than ever. Her own daughter had gone to court, and what had Genji done
for her?
The new Rokujo~ mansion was finished in the Eighth Month and
people began moving in. The southwest quarter, including her mother's
lands, was assigned to Akikonomu as her home away from the palace. The
northeast quarter wag assigned to the lady of the orange blossoms, who
had occupied the east lodge at Nijo~, and the northwest quarter to the lady
from Akashi. The wishes of the ladies themselves were consulted in de-
signing the new gardens, a most pleasant arrangement of lakes and hills.
The hills were high in the southeast quarter, where spring-blossoming
trees and bushes were planted in large numbers. The lake was most ingeni-
ously designed. Among the plantings in the forward parts of the garden
were cinquefoil pines, maples, cherries, wisteria, yamabuki, and rock aza-
lea, most of them trees and shrubs whose season was spring. Touches of
autumn too were scattered through the groves.
In Akikonomu's garden the plantings, on hills left from the old gar-
den, were chosen for rich autumn colors. Clear spring water went singing
off into the distance, over rocks designed to enhance the music. There was
a waterfall, and the whole expanse was like an autumn moor. Since it was
now autumn, the garden was a wild profusion of autumn flowers and
leaves, such as to shame the hills of Oi.
In the northeast quarter there was a cool natural spring and the plans
had the summer sun in mind. In the forward parts of the garden the wind
through thickets of Chinese bamboo would be cool in the summer, and the
trees were deep and mysterious as mountain groves. There was a hedge of
mayflower, and there were oranges to remind the lady of days long gone.
There were wild carnations and roses and gentians and a few spring and
autumn flowers as well. A part of the quarter was fenced off for equestrian
grounds. Since the Fifth Month would be its liveliest time, there were irises
along the lake. On the far side were stables where the finest of horses
would be kept.
And finally the northwest quarter: beyond artificial hillocks to the
north were rows of warehouses, screened off by pines which would be
beautiful in new falls of snow. The chrysanthemum hedge would bloom
in the morning frosts of early winter, when also a grove of "mother
oaks" would display its best hues. And in among the deep groves were
mountain trees which one would have been hard put to identify.
<P 385>
The move was made at about the time of the equinox. The plan was
that everyone would move together, but Akikonomu was loath to make
such an occasion of it and chose to come a few days later. The lady of the
orange blossoms, docile and unassertive as ever, moved on the same eve-
ning as Murasaki.
Murasaki's spring garden was out of its season but very beautiful all
the same. There were fifteen women's carriages in her procession. The
attendants, in modest numbers, were of the Fourth and Fifth ranks and less
prominently of the Sixth Rank, all of them men who had long been close
to Genji and his house. Genji did not want to be criticized for extravagance
or ostentation, and the arrangements were generally austere. The two
ladies were given virtually the same treatment, with Yu~giri seeing to the
needs of the lady of the orange blossoms. Everyone thought this most
proper.
The women's rooms were apPointed with great care, down to the
smallest details. How nice everything was, they said, and their own ar-
rangements were the nicest of all.
Akikonomu moved into her new lodgings five or six days later.
Though she had specified that the arrangements be simple, they were in
fact rather grand. She had of course been singled out for remarkable
<P 386>
honors, but she was of a calm and retiring nature, much esteemed by the
whole court.
There were elaborate walls and galleries with numerous passageways
this way and that among the several quarters, so that the ladies could live
apart and still be friendly.
The Ninth Month came and Akikonomu's garden was resplendent
with autumn colors. On an evening when a gentle wind was blowing she
arranged leaves and flowers on the lid of an ornamental box and sent them
over to Murasaki. Her messenger was a rather tall girl in a singlet of deep
purple, a robe of lilac lined with blue, and a gossamer cloak of saffron. She
made her practiced way along galleries and verandas and over the soaring
bridges that joined them, with the dignity that became her estate, and yet
so pretty that the eyes of the whole house were upon her. Everything about
her announced that she had been trained to the highest service.
This was Akikonomu's poem, presented with the gift:
A "Your garden quietly awaits the spring.
Permit the winds to bring a touch of autumn."
The praise which Murasaki's women showered on the messenger did
not at all displease her. Murasaki sent back an arrangement of moss on the
same box, with a cinquefoil pine against stones suggesting cliffs. A poem
was tied to a branch of the pine:
"Fleeting, your leaves that scatter in the wind.
The pine at the cliffs is forever green with the spring."
One had to look carefully to see that the pine was a clever fabrication.
Akikonomu was much impressed that so ingenious a response should have
come so quickly. Her women were speechless.
"I think you were unnecessarily tart," said Genji to Murasaki. "You
should wait until your spring trees are in bloom. What will the goddess
of Tatsuta think when she hears you belittling the best of autumn colors?
Reply from strength, when you have the force of your spring blossoms to
support you." He was looking wonderfully young and handsome.
There were more such exchanges, in this most tasteful of houses.
The Akashi lady thought that she should wait until the grand ladies
had moved and then make her own quiet move. She did so in the Tenth
Month. With an eye on his daughter's future, Genji took great care that
nothing about her retinue or the appointments of her rooms suggest inferi-
ority.
<W Murasaki Shikibu>{Translated by Edward G.Seidensticker}
<T The Tale of Genji>
<K 3>
<C 22>{The Jeweled Chaplet}
<N 1>
<P 387>
The years passed, and Genji had not forgotten the dew upon the evening
faces he had seen so briefly. As he came to know a variety of ladies, he
only regretted the more strongly that the lady of the evening faces had not
lived.
Ukon, her woman, was not of very distinguished lineage, but Genji
was fond of her, and thought of her as a memento of her dead lady. She
was now one of the older women in his household. He had transferred
everyone to Murasaki's wing of the Nijo~ house when he left for Suma, and
there she had stayed. Murasaki valued her as a quiet, good-natured ser-
vant. Ukon could only think with regret that if her own lady had lived she
would now be honored with treatment similar at least to that accorded the
Akashi lady. Genji was a generous man and he did not abandon women
to whom he had been even slightly drawn; and the lady of the evening
faces, if not perhaps one of the really important ones, would surely have
been in the company that recently moved to Rokujo~.
<N 2>
Ukon had not made her whereabouts known to the little girl, the
lady's daughter, left with her nurse in the western part of the city. Genji
had told her that she must keep the affair to herself and that nothing was
to be gained by letting his part in it be known at so late a date. She had
made no attempt to find the nurse. Presently the nurse's husband had been
appointed deputy viceroy of Kyushu and the family had gone off with him
to his post. The girl was four at the time. They had prayed for information
<P 388>
of any sort about the mother. Day and night, always in tears, they had
looked for her where they thought she might possibly be. The nurse finally
decided that she would keep the child to remember the mother by. Yet it
was sad to think of taking her on a hard voyage to a remote part of the
land. They debated seeking out her father, To~ no Chu~jo~, and telling him
of her whereabouts When no good entree presented itself, they gathered
in family council: it would be difficult to tell him, since they did not know
what had happened to the mother; life would be hard for the girl, intro-
duced so young to a father who was a complete stranger; and if he knew
that she was his daughter he was unlikely to let her go. She was a pretty
child, already showing signs of distinction, and it was very sad indeed to
take her off in a shabby boat.
"Are we going to Mother's?" she asked from time to time.
The nurse and her daughters wept tears of nostalgia and regret. But
they must control themselves. Tears did not bode well for the journey.
The scenery along the way brought memories. "She was so young and
so alive to things--how she would have loved it all if she could have come
with us. But of course if she were alive we would still be in the city
ourselves."
They were envious of the waves, returning whence they had come.
"Sadly, sadly we have journeyed this distance," came the rough
voices of the sailors.
The nurse's daughters looked at each other and wept.
"To whom might it be that the thoughts of these sailors turn,
Sadly singing off the Oshima strand?"
"Here on the sea, we know not whence or whither,
Or where to look in search of our lost lady.
"I had not expected to leave her for these wilds."
"We will not forget" was the refrain when the ship had passed Cape
Kane; and when they had made land, tears welled up again, in the
awareness of how very far they had come.
They looked upon the child as their lady. Sometimes, rarely, one of
them would dream of the dead mother. She would have with her a woman
who might have been her twin, and afterwards the dreamer would fall ill.
They had to conclude that she was no longer living.
<N 3>
Years passed, and the deputy viceroy's term of service was over. He
thought of returning to the city, but hesitated, for he was a man of no great
influence even off in that remote land. He was still hesitating when he fell
<P 389>
seriously ill. On the point of death, he looked up at the girl, now ten, and
so beautiful that he feared for her.
"What difficult times you will face if I leave you! I have thought it a
shameful waste that you should grow up so far from everything, and I have
wanted to get you back to the city as soon as I possibly can. I have wanted
to present you to the right people and leave you to whatever destinies may
be yours, and I have been making my preparations. The capital is a large
place and you would be safe there. And now it seems that I must end my
days here."
He had three sons. "You must give first priority to taking her back.
You need not worry about my funeral.
No one outside of his immediate family knew who the girl was. He
had let it be known that she was a grandchild whom, for certain reasons,
it had fallen his lot to rear, and he had let no one see her. He had done
what he could, and now, suddenly, he was dying. The family went ahead
with preparations for the return, There were many in the region who had
not been on good terms with the deputy viceroy, and life was full of perils.
The girl was even prettier than her mother, perhaps because her father's
blood also flowed in her veins. Delicate and graceful, she had a quiet,
serene disposition. One would have had to look far to find her equal.
The young gallants of the region heard about her and letters came
pouring in. They produced only grim and irritable silence.
"You wouldn't call her repulsive, exactly," the nurse said to people,
"but she has a most unfortunate defect that makes it impossible for her
to marry. She is to become a nun and stay with me as along as I live."
"A sad case," they all said, in hushed tones as of something dark and
ominous. "Did you hear? The old deputy's granddaughter is a freak."
His sons were determined to take the girl back to her father. He had
seemed so fond of her when she was little. It was most unlikely that he
would disown her now. They prayed to all the various native and foreign
gods.
<N 4>
But presently they and their sisters married into provincial families,
and the return to the city, once so devoutly longed for, receded into the
distance. Life was difficult for the girl as she came to understand her
situation a little better. She made her retreats three times a year. Now she
was twenty, and she had attained to a perfection wasted in these harsh
regions.
The family lived in the province of Hizen. The local gentry continued
to hear rumors and to pay court. The nurse only wished they would go
away.
There was an official of the Fifth Rank who had been on the viceroy's
staff and who was a member of a large clan scattered over the province of
Higo. He was something of a local eminence, a warrior of very considerable
power and influence. Though of an untamed nature, he did have a taste
for the finer things, and among his avocations was the collecting of elegant
ladies.
<P 390>
He heard of the girl. "I don't care if she is the worst sort of freak. I'll
just shut my eyes." His suit was earnest and a little threatening too.
"It is quite impossible," the nurse sent back. "Tell him that she is to
become a nun."
The man came storming into Hizen and summoned the nurse's sons
for conference. If they did what he wanted, they would be his allies. He
could do a great deal for them. The two young sons were inclined to accede.
"It is true that we did not want her to marry beneath her. But he will
