nurse's breast and was not shy about using them; and they were all wrong.
Yet she did have her little accomplishments. She could without warning
rattle off poem after poem of approximately the right length, and if the top
half did not seem to go with the bottom half, that was all right too.
<N 8>
"Father says I must go see Sister, and so that's just what I'll do.
Wouldn't want to disappoint him. Maybe I'll go right away. No, maybe
I'll wait till dark. I'm Father's own little pet, but that won't do me much
good if we're not chums, me and all the rest of them."
The rest of them did not seem to be so eager.
She immediately set about composing a letter to her sister.
"Though here beside your fence of rushes, the fact I have not had
the happiness of stepping on your shadow might be from a gate which
<P 452>
says 'Come not my way.' It may be rude to mention Musashi when we
haven't been introduced yet but forgive me." This last was followed by
several ditto marks, and there were underlinings. Then there was a "please
turn over," and: "Yes, I forgot. I may come see you this evening because
unfriendliness intensifies my longing. I'm all in a dither and writing
poorly, very poorly. It must be I am like the Minase." And there was a
poem, and one final remark:
"Cape How of the grassy pastures of Hitachi
Says how can the waves of Farmer Beach come see you.
"And the waves of the river broad."
It was on a single sheet of green paper in a somewhat impatient style,
the style of what master one could not easily have said. Given to wander-
ings and extensions, it seemed in spite of everything much pleased with
itself, though asking for a larger piece of paper. She smiled at her composi-
tion and, folding it into a demure little knot, fastened it to a wild carnation.
For her messenger she chose a little scullery maid, pretty and confident
though new to the service.
"This is for _her_," said the messenger, marching in upon the ladies-in-
waiting.
"A letter has come from the north wing." The woman who took it
recognized her and opened the letter.
Another woman, called Chu~nagon, glanced curiously at the minister's
daughter, who smiled as she put it down. "It looks like a most stylish sort
of letter."
"I do not seem to be very good at the cursive style," said the lady,
handing it to her. "I can't somehow quite get the thread of it. But she will
look down upon me if I do not answer in a similarly sophisticated and
literary vein. Work up a draft for me, if you will, please."
The younger women were giggling.
<P 453>
"It was not easy," said Chu~nagon, presenting her draft, "to maintain
the graceful, poetic tone. And we would not wish to insult her with
anything from the hand of a scrivener."
She had made it seem that the answer had come from the hand of the
lady herself:
"It does indeed seem cruel that I should not have the pleasure of your
company when you are so near.
"You waves of the Suma coast of Suruga-
Hitachi, the pine of Hakosaki waits."
"Oh, no! Everyone will think I wrote it.
"Few will make that mistake, my lady."
And so it was put in an envelope and sent off.
"What a nice poem," said the Omi lady. "What a nice poem. And
she's waiting for me, she says."
She scented and rescented her robes, though the first scenting made
them insistent, and put on crimson rouge and brushed furiously at her hair.
Her completed toilet was very gay and rather charming.
No doubt there was a certain boldness too in her address.
<W Murasaki Shikibu>{Translated by Edward G.Seidensticker}
<T The Tale of Genji>
<K 3>
<C 27>{Flares}
<N 1>
<P 454>
Everyone was talking about the minister's new daughter from Omi, and
most of the talk was not kind.
"I do not like it," said Genji. "She should have been kept out of sight,
and here for no reason at all he brings her grandly into his house and lets
the whole world laugh at her. He has always been quick to take a stand,
and he probably sent for her without finding out much of anything about
her, and when he saw that she was not what he wanted he did what he
has done. These things should be managed quietly."
Tamakazura could see now that she had after all been lucky. To~ no
Chu~jo~ was her father, to be sure, but if she had gone to him as a stranger,
quite ignorant of his thoughts and feelings over the years, she might have
been subjected to similar humiliations. Ukon was of the same view, and
said so. Genji did, it was true, show regrettable tendencies, but he kept
himself under control and seemed to have become genuinely fond of
Tamakazura. Her fright had left her and she had settled happily into life
at Rokujo~.
<N 2>
It was autumn. The first touch of the autumn breezes brought vague
feelings of loneliness. Genji was always going off to Tamakazura's
northeast quarter and spending whole days there, large parts of them in
music lessons.
The new moon was quick to set. The sky had clouded delicately over
and the murmur of the rushes was sadder. They lay down side by side with
<P 455>
their heads pillowed against the koto. He stayed very late, sighing and
asking whether anywhere else in the world there were attachments quite
like this one. Reluctantly, fearful of gossip, he was about to leave. Noticing
that the flares in the garden were low, he sent a guards officer to stir and
refuel them.
They had been set out, not too brightly, under a spindle tree that
arched gracefully over the cool waters of the brook, far enough from the
house so that they too seemed cool and gentle. In the soft light the lady
was more beautiful than ever. The touch of her hair was coolly elegant,
and a certain shyness and diffidence added to her charm. He did not want
to leave.
"You should always have flares," he said. "An unlighted garden on
a moonless summer night can almost be frightening.
"They burn, these flares and my heart, and send off smoke.
The smoke from my heart refuses to be dispersed.
"For how long?"
Very strange, she was thinking.
<P 456>
"If from your heart and the flares the smoke is the same,
Then one might expect it to find a place in the heavens.
"I am sure that we are the subject of much curious comment."
"You wish me to go?" But someone in the other wing had taken up
a flute, someone who knew how to play, and there was a Chinese koto too.
"Yu~giri is at it again with those inseparable companions of his. This one
will be Kashiwagi." He listened for a time. "There is no mistaking Ka-
shiwagi."
<N 3>
He sent over to say that the light of the flares, cool and hospitable,
had kept him on. Yu~giri and two friends came immediately.
"I felt the autumn wind in your flute and had to ask you to join me."
His touch on the koto was soft and delicate, and Yu~giri's flute, in the
banjiki mode, was wonderfully resonant. Kashiwagi could not be per-
suaded to sing for them.
"You must not keep us waiting."
His brother, less shy, sang a strain and repeated it, keeping time with
his fan, and one might have taken the low, rich tones for a bell cricket.
Kashiwagi was now persuaded to play something on the koto. His touch
was very little if at all inferior to his father's.
"I believe there is someone inside with an ear for these things," said
Genji. "I must be abstemious. Old men have a way of saying things they
regret when they drink too much."
Tamakazura was indeed listening, and with complex feelings which
the guests, her own brothers, could not have imagined. Kashiwagi was of
the two the more strongly drawn to her. Indeed, he seemed in danger of
falling in love with her. In his playing, however, there was not the smallest
suggestion of disorder.
<W Murasaki Shikibu>{Translated by Edward G.Seidensticker}
<T The Tale of Genji>
<K 3>
<C 28>{The Typhoon}
<N 1>
<P 457>
In Akikonomu's autumn garden the plantings were more beautiful by the
day. All of the autumn colors were gathered together, and emphasized by
low fences of black wood and red. Though the flowers were familiar, they
somehow seemed different here. The morning and evening dews were like
gem-studded carpets. So wide that it seemed to merge with the autumn
fields, this autumn garden made the women forget Murasaki's spring gar-
den, which had so pleased them a few months before. They quite lost
themselves in its cool beauties. The autumn side has always had the larger
number of adherents in the ancient debate over the relative merits of
spring and autumn. Women who had been seduced by the spring garden
(so it is in this world) were now seduced by the autumn.
Akikonomu was in residence. Music seemed called for, but the anni-
versary of her father's death came this Eighth Month. Though she was
fearful for the well-being of her flowers as autumn deepened, they seemed
only to be brighter and fresher. But then came a typhoon, more savage than
in most years. Falling flowers are always sad, but to see the dews scatter
like jewels from a broken strand was for her almost torment. The great
sleeve which the poet had wanted as a defense against the spring
winds she wanted against those of the autumn. The storm raged into the
night, dark and terrible. Behind lowered shutters Akikonomu worried
about her autumn flowers.
<N 2>
<P 458>
Murasaki's southeast garden had been pruned and otherwise readied
for winter, but the wind was more than "the little _hagi_" had been waiting
for. Its branches turned and twisted and offered no place for the raindrops.
Murasaki came out to the veranda. Genji was with his daughter. Ap-
proaching along the east gallery, Yu~giri saw over a low screen that a door
was open at a corner of the main hall. He stopped to look at the women
inside. The screens having been folded and put away, the view was unob-
structed. The lady at the veranda--it would be Murasaki. Her noble beauty
made him think of a fine birch cherry blooming through the hazes of
spring. It was a gentle flow which seemed to come to him and sweep over
him. She laughed as her women fought with the unruly blinds, though he
was too far away to make out what she said to them, and the bloom was
more radiant. She stood surveying the scene, seeing what the winds had
done to each of the flowers. Her women were all very pretty
<P 459>
too, but he did not really look at them. It almost frightened him to think
why Genji had so kept him at a distance. Such beauty was irresistible, and
just such inadvertencies as this were to be avoided at all costs.
As he started to leave, Genji came through one of the doors to the
west, separating Murasaki's rooms from his daughter's.
"An irritable, impatient sort of wind," he said. "You must close your
shutters. There are men about and you are very visible."
Yu~giri looked back. Smiling at Murasaki, Genji was so young and
handsome that Yu~giri found it hard to believe he was looking at his own
father. Murasaki too was at her best. Nowhere could there be a nearer
approach to perfection than the two of them, thought Yu~giri, with a
stabbing thrill of pleasure. The wind had blown open the shutters along
the gallery to make him feel rather exposed. He withdrew. Then, going up
to the veranda, he coughed as if to announce that he had just arrived.
"See," said Genji, pointing to the open door. "You have been quite
naked."
Nothing of the sort had been permitted through all the years. Winds
can move boulders and they had reduced the careful order to disarray, and
so permitted the remarkable pleasure that had just been Yu~giri's.
Some men had come up to see what repairs were needed. "We are in
for a real storm," they said. "It's blowing from the northeast and you aren't
getting the worst of it here. The stables and the angling pavilion could
blow away any minute."
"And where are you on your way from?" Genji asked Yu~giri.
"I was at Grandmother's, but with all the talk of the storm I was
worried about you. But they're worse off at Sanjo~ than you are here. The
roar of the wind had Grandmother trembling like a child. I think perhaps
if you don't mind I'll go back."
"Do, please. It doesn't seem fair that people should be more childish
as they get older, but it is what we all have to look forward to."
He gave his son a message for the old lady: "It is a frightful storm,
but I am sure that Yu~giri is taking good care of you."
<N 3>
Though the winds were fierce all the way to Sanjo~, Yu~giri's sense of
duty prevailed. He looked in on his father and his grandmother every day
except when the court was in retreat. His route, even when public affairs
and festivals were keeping him very busy, was from his own rooms to his
father's and so to Sanjo~ and the palace. Today he was even more dutiful,
hurrying around under black skies as if trying to keep ahead of the wind.
His grandmother was delighted. "In all my long years I don't think I
have ever seen a worse storm." She was trembling violently.
Great branches were rent from trees with terrifying explosions. Tiles
were flying through the air in such numbers that the roofs must at any
moment be stripped bare.
"It was very brave of you."
Yu~giri had been her chief comfort since her husband's death. Little
