<T The Tale of Genji>
<K 5>
<C 47>{Trefoil Knots}
<N 1>
<P 821>
In the autumn, as the Uji princesses prepared for the anniversary of their
father's death, the winds and waters which they had known over the years
seemed colder and lonelier than ever. Kaoru and the abbot saw to the
general plans. The princesses themselves, with the advice of their attend-
ants, took care of the details, robes for the priests and decorations for the
scriptures and the like. They seemed so fragile and sad as they went about
the work that one wondered what they would possibly have done without
this help from outside. Kaoru made it a point to visit them before the
formal end of mourning, and the abbot came down from his monastery.
The riot of threads for decking out the sacred incense led one of the
princesses to remark upon the stubborn way their own lives had of spin-
ning on. Catching sight of a spool through a gap in the curtains, Kaoru
recognized the allusion. "Join my tears as beads," he said softly. They
found it very affecting, this suggestion that the sorrow of Lady Ise had
been even as theirs; yet they were reluctant to answer. To show that they
<P 822>
had caught the reference might seem pretentious. But an answering refer-
ence immediately came to them: they could not help thinking of
Tsurayuki, whose heart had not been "that sort of thread," and who had
likened it to a thread all the same as he sang the sadness of a parting that
was not a bereavement. Old poems, they could see, had much to say
about the unchanging human heart.
Kaoru wrote out the petition for memorial services, including the
details of the scriptures to be read and the deities to be invoked, and while
he had brush in hand he jotted down a verse:
"We knot these braids in trefoil. As braided threads
May our fates be joined, may we be together always."
<P 823>
Though she thought it out of place, Oigimi managed an answer:
"No way to thread my tears, so fast they flow;
As swiftly flows my life. Can such vows be?"
"But," he objected, "'if it cannot be so with us, what use is
life?'"
She had somehow succeeded in diverting the conversation from the
most important point, and she seemed reluctant to say more. And so he
began to speak most warmly of his friend Niou: "I have been watching him
very closely. He has had me worried, I must admit. He has a very strong
competitive instinct, even when he does not have much at stake, and I was
afraid your chilliness might have made it all a matter of pride for him. And
so, I admit it, I've been uneasy. But I am sure that this time there is nothing
to worry about. It is your turn to do something. Might you just possibly
persuade yourself to be a little more friendly? You are not an insensitive
lady, I know, and yet you do go on slamming the door. If he resents it, well,
so do I. You couldn't be making things more difficult for me if you tried,
and I have been very open with you and very willing to take you at your
word. I think the time has come for a clear statement from you, one way
or the other."
"How can you say such things? It was exactly because I did _not_ want
to make things difficult for you that I let you come so near--so near that
people must think it very odd. I gather that your view of the matter is
different, and I must confess that I am disappointed. I would have expected
you to understand a little better. But of course I am at fault too. You have
said that I am not an insensitive person, but someone of real sensitivity
would by now have thought everything out, even in a mountain hut like
this. I have always been slow in these matters. I gather that you are making
a proposal. Very well: I shall make my answer as clear as I can. Before
Father died, he had many things to say about my future, but not one of
them touched even slightly on the sort of thing you suggest. He must have
meant that I should be resigned to living out my days alone and away from
the world; and so I fear I cannot give you the answer you want, at least
so far as it concerns myself. But of course my sister will outlive me, and
I have to think of her too. I could not bear to leave her in these mountains
like a fallen tree. It would give me great pleasure if something could be
arranged for her."
<N 2>
<P 824>
She fell silent, in great agitation. He regretted having spoken so
sternly. For all her air of maturity, he should not have expected her to
answer like a woman of the world.
He summoned Bennokimi.
"It was thoughts of the next life that first brought me here; and then,
in those last sad days, he left a request with me. He asked me to look after
his daughters in whatever way seemed best. I have tried; and now it comes
as something of a surprise that they should be disregarding their own
father's wishes. Do you understand it any better than I do? I am being
pushed to the conclusion that he had hopes for them which they do not
share. I know you will have heard about me, what an odd person I am, not
much interested in the sort of things that seem to interest everyone else.
And now, finally, I have found someone who does interest me, and I am
inclined to believe that fate has had a hand in the matter; and I gather that
the gossips already have us married. Well, if that is the case--I know it will
seem out of place for me to say so--other things being equal, we might
as well do as the prince wished us to, and indeed as everyone else does.
It would not be the first case the world has seen of a princess married to
a commoner.
" And I have spoken more than once about my friend Niou to your
other lady. She simply refuses to believe me when I tell her she needn't
worry about the sort of husband he is likely to make. I wonder if someone
might just possibly be working to turn her against her father's wishes. You
must tell me everything you know. "
His remarks were punctuated by many a brooding sigh.
There is a kind of cheeky domestic who, in such situations, assumes
a knowing manner and encourages a man in what he wants to believe.
Bennokimi was not such a one. She thought the match ideal, but she could
not say so.
"My ladies are different from others I have served. Perhaps they were
born different. They have never been much interested in the usual sort of
thing. We who have been in their service--even while their father was
alive, we really had no tree to run to for shelter. Most of the other women
decided fairly soon that there was no point in wasting their lives in the
mountains, and they went away, wherever their family ties led them. Even
people whose families had been close to the prince's for years and years
--they were not having an easy time of it, and most of them gave up and
went away. And now that he is gone it is even worse. We wonder from
one minute to the next who will be left. The ones who have stayed are
always grumbling, and I am sure that my ladies are often hurt by the things
they say. Back in the days when the prince was still with us, they say, well,
he had his old-fashioned notions, and they had to be respected for what
they were. My ladies were, after all, royal princesses, he was always
saying, and there came a point at which a suitor had to be considered
beneath them, and that was that; and so they stayed single. But now they
<P 825>
are worse than single, they are completely alone in the world, and it would
take a very cruel person to find fault if they were to do what everyone else
does. And really, could anyone expect them to go through their lives as
they are now? Even the monks who wander around gnawing pine needles
--even they have their different ways of doing things, without forgetting
the Good Law. They cannot deny life itself, after all. I am just telling you
what these women say. The older of my ladies refuses to listen to a word
of it, at least as it has to do with her; but I gather she does hope that
something can be found for her sister, some way to live an ordinary,
respectable life. She has watched you climb over these mountains year
after year and she knows that not many people would have assumed
responsibility as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I really do
think that she is ready to talk of the details, and all that matters is what
you have in mind yourself. As for Prince Niou, she does not seem to think
his letters serious enough to bother answering."
"I have told you of her father's last request. I was much moved by it,
and I have vowed to go on seeing them. You might think that, from my
point of view, either of your ladies would do as well as the other, and I
really am very flattered that she should have such confidence in me. But
you know, even a man who doesn't have much use for the things that
excite most people will find himself drawn to a lady, and when that
happens he does not suddenly go running after another--though that
would not be too difficult, I suppose, for the victim of a casual infatuation.
"But no. If only she would stop retreating and putting up walls be-
tween us. If only I could have her-here in front of me, to talk to about the
little things that come and go. If so much did not have to be kept back.
"I am all by myself, and I always have been. I have no brother near
enough my own age to talk to about the amusing things and the sad things
that happen. You will say that I have a sister, but the things I really want
to talk about are always an impossible jumble, and an empress is hardly
the person to go to with them. You will think of my mother. It is true that
she looks young enough to be my sister, but after all she is my mother.
All the others seem so haughty and so far away. They quite intimidate me.
And so I am by myself. The smallest little flirtation leaves me dumb and
paralyzed; and when it seems that the time has come to show my feelings
to someone I really care for, I am not up to the smallest gesture. I may be
hurt, I may be furious, and there I stand like a post, knowing perfectly well
how ridiculous I am.
"But let us talk of Niou. Don't you suppose that problem could be left
to me? I promise that I will do no one any harm."
It would be far better than this lonely life, thought the old woman,
wishing she could tell him to go ahead. But they were both so touchy. She
thought it best to keep her own counsel.
<N 3>
Kaoru whiled away the time, thinking that he would like to stay the
night and perhaps have the quiet talk of which he had spoken. For Oigimi
<P 826>
the situation was next to intolerable. Though he had made it known only
by indirection, his resentment seemed to be rising to an alarming pitch. The
most trivial answer was almost more than she could muster. If only he
would stay away from that one subject! In everything else he was a man
of the most remarkable sympathy, a fact that only added to her agitation.
She had someone open the doors to the chapel and stir the lamps, and
withdrew behind a blind and a screen. There were also lights outside the
chapel. He had them taken away--they were very unsettling, he said, for
they revealed him in shameful disorder--and lay down near the screen.
She had fruit and sweets brought to him, arranged in a tasteful yet casual
manner. His men were offered wine and very tempting side dishes. They
withdrew to a corridor, leaving the two alone for what they assumed
would be a quiet, intimate conversation.
She was in great agitation, but in her manner there was something
poignantly appealing that delighted and--a pity that it should have been
so--excited him. To be so near, separated from her only by a screen, and
to let the time go by with no perceptible sign that the goal was near--it
was altogether too stupid. Yet he managed an appearance of calm as he
talked on of this amusing event and that melancholy one. There was much
to interest her in what he said, but from behind her blinds she called to
her women to come nearer. No doubt thinking that chaperones would be
out of place, they pretended not to hear, and indeed withdrew yet further
as they lay down to rest. There was no one to replenish the lamps before
the holy images. Again she called out softly, and no one answered.
"I am not feeling at all well," she said finally, starting for an anteroom.
"I think a little sleep might do me good. I hope you sleep well."
"Don't you suppose a man who has fought his way over mountains
might feel even worse? But that's all right. Just having you here is enough.
Don't go off and leave me."
He quietly pushed the screen aside. She was in precipitous flight
through the door beyond.
"So this is what you mean by a friendly talk," she said angrily as he
caught at her sleeve. Far from turning him away, her anger added to the
fascination. "It is not at all what I would have expected."
"You seem determined not to understand what I mean by friendliness,
and so I thought I would show you. Not what you would have expected
--and what, may I ask, _did_ you expect? Stop trembling. You have nothing
to be afraid of. I am prepared to take my vow before the Blessed One here.
I have done everything to avoid upsetting you. No one in the world can
have dreamed what an eccentric affair this is. But I am an eccentric and
a fool myself, and will no doubt continue to be so."
He stroked the hair that flowed in the wavering light. The softness and
the luster were all that he could have asked for. Suppose someone with
more active inclinations were to come upon this lonely, unprotected house
--there would be nothing to keep him from having his way. Had the
<P 827>
visitor been anyone but himself, matters would by now have come to a
showdown. His own want of decision suddenly revolted him. Yet here she
