Karasaki for her lustration, Koremitsu's to Naniwa. The inspector had
already arranged for his daughter's return to court. People criticized To~ no
Chu~jo~'s brother for having offered a daughter unworthy of the occasion,
but she-was received into court service with the others.
There being a vacancy on the empress's staff, Koremitsu asked Genji
whether his daughter might not be favored with appointment. Genji said
that he would see what could be done. This was disappointing news for
Yu~giri. She was being taken beyond his reach. Though the disappointment
was not of a really devastating sort, new sorrow was added to old.
The girl had a brother who was a court page. Yu~giri had occasionally
made use of his services.
One day Yu~giri addressed him in a friendlier manner than usual." And
when may we hope to see your sister at court?"
"By the end of the year, I am told."
"I thought her very pretty. I envy you, able to see her whenever you
want to. Do you suppose I might ask you to let me see her myself some-
time?"
"I am afraid it would be very difficult. I am her brother and even I am
kept at a distance. I am afraid it would be very difficult indeed."
"At least give her this letter."
The boy had long been under very stern instructions to have no part
in such maneuvers, but Yu~giri was insistent.
The Gosechi dancer, perhaps a little precocious, was delighted with
the letter, which was on delicate blue paper very tastefully folded with
papers of several colors. The hand, though young, showed great promise.
<P 378>
"Were you aware of it as you danced in the sunlight,
The heart that was pinned upon the heavenly sleeves?"
Koremitsu came in as they were admiring it.
"What's this? Who's it from?" They flushed. There had been no time
to hide it. "You know very well that I do not permit this sort of thing."
He blocked the boy's escape.
"The chancellor's son asked me to deliver it."
"Well, now. What an amusing little prank. You are the same age, and
I only wish you had a few of his talents." His anger having quite left him,
he went off to show the letter to his wife. "If he is still interested when
he is a little older, she would be better off in his hands than at court. I kno
His Lordship well. Once a woman has attracted his attention he never
forgets her. This could be a very good thing. Look at the Akashi lady."
But they could think of little these days except preparations for send-
ing the girl to court.
Yu~giri was filled with thoughts of the far better placed young lady to
whom he could not write. His longing grew. Would he ever see her again?
He no longer enjoyed visiting his grandmother and kept to himself at Nijo~.
<P 379>
He remembered the room that had been his for so long, the room where
they had played so happily together. The very thought of the Sanjo~ house
became oppressive.
Genji asked the lady of the orange blossoms to look after the boy. "His
grandmother does not have a great many years ahead of her. The two of
you have known each other so long--might I ask you to take over?"
It was her way to do everything Genji asked of her. Gently but with
complete dedication she put herself into the work of keeping house for
Yu~giri.
He would sometimes catch a glimpse of her. She was not at all beauti-
ful, and yet his father had been faithful to her. Was it merely silly, his own
inability to forget the beauty of a girl who was being unkind to him? He
should look for someone of a similarly compliant nature. Not, however,
someone who was positively repulsive. Though Genji had kept the lady
of the orange blossoms with him all these years, he seemed quite aware
of her defects. When he visited her he was always careful to see that she
was as fully ensheathed as an amaryllis bud, and that he was spared the
need to look upon her. Yu~giri understood. He had an eye for these things
that would have put the adult eye to shame. His grandmother was still very
beautiful even now that she had become a nun. Surrounded from infancy
by beautiful women, he naturally took adverse notice of a lady who, not
remarkably well favored from the start, was past her prime, a bit peaked
and thin of hair.
The end of the year approached. Omiya occupied herself with his
New Year robes to the exclusion of everything else. They were very splen-
did and very numerous, but they only added to his gloom.
"I don't see why you're going to so much trouble. I'm not at all sure
that I will even go to court."
"Whatever are you talking about? You are behaving like a defeated
old man."
"I may not be old," he said to himself, brushing away a tear, "but I
certainly am defeated."
His grandmother wanted to weep with him. She knew too well what
was troubling him.
"They say that a man is only as low as his thoughts. You must pull
yourself out of it. All this mooning, I can't think what good it will ever
do you."
"You needn't worry. But I know that people are calling me the unpro-
moted marvel, and I don't enjoy going to court. If Grandfather were still
alive they wouldn't be laughing at me. Father is Father, I know, and I know
I should be going to him with my problems. But he is so stiff and remote
and he doesn't come to the east lodge all that often. The lady there is very
good to me, but I do wish sometimes that I had a mother of my own."
He was trying to hide his tears, and she was now weeping openly. "It
is sad for anyone, I don't care who, to lose his mother, but people do grow
<P 380>
up and follow their own destinies, and these little stings and smarts go
away. You must not take them so seriously. I agree that it would have been
nice if your grandfather had lived a little longer. Your father should be
doing just as much for you, but in some ways he does rather leave some-
thing to be desired. People say what a fine figure of a man your uncle, the
minister, is, but I only think myself that he is less and less like the boy
I used to know. When I see you so unhappy, and your whole future ahead
of you, I wonder if I haven't lived too long. You are letting yourself get
worked up over nothing at all, I know, but I do get angry for you."
His presence not being required at court, Genji spent a pleasant New
Year at home. He followed the precedent of Chancellor Yoshifusa and
reviewed the white horses on his own Nijo~ grounds, where the observ-
ances were no less grand than at court. Some of the details even went
beyond what precedent required.
Late in the Second Month the emperor paid a visit to the Suzaku
Palace of the retired emperor. The full bloom of the cherries would have
coincided with the anniversary of Fujitsubo's death, but the early blossoms
were very beautiful. The Suzaku Palace had been carefully repaired and
redecorated. The court, even princes of the blood, wore uniform dress,
green over white lined with red. The emperor wore red, as did Genji,
present by royal summons. People seemed to carry themselves with greater
dignity than on most occasions. The two of them, emperor and chancellor,
looked so radiantly alike that they could almost have been mistaken for
each other. The Suzaku emperor had improved with age. He had a soft,
gentle sort of grace that was all his own.
Though no professed men of letters had been invited, ten and more
university scholars were present, young men who were already making
their marks as poets. The emperor assigned subjects from the official ex-
aminations. It was a mock examination for the benefit of the chancellor,s
son, people suspected. Fidgeting nervously, the scholars were sent off to
deliberate on their topics, each in a separate boat on the lake. They seemed
to be having trouble. Musicians were rowed out on the lake as the sun was
setting. A sudden wind came down from the hills to enliven the tuning of
the instruments. Yu~giri was angry with the world. Only he was forbidden
to sing and to joke.
"Spring Warbler" brought back memories of a spring festival many
years before.
"I wonder if we will ever again see such an affair," said the Suzaku
emperor.
Genji was lost in memories of his father's reign. When the dance was
over he offered a cup to the Suzaku emperor, and with it a verse:
"The warblers are today as long ago,
But we in the shade of the blossoms are utterly changed."
<P 381>
The Suzaku emperor replied:
"Though kept by mists from the ninefold-garlanded court,
I yet have warblers to tell me spring has come."
Prince Hotaru filled the emperor's cup and offered this poem:
"The tone of the flute is as it always has been,
Nor do I detect a change in the song of the warbler."
It was very thoughtful and tactful of him to suggest that not all was
decline.
With awesome dignity, the emperor replied:
"The warbler laments as it flies from tree to tree--
For blossoms whose hue is paler than once it was?"
And that I have no more poems to set down--is it because, the occa-
sion being a formal one, the flagons did not make the complete rounds?
Or is it that our scrivener overlooked some of them?
The concert being at such a distance that the emperor could not hear
very well, instruments were brought into the royal presence: a lute for
<P 382>
Prince Hotaru, a Japanese koto for To~ no Chu~jo~, for the retired emperor
a thirteen-stringed Chinese koto, and for Genji, as always, a seven-
stringed Chinese koto. They must all play for him, said the emperor. They
were accomplished musicians and they outdid themselves, and the concert
could not have been finer. Numerous courriers were happy to sing the
lyrics, "How Grand the Day" and "Cherry-Blossom Girl" and the rest.
A misty moon came up, flares were set out on the island, and the festivities
came to an end.
Though it was very late, the emperor thought it would be rude to
ignore Lady Kokiden, the Suzaku emperor's mother. He looked in on her
as he started back for the palace. Genji was with him. An old lady now,
she was very pleased. Genji thought of Fujitsubo. It seemed wrong that of
his father's ladies the one should be living so long and the other should
have died so soon.
"I am old and forgetful," said Kokiden, weeping, "but your kind visit
brings everything back."
"Having lost the ones whom I so depended upon," the emperor re-
plied, "I have scarcely been able to detect the arrival of spring, but this
interview quite restores my serenity. I shall call upon you from time to
time, if I may."
Genji too said that he would call again. Kokiden was disconcerted by
the grandeur of the procession as they made a somewhat hasty departure.
What sort of memories would Genji have of her and her better days? She
was sorry now for what she had done. It had been his destiny to rule, and
she had been able to change nothing. Her sister Oborozukiyo, with little
else to occupy her thoughts, found them turning to the past, in which there
was much to muse upon and be moved by. It would seem that she still
contrived, on this occasion and that, to get off a note to Genji. Kokiden
was always finding fault with the management of her stipends and allow-
ances, and grumbling about her misfortune in having lived on into so
inferior a reign. She complained so much, indeed, that not even her son
could bear her company.
Yu~giri's graduation poem was proclaimed a masterpiece and he re-
ceived his degree. Only the most advanced and promising scholars were
permitted to take the examinations and only three of them passed. At the
autumn levy he was promoted to the Fifth Rank and made a chamberlain.
Kumoinokari was never out of his thoughts, but he was not prepared to
take the extreme measures that would be necessary to elude her watchful
father. He was unhappy, of course, and so was she.
Genji had been thinking that he needed more room for the leisurely
life which was now his. He wanted to have everyone near him, including
the people who were still off in the country. He had bought four parks in
<P 383>
Rokujo~, near the eastern limits of the city and including the lands of the
Rokujo~ lady.
Prince Hyo~bu, Murasaki's father, would be fifty next year. She busied
herself with preparations for the event. Genji had concluded that further
aloofness would be mean-spirited. He gave orders that his new Rokujo~
place be finished in time for the celebrations.
With the New Year they occupied still more of Murasaki's time. There
was a division of effort, Genji troubling himself with dancing and music
for the banquet after the religious services and Murasaki concentrating on
the services themselves, the decorations for the scriptures and images, the
robes, the offerings, and the like. The lady of the orange blossoms was a
great help to her. On better terms than ever, they kept up a lively and
elegant correspondence.
Prince Hyo~bu presently heard of these preparations, of which every-
one was talking. Though Genji was generally thought to be a kind and
thoughtful man, his kindness had thus far not reached the prince. Indeed,
Genji seemed almost to devise occasions for humiliating him and his
family. Unpleasantness followed unpleasantness until the prince had to
conclude that Genji harbored singularly durable grudges. It was good all
the same that Murasaki should be his favorite. Not much of the glory
<P 384>
brushed off on the prince, but still she was his daughter. And now all this,
the whole world was talking. It was an unexpected honor in his declining
years.
His wife was not so easily pleased. Indeed, she was more resentful
