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

by Murasaki Shikibu

  Meanwhile Genji was absorbed in meditation on one lady alone.48 By the standard of this evening's discussion she had neither too little nor too much of any quality at all, and this thought filled him with wonder and a desperate longing.

  The debate reached no conclusion and lapsed at last into disjointed gossip that the young men kept up until dawn.

  The weather today was clear at last. Genji went straight to His Excellency's, fearing that so long a seclusion at the palace might have displeased his father-in-law. The look of the place and the manner of the lady there were admirably distinguished, for neither could be faulted in any way, and it seemed to Genji that she should be the ideal wife singled out as a treasure by his friends the evening before, but in fact he found such perfection too oppressive and intimidating for comfort.

  He amused himself chatting with such particularly worthwhile young gentle-women as Chūnagon and Nakatsukasa, who were delighted to see him, loosely clothed as he was in the heat. His Excellency then appeared and talked with his son-in-law through a standing curtain, since Genji was not presentable, while Genji reclined on an armrest, making wry faces and muttering, “Isn't it hot enough for him?” “Hush!” he added when the women laughed. He was the picture of carefree ease.

  Standing curtain

  At dark a woman remarked to him, “Tonight the Mid-God has closed this direction from the palace.”

  “That is right, my lord, this is a direction you would normally shun.”49

  “But Nijō50 is in the same direction! How am I to avoid it? Besides, I am exhausted.” Genji lay down to sleep.

  “Oh, no, my lord, you must not!”

  “The Governor of Kii, who is in His Excellency's service, lives in a house by the Nakagawa,51 and the place is nice and cool—he recently diverted the stream through his property.”

  “That should do very well,” Genji answered. “I am so tired, I do not care where it is, as long as they will let my ox in through the gate.”52

  There must have been many other houses where he could have gone discreetly to avoid that direction, but having only just arrived at his father-in-law's after a long absence, he did not wish to seek another lady's company in order to do so.

  Kii bowed to Genji's command, but he groaned as he withdrew. “A difficulty at the Iyo Deputy's house has obliged all his women to move in with me,” he said, “and my little place is so crowded that I am afraid he may suffer some affront to his dignity.”

  Genji heard him. “I shall be much happier to have them near me. I would be afraid to spend the night away from home without women. Just put me behind their standing curtains.”

  “That is right. I expect his house will do beautifully,” a gentlewoman chimed in, and a runner was sent to announce Genji's arrival. Genji hurried off so secretly, to so purposely discreet a destination, that he kept his departure from his father-in-law and took with him only his closest companions.

  “This is so sudden!” Kii's house hold complained, but Genjis entourage ignored them. His men had the eastern aisle of the main house swept, aired, and made ready as well as they could.

  Lattice shutters

  The stream was very prettily done in its way.53 There was a brushwood fence, as in the country, and the garden was carefully planted. The breeze was cool, insects were singing here and there, and fireflies were flitting in all directions. The place was delightful. Genji's companions sat drinking wine and peering down at the stream that emerged from beneath the bridgeway.54 While his host went darting about in search of refreshments,55 Genji relaxed and gazed out into the night, remembering what he had heard the evening before about the middle class of women and reflecting that this must be the kind of place where such women lived.

  He had noted a rumor that the young woman here56 was proud, and he was sufficiently curious about her to listen until he detected telltale sounds to the west: the rustling of silks and the pleasant voices of young women. Yes, he caught stifled laughter that sounded somehow self-conscious.

  Their lattice shutters had been up, but when Kii disapprovingly lowered them, Genji stole to where lamplight streamed through a crack over the sliding panel, to see what he could see. There was no gap to give him a view, but he went on listening and realized that they must be gathered nearby in the chamber, because he could hear them whispering to each other, apparently about him.

  “He is still so young. It is a shame he is so serious and already so well settled.”

  “Still, I hear he often calls secretly on suitably promising ladies.”

  Genji, whose every thought was of her, was appalled to imagine them next discussing that in the same way, but he heard nothing more of interest and gave up his eavesdropping. They were talking about a poem that he had sent with some bluebells to the daughter of His Highness of Ceremonial,57 although they had it slightly wrong. Well, he thought, she simply has time on her hands and a taste for poetry. I do not suppose she is worth looking at anyway.

  The Governor of Kii returned with more lanterns, raised the lamp wick, and offered him refreshments.58

  “What about the curtains, then?” Genji asked. “It is a poor host who does not think of that!”59

  “My lord, I have been told nothing about what might please you,” Kii protested deferentially. Genji lay down as though for a nap near the veranda, and his companions settled down as well.

  Genji's host had delightful children, one of whom Genji had already seen as a page in the privy chamber. The Iyo Deputy's children were there, too. One of the boys, a child of twelve or thirteen, had something special about him. While answering Genji's questions about which child was whose, Kii told him that this one was the youngest son of the late Intendant of the Gate Watch. “His father, who was very fond of him, passed away when he was small,” Kii explained, “and he is here now under his elder sister's care. I hope to have him serve in the privy chamber, since he shows aptitude for scholarship and is generally bright, but things seem not to be going well.”

  “I am sorry to hear that. This sister of his—is she your stepmother?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Then you have a most unlikely one! Even His Majesty has heard of her. He was saying some time ago, ‘Her father hinted that he was thinking of sending her into palace service—I wonder what became of her.’ Ah,” he sighed with grown-up gravity, “you never know what life will bring.”

  “It is a surprise to have her here. No, when it comes to love and marriage, it has always been impossible to divine the future, and unfortunately a woman's fate is especially hard to foresee.”

  “Does the Iyo Deputy pamper her? He must think the world of her.”

  “He certainly does, my lord. He seems to adore her, in fact, although, like the others,60 I dislike his being so engrossed.”

  “He is not going to leave her to any of you, though, just because you are up on the latest fashions. There is nothing drab about the Iyo Deputy—he rather fancies a certain chic himself. Where is she anyway?”

  “I sent them all off to the servants' hall, my lord, although perhaps not all of them managed actually to go.”

  Genji's companions, by now quite drunk, were asleep on the veranda. Genji, too, lay down, but in vain. Dislike for sleeping alone kept him awake, listening to the sounds from beyond the sliding panel to the north and fascinated that this must be where the lady they had talked about was now hiding. Silently he arose and stood by the panel to listen.

  “Excuse me, where are you?” It was the appealingly husky voice of the boy who had caught his attention earlier.

  “Lying over here. Is our guest asleep? I thought I would be next to him, but he is actually quite far away.” The speaker's sleepy voice had a languid quality very like the boy's, and Genji realized that she must be his elder sister.

  “He's gone to sleep in the aisle,” the boy whispered. “Everyone is talking about how he looks, and I actually saw him! It's true, he is ever so handsome!”

  Chest

  “I'd have a peep a
t him myself if it were daytime,” she answered drowsily, her voice sounding as though it came from under the covers.

  Oh, come, he thought impatiently, do ask him a bit more about me than that!

  “I'll sleep over here. It's so dark, though!” He seemed to be raising the lamp wick.

  His sister must be lying diagonally across from Genji's door. “Where is Chūjō?”61 he heard her say. “I am afraid when there is no one nearby.”

  “She went to the bath in the servants' hall—she said she would be back very soon.” The answer came from the women lying a step below her.62

  When all seemed quiet, he tried the latch. It was not locked from the other side. In the entrance stood a curtain, and by the lamp's dim glow he saw what seemed to be chests scattered about the room. Threading his way among them to where he guessed her to be, he came upon a slight figure lying all alone. The approaching footsteps startled her a little, but until he actually tugged at her bedclothes63 she took him for the gentlewoman she had wanted.

  “You called for a Chūjō, you see,64 and I knew my secret yearning for you had inspired its reward.”

  Utterly confused, she thought she was having a nightmare and cried out, but the covers over her face stifled the sound.

  “This is so sudden that you will surely take it for a mere whim of mine, which I quite understand, but actually I only want you to know that my thoughts have been with you for years. Please note how eagerly I have made the best of this chance, and so judge how far I am from failing to be in earnest.”

  He spoke so gently that she could not very well cry out rudely, “There is a man in here!” because not even a demon would have wished to resist him; but shock and dismay at his behavior drew from her, in an anguished whisper, “Surely you mean someone else!”

  Nearly fainting, she roused him to pity and tenderness, and he decided that he liked her very much. “If only you would not doubt the unerring desire that has brought me to you!” he said. “I will take no liberties with you, I promise, but I must tell you something of my feelings.”

  He picked her up, since she was very small, and he had carried her to the sliding door when he came on someone else, presumably the Chūjō she had called for. Chūjō, startled by his exclamation, was groping her way toward him when a breath of his pervasive fragrance enveloped her, and she understood. Although shocked and appalled, she found nothing to say. If he had been anyone ordinary, she would have wrested her mistress bodily from him, but even that would have been a risk, since everyone else would then have known what was going on; so she simply followed with beating heart while he proceeded, unruffled, into the inner room.65

  “Come for your mistress at dawn.” He slid the door shut.

  The lady could have died to imagine what Chūjō might be thinking. Dripping with perspiration, she was so clearly miserable that Genji felt sorry for her, but he managed as always to draw from some hidden source a flood of tender eloquence to win her over.

  “This is not to be believed!” She was indignant. “I may be insignificant, but even I could never mistake your contemptuous conduct toward me for anything more than a passing whim. You have your place in the world and I have mine, and we have nothing in common.”

  It upset him to find that his forwardness really did repel her, and he saw how justly she was outraged. “I know nothing of your place and mine in the world,” he protested earnestly, “because I have never done anything like this before! It is cruel of you to take me for a common adventurer. You must have heard enough about me to know that I do not force my attentions on anyone. I myself am surprised by this madness, which has earned me your wholly understandable disapproval. I can only think that destiny has brought us together.”

  He gravely tried every approach, but his very peerlessness only stiffened her resistance, and she remained obdurate, resolved that no risk of seeming cold and cruel should discourage her from refusing to respond. Although pliant by nature, she had called up such strength of character that she resembled the supple bamboo, which does not break.

  Her genuine horror and revulsion at Genji's willfulness shocked him, and her tears touched him. It pained him to be the culprit, but he knew that he would have been sorry not to have had her. “Why must you dislike me so?” he said accusingly when she refused to be placated. “Do see that the very strangeness of all this confirms the bond we share. I cannot bear your remaining so withdrawn, as though you knew nothing of the ways of the world!”

  “If you had shown me such favor when I was as I used to be, before I settled into my present, unhappy condition, I might have entertained giddy hopes and consoled myself with visions of the day when you would think well of me after all, but the very idea of a night with you, when there can be no more, troubles me greatly. No, you must forget that this ever happened.”66

  No wonder she felt as she did. He undoubtedly did his best to comfort her and to convince her that her fears were misplaced.

  A cock crowed, and the household began to stir. “How long we have slept!” a voice exclaimed from among Genji's men, and another, “Advance his lordship's carriage!” The Governor appeared, too, and one of the women protested, “He is only here to avoid a taboo! There is no reason why he should hurry off again in the middle of the night!”67 Genji suffered to think that such a chance might never come again, that he could hardly visit the house on purpose, and that even correspondence with her was probably out of the question.

  She was so upset when Genji came in that he let her go, but then he drew her to him again. “How can I keep in touch with you? Both your unheard-of hostility and my feeling for you will leave vivid memories and be a wonder forever.” His tears only gave him a new grace.

  Cocks were crowing insistently. He said in despair,

  “Dawn may well have come, but when I could still complain of your cruelty,

  must the cock crow me awake before I have all I wish?”68

  Mortified by the gulf between them, since she was who she was, she remained unmoved by his attentions. Instead her thoughts went to the far province of Iyo and to the husband whom she usually dismissed with such loathing and contempt, and she trembled lest he glimpse this scene in a dream. She answered,

  “Now that dawn at last has broken on the misery that I still bewail,

  the cock himself lifts his voice to spread my lament abroad.”

  It was quite light by now, and Genji saw her to the door of the room. He kept it shut as he said good-bye, because the house was alive with movement within and without, and he grieved that it should be about to part them, as he supposed, forever. Then he slipped on his dress cloak and gazed out south across the railing. To the west, shutters went up with a clatter: women must have been stealing a look at him. No doubt the more susceptible were thrilled by his dim form, visible over the low screen that divided their stretch of veranda from his. The moon still lingered on high, clear despite the pallor of its light, turning dull shadows to a lovely dawn. To one viewer the vacant sky intimated romance, while to the other it suggested aloof indifference. He was heartsick to think that he could not even get a note to her, and as he left, he looked back again and again.

  At home once more he still could not sleep. What tormented him even more than being unable to see her again was the thought of her own feelings. Not that there was anything remarkable about her, but, as he knew, she nicely represented the middle grade they had discussed, with all its appeal, and he understood how truly the man of broad experience had spoken.

  These days he spent all his time at His Excellency's. Forever anxious about her feelings in the absence of any message from him, he called the Governor of Kii and said, “Would you give me that boy I saw the other day—the late Intendant's son? He appealed to me, and I should like to take him into my personal service. I shall present him to His Majesty myself.”

  “You do him and us too great an honor, my lord. I shall convey your request to his elder sister.”

  “Has she given you any brothers or sisters?”
Genji managed to ask with beating heart.

  “No, my lord. It is two years now since she joined our family, but I gather that she regrets not having done as her father wished and that she dislikes her present condition.”

  “What a shame! People speak well of her. Is it true that she is pretty?”

  “I expect so, my lord. She keeps me at such a distance that I am no closer to her than a stepson should be.”

  Five or six days later Kii brought Genji his young brother-in-law. The boy was not strikingly handsome, but he had grace, and his distinction was plain. Genji called him in for a very friendly talk. The boy was thoroughly pleased and impressed in his childish way. He answered pointed questions about his sister as well as he could, until his daunting composure made it difficult for Genji to go on. Still, Genji managed cleverly to convey his desire.69

  The boy was surprised when Genji's point dawned on him at last, but he was too young to understand very well what it implied, and his arrival with Genij's letter brought tears of vexation to his sister's eyes. It horrified her to imagine what he might be thinking, and she opened the letter so that it hid her face. It was very long.

  “Even as I mourn not knowing whether that dream70 means another night,

  endless time seems to go by while my eyelids never close.