He had never taught the kin either to the Consort or to the mistress of his east wing, and the Consort, who longed to hear the rare pieces she gathered he had been playing lately, therefore managed to beg rare leave to withdraw to her home. She had two children already,46 and since she was into her fifth month with the third, she cited the rites for the gods as the reason for her to go.47 Once the eleventh month was over, she received frequent letters from His Majesty asking her to return, but she envied the delightful music that went on every evening and wondered resentfully why Genji had never taught all this to her.
Genji, unlike other people, greatly admired the winter moon, and by snow-light on lovely nights he would therefore play music in tune with the season and give each gentlewoman present, if she felt at all inclined, her own moment on an instrument. The end of the year was approaching, and the mistress of his east wing was kept very busy looking in here and there to see that all was well. She often spoke of hoping that on some fine spring evening she, too, might be able to hear Her Highness play. Meanwhile the New Year came.
The events for His Cloistered Eminence's fiftieth jubilee were to begin magnificently with His Majesty's own, and Genji slightly delayed the one he was planning so as to avoid a clash between them. He had decided on a day or two past the tenth of the second month. All the musicians and dancers had assembled, and there were endless rehearsals.
“I should like to arrange a women's concert, in order to bring your kin, which the lady here in my wing is always so eager to hear, together with the sō no koto and biwa of the others,” he said to Her Highness. “None of our master musicians these days can compare with the women here at Rokujō. I really learned very little properly, but when I was young, I was sufficiently anxious to miss nothing that I got what there was to be had from all the best masters and the greatest lords, and none of them struck me as too intimidatingly profound. Anyway, things have changed since then, and young people's affectations these days tend to make their music shallow. The kin especially—why, no one seems to study it anymore. There can hardly be anyone who has learned to play it even as well as you!”
He must think I am quite good by now! she reflected with a smile of innocent pleasure. At twenty-one or -two she still looked extremely immature; a frail sweetness was really all she had. “It has been many years now since His Cloistered Eminence last had a look at you,” Genji would often remind her. “Please make sure when you are in his presence that he sees what a fine young lady you have grown up to be!” In truth, none of her women doubted that without his help her childishness would be even more difficult to conceal.
By the twentieth of the first month balmy breezes blew under lovely skies, and the plum tree before Genji's residence was in glorious bloom. Buds on the other flowering trees swelled with promise, and spring mists swathed them all. “All these preparations mean that there will be a lot to do once next month begins,” Genji said to the mistress of his east wing, “and people will assume that any music you make with Her Highness is a rehearsal. We might as well try it now, while things are still quiet.” He sent her over to the main house.48 Her women all longed to go, too, but Genji had the unmusical ones stay behind, and even from among the more senior ones he picked to go with her only those with some particular quality.
He summoned four particularly pretty page girls, stylish and graceful in cherry blossom jackets over pale gray-violet and red figured outer trousers in scarlet beaten silk. The Consort's residence had lately been redone very gaily indeed, and the women vied to dress brilliantly. Her page girls similarly had on sappan jackets over leaf green, golden yellow Chinese silk twill gowns, and outer trousers of Chinese damask. Those belonging to the lady from Akashi were more discreet, all four wearing light or dark purple jackets beaten to the most exquisite gloss over ash green, with, for two, red plum, and for the two others, cherry blossom. Her Highness had her page girls dressed with special care when she learned that these ladies would be gathering in her company. Their grape-colored jackets over willow and earth green were neither novel nor strikingly appropriate, but they managed on the whole to look quite dignified and imposing.
Cushion
The sliding-panel partition was removed from the aisle room, so that the room was divided only by standing curtains, and Genji's seat was prepared in the space in the middle.49 He appointed pages and sat them on the veranda to provide the rhythmic ground for the occasion: the third son of the Minister of the Right—the Mistress of Staff's eldest—on the shō and the Left Commander's50 eldest on the flute. Cushions were placed inside the blinds and an instrument laid before each lady.51 Genji brought out the ones he valued most in elegant, indigo-dyed bags: a biwa for Akashi, a wagon for Lady Murasaki, and a sō no koto for the Consort. He was concerned that Her Highness might never have played on grand instruments like these, and for her he therefore tuned the kin on which she usually practiced.
“The strings of a sō no koto do not exactly go slack,” he said, “but the bridges sometimes slip when you tune one to play in concert like this. That needs to be taken into account. I doubt that a woman could actually stretch the strings tightly enough, though. I must have the Commander do it. These two with their flute and shō are so young, and I am not sure they will really manage to support the rhythm.” He smiled. “Have the Commander come here, please.”
The embarrassed ladies prepared themselves for his arrival. All except Akashi were Genji's favorite students, and he hoped, as they did, that the Commander would hear nothing unworthy. The Consort felt quite at ease because she was accustomed to playing for His Majesty, but the wagon, while limited in range, also lacks set performance patterns, and that makes it if anything trickier for a woman to play. Stringed instruments are played together in spring, and Genji was a little worried about false notes.52
The Commander came exquisitely groomed in a colorful dress cloak and scented gowns, his sleeves suffused with the fragrance of incense. He was all keyed up and much more nervous than for a formal rehearsal before His Majesty. The sun had just set. Beneath a haunting twilight sky a rich profusion of blossoms weighed down the branches, evoking the snows of the old year. Ineffable perfumes wafted toward him on a gentle breeze from within the blinds and filled the air all around this exquisite dwelling with such odors as to entice any warbler.53
The end of the sō no koto protruded a little from under the blinds.54 “Forgive me for asking, but I wonder whether you would mind stretching the strings properly and tuning them,” Genji said. “I cannot ask just anyone, you know.” The Commander respectfully assented and took the instrument. After tuning the tonic string to the dominant note of the ichikotsu mode,55 he sat a moment without testing it.
“Do at least play a modal prelude, and put yourself into it a little.”
“But I am not nearly good enough to join such company!” the Commander modestly protested.
“Perhaps not, but it would be too bad if everyone knew you had fled from a women's concert without getting in a single note of your own!” Genji laughed.
The Commander finished tuning, went through the prelude very nicely, and returned the instrument. Meanwhile, the pages, looking ever so sweet in their dress cloaks, played away in a manner still boyish but filled with future promise.
Once the instruments were tuned and the ladies were playing in concert, the biwa rang out with a marvelous skill, superb in touch and limpid in tone, that lifted its music above the rest. The Commander listened especially to the wagon. Her sweetly enchanting touch on the strings56 had a wonderful freshness; in fact, she matched in the brilliance of her music the most loudly celebrated masters of the time, and he was amazed that it should be possible to play the wagon that way. Her profoundly sensitive tact was clear, to Genji's delight, and he felt relieved and very grateful. The sō no koto, often heard so tentatively through the other instruments, had the most charming grace. There was still something immature about the kin, but all that practice had given her confidence, and her music blended very nic
ely with that of the others. The Commander thought how lovely they all sounded together, and he sang the notes, marking the beat.57 Now and again Genji did so, too, in a voice more beautiful than ever and endowed with a new, slightly throaty richness. The Commander's voice was exceptional as well, and in the growing hush of the night the concert became lovely beyond words.
The moon was rising very late then, and Genji had had suitably bright lanterns hung here and there. He peered past the curtain at Her Highness and saw an unusually small, pretty figure who seemed to be all clothes. She still lacked any womanly appeal, but she offered instead the charming grace of new willow fronds halfway through the second month, frail enough to tangle in the breeze from a warbler's wing. Her hair spilled left and right over her cherry blossom long dress, and it, too, recalled willow fronds. This is how an exalted lady looks, one would have said, yet the equally elegant Consort had a somewhat fuller appeal and such exquisite distinction of figure and manner that she resembled a rich cluster of wisteria blossoms in an early-summer dawn, when wisteria has no rival.58 She was rather big by now,59 though, and she pushed her instrument away and leaned on her armrest because she did not feel quite well. Slight as she was, in this languid pose the armrest looked too large for her, although it was the usual size, and one wanted in sympathy to give her a smaller one. She wore a red plum blossom layering, and the slender, graceful sweep of her hair in the lamplight lent her an unearthly charm. Meanwhile, over a dark dress gown—perhaps grape—Lady Murasaki wore a light sappan long dress smothered in the rich profusion of her hair. She made a figure so beautiful and so perfect in size that she seemed to perfume all the air around her and, to express it in terms of flowers, to put even cherry blossoms to shame.
Akashi could easily have suffered in such company, but not at all, for she had a daunting nobility of manner, and through her undefinable grace and distinction one divined profound depth of heart. She wore her willow long dress over what may have been a grass green dress gown with a slight, intentionally modest60 silk gauze train, but nothing about her figure or demeanor encouraged one to look down on her. Seated partly off a cushion bordered in ash green Koma brocade,61 with her biwa before her, she had only to touch her plectrum gracefully to the strings to call forth a warm and tender sound evoking an orange branch plucked in the fifth month and fragrant with both flowers and fruit.62
The music that the Commander heard from all these exquisitely elegant ladies made him very eager to see deeper into the shadows within. He particularly longed for a view of the lady from the east wing, whom he imagined even richer in beauty than when he had actually seen her. As for Her Highness, he thought, if destiny had favored me just a little, I could easily have had her for myself instead. I only wish I had had the courage! His Eminence dropped repeated hints and talked about it privately, too, but no… He was very put out, but while a hardly forbidding glimpse had given him no reason to think less well of her, it had not particularly stirred him either. It was that other one who had always been far away, beyond his reach; and he sighed with yearning to make her at least understand the strength of his perfectly respectable feeling for her. He controlled himself very well, though, and he did nothing rash or ill considered.
The air turned chilly as the night wore on. The moon one awaits reclining63 rose, thin and pale. “How dim it is, a spring night with a misty moon!” Genji remarked. “To my mind, autumn with its touching beauty weaves the instruments together with cricket songs to make the music truly sublime.”
“Bright moonlight on an autumn night leaves nothing unrevealed,” the Commander replied, “and one feels that flutes and strings sound equally brilliant, but a sky that seems conceived for just that effect and dew gleaming in every color on the flowers distract the eye, seduce the heart, and so limit the pleasures of music after all. How could that surpass a quiet concert under a veiled moon just peeping through the vague mists of a spring sky? A flute's enchantment cannot really fill the heavens, you know. The ancients observed that a woman is more touched by spring,64 and I imagine that that is true. It is on a spring evening that all things fuse most sweetly and harmoniously together.”
“Oh, no, there goes that debate again! No one has ever been able to decide it, and I cannot imagine that we poor denizens of this latter age can contribute anything more to it either! As far as modes and musical pieces go, it is true, richi always comes second, so I suppose you have a point.”65 He went on, “I wonder, though. These days His Majesty often has this or that gentleman famed for his skill perform for him, but few of them are that good—perhaps the great masters they look up to did not really know that much either. I doubt that their playing would particularly distinguish them even if they were to join these women, who are hardly expert. It is a shame; I must have lost my ear a little from living so long in retirement! How extraordinary that everyone here should make such a success of every amusement! I wonder how they really compare with all those people chosen as expert musicians to play at the palace!”
“I had been meaning to come to that,” the Commander answered, “but I thought that it might be presumptuous of me to speak my mind when I know so little. I really have no opinion of the masters of the past, which may be why the wagon of the Intendant of the Gate Watch and the biwa of His Highness of War66 have always struck me as wonders of our time. They are incomparable, certainly, but the music I have heard tonight is just as remarkable. Perhaps it is just that I was nervous because I assumed that this would be a casual concert and so was hardly prepared for it, but I found it a challenge to sing the notes. Talk about the wagon, His Excellency is a marvel because only he can modulate the notes as he pleases, in tune with the moment, but although the instrument seldom really stands out, this evening it was very impressive indeed.”
“Oh, come, it was not that good. I am sure you are only being polite.” Genji smiled complacently. “They are not bad students, though, I agree. I cannot comment very well on the biwa, of course, but even there I am sure that I made a difference. Her playing surprised me a good deal when I first heard it in that unlikely spot, but she has improved enormously since then.” The way he would take the credit had the gentlewomen exchanging secret glances and tugging at each other's sleeves.
“Once you begin studying an art, no matter which one, there turns out to be no limit to what there is to learn, and you hardly ever master it well enough really to please yourself. Never mind, though—after all, so few people these days ever go very deep or far that anyone who has actually got anywhere at all may indeed feel proud to have done that well, and the kin is especially tricky. Those in the past who could really play it as it should be played subdued Heaven and Earth and soothed gods and demons,67 and their music drew that of everyone else with it until those who were lost in sorrow rejoiced, and the poor and lowly were lifted up, laden with treasures, and honored by all the world. It often happened. Until it began to be taught in our country, those who pursued it spent many years in foreign lands without a thought for themselves, and even then, despite all their trouble, they still found it difficult to master.68 Yes, it clearly does move the moon and stars in the sky, bring down frost and snow out of season, and stir a tumult of clouds and lightning, as many examples from early times attest. Anyone who learns it well is a treasure; but I suppose that it must be this latter age, because where is there any trace of those old days now? Perhaps the way it caught the ear of gods and demons and made them long to hear it is just the reason why, once people began learning it only halfway and getting almost nowhere, it gained the reputation of doing those who play it no good and of being generally a bore. I gather that hardly anyone studies it any longer. That is too bad. What other instrument helps one so well to learn and to tune the scales? Yes, in this world of ours, where everything seems to be going from bad to worse, one is no doubt merely eccentric to leave one's family and sally forth alone to roam Koma and Cathay.69 Why not at least acquire a general acquaintance with the instrument? There is no end to the challenge of even a
single mode. In the days when I was so keen to learn all the modes and all the most difficult pieces, I looked over every score that has reached this country, until there was no one left from whom I could learn, but even so, I am sure that I do not play as well as people used to, and it is a particularly great shame that there is no one to carry on after me.” The Commander felt thoroughly inadequate and remiss.
“If any of His Majesty's Princes grows up as I hope, I look forward to giving him whatever poor knowledge I have, once he is old enough and provided I myself manage to live that long. The Second Prince is already showing promise.” At this Akashi wept with pride.
The Consort gave her sō no koto to the mistress of the east wing and lay down, and that lady put her wagon before Genji. The music then became less formal, and their performance of “Kazuraki” was delightfully spirited. Genji's voice conveyed an inexpressibly happy charm as he sang the words over again. By and by the moon rose, and one could enjoy the sight as well as the fragrance of the blossoms. It was all quite lovely.
The Consort's touch on the sō no koto had been entrancingly sweet, with a deep quaver and a marvelous clarity of tone that reminded one of her mother, but her successor's playing left a different impression, for its calm elegance had entrancing charm, and her every ornament gave her music a touch of sheer mastery. The richi prelude that followed the mode change70 sounded engagingly fresh, and there was nothing at all approximate about the voice of Her Highness's kin, which rang out very clearly.71 The mode was now one suited to spring, autumn, or any other season, and the way she took care to adapt it, just as he had taught her to do, showed how well she had understood him. It was very pretty, and he was proud of her.
The Tale of Genji: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Junichiro Breakdown of Genji) Page 82
