ing, though no one was much surprised. Yu~giri was named a councillor of
the first order. He and the new minister were the closest of colleagues and
the best of friends.
Genji lamented in secret that the abdicated emperor, who now moved
into the Reizei Palace, had no sons. Genji's worries had passed and his great
sin had gone undetected, and he stood in the same relationship to the
crown prince as he would have stood to a Reizei son. Yet he would have
been happier if the succession had gone through the Reizei emperor. These
regrets were of course private. He shared them with no one.
The Akashi princess had several children and was without rivals for
the emperor's affection. There was a certain dissatisfaction abroad that yet
another Genji lady seemed likely to be named empress.
Akikonomu was more grateful to Genji as the years went by, for she
knew that without him she would have been nothing. It was now much
easier for the Reizei emperor to see Genji, and he was far happier than
when he had occupied the throne.
<N 8>
The new emperor was most solicitous of the Third Princess, his sister.
Genji paid her due honor, but his love was reserved for Murasaki, in whom
he could see no flaw. It was an ideally happy marriage, closer and fonder
as the years went by.
Yet Murasaki had been asking most earnestly that he let her become
a nun. "My life is a succession of trivialities. I long to be done with them
and turn to things that really matter. I am old enough to know what life
should be about. Do please let me have my way."
"I would not have thought you heartless enough to suggest such a
thing. For years now I have longed to do just that, but I have held back
because I have hated to think what the change would mean to you. Do try
to imagine how things would be for you if I were to have my way."
The Akashi princess was fonder of Murasaki than of her real mother,
but the latter did not complain. She was an undemanding woman and she
knew that her future would be peaceful and secure in quiet service to her
daughter. The old Akashi nun needed no encouragement to weep new
tears of joy. Red from pleasant weeping, her eyes proclaimed that a long
life could be a happy one.
<N 9>
<P 593>
The time had come, thought Genji, to thank the god of Sumiyoshi.
The Akashi princess too had been contemplating a pilgrimage. Genji
opened the box that had come those years before from Akashi. It was
stuffed with very grand vows indeed. Towards the prosperity of the old
monk's line the god was to be entertained every spring and autumn with
music and dancing. Only someone with Genji's resources could have seen
to fulfilling them all. They were written in a flowing hand which told of
great talent and earnest study, and the style was so strong and bold that
the gods native and foreign must certainly have taken notice. But how
could a rustic hermit have been so imaginative? Genji was filled with
admiration, even while thinking that the old man had somewhat over-
reached himself. Perhaps a saint from a higher world had been fated to
descend for a time to this one. He could not find it in him to laugh at the
old man.
The vows were not made public. The pilgrimage was announced as
Genji's own. He had already fulfilled his vows from those unsettled days
on the seacoast, but the glory of the years since had not caused him to
forget divine blessings. This time he would take Murasaki with him. He
was determined that the arrangements be as simple as possible and that no
one be inconvenienced. There were limits, however, to the simplicity per-
mitted one of his rank, and in the end it proved to be a very grand progress.
All the high-ranking courtiers save only the ministers were in attendance.
Guards officers of fine appearance and generally uniform height were
selected for the dance troupe. Among those who did not qualify were some
who thought themselves very badly used. The most skilled of the musi-
cians for the special Kamo and Iwashimizu festivals were invited to join
the orchestra. There were two famed performers from among the guards
musicians as well, and there was a large troupe of Kagura dancers. The
emperor, the crown prince, and the Reizei emperor all sent aides to be in
special attendance on Genji. The horses of the grandees were caparisoned
in infinite variety and all the grooms and footmen and pages and miscel-
laneous functionaries were in livery more splendid than anyone could
remember.
The Akashi princess and Murasaki rode in the same carriage. The next
carriage was assigned to the Akashi lady, and her mother was quietly
shown to the place beside her. With them was the nurse of the Akashi
days. The retinues were very grand, five carriages each for Murasaki and
the Akashi princess and three for the Akashi lady.
"If your mother is to come with us," said Genji, "then it must be with
full honors. We shall see to smoothing her wrinkles."
"Are you quite sure you should be showing yourself on such a public
occasion?" the lady asked her mother. "Perhaps when the very last of our
prayers has been answered."
But they could not be sure how long she would live, and she did so
want to see everything. One might have said that she was the happiest of
<P 594>
them all, the one most favored by fortune. For her the joy was complete.
It was late in the Tenth Month. The vines on the shrine fence were
red and there were red leaves beneath the pine trees as well, so that the
services of the wind were not needed to tell of the advent of autumn. The
familiar eastern music seemed friendlier than the more subtle Chinese
and Korean music. Against the sea winds and waves, flutes joined the
breeze through the high pines of the famous grove with a grandeur that
could only belong to Sumiyoshi. The quiet clapping that went with the
koto was more moving than the solemn beat of the drums. The bamboo
of the flutes had been stained to a deeper green, to blend with the green
of the pines. The ingeniously fabricated flowers in all the caps seemed
to make a single carpet with the flowers of the autumn fields.
"The One I Seek" came to an end and the young courtiers of the
higher ranks all pulled their robes down over their shoulders as they
descended into the courtyard, and suddenly a dark field seemed to burst
into a bloom of pink and lavender. The crimson sleeves beneath, moistened
very slightly by a passing shower, made it seem for a moment that the pine
groves had become a grove of maples and that autumn leaves were shower-
ing down. Great reeds that had bleached to a pure white swayed over the
dancing figures, and the waves of white seemed to linger on when the brief
dance was over and they had returned to their places.
For Genji, the memory of his time of troubles was so vivid that it
might have been yesterday. He wished that To~ no Chu~jo~ had come with
him. There was no one else with whom he could exchange memories.
Going inside, he took out a bit of paper and quietly got off a note to the
old nun in the second carriage.
"You and I remember--and who else?
Only we can address these godly pines."
Remembering that day, the old lady was in tears. That day: Genji had
said goodbye to the lady who was carrying his daughter, and they had
thought that they would not see him again. And the old lady had lived for
this day of splendor! She wished that her husband could be here to share
it, but would not have wanted to suggest that anything was lacking.
"The aged fisherwife knows as not before
That Sumiyoshi is a place of joy."
<P 595>
It was a quick and spontaneous answer, for it would not do on such
an occasion to seem sluggish. And this was the poem that formed in her
heart:
"It is a day I never shall forget.
This god of Sumiyoshi brings me joy."
The music went on through the night. A third-quarter moon shone
clear above and the sea lay calm below; and in a heavy frost the pine groves
too were white. It was a weirdly, coldly beautiful scene. Though Murasaki
was of course familiar enough with the music and dance of the several
seasons, she rarely left the house and she had never before been so far from
the city. Everything was new and exciting.
"So white these pines with frost in the dead of night.
Bedecked with sacred strands by the god himself?"
She thought of Takamura musing upon the possibility that the great
white expanse of Mount Hira had been hung out with sacred mulberry
strands. Was the frost a sign that the god had acknowledged their pres-
ence and accepted their offerings?
This was the princess's poem:
"Deep in the night the frost has added strands
To the sacred branches with which we make obeisance."
And Nakatsukasa's:
"So white the frost, one takes it for sacred strands
And sees in it a sign of the holy blessing."
There were countless others, but what purpose would be served by
setting them all down? Each courtier thinks on such occasions that he has
outdone all his rivals--but is it so? One poem celebrating the thousand
years of the pine is very much like another.
There were traces of dawn and the frost was heavier. The Kagura
musicians had had such a good time that response was coming before
challenge. They were perhaps even funnier than they thought they were.
The fires in the shrine courtyard were burning low. "A thousand years"
came the Kagura refrain, and "Ten thousand years," and the sacred branch-
es waved to summon limitless prosperity for Genji's house. And so a
night which they longed to stretch into ten thousand nights came to an
end. It seemed a pity to all the young men that the waves must now fall
back towards home. All along the line of carriages curtains fluttered in the
breeze and the sleeves beneath were like a flowered tapestry spread against
the evergreen pines. There were numberless colors for the stations and
<P 596>
tastes of all the ladies. The footmen who set out refreshments on all the
elegant stands were fascinated and dazzled. For the old nun there was
ascetic fare on a tray of light aloeswood spread with olive drab. People
were heard to whisper that she had been born under happy stars indeed.
The progress to Sumiyoshi had been laden with offerings, but the
return trip could be leisurely and meandering. It would be very tiresome
to recount all the details. Only the fact that the old Akashi monk was far
away detracted from the pleasure. He had braved great difficulties and
everyone admired him, but it is probable that he would have felt sadly out
of place. His name had become synonymous with high ambitions, and his
wife's with good fortune. It was she whom the Omi lady called upon for
good luck in her gaming. "Akashi nun!" she would squeal as she shook her
dice. "Akashi nun!"
The Suzaku emperor had given himself up most admirably to the
religious vocation. He had dismissed public affairs and gossip from his life,
and it was only when the emperor, his son, came visiting in the spring and
autumn that memories of the old days returned. Yet he did still think of
his third daughter. Genji had taken charge of her affairs, but the Suzaku
emperor had asked his son to help with the more intimate details. The
<P 597>
emperor had named her a Princess of the Second Rank and increased her
emoluments accordingly, and so life was for her ever more cheerful.
Murasaki looked about her and saw how everyone seemed to be
moving ahead, and asked herself whether she would always have a
monopoly on Genji's affections. No, she would grow old and he would
weary of her. She wanted to anticipate the inevitable by leaving the world.
She kept these thoughts to herself, not wanting to nag or seem insistent.
She did not resent the fact that Genji divided his time evenly between her
and the Third Princess. The emperor himself worried about his sister and
would have been upset by any suggestion that she was being neglected.
Yet Murasaki could not help thinking that her worst fears were coming
true. These thoughts too she kept to herself. She had been given charge
of the emperor's daughter, his second child after the crown prince. The
little princess was her great comfort on nights when Genji was away, and
she was equally fond of the emperor's other children.
The lady of the orange blossoms looked on with gentle envy and was
given a child of her own, one of Yu~giri's sons, by the daughter of Kore-
mitsu. He was a pretty little boy, advanced for his age and a favorite of
Genji's. It had been Genji's chief lament that he had so few children, and
now in the third generation his house was growing and spreading. With
so many grandchildren to play with he had no excuse to be bored.
Genji and Higekuro were better friends now, and Higekuro came
calling more frequently. Tamakazura had become a sober matron. No
longer suspicious of Genji's intentions, she too came calling from time to
time. She and Murasaki were very good friends.
The Third Princess was the one who refused to grow up. She was still
a little child. Genji's own daughter was now with the emperor. He had a
new daughter to worry about.
"I feel that I have very little time left," said the Suzaku emperor. "It
is sad to think about dying, of course, but I am determined not to care. My
only unsatisfied wish is to see her at least once more. If I do not I shall
continue to have regrets. Perhaps I might ask that without making a great
show of it she come and see me?"
Genji thought the request most reasonable and set about preparations.
"We really should have sent you without waiting for him to ask. It seems
very sad that he should have you so on his mind even now."
