"Not entirely preposterous, I think. Marriage is an uncertain arrange-
ment. Are you saying that these things never under any circumstances
happen to His Majesty's own ladies? I should think that the chances might
be more considerable with someone like the princess. On the surface
everything may seem to be going beautifully, but I should imagine that she
has her share of private dissatisfactions. She was her father's favorite and
now she is losing out to ladies of no very high standing. I know everything.
It is an uncertain world we live in and no one can legislate to have things
exactly as he wants them."
"You are not telling me, are you, that she is losing out to others and
so she must make fine new arrangements for herself? The arrangements
she has already made for herself are rather fine, I should think, and of a
rather special nature. Her royal father would seem to have thought that
with His Lordship to look after her as if she were his daughter she would
have no worries. I should imagine that they have both of them accepted
the relationship for what it is. Do you think it is quite your place to suggest
changes?"
He must not let her go away angry. "You may be sure that I am aware
of my own inadequacy and would not dream of exposing myself to the
critical eye of a lady who is used to the incomparable Genji. But it would
not be such a dreadful thing, I should think, to approach her curtains and
speak with her very briefly? It is not considered such a great sin, I believe,
for a person to speak the whole truth to the powers above."
He seemed prepared to swear by all the powers, and she was young
and somewhat heedless, and when a man spoke as if he were prepared to
throw his life away she could not resist forever.
"I will see what I can do if I find what seems the right moment. On
nights when His Lordship does not come the princess has swarms of
women in her room, and always several of her favorites right beside her,
and I cannot imagine what sort of moment it will be."
Frowning, she left him.
<P 613>
He was after her constantly. The moment finally came, it seemed, and
she got off a note to him. He set out in careful disguise, delighted but in
great trepidation. It did not occur to him that a visit might only add to his
torments. He wanted to see a little more of her whose sleeves he had
glimpsed that spring evening. If he were to tell her what was in his heart,
she might pity him, she might even answer him briefly.
It was about the middle of the Fourth Month, the eve of the lustration
for the Kamo festival. Twelve women from the Third Princess's household
were to be with the high priestess, and girls and young women of no very
high rank who were going to watch the procession were busy at their
needles and otherwise getting ready. No one had much time for the prin-
cess. Azechi, one of her most trusted intimates, had been summoned by
the Minamoto captain with whom she was keeping company and had gone
back to her room. Only Kojiju~ was with the princess. Sensing that the time
was right, she led him to a seat in an east corner of the princess's boudoir.
And was that not a little extreme?
The princess had gone serenely off to bed. She sensed that a man was
in her room and thought that it would be Genji. But he seemed rather too
polite--and then suddenly he put his arms around her and took her from
her bed. She was terrified. Had some evil power seized her? She forced
herself to look up and saw that it was a stranger. And here he was babbling
complete nonsense. She called for her women, but no one came. She was
trembling and bathed in perspiration. Though he could not help feeling
sorry for her, he thought this agitation rather charming.
"I know that I am nothing, but I would not have expected quite such
unfriendliness. I once had ambitions that were perhaps too grand for me.
I could have kept them buried in my heart, I suppose, eventually to die
there, but I spoke to someone of a small part of them and they came to
your father's attention. I took courage from the fact that he did not seem
to consider them entirely beneath his notice, and I told myself that the
regret would be worse than anything if a love unique for its depth and
intensity should come to nothing, and my low rank and only that must be
held responsible. It was a very deep love indeed, and the sense of regret,
the injury, the fear, the yearning, have only grown stronger as time has
gone by. I know that I am being reckless and I am very much ashamed of
myself that I cannot control my feelings and must reveal myself to you as
someone who does not know his proper place. But I vow to you that I shall
do nothing more. You will have no worse crimes to charge me with."
She finally guessed who he was, and was appalled. She was speech-
less.
"I know how you must feel; but it is not as if this sort of thing had
never happened before. Your coldness is what has no precedent. It could
drive me to extremes. Tell me that you pity me and that will be enough.
I will leave you."
He had expected a proud lady whom it would not be easy to talk to.
<P 614>
He would tell her a little of his unhappiness, he had thought, and say
nothing he might later regret. But he found her very different. She was
pretty and gentle and unresisting, and far more graceful and elegant, in a
winsome way, than most ladies he had known. His passion was suddenly
more than he could control. Was there no hiding place to which they might
run off together?
He presently dozed off (it cannot be said that he fell asleep) and
dreamed of the cat of which he had been so fond. It came up to him
mewing prettily. He seemed to be dreaming that he had brought it back
to the princess. As he awoke he was asking himself why he should have
done that. And what might the dream have meant?
The princess was still in a state of shock. She could not believe that
it had all happened.
"You must tell yourself that there were ties between us which we
could not escape. I am in as much of a daze as you can possibly be."
He told her of the surprising event that spring evening, of the cat and
the cord and the raised blind. So it had actually happened! Sinister forces
seemed to preside over her affairs. And how could she face Genji? She wept
<P 615>
like a little child and he looked on with respectful pity. Brushing away her
tears, he let them mingle with his own.
There were traces of dawn in the sky. He felt that he had nowhere
to go and that it might have been better had he not come at all. "What am
I to do? You seem to dislike me most extravagantly, and I find it hard to
think of anything more to say. And I have not even heard your voice."
He was only making things worse. Her thoughts in a turmoil, she was
quite unable to speak.
"This muteness is almost frightening. Could anything be more awful?
I can see no reason for going on. Let me die. Life has seemed to have some
have lived, and even now it is not easy to think that I am
at the end of it. Grant me some small favor, some gesture, anything at all,
and I will not mind dying."
He took her in his arms and carried her out. She was terrified. What
could he possibly mean to do with her? He spread a screen in a corner room
and opened the door beyond. The south door of the gallery, through which
he had come the evening before, was still open. It was very dark. Wanting
to see her face, even dimly, he pushed open a shutter.
"This cruelty is driving me mad. If you wish to still the madness, then
say that you pity me.
She did want to say something. She wanted to say that his conduct
was outrageous. But she was trembling like a frightened child. It was
growing lighter.
" I would like to tell you of a rather startling dream I had, but I suppose
you would not listen. You seem to dislike me very much indeed. But I
think it might perhaps mean something to you."
The dawn sky seemed sadder than the saddest autumn sky.
"I arise and go forth in the dark before the dawn.
I know not where, nor whence came the dew on my sleeve."
He showed her a moist sleeve.
He finally seemed to be leaving. So great was her relief that she
managed an answer:
"Would I might fade away in the sky of dawn,
And all of it might vanish as a dream."
She spoke in a tiny, wavering voice and she was like a beautiful child.
He hurried out as if he had only half heard, and felt as if he were leaving
his soul behind.
He went quietly off to his father's house, preferring it to his own and
the company of the Second Princess. He lay down but was unable to sleep.
He did not know what if anything the dream had meant. He suddenly
longed for the cat--and he was frightened. It was a terrible thing he had
done. How could he face the world? He remained in seclusion and his
secret wanderings seemed to be at an end. It was a terrible thing for the
Third Princess, of course, and for himself as well. Supposing he had se-
<P 616>
duced the emperor's own lady and the deed had come to light--could the
punishment be worse? Even if he were to avoid specific punishment he did
not know how he could face a reproachful Genji.
There are wellborn ladies of strongly amorous tendencies whose dig-
nity and formal bearing are a surface that falls away when the right man
comes with the right overtures. With the Third Princess it was a matter of
uncertainty and a want of firm principles. She was a timid girl and she felt
as vulnerable as if one of her women had already broadcast her secret to
the world. She could not face the sun. She wanted to brood in darkness.
She said that she was unwell. The report was passed on to Genji, who
came hurrying over. He had thought that he already had worries enough.
There was nothing emphatically wrong with her, it would seem, but she
refused to look at him. Fearing that she was out of sorts because of his long
absence, he told her about Murasaki's illness.
"It may be the end. At this time of all times I would not want her to
think me unfeeling. She has been with me since she was a child and I
cannot abandon her now. I am afraid I have not had time these last months
for anyone else. It will not go on forever, and I know that you will
presently understand."
She was ashamed and sorry. When she was alone she wept a great
deal.
For Kashiwagi matters were worse. The conviction grew that it would
have been better not to see her. Night and day he could only lament his
impossible love. A group of young friends, in a hurry to be off to the Kamo
festival, urged him to go with them, but he pleaded illness and spent the
day by himself. Though correct in his behavior toward the Second Prin-
cess, he was not really fond of her. He passed the tedious hours in his own
rooms. A little girl came in with a sprig of _aoi_, the heartvine of the Kamo
festival.
"In secret, without leave, she brings this heartvine.
A most lamentable thing, a blasphemous thing."
He could think only of the Third Princess. He heard the festive roar
in the distance as if it were no part of his life and passed a troubled day
in a tedium of his own making.
The Second Princess was used to these low spirits. She did not know
what might be responsible for them, but she felt unhappy and inadequate.
She had almost no one with her, most of the women having gone off to
the festival. In her gloom she played a sad, gentle strain on a koto. Yes,
she was very beautiful, very delicate and refined; but had the choice been
his he would have taken her sister. He had not, of course, been fated to
make the choice.
"Laurel branches twain, so near and like.
Why was it that I took the fallen leaf?"
<P 617>
It was a poem he jotted down to while away the time--and not very
complimentary to the Second Princess.
Though Genji was in a fever of impatience to be back at Nijo~, he so
seldom visited Rokujo~ that it would be bad manners to leave immediately.
A messenger came. "Our lady has expired."
He rushed off. The road was dark before his eyes, and ever darker. At
Nijo~ the crowds overflowed into the streets. There was weeping within.
The worst did indeed seem to have happened. He pushed his way desper-
ately through.
"She had seemed better these last few days," said one of the women,
"and now this."
The confusion was enormous. The women were wailing and asking
her to take them with her. The altars had been dismantled and the priests
were leaving, only the ones nearest the family remaining behind. For Genji
it was like the end of the world.
He set about quieting the women. "Some evil power has made it seem
that she is dead. Nothing more. Certainly this commotion does not seem
called for."
He made vows more solemn and detailed than before and summoned
ascetics known to have worked wonders.
"Even if her time has come and she must leave us," they said, "let her
stay just a little longer. There was the vow of the blessed Acala. Let her
stay even that much longer."
So intense and fevered were their efforts that clouds of black smoke
seemed to coil over their heads.
Genji longed to look into her eyes once more. It had been too sudden,
he had not even been allowed to say goodbye. There seemed a possibility
--one can only imagine the dread which it inspired--that he too was on
the verge of death.
Perhaps the powers above took note. The malign spirit suddenly
yielded after so many tenacious weeks and passed from Murasaki to the
little girl who was serving as medium, and who now commenced to thresh
and writhe and moan. To Genji's joy and tenor Murasaki was breathing
once more.
