gallery had caved in, and Genji's entry was a most ungraceful one. He was
glad there were no witnesses.
Having waited so long, clinging to the hope that he would come
someday, the princess was of course delighted. Yet she regretted that he
must see her in these circumstances. The various robes that were gifts from
the assistant viceroy's wife had been put aside, for she did not like the
giver. The old women had put them in a scented Chinese chest. Now they
came out again, pleasantly scented. The princess let herself be dressed and
received Genji from behind the yellow curtains of the last interview with
her aunt.
"Although we have seen so little of each other," said Genji, "I have
not ceased to think of you all this time. I have waited impatiently for some
sign that you too still care. Although I did not detect any welcoming cedars
this evening, I did somehow feel these groves pulling at me. And so you
have won the game."
He pushed the curtain slightly aside. She was as shy and withdrawn
<P 301>
as ever, he could see, and she was not immediately able to answer. Finally,
impressed that he should have made his way through the undergrowth,
she gathered courage for a few tentative syllables.
"I can imagine that it has been uncommonly difficult for you these last
few years," said Genji. "I myself seem incapable of changing and forget-
ting, and it would interest me to know how it strikes you that I should have
come swimming through these grasses, with no idea at all whether you
yourself might have changed. Perhaps I may ask you to forgive the neglect.
I have neglected everyone, not only you. I shall consider myself guilty of
breach of promise if I ever again do anything to displease you."
The warmly affectionate utterances came forth in far larger numbers
than he had any real feeling for. Everything urged against spending the
night here. Having made excuses, he was about to leave. The pine tree was
not one which he himself had planted, but someone had planted it, many
years ago--years that seemed like a dream.
"I obey the waving summons of wisteria
Because it flows, at your gate, from the waiting tree.
"Yes, it has been many years. Things have changed, not always for
the better. Someday I must tell you of my struggles with the fisherman's
net and the angler's line. Another thing that seems strange, now that I
think of it, is my complete confidence that you would refuse to tell anyone
else the story of your unhappy springs and autumns."
"I have waited and waited, to no avail, it seems.
Wisteria, not the waiting pine, has brought you."
The faint stirring behind the curtains, the faint perfume that came to
him from her sleeves, made him feel that she had perhaps improved a little
with age. The setting moon streamed unobstructed through the open
doors, both the gallery and the eaves having collapsed. He could see to the
farthest corners of the room. The furnishings which she kept as they had
always been made it seem a much finer house than the roof sagging under
the weight of ferns would have led him to imagine. She was very unlike
--and the contrast was touching--the princess in the old romance who
destroyed the tower. Her stoicism in the face of poverty gave her a certain
dignity. It had made her worth remembering. He hated to think of his own
selfishness through the years.
Nor could the lady of the orange blossoms have been described as a
bright, lively, modern sort. The difference between the two ladies, indeed,
as he saw them in quick succession, did not seem very great; and the
safflower princess's defects were minimized.
Gifts always poured in as the Kamo festival approached. He dis-
<P 302>
tributed them among his several ladies as seemed appropriate, taking care
this time that Prince Hitachi's mansion was not slighted. He set stewards
and artisans who had his confidence to replacing the decayed earthen walls
with a sturdy wooden fence. Genji himself stayed away, fearing derisive
rumors about his diligence in having searched her out. He sent many an
earnest and affectionate note, however. He was remodeling a house very
near his own Nijo~ mansion, he said, and he thought she might wish to
move into it. Perhaps she could be thinking about presentable maids and
footmen and the like. The wormwood patch now seemed to choke with
gratitude. Looking off in Genji's direction, the Hitachi household offered
thanks.
People had always said that Genji chose superior women to spend
even a single night with. It was very odd: everything suggested that the
Hitachi princess in no respect even rose to mediocrity. What could explain
it? A bond tied in a former life, no doubt.
Most of the princess's women, whatever their stations in life, had
dismissed her as beyond redemption and scrambled over one another in
search of better places. Now the direction of the scramble was reversed.
The princess, gentle and retiring to a fault, had spoiled them. Life in the
service of provincial governors was unpleasantly different from what she
had accustomed them to. A certain crassness was apparent in the haste
with which they returned.
Ever more prosperous and powerful, Genji was more thoughtful as
well. His instructions had been very detailed, and the princess's mansion
came back to life. People were seen at the gates and in the garden, the
brook was cleared, the wormwood was cut away so that breezes passed
once more. Among Genji's lesser stewards were men who had not yet
succeeded in catching his eye. He seemed to care about the Hitachi place.
It offered the opportunity they had been looking for.
The princess stayed there for two years, after which he moved her to
the east lodge at Nijo~. Now he could visit her in the course of ordinary
business. It could no longer be said that he treated her badly.
Though no one has asked me to do so, I should like to describe the
surprise of the assistant viceroy's wife at-this turn of events, and Jiju~'s
pleasure and guilt. But it would be a bother and my head is aching; and
perhaps--these things do happen, they say--something will someday re-
mind me to continue the story.
<W Murasaki Shikibu>{Translated by Edward G.Seidensticker}
<T The Tale of Genji>
<K 2>
<C 16>{The Gatehouse}
<N 1>
<P 303>
The vice-governor of Iyo had the year after the death of Genji's father
become vice-governor of Hitachi. His wife, the lady of the locust she11,
had gone with him to his post. In that distant part of the realm she heard
of Genji's exile. One is not to imagine that she was unconcerned, but she
had no way of writing to him. The winds blowing down over Tsukuba
were not to be trusted, it seemed, and reports from the city were few; and
so the months and years went by. Although the period of his exile had not
been fixed, he did finally return to the city. A year later the vice-governor
of Hitachi also returned to the city.
It happened that on the day the Hitachi party came to Osaka barrier,
Genji had set off on a pilgrimage of thanksgiving to Ishiyama. The former
governor of Kii and others had come from the city to meet the Hitachi
party. They brought news of Genji's excursion. Thinking how enormous
the confusion was likely to be if the two parties met, the vice-governor set
out at dawn. The women's carriages moved slowly, however, and soon the
sun was high. As they reached Uchidenohama, on the coast of Lake Biwa,
Genji's outrunners were already clearing the road. He himself was just
entering the hills east of the city, they said. The vice-governor pulled his
carriages in under the cedars at the top of the barrier rise. Unhitching the
<P 304>
oxen, the coachmen knelt respectfully for Genji to pass. Though spaced at
intervals along the road, the Hitachi procession was impressive. The ladies,
sleeves and skirts protruding gaily from the blinds of perhaps ten of the
carriages seemed not at all frowsy or countrified. Genji thought of the
carriages awaiting the high priestess's departure for Ise. In wave upon
wave, his attendants turned to admire the sleeves and skirts.
It being the end of the Ninth Month, the autumn leaves, some crimson
and some but gently tinted, and the grasses and flowers touched lightly by
the frost were very beautiful indeed; and Genji's men, pouring past the
gatehouse in travel livery, damasks and dappled prints, added yet more
color His blinds lowered, Genji sent for Kogimi, the lady's brother, now
a guards officer.
"See, I have come all the way to the barrier. Should this not tell her
something?"
Affectionate memories came flooding back, but he had to make do
with this most ordinary of greetings.
The lady too was assailed by memories, of events which she had kept
to herself all these years.
"It flowed as I went, it flows as I return,
The steady crystal spring at the barrier rise."
There was no point in trying to explain what she meant.
<N 2>
Kogimi went out to meet Genji on the return from Ishiyama and to
apologize for not having stayed with him that earlier day. He had been a
favorite with Genji, whose patronage had seen him as far as the Fifth Rank.
Fearing at the time of Genji's exile that the association would be damaging,
he had gone off to Hitachi with his sister and brother-in-law. If, in the
years since, Genji had been somewhat less fond of him, there was no sign
of that fact in his behavior now. Though things could not be quite the same
again, of course, Genji still thought the youth rather promising. The gover-
nor of Kii had since become governor of Kawachi. His younger brother,
a guards officer, had been stripped of his commission and had gone into
exile with Genji, and now he was being richly rewarded. Regret was usual
among those who in those difficult days had given way to the pressures
of the times.
Genji gave Kogimi a message for his sister. How very attentive he was
to these details, thought Kogimi, when no one need have been surprised
if he had forgotten everything.
"I wonder if it occurred to you the other day," said Genji's note, "how
strong a bond there must be between us.
"By chance we met, beside the gate of meeting.
A pity its fresh waters should be so sterile.
<P 305>
"How I envy the occupant of the gatehouse. It all comes back, after
years of silence. I have a way of looking back upon things of long ago as
if they were of this very moment. Will you once again accuse me of
promiscuity?"
The youth respectfully undertook to deliver it. "I do think you should
let him have an answer," he said to his sister. "I would not have been
surprised if he had shown a certain hostility, but he was as civil and polite
as ever. I could not have been more grateful. It does a man no good to be
an intermediary in these matters, but I could not say no to him. You are
a woman, and no one will reprove you, I think, if you concede a point and
answer him."
The lady had become more reticent with the years, but she was unable
to ignore so remarkable a message.
"The gate of meeting, atop the barrier rise,
Is shaded by impassable wailing groves.
"It is all like a dream."
Touching things, annoying things, Genji could forget none of them.
<P 306>
>From time to time he got off notes to the lady which he hoped would
interest and excite her.
<N 3>
Now an old man, her husband was ill much of the time. He talked of
her to his sons.
"Please, I beseech you, do not refuse her anything. Treat her exactly
as if I were still alive." No hour of the day passed without his renewing
the plea.
She had not been lucky, thought the lady, and if now she were left
a widow, what sort of ruin might lie ahead? He knew what she was
thinking; but life is not ours to cling to as we will, however strong the
determination. If only he could send an angel down to watch over her!
They were his sons, but his confidence in them was far from complete. He
continued to hand down injunctions and to worry; and then, for all his will
to live, he was dead.
For a time the sons seemed to honor his last wishes. The appearance
of affection and concern was superficial, however, a fact which circum-
stances were quick enough to establish. It was the way of the world, and
though she lamented her misfortune she did not complain. The governor
of Kawachi, always an amorous sort, showed an extra measure of solici-
tude.
"Father spoke of you so constantly," he would say. "You must not feel
shy about asking me for things. Ask me for anything, useless though you
may find me."
His intentions were apparent, and shocking to so proper a lady. She
could not think, were she to go on as she was, what tangles she might find
herself enmeshed in. Her mind was made up. Consulting no one, she
became a nun.
Her women were of course upset, and the governor was somewhat
disappointed, and discommoded that she should have found him so little
to her liking. He wondered how she meant to make her way through the
long years ahead.
Not that the problem was his to worry about.
<W Murasaki Shikibu>{Translated by Edward G.Seidensticker}
<T The Tale of Genji>
<K 2>
<C 17>{A Picture Contest}
<N 1>
<P 307>
Fujitsubo was most eager that Akikonomu, the former high priestess of Ise,
be received at court. Genji knew that Akikonomu had no strong and
reliable backer but, not wanting to alienate the Suzaku emperor, had
decided not to bring her to Nijo~. Making every effort to appear withdrawn
and impartial, he took general responsibility for the proceedings and stood
in the place of the girl's father.
