The Tale of Genji

t remarkable concert. Distressed especially at the thought that Fujitsubo should be deprived of the pleasure, the emperor ordered a full rehearsal at the main palace. Genji and Tō no Chūjō d

she was not prepared to tolerate the smallest discourtesy. And here he was behaving as if these proud ways were his to make over. They were completely at cross purposes, he and she.Though her father too resented Genji’s other affairs, he forgot his annoyance when Genji was here beside him, and no service seemed too great or too small. As Genji prepared to leave for court the next day, the minister looked in upon him, bringing a famous belt for him to wear with his court dress, straightening his train, as much as helping him into his shoes. One almost felt something pathetic in this eagerness.“I’ll wear it to His Majesty’s family dinner later in the month,” said Genji.“There are other belts that would do far more honor to such an occasion.” The minister insisted that he wear it. “It is a little unusual, thatis all.”Sometimes it was as if being of service to Genji were his whole life. There could be no greater pleasure than having such a son and brother, little though the Sanjō family saw of him.Genji did not pay many New Year calls. He called upon his father, the crown prince, the old emperor, and, finally, Fujitsubo, still with her family. Her women thought him handsomer than ever. Yes, each year, as he matured, his good looks produced a stronger shudder of delight and foreboding. Fujitsubo was assailed by innumerable conflicting thoughts.The Twelfth Month, when she was to have been delivered of her child, had passed uneventfully. Surely it would be this month, said her women, and at court everything was in readiness; but the First Month too passed without event. She was greatly troubled by rumors that she had fallen under a malign influence. Her worries had made her physically ill and she began to wonder if the end was in sight. More and more certain as time passed that the child was his, Genji quietly commissioned services in various temples. More keenly aware than most of the evanescence of things, he now found added to his worries a fear that he would not see her again. Finally toward the end of the Second Month she bore a prince, and the jubilation was unbounded at court and at her family palace. She had not joined the emperor in praying that she be granted a long life, and yet she did not want to please Kokiden, an echo of whose curses had reached her. The will to live returned, and little by little she recovered.The emperor wanted to see his little son the earliest day possible. Genji, filled with his own secret paternal solicitude, visited Fujitsubo at a time when he judged she would not have other visitors.“Father is extremely anxious to see the child. perhaps I might have a look at him first and present a report.”She refused his request, as of course she had every right to do. “He is still very shriveled and ugly.”There was no doubt that the child bore a marked, indeed a rather wonderful, resemblance to Genji. Fujitsubo was tormented by feelings of guilt and apprehension. Surely everyone who saw the child would guess the awful truth and damn her for it. People were always happy to seek out the smallest and most trivial of misdeeds. Hers had not been trivial, and dreadful rumors must surely be going the rounds. Had ever a woman been more sorely tried?Genji occasionally saw Omyōbu and pleaded that she intercede for him; but there was nothing she could do.“This insistence, my lord, is very trying,” she said, at his constant and passionate pleas to see the child. “You will have chances enough later.” Yet secretly she was as unhappy as he was.“In what world, I wonder, will I again be allowed to see her?” The heart of the matter was too delicate to touch upon.“What legacy do we bring from former livesThat loneliness should be our lot in this one?“I do not understand. I do not understand at all.”His tears brought her to the point of tears herself. Knowing how unhappy her lady was, she could not bring herself to turn him brusquely away.“Sad at seeing the child, sad at not seeing.The heart of the father, the mother, lost in darkness.”And she added softly: “There seems to be no lessening of the pain for either of you.”She saw him off, quite unable to help him. Her lady had said that because of the danger of gossip she could not receive him again, and she no longer behaved toward Omyōbu with the old affection. She behaved correctly, it was true, and did nothing that might attract attention, but Omyōbu had done things to displease her. Omyōbu was very sorry for them.In the Fourth Month the little prince was brought to the palace. Advanced for his age both mentally and physically, he was already able to sit up and to right himself when he rolled over. He was strikingly like Genji. Unaware of the truth, the emperor would say to himself that people of remarkable good looks did have a way of looking alike. He doted upon the child. He had similarly doted upon Genji, but, because of strong opposition — and how deeply he regretted the fact — had been unable to make him crown prince. The regret increased as Genji, now a commoner, improved in looks and in accomplishments. And now a lady of the highest birth had borne the emperor another radiant son. The infant was for him an unflawed jewel, for Fujitsubo a source of boundless guilt and foreboding.One day, as he often did, Genji was enjoying music in Fujitsubo’s apartments. The emperor came out with the little boy in his arms.“I have had many sons, but you were the only one I paid a great deal of attention to when you were this small. perhaps it is the memory of those days that makes me think he looks like you. Is it that all children look alike when they are very young?” He made no attempt to hide his pleasure in the child.Genji felt himself flushing crimson. He was frightened and awed and pleased and touched, all at the same time, and there were tears in his eyes. Laughing and babbling, the child was so beautiful as to arouse fears that he would not be long in this world. If indeed he resembled the child, thought Genji, then he must be very handsome. He must take better care of himself. (He seemed a little self-satisfied at times.) Fujitsubo was in such acute discomfort that she felt herself breaking into a cold sweat. Eager though he had been to see the child, Genji left in great agitation.He returned to Nijō, thinking that when the agitation had subsided he would proceed to Sanjō and pay his wife a visit. In near the verandas the garden was a rich green, dotted with wild carnations. He broke a few off and sent them to Omyōbu, and it would seem that he also sent a long and detailed letter, including this message for her lady:“It resembles you, I think, this wild carnation,Weighted with my tears as with the dew.“‘I know that when it blossoms at my hedge’ — but could any two be as much and as little to each other as we have been?”perhaps because the occasion seemed right, Omyōbu showed the letter to her lady.“Do please answer him,” she said, “if with something of no more weight than the dust on these petals.”Herself prey to violent emotions, Fujitsubo did send back an answer, a brief and fragmentary one, in a very faint hand:“It serves you ill, the Japanese carnation,To make you weep. Yet I shall not forsake it.”pleased with her success, Omyōbu delivered the note. Genji was looking forlornly out at the garden, certain that as always there would be silence. His heart jumped at the sight of Omyōbu and there were tears of joy in his eyes.This moping, he decided, did no good. He went to the west wing in search of company. Rumpled and wild-haired, he played a soft strain on a flute as he came into Murasaki’s room. She was leaning against an armrest, demure and pretty, like a wild carnation, he thought, with the dew fresh upon it. She was charming.Annoyed that he had not come immediately, she turned away.“Come here,” he said, kneeling at the veranda.She did not stir.”‘Like the grasses at full tide,’” she said softly, her sleeve over her mouth.“That was unkind. So you have already learned to complain? I would not wish you to tire of me, you see, as they say the fishermen tire of the sea grasses at Ise.”He had someone bring a thirteen-stringed koto.“You must be careful. The second string breaks easily and we would not want to have to change it.” And he lowered it to the hyōō mode.After plucking a few notes to see that it was in tune, he pushed it toward her. No longer able to be angry, she played for him, briefly and very competently. He thought her delightful as she leaned forward to press a string with her left hand. He took out a flute and she had a music lesson. Very quick, she could repeat a difficult melody after but a single hearing. Yes, he thought, she was bright and amiable, everything he could have wished for. “Hosoroguseri” made a pretty duet, despite its outlandish name. She was very young but she had a fine sense for music. Lamps were brought and they looked at pictures together. Since he had said that he would be going out, his men coughed nervously, to warn him of the time. If he did not hurry it would be raining, one of them said. Murasaki was suddenly a forlorn little figure. She put aside the pictures and lay with her face hidden in a pillow.“Do you miss me when I am away?” He stroked the hair that fell luxuriantly over her shoulders.She nodded a quick, emphatic nod.“And I miss you. I can hardly bear to be away from you for a single day. But we must not make too much of these things. You are still a child, and there is a jealous and difficult lady whom I would rather not offend. I must go on visiting her, but when you are grown up I will not leave you ever. It is because I am thinking of all the years we will be together that I want to be on good terms with her.”His solemn manner dispelled her gloom but made her rather uncomfortable. She did not answer. Her head pillowed on his knee, she was presently asleep.He told the women that he would not after all be going out. His retinue having departed, he ordered dinner and roused the girl.“I am not going,” he said.She sat down beside him, happy again. She ate very little.“Suppose we go to bed, then, if you aren’t going out.” She was still afraid he might leave her.He already knew how difficult it would be when the time came for the final parting.Everyone of course knew how many nights he was now spending at home. The intelligence reached his father-in-law’s house at Sanjō.“How very odd. Who might she be?” said the women. “We have not been able to find out. No one of very good breeding, you may be sure, to judge from the way she clings to him and presumes upon his affection. Probably someone he ran into at court and lost his senses over, and now he has hidden her away because he is ashamed to have people see her. But the oddest thing is that she’s still a child.”“I am sorry to learn that the Minister of the Left is unhappy with you,” the emperor said to Genji. “You cannot be so young and innocent as to be unaware of all he has done for you since you were a very small boy. He has been completely devoted to you. Must you repay him by insulting him?”It was an august reproach which Genji was unable to answer.The emperor was suddenly sorry for him. It was clear that he was not happy with his wife. “I have heard no rumors, it is true, that you are promiscuous, that you have scattered your affections too liberally here at court and elsewhere. He must have stumbled upon some secret.”The emperor still enjoyed the company of pretty women. He preferred the pretty ones even among chambermaids and seamstresses, and all the ranks of his court were filled with the best-favored women to be found. Genji would joke with one and another of them, and few were of a mind to keep him at a distance. Someone among them would remark coyly that perhaps he did not like women; but, no doubt because she offered no novelty, he would answer so as not to give offense and refuse to be tempted. To some this moderation did not seem a virtue.There was a lady of rather advanced years called Naishi. She was wellborn, talented, cultivated, and widely resp