he took his leave. He presented such a fine figure in the morning light that
the women of the place understood well enough why he should be so
universally admired. On his way he again passed those shutters, as he had
no doubt done many times before. Because of that small incident he now
looked at the house carefully, wondering who might be within.
<N 5>
"My mother is not doing at all well, and I have been with her," said
Koremitsu some days later. And, coming nearer: "Because you seemed so
interested, I called someone who knows about the house next door and had
him questioned. His story was not completely clear. He said that in the
Fifth Month or so someone came very quietly to live in the house, but that
not even the domestics had been told who she might be. I have looked
through the fence from time to time myself and had glimpses through
blinds of several young women. Something about their dress suggests that
they are in the service of someone of higher rank. Yesterday, when the
evening light was coming directly through, I saw the lady herself writing
a letter. She is very beautiful. She seemed lost in thought, and the women
around her were weeping."
Genji had suspected something of the sort. He must find out more.
Koremitsu's view was that while Genji was undeniably someone the
whole world took seriously, his youth and the fact that women found him
attractive meant that to refrain from these little affairs would be less than
human. It was not realistic to hold that certain people were beyond temp-
tation.
"Looking for a chance to do a bit of exploring, I found a small pretext
for writing to her. She answered immediately, in a good, practiced hand.
Some of her women do not seem at all beneath contempt."
"Explore very thoroughly, if you will. I will not be satisfied until you
do."
The house was what the guardsman would have described as the
lowest of the low, but Genji was interested. What hidden charms might
he not come upon!
<N 6>
He had thought the coldness of the governor's wife, the lady of "the
locust shell," quite unique. Yet if she had proved amenable to his persua-
sions the affair would no doubt have been dropped as a sad mistake after
that one encounter. As matters were, the resentment and the distinct
possibility of final defeat never left his mind. The discussion that rainy
night would seem to have made him curious about the several ranks. There
had been a time when such a lady would not have been worth his notice.
Yes, it had been broadening, that discussion! He had not found the willing
and available one, the governor of Iyo's daughter, entirely uninteresting,
but the thought that the stepmother must have been listening coolly to the
interview was excruciating. He must await some sign of her real intentions.
The governor of iyo returned to the city. He came immediately to
Genji's mansion. Somewhat sunburned, his travel robes rumpled from the
sea voyage, he was a rather heavy and displeasing sort of person. He was
of good lineage, however, and, though aging, he still had good manners.
As they spoke of his province, Genji wanted to ask the full count of those
hot springs, but he was somewhat confused to find memories chasing one
another through his head. How foolish that he should be so uncomfortable
before the honest old man! He remembered the guardsman's warning that
such affairs are unwise, and he felt sorry for the governor. Though he
resented the wife's coldness, he could see that from the husband's point
of view it was admirable. He was upset to learn that the governor meant
to find a suitable husband for his daughter and take his wife to the prov-
inces. He consulted the lady's young brother upon the possibility of
another meeting. It would have been difficult even with the lady's coopera-
tion, however, and she was of the view that to receive a gentleman so far
above her would be extremely unwise.
Yet she did not want him to forget her entirely. Her answers to his
notes on this and that occasion were pleasant enough, and contained casual
little touches that made him pause in admiration. He resented her chilli-
ness, but she interested him. As for the stepdaughter, he was certain that
she would receive him hospitably enough however formidable a husband
she might acquire. Reports upon her arrangements disturbed him not at all.
<N 7>
Autumn came. He was kept busy and unhappy by affairs of his own
making, and he visited Sanjo~ infrequently. There was resentment.
As for the affair at Rokujo~, he had overcome the lady's resistance and
had his way, and, alas, he had cooled toward her. People thought it worthy
of comment that his passions should seem so much more governable than
before he had made her his. She was subject to fits of despondency, more
intense on sleepless nights when she awaited him in vain. She feared that
if rumors were to spread the gossips would make much of the difference
in their ages.
On a morning of heavy mists, insistently roused by the lady, who was
determined that he be on his way, Genji emerged yawning and sighing and
looking very sleepy. Chu~jo~, one of her women, raised a shutter and pulled
a curtain aside as if urging her lady to come forward and see him off. The
lady lifted her head from her pillow. He was an incomparably handsome
figure as he paused to admire the profusion of flowers below the veranda.
Chu~jo~ followed him down a gallery. In an aster robe that matched the
season pleasantly and a gossamer train worn with clean elegance, she was
a pretty, graceful woman. Glancing back, he asked her to sit with him for
a time at the corner railing. The ceremonious precision of the seated figure
and the hair flowing over her robes were very fine.
He took her hand.
"Though loath to be taxed with seeking fresher blooms,
I feel impelled to pluck this morning glory.
"Why should it be?"
She answered with practiced alacrity, making it seem that she was
speaking not for herself but for her lady:
'In haste to plunge into the morning mists,
to have no heart for the blossoms here."
A pretty little page boy, especially decked out for the occasion, it
would seem, walked out among the flowers. His trousers wet with dew,
he broke off a morning glory for Genji. He made a picture that called out
to be painted.
Even persons to whom Genji was nothing were drawn to him. No
doubt even rough mountain men wanted to pause for a time in the shade
of the flowering tree, and those who had basked even briefly in his
radiance had thoughts, each in accordance with his rank, of a daughter
who might be taken into his service, a not ill-formed sister who might
perform some humble service for him. One need not be surprised, then,
that people with a measure of sensibility among those who had on some
occasion received a little poem from him or been treated to some little
kindness found him much on their minds. No doubt it distressed them not
to be always with him.
<N 8>
I had forgotten: Koremitsu gave a good account of the fence peeping
to which he had been assigned. "I am unable to identify her. She seems
determined to hide herself from the world. In their boredom her women
and girls go out to the long gallery at the street, the one with the shutters,
and watch for carriages. Sometimes the lady who seems to be their mistress
comes quietly out to join them. I've not had a good loo at her, but she
seems very pretty indeed. One day a carriage with outrunners went by.
The little girls shouted to a person named Ukon that she must come in a
hurry. The captain was going by, they said. An older woman came out
and motioned to them to be quiet. How did they know? she asked, coming
out toward the gallery. The passage from the main house is by a sort of
makeshift bridge. She was hurrying and her skirt caught on something, and
she stumbled and almost fell off.'The sort of thing the god of Katsuragi
might do,' she said, and seems to have lost interest in sightseeing. They
told her that the man in the carriage was wearing casual court dress and
that he had a retinue. They mentioned several names, and all of them were
undeniably Lord To~ no Chu~jo~'s guards and pages."
"I wish you had made positive identification." Might she be the lady
of whom To~ no Chu~jo~ had spoken so regretfully that rainy night?
Koremitsu went on, smiling at this open curiosity. "I have as a matter
of fact made the proper overtures and learned all about the place. I come
and go as if I did not know that they are not all equals. They think they
are hiding the truth and try to insist that there is no one there but them-
selves when one of the little girls makes a slip."
"Let me have a peep for myself when I call on your mother."
Even if she was only in temporary lodgings, the woman would seem
to be of the lower class for which his friend had indicated such contempt
that rainy evening. Yet something might come of it all. Determined not to
go against his master's wishes in the smallest detail and himself driven by
very considerable excitement, Koremitsu searched diligently for a chance
to let Genji into the house. But the details are tiresome, and I shall not go
into them.
<N 9>
Genji did not know who the lady was and he did not want her to
know who he was. In very shabby disguise, he set out to visit her on foot.
He must be taking her very seriously, thought Koremitsu, who offered his
horse and himself went on foot.
"Though I do not think that our gentleman will look very good with
tramps for servants."
To make quite certain that the expedition remained secret, Genji took
with him only the man who had been his intermediary in the matter of
the "evening faces" and a page whom no one was likely to recognize. Lest
he be found out even so, he did not stop to see his nurse.
The lady had his messengers followed to see how he made his way
home and tried by every means to learn where he lived; but her efforts
came to nothing. For all his secretiveness, Genji had grown fond of her and
felt that he must go on seeing her. They were of such different ranks, he
tried to tell himself, and it was altogether too frivolous. Yet his visits were
frequent. In affairs of this sort, which can muddle the senses of the most
serious and honest of men, he had always kept himself under tight control
and avoided any occasion for censure. Now, to a most astonishing degree,
he would be asking himself as he returned in the morning from a visit how
he could wait through the day for the next. And then he would rebuke
himself. It was madness, it was not an affair he should let disturb him. She
was of an extraordinarily gentle and quiet nature. Though there was a
certain vagueness about her, and indeed an almost childlike quality, it was
clear that she knew something about men. She did not appear to be of very
good family. What was there about her, he asked himself over and over
again, that so drew him to her?
He took great pains to hide his rank and always wore travel dress, and
he did not allow her to see his face. He came late at night when everyone
was asleep. She was frightened, as if he were an apparition from an old
story. She did not need to see his face to know that he was a fine gentle-
man. But who might he be? Her suspicions turned to Koremitsu. It was that
young gallant, surely, who had brought the strange visitor. But Koremitsu
pursued his own little affairs unremittingly, careful to feign indifference
to and ignorance of this other affair. What could it all mean? The lady was
lost in unfamiliar speculations.
Genji had his own worries. If, having lowered his guard with an
appearance of complete unreserve, she were to slip away and hide, where
would he seek her? This seemed to be but a temporary residence, and he
could not be sure when she would choose to change it, and for what other.
He hoped that he might reconcile himself to what must be and forget the
affair as just another dalliance; but he was not confident.
On days when, to avoid attracting notice, he refrained from visiting
her, his fretfulness came near anguish. Suppose he were to move her in
secret to Nijo~. If troublesome rumors were to arise, well, he could say that
they had been fated from the start. He wondered what bond in a former
life might have produced an infatuation such as he had not known before.
"Let's have a good talk," he said to her, "where we can be quite at our
ease.
"It's all so strange. What you say is reasonable enough, but what you
do is so strange. And rather frightening."
Yes, she might well be frightened. Something childlike in her fright
brought a smile to his lips. "Which of us is the mischievous fox spirit? I
wonder. Just be quiet and give yourself up to its persuasions."
Won over by his gentle warmth, she was indeed inclined to let him
have his way. She seemed such a pliant little creature, likely to submit
absolutely to the most outrageous demands. He thought again of To~ no
Chu~jo~'s "wild carnation," of the equable nature his friend had described
that rainy night. Fearing that it would be useless, he did not try very hard
to question her. She did not seem likely to indulge in dramatics and
suddenly run off and hide herself, and so the fault must have been To~ no
Chu~jo~'s. Genji himself would not be guilty of such negligence--though it
did occur to him that a bit of infidelity might make her more interesting.
The bright full moon of the Eighth Month came flooding in through
chinks in the roof. It was not the sort of dwelling he was used to, and he
was fascinated. Toward dawn he was awakened by plebeian voices in the
shabby houses down the street.
"Freezing, that's what it is, freezing. There's not much business this
