His Excellency and the Mistress of Staff conversed as always with a standing curtain between them. “I can seldom call on you without good reason,” he began. “As the years go by, I feel more and more constrained from going anywhere at all except to the palace, and so, you see, I ignore many moments when I would like to talk to you about the old days. Please call on the services of my sons whenever you need to do so. I am always telling them to show you how much you mean to them.”
“The kindness with which you continue to honor me, when after all this time I really no longer matter, makes it increasingly difficult for me ever to forget the gentleman who has preceded us,” she replied; and she took advantage of this opportunity to tell him discreetly about His Eminence's approaches. “I find it difficult to make up my mind,” she went on, “because in such company someone without adequate backing may only be worse off than before.”
“I gather that His Majesty has expressed interest as well, and I wonder which of the two you mean to prefer. One does feel that His Eminence has had the best of his years, now that he has abdicated, but he seems to have lost so little of his rare looks that it has occurred to me to wish I had a suitably promising daughter; but alas, to my great regret I have none worthy to join such daunting company. The question is, would the Consort,7 his First Princess's mother, really allow it? Others before have refrained for precisely that reason.”
“Actually, His Eminence suggests that by now the Consort has little to occupy her time and that she would welcome the opportunity to cherish her with him. I wonder, though, what really to think of it all.”
All sorts of people were gathering at her residence and then going on to Sanjō. Those who had been close to Retired Emperor Suzaku, and those more associated with His Grace of Rokujō seemed not yet to wish to neglect Her Cloistered Highness. The Mistress of Staff's sons, the Left Palace Guards Captain, the Right Controller, and the Fujiwara Adviser, went off with His Excellency, whose entourage was strikingly imposing.
The Minamoto Adviser came that evening. Among the many young men present—very handsome young men, each flawless in his way—this latecomer seemed to draw all eyes when he arrived, and a susceptible young woman remarked, “Yes, he really is different!”
“I would like to match him up with the elder of our young mistresses here!” another added naughtily. He certainly had youth's perfect grace, and the scent he gave off was simply not of this world. One could not imagine anyone with any appreciation, not even a great lord's sheltered daughter, failing to recognize that he stood out.
When the Mistress of Staff started for her private chapel, inviting him to “please come this way,” he mounted the eastern steps and sat by the blinds over the doorway.8 The buds on the young plum tree nearby were promising blossoms at last, a warbler was singing its first tremulous song, and the young man's sober figure so called for an added touch of romance that the women tried bantering with him, until his laconic replies provoked an older one, known as Saishō, to say,
“If someone picked you, you might smell even sweeter—why not try it, then?
Show your colors a little, early flowers of the plum!”9
She is quick! he thought and teased back,
“You may think you see a tree stripped of leaf and branch, barren forever,
but what sweet perfume within boasts the early flowering plum!
Just try brushing sleeves with me!”
“That is right: ‘Rather than the color…’”10 they all murmured, coming near enough almost to tug in earnest at his sleeves.
The Mistress of Staff slipped toward them from farther back in the room. “You wicked girls!” she whispered. “Must you tease even so fine and stalwart a young man? You have no shame!”
Stalwart, they call me! he thought. What a tiresome word!
Her own son, the Fujiwara Adviser, was there, too, since he did not yet have the privilege of the privy chamber and so was not going round on New Year's calls. He offered the company two aloeswood trays, one of fruit and nuts and the other bearing wine.
With age His Excellency looks more and more like His Grace, the Mistress of Staff reflected, but while this young lord does not resemble His Grace at all, in quiet charm of looks and bearing he does remind one of His Grace in his early years. That is just what he must have been like. The memories brought tears to her eyes. Her women extravagantly praised even the fragrance that lingered on after the young gentleman had gone.
The young gentleman himself resented the tag “stalwart,” and after the twentieth of the month, when the plum trees were in full bloom, he went to see the Fujiwara Adviser. He had decided that he would no longer be thought of as lacking in savor and that he would learn the ways of gallantry. When he came in through the middle gate, he found someone else stationed there, also in a dress cloak. Detaining the man as he moved to hide, he discovered him to be the Chamberlain Lieutenant, who was always lurking around the house. The Lieutenant seemed rooted to the spot by the music of a biwa and a sō no koto coming from the west side of the main house. The poor fellow! the Minamoto Adviser said to himself. It can only be a great sin to indulge a desire that others condemn.
The music stopped. “Come, then, show me the way,” he said, drawing the Lieutenant with him. “I do not know the house at all.” They stood under the red plum before the western bridgeway, humming “The Plum Tree Branch,” and the Adviser's fragrance signaled his presence even more plainly than the flowers' scent did the tree's. The double doors opened, and someone inside joined them very nicely on a wagon. Remarkable! the Adviser thought, since no woman normally accompanied a song in the ryo mode this well. They sang the song again. The biwa sounded wonderfully stylish, too. The ladies here were certainly accomplished! He liked the place and spent the evening chatting a little more casually than he usually did.
Someone slid a wagon out under the blinds. The two young men ceded each other the honor until the Mistress of Staff, through her son, begged the Minamoto Adviser, “They say that you have His Excellency the late Chancellor's11 touch. I should love to hear you. Do let the warbler this evening entice you to play!” He knew that he could not seek refuge in bashful protestations, and so he played a little, without undue emphasis. His tone was very rich and full.
“I spent hardly any time with my father,” the Mistress of Staff remarked, “but I miss him very much now that he is gone, and I find the least memory of him quite moving. It is extraordinary how this young man reminds me of the late Intendant,12 and his touch on the instrument is just the same.” Perhaps age inclined her to tears, for she wept.
The Lieutenant then sang “Sakikusa”13 in a very pleasant voice. The absence from the gathering of anyone elderly and quick to criticize naturally encouraged each gentleman to elicit more music from the other, but the Fujiwara Adviser was a little slow at such things, being in this no doubt his father's son, and he really preferred simply drinking. At last, challenged by calls to “give us at least a merry song, won't you?” he sang “Bamboo River”14 with them very nicely, despite being so young.
A wine cup appeared from under the blinds. “They say that once drink gets the better of a man, he can no longer keep a secret and courts disgrace. Is that your intention, my lady?” the Minamoto Adviser asked, declining it.15 The Mistress of Staff picked up a gown and long dress and laid them, still sweetly redolent of their wearer, one on the other across his shoulders. “What could these be for?” he protested, placing them over his host's in preparation for leaving. Then he fled, despite his host's attempts to stop him, saying, “I came only for light refreshments, and now look how late it is!”16
Gift robe
The Lieutenant gathered that this Adviser's frequent visits to the house must have won him the allegiance of everyone there. More than ever dispirited and sorry for himself, he murmured bitterly,
“Every one of them seems to have given her heart to the blossoms here,
and I wander all alone through the dark of a spring night.”17
His complaint roused someone within to reply,
“You will be welcome, even you, in your season: a blossoming plum
offers far more than its scent to beguile the willing heart.”
The next morning the Minamoto Adviser wrote to his host, using many kana as though he meant others18 to see it, too, “I was rather rowdy yesterday evening—I wonder what everyone thought of me.” Along the edge he added,
“That measure of song I made bold to give you all on Bamboo River,
did you gather from its depths the true bottom of my heart?”
The Fujiwara Adviser took this message to the main house, where the ladies read it. “What lovely handwriting!” the Mistress of Staff exclaimed. “How could anyone so young be so accomplished? He was just a boy when he lost His Grace, and Her Highness his mother did hardly anything for him, and yet he seems to do better than anyone else!” She reproved her daughters for writing so poorly themselves.
Her son replied in a manner that did indeed betray his youth, “Your ‘light refreshments’ yesterday evening was a rude surprise.
You hastened away lest the night advance too far on Bamboo River:
what, then, were those depths you raise to be gathered from your song?”
Actually, that visit was the first of many by the young gentleman to his fellow Adviser, as well as the beginning of a courtship. Everyone preferred him—the Lieutenant had been quite right. The Fujiwara Adviser in his youthful way was delighted to spend so much time day and night with his relation.
The third month came. Once the cherries were in bloom, falling petals clouded the sky,19 and the leisure of blossom time left the Mistress of Staff with little enough to do; there could be nothing wrong even with sitting near the veranda.
Her daughters must then have been eighteen or nineteen. Both were delightful in person and looks. The elder was so vivid, stylish, and proud that one felt she would indeed be wasted on a commoner. She fairly exuded charm in her timely choice of a cherry blossom long dress and a kerria rose layering, and her deportment suggested dignity and intelligence as well. The younger sister, in light plum pink, her hair glinting with a beautiful sheen, had all the grace of spring willow fronds. Yet despite the tall, slender poise of her figure and her air of graver depth, many felt it was the elder who conveyed the most exquisite appeal.
The forehead line and sweep of their hair presented a lovely picture as they faced each other at Go, and the Fujiwara Adviser sat beside them to referee. Just then his elder brothers20 peered in. “You do think a lot of him!” they cried. “You even have him refereeing your game!” Both knelt on one knee in a manly fashion, and the women in attendance straightened themselves as well as they could.
“I have been too busy at the palace and have fallen behind!” the Captain complained. “It is so disappointing!”
“How could you forget all about a poor Controller, when his duties leave him still less free to wait on his sisters!”
The young ladies stopped playing and put on a very pretty show of bashfulness.
“I so often wish that His Late Excellency were still here!” the Captain said, watching them with tears in his eyes. At twenty-seven or -eight he made an admirable figure of a man, and he longed only to give his sisters the future his father had wished for them.
The sisters sent someone to pick a branch from a particularly lovely cherry tree that grew among the others in the garden nearby. “There has never been one like it!” they exclaimed, toying with the spray.
“When you were young,” the Captain said, “you quarreled over these flowers, each of you crying that they were hers, and His Late Excellency awarded them to the elder of you; at which our mother decided that the tree itself belonged to the younger. I myself did not make so loud a fuss about it, but it meant a great deal to me, too.” He went on, “The thought that this cherry tree is old now brings to mind all the years that have passed, and the sorrow of having outlived so many people is almost too much for me.” He lingered there longer than usual, amid laughter and tears. Now that he was married, he no longer came on leisurely visits, but he had stayed on this time for love of the flowers.
The Mistress of Staff, who still had all her looks, seemed much too young to have such grown-up sons. What made Retired Emperor Reizei so keen was above all his fond memory of the time when he had wanted her, and he insisted on seeking her daughter only to keep that old fancy alive. Her sons said of the prospect that their sister might go to him, “There is no reason at all to be eager. The timely choice seems always to be the one that gains broad approval. He is a great pleasure to behold, it is true, for there is no one like him, but one has the impression that he is no longer what he was. The harmonies of flutes and strings, the pleasures of blossoms or birdsong, charm the eye or the ear only in their time. What about the Heir Apparent?”
“I wonder,” she replied. “A very powerful lady,21 you see, has always claimed him so much as her own. I worry that the poor thing might just be laughed at if she went. If only His Excellency were still alive, he could have managed something for the time being, at least, whatever her future may be in the end.” The thought saddened them all.
Once the Captain and the others were gone, the sisters returned to their game, wagering the cherry tree that each had always claimed. “Two out of three wins the flowers,” they teased each other.
It was getting dark, and they finished their game near the veranda. The women rolled up the blinds, and each cheered on her own mistress. Just then, as so often, the Lieutenant turned up at the Fujiwara Adviser's room. Finding the brothers gone and no one about, he stole up to peer through the open door.
The foolish young man felt as though happy fortune had brought him a vision of living buddhas. Twilight mists somewhat veiled the scene, but his ardent gaze discerned nonetheless that the one in cherry blossom could only be she. She did indeed make a most lovely “token of blossoms soon to be gone,”22 and he lamented more bitterly than ever that she would soon go to someone else. The casually disposed young women looked very pretty in the evening light.
The Right23 won. “Where is the Koma victory music?”24 excited voices cried.
“His Excellency awarded the Left a tree that leaned west, which means that he favored the Right25—that is where all the trouble began!” someone on the Right cheerfully declared.
The Lieutenant did not know what they were talking about, but still, it all sounded like fun, and he felt like joining in. He decided that that would be tactless of him, though, when they were all in such a casual mood, and instead he went away. After that he went about spying in case a similar chance should come again.
The sisters spent day and night contesting each other's claim to the blossoming tree, but one stormy evening they were horrified to see the petals flying in all directions. The loser said,
“Ah, cherry blossoms! How one's heart trembles for them when stormy winds blow,
although anyone can see they themselves care not at all.”
Saishō added,
“Such flowers as these blossom there before our eyes only to scatter:
never mind that we have lost: I shall not long hold the grudge.”
The sister on the Right:
“It is the world's way, that the wind should scatter them, but how sad it is
to see blossoms fade away even while still on the bough.”
And her Taifu:
“Come, wayward petals, who because it pleases you fall beside the lake;
when you are foam on the waves, even so, do come my way!”
A page girl from the winning side went down into the garden, gathered lots of fallen petals from under the tree, and brought them to her mistress:
“You may well scatter on the winds through the wide sky, O cherry blossoms,
yet I shall gather you in and enjoy you as my own.”
Then the Left's Nareki:
“Are those sleeves of yours broad enough to overspread all cherry petals
and
retain their full beauty just for you and no one else?
You must be so stingy!”
The days and months continued to slip by, and the Mistress of Staff meanwhile worried more and more about the future. Every day brought a new message from His Eminence, whose Consort reassured her gravely in such terms as these: “Do you mean to keep your distance from me, then? His Eminence assumes that I am turning you against him, and he is not at all pleased about it. I am not joking, I assure you. Please, if you can, make your mind up soon.”
This must be her destiny, then, the Mistress of Staff reflected. I hardly dare refuse such urgent pleas. She had an ample trousseau prepared for her daughter, and clothing and everything else needed made up for her women.
The Lieutenant thought that he would die when he heard the news, and his bitter reproaches upset his mother. “It is the foolish darkness in a parent's heart, you see, that emboldens me to touch upon so delicate a matter,” she wrote urgently. “I implore you to understand me if you possibly can and even now to grant me the comfort I beg.”
How very difficult all this is! the Mistress of Staff sighed; and she answered, “I myself remain uncertain what course I should choose, but alas, His Eminence's insistence is very troubling. Please be patient a little, if you are truly in earnest, for I believe that it may be possible to give you satisfaction after all, and in such a way as to displease no one.” She presumably meant that she might suggest her younger daughter once her elder had gone.
The Tale of Genji: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Junichiro Breakdown of Genji) Page 103