The young lady from the west wing was there, too. Among all the gentlemen before her in their finery, she still found none to compare with His Majesty seen in profile, stock-still in his red robes. She secretly paid particular attention to His Excellency her father, but despite his dazzling looks and weighty presence there was only so much and no more to be said for him. He was by far the most impressive figure among the commoners, but she could not keep her eyes off that One in the palanquin. Captain, Lieutenant, or Privy Gentleman So-and-so, for whom other young women were swooning and sighing, Isn't he handsome! or I love his style! naturally meant nothing to her, for His Majesty eclipsed them all. Genji so resembled him that they could have been the same man, but to her mind His Majesty somewhat surpassed Genji in dignity, and it was he whose looks and bearing were truly a marvel to behold. Surely there had never been anyone like him. She had assumed that all noble gentlemen were comely, accustomed as she was to the grace of Genji and the Captain, but such company as this cast a shadow over them, for they seemed not even to have the same eyes or noses, and they hardly deserved a glance. His Highness of War was there, too. The Commander of the Right, ever weighty and imposing, served His Majesty in great style today with a quiver on his back, but his heavy black beard was thoroughly unprepossessing.8 What could such a face ever have had in common with a prettily made-up woman's? She had grave doubts about what Genji had in mind for her, because palace service might turn out to be hideously demeaning,9 but apart from the intimacies involved, the mere prospect of serving him and being with him seemed to her very pleasant indeed.
His Majesty's palanquin halted once the procession reached łharano. The senior nobles ate under a tent and changed from court dress into hunting costume. From Rokujō, Genji provided wine and refreshments. He had meant to attend himself and had let it be known that he would come, but he had had to inform His Majesty that seclusion required him to be absent after all. His Majesty sent the Chamberlain Aide of the Left Gate Watch to him with a brace of pheasants on a branch. Whatever his message, it would be a bore to repeat here the particulars of any such occasion.10
“O do come today and favor again a haunt where pheasants once rose
that time on Mount Oshio, over the slopes deep in snow,”11
his poem went. A Chancellor must have joined a progress to Ōharano before.
Genji gave His Majesty's messenger a warm and respectful welcome. He replied,
“Never as today can the slopes of Oshio, where repeated snows
weigh upon the forest pines, have seen true magnificence.”12
I remember only bits and pieces of what I heard then, and all this may be wrong.
The next day Genji sent a note to the west wing: “Did you see His Majesty yesterday? Perhaps you feel more like it now.” It was on plain white paper, quite casually written and not at all suggestive.
She read it with pleasure. “What is he talking about?” she asked, smiling, astonished that he should understand her so well; and she answered,
“With that veil of mist and the hazy morning clouds sprinkling down snow,
how could I, do you suppose, have seen all the heavens' light?13
I hardly know what to think of any of this.”
Genji showed her note to his darling. “I urged her to consider it, as you know, but there is Her Majesty, and as long as she stays here, that might make things difficult; and once His Excellency finds out about her, there is then the Consort. That is what seems to worry her. A girl who has glimpsed His Majesty can hardly fail to be pleased with the idea of entering his intimate service, as long as she is not too shy.”
“You are awful! Even if His Majesty impressed her favorably, she could hardly put herself forward to choose palace service on her own!” She smiled.
“Oh, come now, I am sure you are the one he has impressed!”
To her in the west wing he replied as encouragingly as ever,
Warrior with bow and quiver
“When that brilliant light shines in unhindered glory throughout the heavens,
how could just a little snow have come so to cloud your gaze?
Do make up your mind and go!”
At any rate, he first had to look after her donning of the train, for which he conscientiously provided the most beautiful furnishings. With him any ceremony tended to be grandly perfect, even one that hardly concerned him, and this one, which might give him a chance to tell the Palace Minister the truth, promised to be imposing indeed.
He decided on the second month of the New Year. Even a woman highly regarded and old enough no longer to hide her name14 may still dispense for a while with openly honoring her ancestral deity, as long as she remains among her family, and so leave things vague for years; but (he reflected) if this one makes the choice I propose, the God of Kasuga will be displeased,15 and the truth will come out in the end anyway, leaving me a lasting and unfortunate reputation as a master of devious plots. No, the way people do things now, it would be easy enough for her to take a new name16 if she were merely common, but as it is… Besides, the bond between parent and child survives every attempt to sever it—I might as well come forward myself to let him know.
He therefore wrote to His Excellency to invite him to tie the cord,17 to which His Excellency pleaded in answer that he could not very well accept because Her Highness his mother had been continually ill ever since winter set in. This was hardly the moment for the Captain either, since he was spending day and night in attendance at Sanjō, too absorbed even to think of anything else. Genji wondered what to do. Life is fleeting, he said to himself; Her Highness's passing would mean a time of mourning that she18 could not possibly ignore either. No, I shall speak while Her Highness is still alive. He therefore set out for Her Highness's Sanjō residence, ostensibly to inquire after her health.
By now his slightest journey, however private in nature, assumed the grandeur of an imperial progress, and the increasing radiance of his presence moved Her Highness to wonder as she watched him that such a man should be seen in this world at all, until her mounting suffering seemed to drop away and she sat up to receive him. She talked to him very well, despite the evident weakness with which she leaned on her armrest.
Your condition has not been that serious, I know, but it has greatly upset our young gentleman, who seems so distressed for you that he has made me worry a great deal about how you are. Anything at all can astonish and overwhelm me, since I no longer even go to court save on special occasions, and I live quietly by myself, quite unlike someone who serves His Majesty. Past and present supply many examples of older men, painfully bent by age, who have served the realm nonetheless, but quite apart from my native dullness I seem to have acquired sloth as well.”
“It has been months now since I began to know the sufferings of age, and this year, when I feel as though I have only little longer to live, I have lamented that I might never see you or talk with you again, but today it seems to me that I have a while yet. At my age I need have no regrets. Those who live on after everyone who meant anything to them is gone make a distressing sight, in my opinion, and I have wished my own departure to be swift, if it were not for our Captain, whose extraordinary kindness has made me sufficiently anxious about him to remain alive.” Her prolonged weeping and her quavering voice had a degree of foolishness about them, but Genji well understood why she should feel as she did, and he sympathized with her.
Genji and Her Highness were discussing this and that from past or present when Genji remarked, “His Excellency the Palace Minister no doubt comes to see you daily. I should be pleased if his visit were to allow me to speak with him. There is something that I must tell him, but so far, you see, I have been prevented from doing so by the absence of a suitable occasion to meet him.”
“He does not come that often, whether the reason be the press of his official duties or his own lack of will. What sort of thing do you wish to say? The Captain certainly has cause to be put out with him, and as I often tell him myse
lf, ‘I do not know how all this began, but as far as your present, quite unkind treatment of him is concerned, there is no retracting a rumor once it has begun to spread, and the way people are talking about it now makes it all sound rather silly.’ He is not one to go back on anything he has ever said, though, and as far as I can tell, he does not understand what I am talking about.”
Genji smiled at her assumption that he was thinking of the Captain. “I heard that he might give it up as a mistake and grant his permission after all, so I actually broached the subject myself, but when I saw how severely he then reprimanded the young man, I regretted having ever taken it upon myself to intervene. As they say, anything can be purified one way or another, and I fail to understand why he will not wash this away, although our world does make it difficult for the stream to run clear again after so unfortunately prolonged a turbid spell. My impression is that the longer something takes, the more likely it is to go wrong. I am very sorry to have heard about all this.”
He continued in this vein for some time and then went on, “By the way, I confess to a mistake regarding a young lady who should properly be under his care, because strangely enough I came across her myself, and since she failed at the time to correct my error, I made no effort to discover more but decided instead to take her story at face value, since I have so few children of my own. I have not done a great deal for her since then, however, and now His Majesty has somehow heard about her and is expressing interest. He complains privately that he lacks a Mistress of Staff, and without one the office is poorly governed, the women assigned to it give inadequate service, and all sorts of things seem to go wrong. ‘At present,’ he says, ‘the two experienced Dames of Staff and other qualified women, too, are letting it be known that they are available, but none of them will do. The one appointed has always been of high birth and good reputation, and unencumbered by concern for her own house. If the choice is to go to competence and intelligence, there are some whose long service has gained them promotion even when they lacked other things, but if no one like that is to be found, one can go only on general repute.’ That is what His Majesty says, and I do not see how His Excellency could very well object. Palace service is always an honor, and it is therefore a worthy ambition for anyone, high or low. People feel that the official duties involved—directing the office concerned and taking responsibility for certain matters of government—are tedious and of no interest, but I see no reason why that need be so.19 I can only agree with him that what really matters after all is the lady's own disposition, and when in that connection he inquired about her age, I realized that she must be the daughter His Excellency was seeking. I wanted to discuss with you how to proceed. I cannot very well meet him, except when the occasion properly warrants it. I thought of a way to tell him sooner, and I wrote to him, but he seemed reluctant and pleaded your illness to decline. He was right, I decided, it was not the moment, and I thought I might speak to you now that your health is a little better than it might otherwise have been. Please let him know.”
“What? What can you possibly mean? When he has evenhandedly taken into his residence several young women who make this sort of claim, what can have possessed this one to approach somebody else? Could she have felt she had reason to believe she was yours?”
“It is a long story,” Genji replied. “I am sure His Excellency will wish to hear it, too. Any revelation of it could provoke tiresome gossip, since it might be construed as involving relations with someone tediously common, and for this reason I have not yet told even the Captain. Please do not let it go any further,” he added to seal her silence.
His Excellency at his residence learned of His Grace's arrival at Sanjō. “How poorly so forlorn an establishment must welcome so great a lord!” he exclaimed in surprise. “I doubt that anyone there really knows how to entertain his escort or prepare a room to receive him. I suppose the Captain must have accompanied him.” He sent over his sons and other suitable young gentlemen from among their friends. “Take them refreshments and wine as needed,” he added. “I ought to go myself, but that would only complicate things.”
Meanwhile, Her Highness's letter arrived: “His Grace is visiting from Rokujō, and with the house so deserted I am at once embarrassed for myself and concerned about him. Could you come, too, discreetly and without making it obvious that I asked you to do so? Besides, there seems to be something that he wants to tell you when you are together.”
What could it be? The Captain's complaint about this business of my daughter, I suppose. I could hardly argue if Her Highness were to insist, since she has so little time left, and His Grace were then to put in a well-turned, impassioned plea of his own. I dislike that young man's show of indifference, but if a suitable occasion turns up, I might as well allow myself to be persuaded and agree. He knew that he would have even less room to refuse if the two of them had actually planned a joint appeal, and since he was of an irredeemably contrary nature, this only made him waver again, asking himself why after all he should not. However, Her Highness had written, His Grace was probably expecting him, and he did not wish to offend either. He decided to go and see what they had to say.
In this spirit he dressed carefully and set out with no more than a modest escort. His arrival in the company of so many gentlemen was majestic and imposing. His weight became him, for he was tall, and his great dignity of gait and countenance made him a worthy Minister indeed. Over grape-colored gathered trousers he wore a cherry blossom train-robe, very long behind, and the easy poise of his bearing left a brilliant impression. Meanwhile, His Grace of Rokujō in a cherry blossom dress cloak of light Chinese twill20 over a plum-red gown, displayed a casually imperial grace more indescribable than ever. But although he shone more brightly, he did not otherwise match the magnificently attired lord beside him.
His gentlemen gathered around him one after another, in splendid array. The Fujiwara Grand Counselor and the Heir Apparent's Commissioner, both highly esteemed sons of His Late Excellency,21 were enjoying great success. Present, too, in the natural course of things were such promising and well-regarded privy gentlemen as the Head Chamberlains, Fifth Rank Chamberlains, Palace Guards Lieutenants and Captains, and Controllers as well: ten or more very fine gentlemen indeed, all perfectly turned out, and many lesser colleagues below them. The wine cups went round until all were merry, and the topic on everyone's lips was Her Highness's great merit and admirable ways.
For His Excellency this rare meeting recalled the past, and although his estrangement from Genji might only have heightened his impulse to vie with him on every point, however minor, talking face-to-face this way brought up so many memories moving to both that they renewed their friendship and spent the day catching up on countless things, old or new, that had struck them over the years.
His Excellency offered Genji more wine. “It would have been wrong of me not to wait on you at all,” he said, “but without an invitation from you I feared to impose. If I had simply ignored your presence here, you would have had one more reason to declare our friendship at an end.”
“That declaration is yours to make. I have done much to deserve it,” Genji hinted in reply.
This must be it, His Excellency thought apprehensively, assuming an attitude of deferential respect.
“You and I used to be at one on every matter, public or private,” Genji began, “and I consulted you on all things, great or small. I looked forward to our sustaining the realm as though we shared a wing while we flew. More recently, there have been things that failed to turn out as I had hoped, but all that is merely between the two of us. Speaking more broadly, my disposition remains quite unchanged. I miss those old days more and more as the years go by, considering how rarely we meet now, and while I recognize that you have the dignity of your rank to uphold, that does not prevent me from wishing rather bitterly at times that as long as we are friends, you might temper your grandeur somewhat and visit me after all.”
“We did indeed see a lot of each other t
hen,” His Excellency replied circumspectly, “so much so that I am afraid my manner toward you became all too familiar, for there was indeed no distance between us. It never occurred to me that we shared a wing, though, once we began serving His Majesty; rather, I never ceased to be grateful for your most welcome favor, even when I came at last, unworthy as I am, to serve the realm in the office I now hold. It is true, however, that we seem in many ways somehow to have drifted apart as we have grown older.”
Genji then touched on the matter at hand. “How moving and how extraordinary!” His Excellency immediately wept. “I believe that on one occasion, in an excess of grief, I mentioned something about how I had been trying ever since to find out what happened to her. Now that I can hold my head up a little in the world, I have disreputable children of mine roaming about everywhere, and one of them is a hopeless embarrassment, but at times I still think fondly of them all, and then my first thought is always of her.” His words brought back the way they had told their most intimate secrets on that rainy night, until both gave themselves up to tears and laughter.
They parted very late that night. “Seeing you like this calls up such memories of old times, and such nostalgic feelings, that I have no wish to leave you at all,” Genji said, and he who so seldom betrayed any weakness now began, perhaps from drunkenness, to weep. As to Her Highness, she remembered her daughter even more longingly, and the spectacle of Genji's now far greater glory stirred such bitter sadness that she could not stop her tears. The way she moistened her robe as saltily as any woman of the sea22 made her quite a sight.
The Tale of Genji: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Junichiro Breakdown of Genji) Page 64
