through her sitting room, where he had had his nap the day before.
He saw a corner of pale-green tissue paper at the edge of a slightly
disarranged quilt. Casually he took it up. It was a note in a man's hand.
Delicately perfumed, it somehow had the look of a rather significant docu-
<P 624>
ment. There were two sheets of paper covered with very small writing. The
hand was without question Kashiwagi's.
The woman who opened the mirror for him paid little attention. It
would of course be a letter he had every right to see. But Kojiju~ noted with
horror that it was the same color as Kashiwagi's of the day before. She
quite forgot about breakfast. It could not be. Nothing so awful could have
been permitted to happen. Her lady absolutely _must_ have hidden it.
The princess was still sleeping soundly. What a child she was, thought
Genji, not without a certain contempt. Supposing someone else had found
the letter. That was the thing: the heedlessness that had troubled him all
along.
He had left and the other women were some distance away. "And
what did you do with the young gentleman's letter?" asked Kojiju~. "His
Lordship was reading a letter that was very much the same color."
The princess collapsed in helpless weeping.
Kojiju~ was sorry for her, of course, but shocked and angry too.
"Really, my lady--where _did_ you put it? There were others around and I
went off because I did not want him to think we were conspiring. That was
how _I_ felt. And you had time before he came in. Surely you hid it?"
"He came in on me while I was reading it. I didn't have time. I slipped
it under something and forgot about it."
Speechless, Kojiju~ went to look for the letter. It was of course nowhere
to be found.
"How perfectly, impossibly awful. The young gentleman was terrified
of His Lordship, terrified that the smallest word might reach him. And now
this has happened, and in no time at all. You are such a child, my lady.
You let him see you, and he could not forget you however many years
went by, and came begging to me. But that we should lose control of things
so completely--it just did not seem possible. Nothing could be worse for
either of you."
She did not mince words. The princess was too good-natured and still
too much of a child to argue back. Her tears flowed on.
She quite lost her appetite. Her women thought Genji cruel and un-
feeling. "She is so extremely unwell, and he ignores her. He gives all his
attention to a lady who has quite recovered."
Genji was still puzzled. He read the letter over and over again. He
tested the hypothesis that one of her women had deliberately set about
imitating Kashiwagi's hand. But it would not do. The idiosyncrasies were
all too clearly Kashiwagi's. He had to admire the style, the fluency and
clear detail with which Kashiwagi had described the fortuitous consum-
mation of all his hopes, and all his sufferings since. But Genji had felt
contemptuous of the princess and he must feel contemptuous of her young
friend too. A man simply did not set these matters down so clearly in
writing. Kashiwagi was a man of discernment and some eminence, and he
had written a letter that could easily embarrass a lady. Genji himself had
<P 625>
in his younger years never forgotten that letters have a way of going astray.
His own letters had always been laconic and evasive even when he had
longed to make them otherwise. Caution had not always been easy.
And how was he to behave towards the princess? He understood
rather better the reasons for her condition. He had come upon the truth
himself, without the aid of informers. Was there to be no change in his
manner? He would have preferred that there be none but feared that things
could not be the same again. Even in affairs which he had not from the
outset taken seriously, the smallest evidence that the lady might be inter-
ested in someone else had always been enough to kill his own interest; and
here he had more, a good deal more. What an impertinent trifler the young
man was! It was not unknown for a young man to seduce even one of His
Majesty's own ladies, but this seemed different. A young man and lady
might in the course of their duties in the royal service find themselves
favorably disposed towards each other and do what they ought not to have
done. Such things did happen. Royal ladies were, after all, human. Some
of them were not perhaps as sober and careful as they might be and they
made mistakes. The man would remain in the court service and unless
there was a proper scandal the mistake might go undetected. But this--
Genji snapped his fingers in irritation. He had paid more attention to the
princess than the lady he really loved, the truly priceless treasure, and she
had responded by choosing a man like Kashiwagi!
He thought that there could be no precedent for it. Life had its frustra-
tions for His Majesty's ladies when they obediently did their duty. There
might come words of endearment from an honest man and there might be
times when silence seemed impossible, and in a lady's answers would be
the start of a love affair. One did not condone her behavior but one could
understand it. But Genji thought himself neither fatuous nor conceited in
wondering how the Third Princess could possibly have divided her affec-
tions between him and a man like Kashiwagi.
Well, it was all very distasteful. But he would say nothing. He won-
dered if his own father had long ago known what was happening and said
nothing. He could remember his own tenor very well, and the memory
told him that he was hardly the one to reprove others who strayed from
the narrow path.
Despite his determined silence, Murasaki knew that something was
wrong. She herself had quite recovered, and she feared that he was feeling
guilty about the Third Princess.
"I really am very much better. They tell me that Her Highness is not
well. You should have stayed with her a little longer."
"Her Highness--it is true that she is indisposed, but I cannot see that
there is a great deal wrong with her. Messenger after messenger has come
from court. I gather that there was one just today from her father. Her
brother worries about her because her father worries about her, and I must
worry about both of them."
<P 626>
"I would worry less about them than about the princess herself if I
thought she was unhappy. She may not say very much, but I hate to think
of all those women giving her ideas."
Genji smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "You are the important one
and you have no troublesome relatives, and you think of all these things.
I think about her important brother and you think about her women. I fear
I am not a very sensitive man." But of her suggestion that he return to
Rokujo~ he said only: "There will be time when you are well enough to go
with me."
"I would like to stay here just a little while longer. Do please go ahead
and make her happy. I won't be long."
And so the days went by. The princess was of course in no position
to charge him with neglect. She lived in dread lest her father get some word
of what had happened.
Letter after passionate letter came from Kashiwagi. Finally, pushed
too far, Kojiju~ told him everything. He was horrified. When had it hap-
pened? It had been as if the skies were watching him, so fearful had he
been that something in the air might arouse Genji's suspicions. And now
Genji had irrefutable evidence. It was a time of still, warm weather even
at night and in the morning, but he felt as if a cold wind were cutting
through him. Genji had singled him out for special favors and made him
a friend and adviser, and for all this Kashiwagi had been most grateful.
How could he now face Genji--who must think him an intolerable upstart
and interloper! Yet if he were to avoid Rokujo~ completely people would
notice and think it odd, and Genji would of course have stronger evidence
than before. Sick with worry, Kashiwagi stopped going to court. It was not
likely that he would face specific punishment, but he feared that he had
ruined his life. Things could not be worse. He hated himself for what he
had let happen.
Yes, one had to admit that the princess was a scatterbrained little
person. The cat incident should not have occurred. Yu~giri had made his
feelings in the matter quite clear, and Kashiwagi was beginning to share
them. It may be that he was now trying to see the worst in the princess
and so to shake off his longing. Gentle elegance was no doubt desirable,
but it could go too far and become a kind of ignorance of the everyday
world. And the princess had not surrounded herself with the right women.
The results were too apparent, disaster for the princess and disaster for
Kashiwagi himself. Yet he could not help feeling sorry for her.
She was very pretty, and she was not well. Genji pitied her too. He
might tell himself that he was dismissing her from his thoughts, but the
facts were rather different. To be dissatisfied with her did not mean to
commence disliking her. He would be so sorry for her when he saw her
that he could hardly speak. He commissioned prayers and services for her
safe delivery. His outward attentions were as they had always been, and
indeed he seemed more solicitous than ever. Yet he was very much aware
<P 627>
of the distance between them and had to work hard to keep people from
noticing. He continued to reprove her in silence and she to suffer agonies
of guilt; and that the silence did nothing to relieve the agonies was perhaps
another mark of her immaturity, which had been the cause of it all. Inno-
cence can be a virtue, but when it suggests a want of prudence and caution
it does not inspire confidence. He began to wonder about other women,
about his own daughter, for instance. She was almost too gentle and
good-natured, and a man who was drawn to her would no doubt lose his
head as completely as Kashiwagi had. Aware of and feeling a certain easy
contempt for evidence of irresolution, a man sometimes sees possibilities
in a lady who should be far above him.
He thought of Tamakazura. She had grown up in straitened circum-
stances with no one really capable of defending her interests. She was
quick and shrewd, however, and an adroit manipulator. Genji had made
the world think he was her father and had caused her problems which a
real father would not have. She had turned them smoothly away, and
when Higekuro had found an accomplice in one of her serving women and
forced his way into her presence she had made it clear to everyone that
she had had no say in the matter, and then made it equally clear that her
acceptance of his suit was for her a new departure; and so she had emerged
unscathed. Genji saw more than ever what a virtuoso performance it had
been. No doubt something in earlier lives had made it inevitable that she
and Higekuro come together and live together, but it would have done her
no good to have people look back on the beginnings of the affair and say
that she had led him on. She had managed very well indeed.
Genji thought too of Oborozukiyo. It had come to seem that she had
been more accessible than she should have been. He was very sorry to learn
that she had finally become a nun. He got off a long letter describing his
pain and regret.
"I should not care that now you are a nun?
My sleeves were wet at Suma--because of you!
"I know that life is uncertain, and I am sorry that I have let you
anticipate me and at the same time hurt that you have cast me aside. I take
comfort in the hope that you will give me precedence in your prayers."
It was he who had kept her from becoming a nun long before. She
mused upon the cruel and powerful bond between them. Weeping at the
thought that this might be his last letter, the end of a long and difficult
correspondence, she took great pains with her answer. The hand and the
gradations of the ink were splendid.
"I had thought that I alone knew the uncertainty of it all. You say that
I have anticipated you, but
"How comes it that the fisherman of Akashi
Has let the boat make off to sea without him?
"As for my prayers, they must be for everyone."
<P 628>
It was on deep green-gray paper attached to a branch of anise, not
remarkably original or imaginative and yet obviously done with very great
care. And the hand was as good as ever.
Since there could be no doubt that this was the end of the affair, he
showed the letter to Murasaki.
"Her point is well taken," he said. "I should not have let her get ahead
of me. I have known many sad things and lived through them all. The
detached sort of friend with whom you can talk about the ordinary things
that interest you and you think might interest her too--I have had only
Princess Asagao and this lady, and now they both are nuns. I understand
that the princess has quite lost herself in her devotions and has no time
for anything else. I have known many ladies, personally and by repute, and
I think I have never known anyone else with quite that combination of
earnestness and gentle charm.
"It is not easy to rear a daughter. You cannot know what conditions
she has brought with her from earlier lives and so cannot be sure of always
having your way. She requires endless care and attention as she grows up.
I am glad now that I was spared great numbers of them. In my young and
irresponsible days I used to lament that I had so few and to think that a
man could not have too many. Endless care and attention--they are what
I must ask of you in the case of your little princess. Her mother is young
and inexperienced and busy with other things, and I am sure there is a great
deal that she is just not up to. I would be much upset if anyone were to
