The tale of Genji
visiting there, I noticed that though the older ladies played their
part very well, the young girls would every now and then curtsey or
slip in a “My Lady” without thinking; whereupon the others would
hasten to cover up the mistake as best they might, saying anything
they could think of to make it appear that there was no mistress among
them,’ and Koremitsu laughed as he recollected it.
‘Next time I come to visit your mother’ said Genji, ‘you must let me
have a chance of peeping at them.’ He pictured to himself the queer,
tumbled-down house. She was only living there for the time being; but
all the same she must surely belong to that ‘bottom class’ which they
had dismissed as having no possible bearing on the discussion. How
amusing it would be to show that they were wrong and that after all
something of interest might be discovered in such a place!
Koremitsu, anxious to carry out his master’s every wish and intent
also on his own intrigue, contrived at last by a series of ingenious
stratagems to effect a secret meeting between Genji and the mysterious
lady. The details of the plan by which he brought this about would
make a tedious story, and as is my rule in such cases I have thought
it better to omit them.
Genji never asked her by what name he was to call her, nor did he
reveal his own identity. He came very poorly dressed and—what was most
unusual for him—on foot. But Koremitsu regarded this as too great a
tribute to so unimportant a lady, and insisted upon Genji riding his
horse, while he walked by his side. In doing so he sacrificed his
own feelings; for he too had reasons for wishing to create a good
impression in the house, and he knew that by arriving in this rather
undignified way he would sink in the estimation of the inhabitants.
Fortunately his discomfiture was almost unwitnessed, for Genji took
with him only the one attendant who had on the first occasion plucked
the flowers—a boy whom no one was likely to recognize; and lest
suspicions should be aroused, he did not even take advantage of his
presence in the neighbourhood to call at his foster-nurse’s house.
The lady was very much mystified by all these precautions and made
great efforts to discover something more about him. She even sent
someone after him to see where he went to when he left her at
day-break; but he succeeded in throwing his pursuer off the scent and
she was no wiser than before. He was now growing far too fond of her.
He was miserable if anything interfered with his visits; and though he
utterly disapproved of his own conduct and worried a great deal about
it, he soon found that he was spending most of his time at her house.
He knew that at some time or another in their lives even the soberest
people lose their heads in this way; but hitherto he had never really
lost his, or done anything which could possibly have been considered
very wrong. Now to his astonishment and dismay he discovered that even
the few morning hours during which he was separated from her were
becoming unendurable. ‘What is it in her that makes me behave like a
madman?’ he kept on asking himself. She was astonishingly gentle and
unassuming, to the point even of seeming rather apathetic, rather
deficient perhaps in depth of character and emotion; and though she
had a certain air of girlish inexperience, it was clear that he was
not by any means her first lover; and certainly she was rather
plebeian. What was it exactly that so fascinated him? He asked
himself the question again and again, but found no answer.
She for her part was very uneasy to see him come to her thus in shabby
old hunting-clothes, trying always to hide his face, leaving while it
was still dark and everyone was asleep. He seemed like some
demon-lover in an old ghost-tale, and she was half-afraid. But his
smallest gesture showed that he was someone out of the ordinary, and
she began to suspect that he was a person of high rank, who had used
Koremitsu as his go-between. But Koremitsu obstinately pretended to
know nothing at all about his companion, and continued to amuse
himself by frequenting the house on his own account.
What could it mean? She was dismayed at this strange love-making
with—she knew not whom. But about her too there was something
fugitive, insubstantial. Genji was obsessed by the idea that, just as
she had hidden herself in this place, so one day she would once more
vanish and hide, and he would never be able to find her again. There
was every sign that her residence here was quite temporary. He was
sure that when the time came to move she would not tell him where she
was going. Of course her running away would be proof that she was not
worth bothering about any more, and he ought, thankful for the
pleasure they had had together, simply to leave the matter at that.
But he knew that this was the last thing he would be likely to do.
People were already beginning to be suspicious, and often for several
nights running he was unable to visit her. This became so intolerable
that in his impatience he determined to bring her secretly to the
Nijō-in.[7] There would be an appalling outcry if she were discovered;
but that must be risked.
‘I am going to take you somewhere very nice where no one will disturb
us’ he said at last. ‘No, No’ she cried; ‘your ways are so strange, I
should be frightened to go with you.’ She spoke in a tone of childish
terror, and Genji answered smiling: ‘One or the other of us must be a
fox-in-disguise.[8] Here is a chance to find out which it is!’ He
spoke very kindly, and suddenly, in a tone of absolute submission, she
consented to do whatever he thought best. He could not but be touched
at her willingness to follow him in what must appear to her to be the
most hazardous and bizarre adventure. Again he thought of Tō no
Chūjō’s story on that rainy night, and could not doubt that this must
indeed be Chūjō’s fugitive lady. But he saw that she had some reason
for wishing to avoid all questions about her past, and he restrained
his curiosity. So far as he could see she showed no signs of running
away; nor did he believe that she would do so as long as he was
faithful. Tō no Chūjō, after all, had for months on end left her to
her own devices. But he felt that if for an instant she suspected him
of the slightest leaning in any other direction it would be a bad
business.
It was the fifteenth night of the eighth month. The light of an
unclouded full-moon shone between the ill-fitting planks of the roof
and flooded the room. What a queer place to be lying in! thought
Genji, as he gazed round the garret, so different from any room he had
ever known before. It must be almost day. In the neighbouring houses
people were beginning to stir, and there was an uncouth sound of
peasant voices: ‘Eh! how cold it is! I can’t believe we shall do much
with the crops this year.’ ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen about
my carrying-trade’ said another; ‘things look very bad.’ Then (banging
on the wall of another house) ‘Wake up, neighbour. Time to start.
Did he hear, d’you think?’ and they rose and went off each to the
wretched task by which he earned his bread.
All this clatter and bustle going on so near her made the lady very
uncomfortable, and indeed so dainty and fastidious a person must often
in this miserable lodging have suffered things which would make her
long to sink through the floor. But however painful, disagreeable or
provoking were the things that happened, she gave no sign of noticing
them. That being herself so shrinking and delicate in her ways she
could yet endure without a murmur the exasperating banging and bumping
that was going on in every direction, aroused his admiration, and he
felt that this was much nicer of her than if she had shuddered with
horror at each sound. But now, louder than thunder, came the noise of
the threshing-mills, seeming so near that they could hardly believe it
did not come from out of the pillow itself. Genji thought that his
ears would burst. What many of the noises were he could not at all
make out; but they were very peculiar and startling. The whole air
seemed to be full of crashings and bangings. Now from one side, now
from another, came too the faint thud of the bleacher’s mallet, and
the scream of wild geese passing overhead. It was all too distracting.
Their room was in the front of the house. Genji got up and opened the
long, sliding shutters. They stood together looking out. In the
courtyard near them was a clump of fine Chinese bamboos; dew lay thick
on the borders, glittering here no less brightly than in the great
gardens to which Genji was better accustomed. There was a confused
buzzing of insects. Crickets were chirping in the wall. He had often
listened to them, but always at a distance; now, singing so close to
him, they made a music which was unfamiliar and indeed seemed far
lovelier than that with which he was acquainted. But then,
everything in this place where one thing was so much to his liking,
seemed despite all drawbacks to take on a new tinge of interest and
beauty. She was wearing a white bodice with a soft, grey cloak over
it. It was a poor dress, but she looked charming and almost
distinguished; even so, there was nothing very striking in her
appearance—only a certain fragile grace and elegance. It was when she
was speaking that she looked really beautiful, there was such pathos,
such earnestness in her manner. If only she had a little more spirit!
But even as she was he found her irresistible and longed to take her
to some place where no one could disturb them: ‘I am going to take you
somewhere not at all far away where we shall be able to pass the rest
of the night in peace. We cannot go on like this, parting always at
break of day.’ ‘Why have you suddenly come to that conclusion?’ she
asked, but she spoke submissively. He vowed to her that she should be
his love in this and in all future lives and she answered so
passionately that she seemed utterly transformed from the listless
creature he had known, and it was hard to believe that such vows were
no novelty to her.
Discarding all prudence he sent for the maid Ukon and bade her order
his servants to fetch a coach. The affair was soon known to all the
household, and the ladies were at first somewhat uneasy at seeing
their mistress carried off in this fashion; but on the whole they did
not think he looked the sort of person who would do her any harm. It
was now almost daylight. The cocks had stopped crowing. The voice of
an old man (a pilgrim preparing for the ascent of the Holy Mountain)
sounded somewhere not far away; and, as at each prayer he bent forward
to touch the ground with his head, they could hear with what pain and
difficulty he moved. What could he be asking for in his prayers, this
old man whose life seemed fragile as the morning dew? Namu tōrai
no dōshi ‘Glory be to the Saviour that shall come’: now they could
hear the words. ‘Listen’ said Genji tenderly, ‘is not that an omen
that our love shall last through many lives to come? ‘And he recited
the poem: ‘Do not prove false this omen of the pilgrim’s chant: that
even in lives to come our love shall last unchanged.’
Then unlike the lovers in the ‘Everlasting Wrong’ who prayed that they
might be as the ‘twin birds that share a wing’ (for they remembered
that this story had ended very sadly) they prayed ‘May our love last
till Maitreya comes as a Buddha into the World.’ But she, still
distrustful, answered his poem with the verse: ‘Such sorrow have I
known in this world that I have small hope of worlds to come.’ Her
versification was still a little tentative.[9]
She was thinking with pleasure that the setting moon would light them
on their way, and Genji was just saying so when suddenly the moon