei as well. The Commander devoted himself to her care, knowing that if she were to die, his father would certainly act on his long-standing desire to leave the world. Quite apart from the Great Rite already under way, he commissioned another of his own.
In lucid moments she spoke only to reproach him, saying, “You are so cruel not to grant what I ask!” but for Genji the sorrow and pain of seeing her a single instant, with his very eyes, wearing by her own wish the habit of renunciation, instead of parting from her at the end of life itself, would be more than he could ever bear. “It is exactly what I have always longed to do,” he said, “but anxiety about how you would feel once you were left alone has always detained me. Do you mean to say that you would now abandon me?” This was his only response, and meanwhile, she weakened so alarmingly that it often seemed as though she would soon be gone. In his confusion he had no idea what to do, and he no longer took even a moment to visit Her Highness. His musical instruments, which meant nothing to him anymore, were all put away, while his whole staff gathered at Nijō, leaving Rokujō as empty as though its light were gone. Only the ladies who lived there stayed on, but it felt as though she alone had made the place what it was.
The Consort came, and she and Genji nursed her together. “You are in an unusual condition, and spirits are so dangerous!” she managed to say through her pain. “Please go straight back to His Majesty!” She wept bitterly when she saw the dear little Princess81 beside her, and she said, “To think I shall never see you grow up! I know you will forget all about me.” The Consort's tears of grief overflowed.
“Mind what you say!” Genji warned her. “Please do not think such things. Besides, I am sure you are not that ill. The heart decides what is to become of us. The great-hearted have great good fortune, and likewise the pusillanimous. Those who rise high have little peace, the reckless do not last, and those whose hearts are meek and mild are most likely to endure.” He declared before the buddhas and gods that she had rare quality and that her sins were light.
The Adepts performing the Great Rite, the priests in night attendance, and all the other holy monks there to serve her were deeply affected by this evidence of his anguish, and they prayed for her mightily. Sometimes she was a little better for five or six days, only to lapse again into torment, and this went on month after month. What is to become of her? Genji groaned. Perhaps she will never get better! No spirit came forth to speak. No particular part of her was in pain; she simply weakened visibly day by day until he was at his wits' end with sorrow and despair.
Oh, yes, the Intendant of the Gate Watch was now also a Counselor.82 He was in fact the man of the hour, for in this reign he enjoyed His Majesty's fullest trust. His failure to obtain what he desired still weighed upon him, however, despite his rising reputation, and he had therefore secured Her Highness's elder sister, the Second Princess. He took her somewhat lightly, since her mother had been a junior Intimate. In her person she had far more to commend her than some others, but his old infatuation still ran deep, and his was the desolation of Mount Obasute,83 although he made sure never to betray it in his behavior.
No, he had not yet forgotten his secret longing, and the woman he turned to for help was Kojijū, the daughter of Jijū, Her Highness's nurse.84 Since Jijū's elder sister was his nurse, he had been hearing about Her Highness for a long time in a quite familiar way. Ever since her childhood he had had his ears filled with stories about how pretty she was and how much her father loved her, and that was how the thought of her had come to him in the first place. Guessing that the house would be quiet and half-deserted now that Genji was away, he had Kojijū come to see him now and then, and he worked with might and main to bring her round.
“I have long thought that I may die of love for her,” he would say, “and I am extremely hurt that nothing whatever has come of the access you give me, except that I have news of her and can trust that she hears of my eternal devotion. Even His Cloistered Eminence seems to have been somewhat disappointed to learn that as far as one can tell His Grace's other attachments have meant that she has been overshadowed, so that she sleeps alone night after night and has little to fill her days. I gather he says that as long as he meant to settle on a commoner capable of looking after her properly, he might as well have picked one who would have done a good job of it. ‘Judging from what I hear, the Second Princess is actually better off and has a more secure future’—so he remarked, and you can imagine how distressed I was when I heard it. Yes, they have the same father, those two, but what a difference there is between them!” He heaved a great sigh.
“Come now, my lord, you are going too far!” Kojijū smiled. “You have his Second Princess—what more do you want?”
He smiled, too. “That is just it. Whe
n I took the liberty of expressing an interest in her, His Eminence and His Majesty both found me acceptable. ‘Why not have him serve her?’ His Eminence was once pleased to remark. Why, if only he had been just a little more generous with me…”
“But that is impossible, my lord! Your karma, or whatever they call it, is what it is. Did you actually imagine that you had the stature to challenge and thwart His Grace, once His Grace himself had approached His Eminence so eagerly on the subject? You have only just begun lately to carry a little more weight and to wear a more imposing color.”85
She spoke so curtly and severely that he cut short what he had to say. “Enough, enough! I will not talk about the past! Just make sure that while this rare opportunity lasts, you find me a way to tell her in person a little of how I feel. Do you think I would misbehave? Just look at me! The idea is too frightening to contemplate.”
“What worse misbehavior could one imagine?” she retorted. “What you want is terrifying! Why did I ever come?
“Now, now, that is too much! You exaggerate. One never knows what to expect next between men and women. Why, has no Consort or Empress ever taken advantage of such an opportunity? Then just think of Her Highness! There she is, as well off as anyone could be, but no doubt with many secret griefs. His Eminence brought her up more affectionately than any of his other children, yet she must associate with people who are not her equals, and I am sure that she must suffer affronts to her dignity. Oh, I hear all about it! No, life is uncertain, and I wish you would just accept that once and for all and stop scolding me this way.
“So she is overshadowed—does that mean she is supposed to find someone more promising? I hardly think that she could do much better. His Eminence gave her to His Grace as though to a father, to save her from being left unprotected, and I assume that that is the sort of feeling they have for each other. Your complaints are unfair.”
The Tale of Genji: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Junichiro Breakdown of Genji) Page 83