"Your promise not to change was my companion.
I added my sighs to those of the wind in the pines."
She held her own very well in these exchanges, evidence, he thought,
that she had been meant for unusual things. She had improved in looks
and in bearing since last he had seen her. He could not take his eyes from
the child. And what now? The mother was of inferior birth, and the disabil-
ity must not be passed on to the daughter. It could be overcome if he were
to take her to Nijo~ and see to her needs as he wished. Yet there were the
feelings of the mother to be considered and of them he was uncertain.
Choking with tears, he tried to bring the matter up.
The little girl, no more than a baby, was shy at first, but soon they
were friends, and she was gurgling more happily and prettily all the time.
Her mother meanwhile sat in mute gratitude. The future seemed to open
limitlessly.
He overslept the next morning, when he was to return to the city. He
had meant to go directly back, but great crowds had gathered at the
Katsura villa, and several men from the city had even made their way to
Oi.
"How very inconvenient and embarrassing," he muttered as he
dressed. "I had meant it to be rather more of a retreat."
He had no choice but to go off with them. He stood in the doorway
fondling the little girl, who was in her nurse's arms.
"It is very selfish of me, but I can see that I won't be able to let her
out of my sight. What am I to do? Must you be so far away?"
"Yes," said the nurse, "the fact that you are nearer only makes things
worse."
In her arms, the child was straining towards him.
"There seems to be no end to my troubles. I hate the thought of being
away from you for even a minute, my sweet. But just look at this. You are
sorry to see me go, but your mother does not seem to be. She could comfort
me a little, if she chose."
The nurse smiled and transmitted the message.
The lady hung back. This morning's farewell seemed more difficult
than all the years away from him. There was just a little too much of the
grand lady in this behavior, thought Genji. Her women, urging her on, had
to agree. Finally she came forward. Her profile, half hidden by the curtain,
was wonderfully soft and gentle. She might have been a princess. He
pulled the curtain back and offered some last affectionate words of fare-
well. His men were in a great hurry to be off, and he was about to follow.
He looked back again. Though she was remarkably good at hiding her
emotions, she was gazing at him now with open regret. He seemed even
handsomer than at Akashi. Then he hadoueemed a little slender for his
<P 327>
height. He had filled out, and no one could have found fault with his
proportions or his manner, the essence of mature dignity. Perfection from
head to foot, she thought--though she may have been a prejudiced ob-
server.
The young guards officer whose fortunes had sunk and risen with
Genji's--he who had had reproachful words for the god of Kamo--now
wore the cap of the Fifth Rank, and was in his glory. Waiting to take
Genji's sword, he spied a woman inside the blinds.
"It may seem that I have forgotten the old days," he said, rather
self-importantly, one may have thought, "but that is because I have been
on good behavior. The breezes that awoke me this morning seemed very
much like the sea breezes at Akashi. I looked in vain for a way to tell you
so.
"This mountain village, garlanded in eightfold mists, is not inferior,
we have found, to that where the boat disappears among the island mists.
All that had seemed wanting was that the pines were not the pines of old.
It is a comfort to find that there is one who has not forgotten."
Scarcely what he had hoped for--and he had been fond of her. "I will
see you again," he said, and returned to Genji's side.
Genji walked off to his carriage amid the shouts of his outrunners. He
invited To~ no Chu~jo~ and Hyo~e no Kami to ride with him.
"You cannot know what a disappointment it is," he said, in genuine
annoyance, "to have people pour in on what you had hoped would be a
hideaway."
"Nor can you know our disappointment, my lord, at not being permit-
ted to share the moon with you last night. That is why we fought our way
through the autumn mists. Though the journey did have its pleasures. The
autumn leaves are not quite at their best, perhaps, but the autumn flowers
were very beautiful." He went on to describe a falconing expedition that
was keeping certain of his friends longer than they had planned.
"And so we must go to Katsura, I suppose," said Genji, to the modest
consternation of the stewards, who now had to put together an impromptu
banquet.
The calls of the cormorant fishermen made him think of the fishermen
at Akashi, their speech as incomprehensible as the chirping of birds. Back
from their night upon the moors, the young falconers offered a sampling
of their take, tied to autumn reeds. The flagons went the rounds so fre-
quently that a river crossing seemed out of the question, and so of course
a day of roistering must be passed at Katsura. Chinese poems were tossed
back and forth. As moonlight flooded the scene the music was more bois-
<P 328>
terous, dominated by the flute, there being several fine flutists in the
company. The stringed instruments were quieter, only the Japanese koto
and the lute. The flute is an autumn instrument, at its best in the autumn
breezes. Every detail of the riverbank rose clear and high and clean in the
moonlight. A new party arrived from the palace, from the royal presence
itself, indeed. The emperor had been much disappointed that Genji had not
called at the end of the week-long retreat from which the court had just
emerged. There was music once more, and surely, thought the emperor,
Genji would appear. This was the emperor's personal message, delivered
by a secretary after Genji had offered suitable excuses:
"Cleaner, more stately the progress of the moon
Through regions beyond the river Katsura.
"I am envious."
Genji repeated his apologies, most elaborately. But this somehow
seemed a better place for music than even the palace. They abandoned
themselves to music and to wine.
<P 329>
The Katsura villa being inadequately supplied, Genji sent to Oi to see
if there might not be quietly elegant cloths and garments with which to
reward the messengers. Two chests came back from the Oi closets. There
was a set of women's robes for the royal envoy, who returned immediately
to the city.
Genji's reply to the emperor was an oblique hint that a royal visit
would be welcomed:
It is not true to its name, this Katsura.
There is not moon enough to dispel the mists."
"Katsura, at the heart of the eternal moon," he added softly; and he
thought too of Mitsune's "Awaji in the moonlight."
"So near and clear tonight, is it the moon
Of far Awaji? We both have come back."
This was the reply.:
"All should now be peace. Then lost in clouds
The moon sends forth again its radiance."
Sadaiben, an older official who had been in close attendance upon
Genji's father, also had a poem:
"The midnight moon should still be in the heavens.
Gone is its radiance--hidden in what valley?"
There would seem to have been poems and poems, but I did not have
the patience to set them all down. I could have enjoyed a millennium of
Genji,s company, however, so serene and sure did he seem.
Today they must definitely go back, said Genji, and soon. No rotting
ax handles, please.
Gifts were distributed as became the several ranks, and the waves of
courtiers, coming and going, disappearing and reappearing in the morning
mists, were like banks of autumn flowers. Some of the warrant officers
were good poets and singers. Rather bored with elegance, they had moved
on to ribaldry. Someone sang "Oh My Pony," so successfully that cour-
tier after courtier was seen stripping off robes and pressing them upon him.
It was as if the wind had spread a brocade of autumn leaves over the
garden. Echoes of this noisy departure reached Oi, and a sad lady. Genji
was sorry that he had not been able to get off a letter.
<P 330>
Back at Nijo~, he rested for a time and went to tell Murasaki of the
excursion.
"I must apologize for having stayed away longer than I had planned.
They hunted me down and dragged me off with them. I am exhausted."
He tried to be casual about what was too obvious, that she was not happy.
"You have a way, my dear, of comparing yourself with people who simply
are not in your class. Give yourself your just due, if you will."
About to leave for court that evening, he turned his attention from her
to his writing desk. She knew which lady demanded being written to, and
could see that the letter was full of warm avowals.
He returned to Nijo~ late that night. Usually he would have spent the
night at court, but he was worried about Murasaki. An answer had come
from Oi which he could not hide from her. Fortunately it was a decorous
one.
"Tear it up and throw it away if you will, please," he said, leaning
against an armrest. "I am too old to leave this sort of thing scattered around
the house." He gazed into the lamplight and his thoughts were in Oi.
Though he had spread the letter before her, Murasaki did not look at
it.
He smiled. "You are very funny when you are pretending not to want
to see." He came nearer, quite exuding charm." As a matter of fact, the
child is a very pretty little girl, if you wish to know. I cannot help feeling
that there is a legacy of some sort from another life, and that it is not to
be dismissed. But I am worried. She has so much against her. Put yourself
in my place, if you will, and make the decision for me. What do you think?
Will you perhaps take her in? She has reached the years of the leech chi1d,
but I cannot quite bring myself to behave as the leech child's parents did.
She is still in diapers, one might say, and if they do not repel you, might
I perhaps ask you to see to pinning them up?"
"If I sometimes sulk, it is because you ask me to, and I would not think
of refusing." She was smiling now. "I will love her, I am sure I will. Just
at the dearest age." She did love children, and longed even now to have
the girl in her arms.
Genji was still worried. Should he bring her to Nijo~? It was not easy
for him to visit Oi. His chapel would offer the occasion for no more
than two visits a month. Though better off, perhaps, than Princess
Tanabata, the Akashi lady was certain to be unhappy.
<W Murasaki Shikibu>{Translated by Edward G.Seidensticker}
<T The Tale of Genji>
<K 2>
<C 19>{A Rack of Cloud}
<N 1>
<P 331>
Life was sadder on the banks of the Oi as winter came on.
"This cannot continue," said Genji. "You must move nearer."
But the Akashi lady did not want to observe at close hand the coldness
of which she had heard from afar. It would be the end of everything.
"I must make arrangements for the child, then. I have plans for her,
and they would come to nothing if I were to leave her here. I have dis-
cussed the matter with the lady in the west wing at Nijo~, who is most
anxious to see her." Murasaki might be asked, he said, to arrange unosten-
tatiously for the ritual bestowing of trousers.
<N 2>
The Akashi lady had long known that something of the sort was on
his mind. This declaration brought matters to a climax, while adding
greatly to the uncertainty. "I have no doubt that you mean to treat her as
if her mother were the noblest of your ladies, but of course people are sure
to know who she really is, and behave accordingly."
"You need not have the slightest fear that she will be mistreated. It
is a matter of very great unhappiness for the lady at Nijo~ that after all these
years she has no children of her own. The former high priestess of Ise is
already a grown lady, and yet the Nijo~ lady insists on treating her like a
child. She is sure to adore your little girl. That is her way." He perhaps
exaggerated Murasaki's maternal tendencies a little.
Rumors of his amorous adventuring had reached Akashi, where there
had been speculation upon the sort of grand love affair that might finally
<P 332>
bring it to an end. Now it did seem to have vanished without a trace. The
bond from an earlier life must be a very strong one, and the lady herself
a paragon. She would think it most impertinent of the Akashi lady to come
forward. Well, thought the latter, she must drive her own affairs from her
mind, and think only of the child, whose future lay before her. In that
Murasaki was best qualified to advise. Genji had said that the humane
thing would be to take the child away while she was still an infant, and
no doubt he was right. Yet she would worry, she knew, and what would
she now have to relieve the tedium of her days? What reason Would Genji
have to pay her the briefest and rarest visit? The only thing which seemed
certain in this web of uncertainty was that she had been born under
unhappy stars.
<N 3>
She consulted her mother, a very wise old lady.
"You fret over things that are so simple. It will not be easy to live
without her, I know, but it is her interest we must consider, and it is her
interest, I have no doubt at all, that His Lordship is most concerned about.
You must put your trust in him and let her go. Even when a child has the
emperor himself for its father, the mother's station in life makes all the
