But there was something very odd about the emperor's behavior.
Suspicions crossed Genji's mind. If they were valid, then they had sad
implications for the memory of Fujitsubo, and they suggested secret an-
guish on the part of the emperor. Genji was overwhelmed by feelings of
awed guilt. Who could have let the secret out?
Having become mistress of the wardrobe, Omyo~bu was now living in
the palace. He went to see her.
Had Fujitsubo, on any occasion, allowed so much as a fragment of the
secret to slip out in the emperor's presence?
"Never, my lord, never. She lived in constant tenor that he might hear
of it from someone else, and in terror of the secret itself, which might bring
upon him the disfavor of the powers above."
Genji's longing for the dead lady came back anew.
Meanwhile Akikonomu's performance at court was above reproach.
She served the emperor well and he was fond of her. She could be given
perfect marks for her sensitivity and diligence, which to Genji were
beyond pricing. In the autumn she came to Nijo~ for a time. Genji had had
the main hall polished and refitted until it quite glittered. He now stood
unapologetically in the place of her father.
A gentle autumn rain was falling. The flower beds near the veranda
were a riot of color, softened by the rain. Genji was in a reminiscent mood
and his eyes were moist. He went to her apartments, a figure of wonderful
courtliness and dignity in his dark mourning robes. The recent unsettling
events had sent him into retreat. Though making no great show of it, he
had a rosary in his hand. He addressed her through only a curtain.
"And so here are the autumn flowers again with their ribbons all
undone. It has been a rather dreadful year, and it is somehow a comfort
that they should come back, not one of them forgetting its proper time."
Leaning against a pillar, he was very handsome in the evening light.
"When I think of her" --was the princess too thinking of her mother? He
told her of the memories that had been so much with him these last days,
and especially of how reluctant he had been to leave the temporary shrine
that morning shortly before their departure for Ise. He heard, and scarcely
heard at all, a soft movement behind the curtains, and guessed that she was
weeping. There was a touching delicacy in it. Once more he regretted that
he was not permitted to look at her. (It is not entirely admirable, this sort
of regret.)
"All my life I have made trouble for myself which I could have
avoided, and gone on worrying about ladies I have been fond of. Among
all the affairs in which, I fear, my impulsiveness has brought pain to others,
two have continued to trouble me and refused to go away.
<P 345>
"One was the case of your late mother. To the end she seems to have
thought my behavior outrageous, and I have always known that to the end
I shall be sorry. I had hoped that my being of service to you and enjoying
your confidence as I hope I do might have comforted her. But it would
seem that in spite of everything the smoke refused to clear, and I must
continue to live with it."
Two affairs, he had said; but he did not elaborate upon the second.
"There were those years when I was lost to the world. Most of the
unfinished business which I took with me has since been put in order, after
a fashion. There is the lady in the east lodge, for instance: she has been
rescued from her poverty and is living in peace and security. Her amiable
ways are well known to everyone, most certainly to me, and I should say
that in that quarter mutual understanding prevails. That I am back in the
city and able to be of some service to His Majesty is not, for me, a matter
that calls for very loud congratulation. I am still unable to fight back the
unfortunate tendencies of my earlier years as I would have wished. Are
you aware, I wonder, that my services to you, such as they have been, have
required no little self-control? I should be very disappointed indeed if you
were to leave me with the impression that you have not guessed."
A heavy silence succeeded these remarks.
"You must forgive me." And he changed the subject. "How I wish
that, for the remaining years that have been granted me, I might shut
myself up in some retreat and lose myself in quiet preparations for the next
world. My great regret would be that I would leave so little behind me.
There is, as you may know, a girl, of such mean birth that the world cannot
be expected to notice her. I wait with great impatience for her to grow up.
I fear that it will seem inappropriate of me to say so, but it would give me
much comfort to hope that you might number the prosperity of this house
among your august concerns, and her, after I am gone, among the people
who matter to you."
Her answer was but a word, so soft and hesitant that he barely caught
it. He would have liked to take her in his arms. He stayed on, talking
affectionately until it was quite dark.
"But aside from house and family, it is nature that gives me the most
pleasure, the changes through the seasons, the blossoms and leaves of
autumn and spring, the shifting patterns of the skies. People have always
debated the relative merits of the groves of spring and the fields of autumn,
and had trouble coming to a conclusion. I have been told that in China
nothing is held to surpass the brocades of spring, but in the poetry of our
own country the preference would seem to be for the wistful notes of
autumn. I watch them come and go and must allow each its points, and
in the end am unable to decide between song of bird and hue of flower.
I go further: within the limits allowed by my narrow gardens, I have sought
to bring in what I can of the seasons, the flowering trees of spring and the
flowering grasses of autumn, and the humming of insects that would go
<P 346>
unnoticed in the wilds. This is what I offer for your pleasure. Which of the
two, autumn or spring, is your own favorite?"
He had chosen another subject which produced hesitation, but one on
which silence would seem merely rude.
"If Your Lordship finds it difficult to hand down a decision, how much
more do I. It is as you say: some are of the one opinion and some of the
other. Yet for me the autumn wind which poets have found so strange and
compelling--in the dews I sense a fleeting link with my mother."
He found the very muteness and want of logic deeply touching.
"Then we two feel alike. You know my secret:
For me it is the autumn winds that pierce.
"There are times when I find them almost more than I can bear."
How was she to answer? She made it seem that she had not under-
stood. Somehow he was in a complaining mood this evening. He caught
himself just short of further indiscretion. She had every right to be un-
happy with him, for he was behaving like a silly stripling. He sighed a
heavy sigh, and even that rather put her off with its intrusive elegance. She
seemed to be inching away from him.
"I have displeased you, and am sorry--though I doubt that most
people of feeling would have been quite as displeased. Well, do not let the
displeasure last. It could be very trying."
He went out. Even the perfume that lingered on upset her.
"What a scent he did leave on these cushions--just have a whiff. I
can't find words to describe it." Her women were lowering the shutters.
"He brings everything all together in himself, like a willow that is all of
a sudden blooming like a cherry. It sets a person to shivering."
He went to Murasaki's wing of the house. He did not go inside
immediately, but, choosing a place on the veranda as far as possible from
the lamps, lay for a time in thought. He exchanged desultory talk with
several of her women. He was thinking of love. Had those wild impulses
still not left him? He was too old for them, and angry with himself for the
answer which the question demanded. He had misbehaved grievously, but
he had been young and unthinking, and was sure that he would by now
have been forgiven. So he sought to comfort himself; and there was genu-
ine comfort in the thought that he was at least more aware of the dangers
than he once had been.
Akikonomu was sorry that she had said as much as she had. Her
remarks about the autumn must have sounded very poetic, and she should
have held her tongue. She was so unhappy with herself that she was
feeling rather tired. Genji's robustness had not seemed to allow for fatigue.
He was behaving more all the time as if he were her father.
He told Murasaki of this newly discovered preference for the autumn.
"Certainly I can appreciate it. With you it is the early spring morning, and
<P 347>
that too I understand. We must put together a really proper entertainment
sometime to go with the blossoms and the autumn leaves. But I have been
so busy. Well, it will not always be so. I will have what I want most, the
life of the recluse. And will you be lonely, my dear? The possibility that
you might is what really holds me back."
He still thought a great deal about the Akashi lady, but his life was
so constricted that he could not easily visit her. She seemed to have
concluded that the bond between them meant nothing. By what right? Her
refusal to leave the hills for a more conventional abode seemed to him a
touch haughty. Yet he pitied her, and took every opportunity to attend
services in his new chapel. Oi only seemed sadder as she came to know
it better, the sort of place that must have a melancholy effect on even the
chance visitor. Genji's visits brought contradictory feelings: the bond be-
tween them was a powerful one, obviously, and it had meant unhappiness.
She might have been better off without it. These are the sad thoughts
which most resist consolation.
The torches of the cormorant fishermen through the dark groves were
like fireflies on a garden stream.
"For someone not used to living beside the water," said Genji, "I think
it must be wonderfully strange and different."
"The torches bobbing with the fisher boats
Upon those waves have followed me to Oi.
"The torches and my thoughts are now as they were then."
And he answered:
"Only one who does not know deep waters
Can still be bobbing, dancing on those waves.
"Who, I ask you, has made whom unhappy?" So he turned her gentle
complaint against her.
It was a rime of relative leisure when Genji could turn his thoughts
to his devotions. Because his visits were longer, the Akashi lady (or so one
hears) was feeling somewhat happier with her lot.
<W Murasaki Shikibu>{Translated by Edward G.Seidensticker}
<T The Tale of Genji>
<K 2>
<C 20>{The Morning Glory}
<N 1>
<P 348>
The high priestess of Kamo, Princess Asagao, resigned her position upon
the death of her father. Never able to forget ladies who had interested him,
Genji had sent frequent inquiries after her health. Her answers were al-
ways very stiff and formal. She was determined never again to be the
subject of rumors. He was of course not happy.
He learned that she had returned to her father's Momozono Palace in
the Ninth Month. The Fifth Princess, younger sister of the old emperor and
aunt of Asagao and of Genji as well, was also in residence at Momozono.
Genji paid a visit, making the Fifth Princess his excuse. The old emperor
had been very fond of his sister and niece, and Genji could say that he had
inherited a responsibility. They occupied the east and west wings of the
palace, which already showed signs of neglect and wore a most melancholy
aspect
The Fifth Princess received him. She seemed to have aged and she
coughed incessantly. Princess Omiya, the mother of Genji's dead wife, was
her older sister, but the two were very different. Princess Omiya had
retained her good looks to the end. A husky-voiced, rather gawky person,
the Fifth Princess had somehow never come into her own.
"The world has seemed such a sad place since your father died. I spend
my old age sniffling and sobbing. And now Prince Shikibu has left me too.
I was sure that no one in the world would even remember me, and here
you are. Your kind visit has done a great deal to dispel the gloom."
<P 349>
Yes, she had aged. He addressed her most courteously. "Everything
seemed to change when Father died. There were those years when with no
warning and for no reason that I could see I languished in the provinces.
Then when my good brother saw fit to call me back and I was honored with
official position once more, I found that I ad little time of my own, and
I fear that I have neglected you inexcusably. I have so often thought that
I would like to call and have a good talk about old times."
"As you say, it has been a very uncertain and disorderly world. Every-
where I look I see something more to upset me. And I have lived through
it all quite as if I were no part of it. No one should be asked to live so long
--but now that I see you back where you should be, I remember how I
hated the thought of dying while you were still away." Her voice cracked
and wavered. "Just see what a handsome gentleman you have become. You
were so pretty when you were little that it was hard to believe you were
really meant for this world, and each time since I have had the same
thought, that you might have been meant for somewhere else. They say
that His Majesty looks just like you, but I don't believe it. There can't be
two such handsome men."
He smiled. She might have waited until he was out of earshot. "You
praise me too highly. I neglected myself when I was in the provinces and
I fear I have not shaken off the countrified look. As for His Majesty, there
