The Tale of Genji

ot. His other ladies were proud and aloof, and her pretty charms were unlike any others he had known. Forgetting that the affair had ended in di

ng toward the end of the Eighth Month when the moon was late in rising. The stars were bright and the wind sighed through the pine trees. The princess was talking sadly of old times. Tayū had judged the occasion a likely one and Genji had come in the usual secrecy. The princess gazed uneasily at the decaying fence as the moon came up. Tayū persuaded her to play a soft strain on her koto, which was not at all displeasing. If only she could make the princess over even a little more into the hospitable modern sort, thought Tayū, herself so willing in these matters. There was no one to challenge Genji as he made his way inside. He summoned Tayū.“A fine thing,” said Tayū, feigning great surprise. “Genji has come. He is always complaining about what a bad correspondent you are, and I have had to say that there is little I can do. And so he said that he would come himself and give you a lesson in manners. And how am I to answer him now? These expeditions are not easy for him and it would be cruel to send him away. Suppose you speak to him — through your curtains, of course.”The princess stammered that she would not know what to say and withdrew to an inner room. Tayū thought her childish.“You are very inexperienced, my lady,” she said with a smile. “It is all right for people in your august position to make a show of innocence when they have parents and relatives to look after them, but your rather sad circumstances make this reserve seem somehow out of place.”The princess was not, after all, one to resist very stoutly. “If I need not speak to him but only listen, and if you will lower the shutters, I shall receive him.”“And leave him out on the veranda? That would not do at all. He is not a man, I assure you, to do anything improper.” Tayū spoke with great firmness. She barred the doors, having put out a cushion for Genji in the next room.The lady was very shy indeed. Not having the faintest notion how to address such a fine gentleman, she put herself in Tayū‘s hands. She sighed and told herself that Tayū must have her reasons.Her old nurse had gone off to have a nap. The two or three young women who were still with the princess were in a fever to see this gentleman of whom the whole world was talking. Since the princess did not seem prepared to do anything for herself, Tayū changed her into presentable clothes and otherwise got her ready. Genji had dressed himself carefully though modestly and presented a very handsome figure indeed. How she would have liked to show him to someone capable of appreciating him, thought Tayū. Here his charms were wasted. But there was one thing she need not fear: an appearance of forwardness or impertinence on the part of the princess. Yet she was troubled, for she did fear that even as she was acquitted of the delinquency with which Genji was always charging her, she might be doing injury to the princess.Genji was certain that he need not fear being dazzled — indeed the certainty was what had drawn him to her. He caught a faint, pleasing scent, and a soft rustling as her women urged her forward. They suggested serenity and repose such as to convince him that his attentions were not misplaced. Most eloquently, he told her how much she had been in his thoughts over the months. The muteness seemed if anything more unsettling from near at hand than from afar.“Countless times your silence has silenced me.My hope is that you hope for something better.“Why do you not tell me clearly that you dislike me?‘Uncertainty weaves a sadly tangled web.’”Her nurse’s daughter, a clever young woman, finding the silence unbearable, came to the princess’s side and offered a reply:“I cannot ring a bell enjoining silence.Silence, strangely, is my only answer.”The young voice had a touch of something like garrulity in it. Unaware that it was not the princess’s, Genji thought it oddly unrestrained and, given her rank, even somewhat coquettish.“I am quite speechless myself.“Silence, I know, is finer by far than words.Its sister, dumbness, at times is rather painful.”He talked on, now joking and now earnestly entreating, but there was no further response. It was all very strange — her mind did not seem to work as others did. Finally losing patience, he slid the door open. Tayū was aghast — he had assured her that he would behave himself. Though concerned for the poor princess, she slipped off to her own room as if nothing had happened. The princess’s young women were less disturbed. Such misdemeanors were easy to forgive when the culprit was so uniquely handsome. Their reproaches were not very loud, though they could see that their lady was in a state of shock, so swiftly had it happened. She was incapable now of anything but dazed silence. It was strange and wonderful, thought Genji, that the world still contained such a lady. A measure of eccentricity could be excused in a lady who had lived so sheltered a life. He was both puzzled and sympathetic.But how, given her limited resources, was the lady to win his affection? It was with much disappointment that he departed late in the night. Though Tayū had been listening carefully, she pretended that she did not know of his departure and did not come out to see him off. He would have had nothing to say to her.Back at Nijō he lay down to rest, with many a sigh that the world failed to present him with his ideal lady. And it would not be easy to treat the princess as if nothing had happened, for she was after all a princess.Tō no Chūjō interrupted unhappy thoughts. “What an uncommonly late sleeper you are. There must be reasons.”“I was allowing myself a good rest in my lonely bed. Have you come from the palace?”“I just left. I was told last night that the musicians and dancers for His Majesty’s outing had to be decided on today and was on my way to report to my father. I will be going straight back.” He seemed in a great hurry.“Suppose I go with you.”Breakfast was brought in. Though there were two carriages, they chose to ride together. Genji still seemed very sleepy, said his friend, and very secretive too. With many details of the royal outing still to be arranged, Genji was at the palace through the day.He felt somewhat guilty about not getting off a note to the princess, but it was evening when he dispatched his messenger. Though it had begun to rain, he apparently had little inclination to seek again that shelter from the rain. Tayū felt very sorry for the princess as the conventional hour for a note came and went. Though embarrassed, the princess was not one to complain. Evening came, and still there was only silence.This is what his messenger finally brought:“The gloomy evening mists have not yet cleared,And now comes rain, to bring still darker gloom.“You may imagine my restlessness, waiting for the skies to clear.”Though surprised at this indication that he did not intend to visit, her women pressed her to answer. More and more confused, however, she was not capable of putting together the most ordinary note. Agreeing with her nurse’s daughter that it was growing very late, she finally sent this:“My village awaits the moon on a cloudy night.You may imagine the gloom, though you do not share it.”She set it down on paper so old that the purple had faded to an alkaline gray. The hand was a strong one all the same, in an old-fashioned style, the lines straight and prim. Genji scarcely looked at it. He wondered what sort of expectations he had aroused. No doubt he was having what people call second thoughts. Well, there was no alternative. He must look after her to the end. At the princess’s house, where of course these good intentions were not known, despondency prevailed.In the evening he was taken off to Sanjō by his father-in-law. Everyone was caught up in preparations for the outing. Young men gathered to discuss them and their time was passed in practice at dance and music. Indeed the house quite rang with music, and flute and flageolet sounded proud and high as seldom before. Sometimes one of them would even bring a drum up from the garden and pound at it on the veranda. With all these exciting matters to occupy him, Genji had time for only the most necessary visits; and so autumn came to a close. The princess’s hopes seemed, as the weeks went by, to have come to nothing.The outing approached. In the midst of the final rehearsals Tayū came to Genji’s rooms in the palace“How is everything?” he asked, somewhat guiltily.She told him. “You have so neglected her that you have made things difficult for us who must be with her.” She seemed ready to weep.She had hoped, Genji surmised, to make the princess seem remote and alluring, and he had spoiled her plans. She must think him very unfeeling. And the princess, brooding her days away, must be very sad indeed. But there was nothing to be done. He simply did not have the time.“I had thought to help her grow up,” he said, smiling.Tayū had to smile too. He was so young and handsome, and at an age when it was natural that he should have women angry at him. It was natural too that he should be somewhat selfish.When he had a little more time to himself he occasionally called on the princess. But he had found the little girl, his Murasaki, and she had made him her captive. He neglected even the lady at Rokujō, and was of course still less inclined to visit this new lady, much though he felt for her. Her excessive shyness made him suspect that she would not delight the eye in any great measure. Yet he might be pleasantly surprised. It had been a dark night, and perhaps it was the darkness that had made her seem so odd. He must have a look at her face — and at the same time he rather dreaded trimming the lamp.One evening when the princess was passing the time with her women he stole up to the main hall, opened a door slightly, and looked inside. He did not think it likely that he would see the princess herself. Several ancient and battered curtain frames had apparently been standing in the same places for years. It was not a very promising scene. Four or five women, at a polite distance from their lady, were having their dinner, so unappetizing and scanty that he wanted to look away, though served on what seemed to be imported celadon. Others sat shivering in a corner, their once white robes now a dirty gray, the strings of their badly stained aprons in clumsy knots. Yet they respected the forms: they had combs in their hair, which were ready, he feared, to fall out at any moment. There were just such old women guarding the treasures in the palace sanctuary, but it had not occurred to him that a princess would choose to have them in her retinue.“What a cold winter it has been. You have to go through this sort of thing if you live too long.”“How can we possibly have thought we had troubles when your royal father was still alive? At least we had him to take care of us.” The woman was shivering so violently that it almost seemed as if she might fling herself into the air.It was not right to listen to complaints not meant for his ears. He slipped away and tapped on a shutter as if he had just come up.One of the women brought a light, raised the shutter, and admitted him.The nurse’s young daughter was now in the service of the high priestess of Kamo. The women who remained with the princess tended to be gawky, untrained rustics, not at all the sort of servants Genji was used to. The winter they had complained of was being very cruel. Snow was piling in drifts, the skies were dark, and the wind raged. When the lamp went out there was no one to relight it. He thought of his last night with the lady of “the evening faces.” This house was no less ruinous, but there was some comfort in the fact that it was smaller and not so lonely. It was a far from cozy place all the same, and he did not sleep well. Yet it was interesting in its way. The lady, however, was not. Again he found her altogether too remote and withdrawn.Finally daylight came. Himself raising a shutter, he looked out at the garden and the fields beyond. The scene was a lonely one, trackless snow stretching on and on.It would be uncivil to go off without a word.“Do come and look at this beautiful sky. You are really too timid.”He seemed even younger and handsomer in the morning twilight reflected from the snow. The old women were all smiles.“Do go out to him. Ladies should do as they are told.”The princess was not one to resist. Putting herself into some sort of order, she went out. Though his face was politely averted, Genji contrived to look obliquely at her. He was hoping that a really good look might show her to be less than irredeemable.That was not very kind or very realistic of him. It was his first impression that the figure kneeling beside him was most uncommonly long and attenuated. Not at all promising — and the nose! That nose now dominated the scene. It was like that of the beast on which Samantabhadra rides, long, pendulous, and red. A frightful nose. The skin was whiter than the snow, a touch bluish even. The forehead bulged and the line over the cheeks suggested that the full face would be very long indeed. She was pitifully thin. He could see through her robes how narrow her shoulders were. It now seemed ridiculous that he had worked so hard to see her; and yet the visage was such an extraordinary one that he could not immediately take his eyes away. The shape of the head and the now of the hair were very good, little inferior, he thought, to those of ladies whom he had held to be great beauties. The hair fanned out over the hem of her robes with perhaps a foot to spare. Though it may not seem in very good taste to dwell upon her dress, it is dress that is always described first in the old romances. Over a sadly