The women seldom took the trouble with him to stay out of sight, but a very young one, to all appearances nobly born, sat as far off as she felt she must to keep him from seeing her. “I hardly know what to think,” he muttered irritably, “when even your gentlewomen treat me this way!”
His young son, on his way to the palace, now came by in service dress and looking to his father's fond eye even better than he did with his hair carefully bound in twin tresses.11 He gave the boy a message to take to the Reikeiden.12 “Tell her that I leave everything to her, and that I shall not come this evening either—I do not feel well,” he said.
“Let us hear your flute a little.” He smiled. “You never know when His Majesty may ask you to join in a concert, and then you will be sorry. You still sound awfully childish.” He had him play in the sō mode, which he did very nicely. “Well, soon you will not be bad at all! Why, you must have been accompanying Her Highness! Please, both of you, play me the modal prelude!” His enthusiasm clearly embarrassed her, but she briefly complied, plucking the strings very prettily with her fingers.13 The Counselor whistled ostentatiously along with them.
A deliciously fragrant red plum grew near the eaves on the east side of the house. “These plum blossoms seem to have a message,” he remarked to his son. “I gather that His Highness of War is at the palace. Pick a branch and present it to him. He who knows will know.14
“Ah,” he went on, “when the Shining Genji, as they called him, was a Commander and I was a boy, I was just as close to him as this, and I loved him forever after. People nowadays think very highly of those two young gentlemen, who certainly deserve all the praise they get, but they are nothing compared to him. No, there could never be one like him, or so at least it seems to me, though perhaps I am only imagining things. And if someone perfectly ordinary like me cannot recall him without a pang of sorrow, I imagine that those who were really close to him and who survived him must find life very long indeed.”
This melancholy turn in his speech had brought tears to his eyes, and perhaps he really was overcome, for he had his son break off a spray and hurry away. “What else can I do,” he said, “when His Highness is the only remaining token of the lord to whom I look back so fondly? They say that Ananda carried on after the Buddha was gone and that in his wisdom he shone with such light that the Buddha seemed to have come again. Perhaps I may presume to address His Highness, when to someone lost in darkness he is the light:
When invitingly the plum tree in my garden perfumes every breeze,
O warbler, will you not come to sport among those blossoms?”
He wrote this in a youthful hand on scarlet paper discreetly wrapped in folding paper that his son happened to have in his robe, then sent the boy off. The boy hurried away, childishly eager to know His Highness better.
Folding paper
His Highness was just then leaving Her Majesty's private room near the Emperor's, accompanied by a crowd of privy gentlemen. “Why did you leave so early yesterday?” he said when he saw the boy. “And when did you get back?”
“I was sorry to have done it, and I hurried back when I heard that you were still here,” the boy replied in a youthful but nonetheless practiced manner.
“You must come and enjoy yourself somewhere more comfortable now and then, somewhere not at the palace.15 There are lots of young people there.” He took the boy aside, and the others dropped back. Once they were gone and it was quiet, His Highness went on, “I gather that you have leave from the Heir Apparent to be away for a while. I thought he would never let you go, but it appears that someone else16 may have taken your place.”
“It was so hard, Your Highness, the way he kept me all to himself. I wish I had been with you.” The boy said no more.
“She would have none of me, would she,”17 His Highness went on. “Not that I really blame her, but still, I am not pleased about it. Try quietly finding out whether that young lady there on the east side of the house might be kinder. After all, she and I are of the same old stock.”18
This was the moment to give His Highness the flowers. He smiled. “Now, if these followed reproaches…”19 he said, gazing at them without putting them down. The shape of the spray, the abundance of the blossoms, and their color and scent were all superb. “They say the red plum that sets off a garden is all color but lacks the scent of the white, but these flowers are magnificent in both ways!” He was very fond of plum blossoms, and he granted these gratifying praise.
“I believe that you are on duty tonight. Just stay with me, then.” He would not dismiss the boy, who thus failed to go to the Heir Apparent's at all. Instead he took supreme and childlike pleasure in lying beside His Highness, by His Highness's own wish, enveloped in a marvelous fragrance that all but put the blossoms' scent to shame.
“Why did the lady to whom these flowers belong not go to the Heir Apparent?”
“I do not know. I was told only that they were for someone who would appreciate them.” His Highness took it that the Grand Counselor must have his own daughter in mind, and he therefore gave no clear answer, his affections being already engaged elsewhere.
The next morning, when the boy was leaving, His Highness casually wrote,
“If I were a man easily enticed to come by fragrant flowers,
would I have allowed their call to pass by me on the breeze?”
“Now, then,” he said repeatedly, “after this you must keep that old man and his people from bothering me and follow my secret instructions,” at which the boy liked and respected the lady on the east even better. The two others let him see them more often, as though they were his full sisters, but she was the one who really impressed the child in him and who struck him as the most worthy. The sister at the Heir Apparent's was getting on extremely well, which he thought very nice, too, but he felt bad about Her Highness and wanted particularly to help her. The plum blossoms had given him a happy occasion to do so.
He showed the Grand Counselor the reply to yesterday's message. “How tiresome of him!” the Grand Counselor complained. “It is curious that he should act so prim and proper whenever His Excellency of the Right and I are watching, just because he gathers that we disapprove of his taking gallantry too far. Everything about him suggests the ladies' man, and this trumped-up seriousness only risks making him look a bore.” Grumbling, the Grand Counselor sent his son off to the palace that day again with yet another note:
“Once touched by your sleeves, always so deliciously fragrant on their own,
these flowers will scent the breeze with a most exquisite fame.
I hope that you will forgive me the liberty,” he added gravely.
He really seems to be trying to convince me, His Highness reflected, finding his interest piqued after all.
“Were I to set forth for a house that spreads abroad the scent of blossoms,
people here and there might note my weakness for tempting hues.”
The Grand Counselor was annoyed that his answer still conceded nothing.
His wife, now home again, was talking about what had been going on at court when she remarked, “Our son was there for a night on duty, and he smelled so good when he left that the Heir Apparent knew straight off he had been with His Highness of War, although most people thought nothing of it. ‘No wonder he no longer cares about me!’ he complained. It was quite amusing. Did you send His Highness a letter? It did not seem as though you had.”
“I did, though. His Highness likes plum blossoms, and I could not refrain from picking him a branch of the red plum over there by the eaves, since it is so beautiful now. The perfume he leaves behind him is really quite delicious. Not even a woman preparing for a great occasion could scent herself like that. The Minamoto Counselor makes no effort to perfume himself at all—oddly enough, he is that way naturally. It is quite extraordinary. I cannot help wondering what fortunate karma from past lives could have produced that reward. Plum blossoms are plum blossoms, but what counts is the root from which the plum
tree grows. That is why His Highness liked ours so much, I am sure.” Even on the subject of flowers, His Highness was all he could talk about.
It is not as though Her Highness failed to grasp what went on around her, since she was quite old enough to understand a thing or two, but she had decisively rejected any thought of giving herself to a man as others did. A gentleman makes heroic efforts on behalf of the daughters he has by his wife, no doubt because he knows where his advantage lies, and he sets them off in many stylish ways, but rumor suggested to His Highness that she, always so quiet and withdrawn, was the one he wanted and whom he meant by all means to have. He kept the Grand Counselor's son with him constantly and sent off secret notes, but the gentleman's wife was sorry to see her husband so set on him and, if he ever showed that he had made up his mind to seek the younger daughter, so eager to agree. “What a shame,” she remarked, “that His Highness is courting instead, however lightheartedly, a girl he can have no hope of winning. What a waste!”
His Highness took his failure to get a word in reply as a challenge, and he seemed to have no intention of giving up. What could be wrong with that, the Grand Counselor's wife reflected sometimes, considering who he is? Why not? He would be a pleasure to look after, and he certainly has a bright future. Still, he was hopelessly given to gallantry. He was secretly visiting many houses, and he seemed very keen on the Eighth Prince's daughters, considering how often he went there.20 His gallant, frivolous ways gave her pause, until in the end she renounced the idea. Still, he was a very great lord, and it was therefore she who now and again took it upon herself stealthily to send him a note.
44
TAKEKAWA
Bamboo River
“Takekawa” (“Bamboo River”) is a saibara folk song. It is first sung in this chapter by the Fujiwara Adviser (Tamakazura's youngest son) and apparently also by Kaoru, and the two then exchange poems alluding to it. Later it is sung again by the Chamberlain Lieutenant (Yūgiri's son), a disappointed suitor of Tamakazura's elder daughter.
RELATIONSHIP TO EARLIER CHAPTERS
Chronologically, “Bamboo River” overlaps “The Perfumed Prince,” “The Maiden of the Bridge,” and the first part of “Beneath the Oak,” but the story it tells has little to do with these chapters.
PERSONS
The Minamoto Adviser, then Consultant Captain, then Counselor, age 14 to 23 (Kaoru)
The Mistress of Staff, Higekuro's wife, 47 to 56 (Tamakazura)
The Left Palace Guards Captain, Tamakazura's son, 27 or 28 when Kaoru is 15 (Sakon no Chūjō)
The Right Controller, Tamakazura's son (Uchūben)
The Fujiwara Adviser, Tamakazura's youngest son (Tō Jijū)
The Haven, Tamakazura's elder daughter, 18 or 19 when Kaoru is 15
Tamakazura's younger daughter, becomes Mistress of Staff, 18 or 19 when Kaoru is 15
His Excellency, the Minister of the Right, then of the Left, 40 to 49 (Yūgiri)
His Majesty, the Emperor, 35 to 44
His Eminence, Retired Emperor Reizei, 43 to 52
The Chamberlain Lieutenant, then Third Rank Captain, then Consultant, son of Yūgiri, late teens to late 20s
His mother, wife of Yūgiri, 42 to 51 (Kumoi no Kari)
The Grand Counselor, then Minister of the Right, late 40s to early 50s (Kōbai)
His wife, daughter of Higekuro and his first wife (Makibashira)
Her full brother, the Fujiwara Counselor
The Consort of His Eminence Reizei, daughter of Tō no Chūjō, 44 to 53 (Kokiden no Nyōgo)
Saishō, a gentlewoman in Tamakazura's household
Taifu, a gentlewoman of Tamakazura's younger daughter
A page girl of Tamakazura's younger daughter
Nareki and Chūjō, gentlewomen of Tamakazura's elder daughter
This is gossip volunteered by certain sharp-tongued old women, once of the successor Chancellor's1 household, who lingered on after him. It is nothing like the stories about Lady Murasaki, but they held that some things told of Genji's descendants were wrong, and hinted that this might be because women older and more muddled than they had been spreading lies. One wonders which side to believe.
By the Mistress of Staff that late Chancellor had three sons and two daughters, whom he set out to endow with every advantage and whose future preoccupied him more with every passing month and year; but then, alas, he died, and the palace service he had anticipated so eagerly for his daughters melted away like a dream. While this great and powerful lord's private wealth and estates survived him undiminished, men's feelings shift with the times, and his profoundly changed residence fell silent and still. The Mistress of Staff had close relatives everywhere, but relations with the mighty are never easy, and it may be that His Late Excellency's arbitrary manner and lack of real warmth had aroused their dislike, for she was not in proper touch with any of them. His Grace of Rokujō had continued as before to treat her as a daughter, and he mentioned her immediately after Her Majesty in the testament he left to indicate his posthumous wishes. His Excellency of the Right therefore called on her in that spirit whenever the occasion encouraged him to do so.
Her sons suffered a good deal of worry and grief because of the loss of their father, since by then they were of age and adult, but they seem all in the natural course of things to have done well enough. There remained the question of what to do with her daughters. The late Chancellor had let His Majesty know how earnestly he hoped that the elder would serve him, and His Majesty, counting the years, often remarked that she must now be a woman; but by then the Empress enjoyed such supreme favor that all others seemed an afterthought in comparison, and the Mistress of Staff therefore hesitated, for she did not want any daughter of hers reduced to catching His Majesty's eye from afar, and it pained her to imagine her less esteemed than others.
Retired Emperor Reizei pressed an avid suit, speaking reproachfully of wishing at least to make up for the bitter disappointment she had inflicted on him long ago.2 “Now that I am old and useless, you may think even less of me than you did then,” he said gravely, “but please give her to me as you would to a good father.” She hardly knew what to do. What would be best? she wondered. I feel with my miserable destiny so ashamed and so wrong to have angered him, though I never meant to—perhaps he might then think better of me at last. However, she could not make up her mind.
Both daughters were said to be very pretty, and they had many suitors. The young gentleman called the Chamberlain Lieutenant, His Excellency of the Right's son by his wife at Sanjō3—a delightful young man and a particular favorite among all his brothers—was especially keen. The Mistress of Staff welcomed visits from all the brothers, since they were related on both sides.4 This one managed to convey his intentions very effectively by cultivating her gentlewomen as well, and she found the insistence with which he constantly did so both tedious and touching. His mother sent her frequent notes, and His Excellency, too, implored her to “find a way to look favorably on him, despite his tender age.” She was reluctant to accept so common a match for her elder daughter, but she felt that he might do for the younger once he carried just a little more weight in the world. He meanwhile had his heart so fiercely set on the elder that he was prepared to abduct her if her mother withheld her permission. To the Mistress of Staff such a marriage might not have been a complete disaster, but anything of the kind before the girl had consented would start a scandal, and she therefore warned the woman who spoke for him, as strenuously as she knew how, to look out and to avoid any blunder. The woman hardly knew which way to turn.
The Minamoto Adviser, whom His Cloistered Eminence Suzaku's daughter had given so late to His Grace of Rokujō and whom His Eminence Reizei now treated as his son, was then fourteen or fifteen. Far from being the child one expects at that age, he behaved so well and had such manners that his bright future was plain to see, and the Mistress of Staff wanted him for a son-in-law. She lived very near his mother's Sanjō residence, and he would turn up at her house wheneve
r her sons brought him home to join in their amusements. The presence of such noble young ladies there put every youth on his mettle, and among those who went about preening themselves, it was this clinging Chamberlain Lieutenant who excelled in looks, while in sweet grace and distinction of manner none matched the Minamoto Adviser. The world at large could hardly help favoring him, perhaps because of the difference it made that they thought him so like His Grace. The young gentlewomen were especially captivated. Their mistress agreed that he really was very nice, and she allowed him intimate conversations with her.
“When I look back on all His Grace's kindness, I feel that I shall always miss him,” she said. “Who else is left now to remind me of him? His Excellency of the Right is so grand that I can only meet him when circumstances allow it.” To her the young man was a brother, and he himself thought of her house as one where he was fully entitled to call. He showed no taste at all for commonplace gallantry, and his remarkable seriousness so disappointed the young women of both households5 that they teased him about it.
In the first days of the New Year the Mistress of Staff had a visit from her brother the Grand Counselor (the one who sang “Takasago,” you know),6 as well as the Fujiwara Counselor (the later Chancellor's eldest and Makibashira's full brother), and so on. His Excellency of the Right came, too, with his six sons. In looks and in every other aspect of his person he left nothing to be desired, and his reputation was correspondingly high. His sons, each handsome, too, in his way, enjoyed rank and office beyond their years and must have seemed quite free of care. Nevertheless, the Chamberlain Lieutenant, always so visibly the favorite, looked somber and downcast.
The Tale of Genji: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Junichiro Breakdown of Genji) Page 102
