Why, he asked himself, did he become so engrossed in matters which
should not have concerned him? He knew that to let his feelings have their
way would be to give himself a name for utter frivolity, and of course to
do the girl great harm. He knew further that though he loved her very
<P 446>
much she would never be Murasaki's rival. What sort of life would she
have as one of the lesser ladies? He might be the grandest statesman in the
land, but a lesser lady was still a lesser lady. She would be better off as
the principal wife of some middling councillor. Should he then let Hotaru
or Higekuro have her? He might succeed in resigning himself to such an
arrangement. He would not be happy, but--or so he sometimes thought
--it might perhaps after all be best. And then he would see her, and change
his mind.
He still visited her frequently. The Japanese koto was his excuse.
Embarrassed at first to find herself his pupil, she presently began to feel
that he did not mean to take advantage of her, and came to accept the visits
as normal and proper. Rather prim and very careful to avoid any sugges-
tion of coquetry, she pleased him more and more. Matters could not be left
as they were.
Suppose then that he were to find her a bridegroom but keep her here
at Rokujo~, where he could continue to see her, clandestinely, of course. She
knew nothing of men, and his overtures disturbed her. He had to feel sorry
for her; but once she was better informed he would make his way past the
most unblinking of gatekeepers and have his way with her. These thoughts
may not seem entirely praiseworthy. The longing and fretfulness increased
and invited trouble--it was a very difficult relationship indeed.
<N 4>
To~ no Chu~jo~ had learned that his new daughter had not really been
accepted as one of the family and that people thought her rather funny.
Ko~bai remarked in the course of a conversation that Genji had inquired
about her.
"I have indeed brought home a daughter whom I allowed to grow up
in the hills. I am not surprised that Genji asked about her. He seldom has
a bad word for anyone, but for me and my family he has a few bad words
on every occasion. We are much honored."
"He has a new lady at Rokujo~, you know, and everything suggests
that she is a beauty, the next thing to perfection. Prince Hotaru seems very
much interested in her. The gossip suggests that he has every right to be."
"Oh, yes, I am sure everyone is interested in her. But that is only
because she is Genji's daughter. So it goes. I doubt that she is so very
special, really. If she were he would have found her long before this. Yes,
the great Genji, not a fleck of dust on his name and fame, much too good,
everyone says, for our degenerate age. It seems a pity that his favorite lady,
a perfect jewel, has no children. He must feel rather badly served. He seems
to have ambitious plans for the little Akashi girl, even though her mother
leaves something to be desired. Well, what will be will be. As for the new
lady, a suspicious and cynical person might wonder whether she is in fact
his daughter. He is a fine man but he has his little eccentricities, and it
might all be sham and playacting.
<P 447>
"I wonder what plans he has for the new lady, and how Prince Hotaru
might figure in them. They have been the closest of brothers, and I should
think they would get on very well as father and son."
<N 5>
To~ no Chu~jo~ continued to be unhappy with Kumoinokari. He would
have liked to make her the belle of the day, the rage of the court. Infatuated
with a minor courtier like Yu~giri, she was not being cooperative. Perhaps
if Genji were to step in with repeated and earnest supplications To~ no
Chu~jo~ could graciously give his consent. Yu~giri's coolness and imperturba-
bility did not help matters.
To~ no Chu~jo~ went unannounced to Kumoinokari's rooms. She was
napping, very small and pretty, and managing to look cool in spite of the
heat. Her skin was a soft glow through a gossamer singlet. One hand still
held a fan most prettily, and her head was cradled on an arm. The hair that
flowed behind her in natural tresses was neither too long nor trou-
blesomely thick, and beautifully combed. Her women too were asleep,
behind blinds and screens. They were not easily awakened. She looked
innocently up at him as he tapped with his fan, her eyes round and startled,
and the flush that came over her face delighted him.
"So here you are sleeping, and I have told you I can't think how many
<P 448>
times that constant vigilance is one of the marks of a lady. There is not
a vigilant eye in this room. You are all looking very abandoned indeed. Not
of course that I would want you to storm and glower. Vigilance is not to
be recommended when it merely puts people off.
"They tell me that Genji is going to enormous trouble with the girl
he means to send to court. He seems to have embarked upon a liberal and
expansive program, giving her something of everything and not letting her
specialize, seeing that she is ignorant of nothing and not asking that she
be an expert. A very liberal sort of education. Yet we do all have our
preferences, and no doubt hers will emerge as she gets older. I am eagerly
awaiting the day when she appears at court.
"You have not made things easy for me, my dear, but do at least try
to keep people from laughing at us. I have given very careful attention to
reports about a number of young gentlemen. It is still too early for you to
accept the tender pleas of any one of them. You must leave that to me."
All the while he was lecturing he was thinking how pretty she was.
She was very sorry for the trouble she had caused, and would not for
the world have wanted to seem unapologetic. She could not look at him.
Her grandmother, Princess Omiya, complained of neglect, but it was just
such paternal reproaches as these that made it difficult for her to visit the
old lady.
<N 6>
To~ no Chu~jo~ had been very happy at finding a daughter off in Omi,
and he would not seem his usual sensible self if now that she had become
a public joke he were to send her back again. Nor was the alternative very
pleasing, to keep her here and make it seem that he had serious plans for
her. Perhaps his daughter at court could use her, and everyone could have
a good laugh over her. She was not so impossibly ill favored that she must
be kept out of sight.
"I will make you a gift of her," he said to the other daughter. "If she
seems too completely silly, you can tell your older women that they have
someone to educate, and maybe you can keep the younger ones from
laughing unmercifully. I must admit that she does at times seem a little
flight?"
"Oh, surely she is not as bad as all that. Kashiwagi led us to have high
hopes for her, and it may be that she has not entirely lived up to them."
She was rather splendid. "Don't you suppose it embarrasses the poor thing
to be the center of so much attention?"
Though not the reigning beauty of the day, this other daughter had
elegance and dignity and a pleasantly gentle manner. She was like a plum
blossom opening at dawn. Her father loved the way she had of making it
seem that a great deal was being left unsaid.
"Kashiwagi is young and naive, and he halted his investigations
before he had come upon the obvious." He was not being very kind to his
new daughter.
<N 7>
He thought he would look in on her, since her room was not far away.
He found her, blinds raised high, at a contest of backgammon.
<P 449>
Her hands at her forehead in earnest supplication, she was rattling off
her prayer at a most wondrous speed. "Give her a deuce, give her a deuce."
Over and over again. "Give her a deuce, give her a deuce."
This really was rather dreadful. Motioning his attendants to silence,
he slipped behind a hinged door from which the view was unobstructed
through sliding doors beyond.
"Revenge, revenge," shrieked Gosechi, the clever young woman who
was her opponent. Gosechi was not to be outdone in earnestness or shrill-
ness. She shook and shook the dicebox and was not quick to make her
throw.
If either of them had anything at all in her empty mind she was not
showing it. The Omi daughter was small and pretty and had beautiful
hair, and could by no means have been described as an unrelieved scandal
--though a narrow forehead and a too exuberant and indeed a torrential
way of speaking canceled out her good points. No beauty, certainly, and
yet it was impossible not to recognize immediately whose daughter she
was. It made To~ no Chu~jo~ uncomfortable to realize that he might have been
looking at his own mirror image.
<P 450>
"Are you feeling quite at home?" he presently asked. "Are they being
good to you? I am very busy, I fear, and do not see you as often as I would
wish."
"Just being here is enough. No complaints, not a one." The speed was
undiminished. "All those years I just wanted to see your face. That's all
I wanted, all those years. But I still get the bad throws. I don't get to look
at you very much."
"I am genuinely sorry. I rather keep to myself, and I had hoped that
we would have a great deal of time for each other. But things have not so
arranged themselves. You will have seen that ordinary ladies rather tend
to get lost in the crowd, and it does not matter very much how they
behave. That is very nice for them. But it sometimes happens that a lady
comes from such a good family that people are always pointing her out,
and it sometimes happens that she does not do full honor to the family
name, and-?"
The full significance of the final conjunction was lost upon the lady.
"Oh no oh no. I don't care if I don't stand out in a crowd. I just tell myself
family makes trouble and keep out of sight. Give me the chamber pot to
empty and I'll do it."
A guffaw emerged from the minister. "Oh, that won't be necessary,
I think. But if you do wish to demonstrate your keen sense of duty, then
see if you can't manage to let your words have a little more room. Space
them a little more generously. Let them be drawn out a little more and I
will feel that the years of my life are being drawn out with them." He
smiled at his little joke.
"I've always had the fastest tongue. Mother scolded me for it, way
back when I was a baby. The steward of the Myo~ho~ji Temple, she said,
it was all his fault. He was there when I was born way out in Omi, and
he had the fastest tongue too, and that was where I got it. I'll see what I
can do about it." She said it most solemnly, as if prepared to sacrifice
anything in the cause of filial duty.
He was touched. "He did you a disservice, the good steward, in pre-
siding at your birth. He sounds like someone who has much to atone for.
The Lotus Sutra tells us that dumbness and stammering are punishment
for blasphemy."
He was in some awe of his daughter at court, and was having second
thoughts about letting her see this new sister. The mistake had been
Kashiwagi's, in bringing the strange creature home before he knew what
she was. People were laughing, and there was nothing to be done.
"Your sister is with us at the moment. Watch her carefully, and see
how she behaves. Good manners have a way of spreading out from the
center. Think of it that way, and see what she has to teach you."
"I'd be delighted. Morning and night it's the thing I asked for, just to
be one of them and make them take me as one of them. Morning and night
and months and years it's what I've wanted. just tell her to make them
make me one of them and I'll do anything she tells me. I'll bring in the
<P 451>
water. I'll bring it in on my head." She had gathered such momentum that
she was next to incomprehensible and somewhat intimidating.
"Oh, I doubt that she will ask you to cut the kindling. What will be
asked of you is that you rid yourself of the good steward and find yourself
a new model."
She was not as alive as she might have been to irony, nor did she seem
aware what a great man she was addressing. She did not share in the
general awe.
"So when shall I go see her?"
"Suppose we pick a lucky day. No, we needn't make such a thing of
it. Just drop in on her when you feel like it, today if you wish." And he
went out.
Just see what a father she had found for herself. An ordinary turn
around the house, and just look at all the Fourth Rankers and Fifth Rankers
he had with him. "And I'm his own little girl. Why did I have to grow up
in Omi?"
"Too fine a papa, really," said Gosechi. "Don't you think you might
have been better off with an ordinary one who cared a little about you?"
"There you go. You always make everything turn out wrong. Well,
just you remember something. You're with your betters, and don't you
forget it. I've got big things ahead of me."
One could not be angry with her. Commonness and honest, sturdy
indignation could be charming. The trouble was with her speech. She had
grown up among country people, and it was very inelegant. Pure, precise
speech can give a certain distinction to rather ordinary remarks. An im-
promptu poem, for instance, if it is spoken musically, with an air at the
beginning and end as of something unsaid, can seem to convey worlds of
meaning, even if upon mature reflection it does not seem to have said much
of anything at all. Torrential remarks have the opposite effect: the distin-
guished seems flat and vulgar. The overemphatic Omi speech patterns
made everything seem less than serious. She had acquired them at her
