The tale of Genji
began to draw pictures and colour them. After she had painted all
sorts of queer and amusing things, ‘Now I am going to do a picture for
you,’ said Genji and drawing a lady with very long hair he put a dab
of red on her nose. Even in a picture, he thought pausing to look at
the effect, it gave one a most uncomfortable feeling. He went and
looked at himself in the mirror and as though dissatisfied with his
own fresh complexion he suddenly put on his own nose a dab of red such
as he had given to the lady in the picture. He looked at himself in
the mirror. His handsome face had in an instant become ridiculous and
repulsive. At first the child laughed. ‘Should you go on liking me if
I were always as ugly as this?’ he asked. Suddenly she began to be
afraid that the paint would not come off. ‘Oh why did you do it?’ she
cried. ‘How horrible!’ He pretended to rub it without effect. ‘No,’ he
said ruefully, ‘it will not come off. What a sad end to our game! I
wonder what the Emperor will say when I go back to the Palace?’
He said it so seriously that she became very unhappy, and longing to
cure him dipped a piece of thick soft paper in the water-jug which
stood by his writing-things, and began scrubbing at his nose. ‘Take
care,’ he cried laughing, ‘that you do not serve me as Heichū[15] was
treated by his lady. I would rather have a red nose than a black one.’
So they passed their time, making the prettiest couple.
In the gentle spring sunshine the trees were already shimmering with a
haze of new-grown buds. Among them it was the plum-trees that gave the
surest promise, for already their blossoms were uncurling, like lips
parted in a faint smile. Earliest of them all was a red plum that grew
beside the covered steps. It was in full colour. ‘Though fair the tree
on which it blooms, this red flower fills me with a strange
misgiving,’[16] sang Genji with a deep sigh.
We shall see in the next chapter what happened in the end to all these
people.
[1] The events of this chapter are synchronous with those of the last.
[2] Wine, zithern and song—in allusion to a poem by Po Chü-i.
[3] Evidently a quotation.
[4] Chūjō’s child by Yūgao.
[5] Used to scent clothes with.
[6] The bell which the Zen-master strikes when it is time for his pupils
to fall into silent meditation.
[7] To Lady Rokujō.
[8] _Pi-sē_. See Hetherington, _Early Ceramic Wares of China_,
pp. 71–73.
[9] _Manyōshū_, 893.
[10]The Bodhisattva Samantabhadra rides on a white elephant with a red
trunk.
[11] _Suyetsumuhana_, by which name, the princess is subsequently
alluded to in the story.
[12] I.e. the redness of the princess’s nose.
[13] A popular song about a lady who suffered from the same defect as
the princess.
[14] Genji’s poem is an allusion to a well-known _uta_ which runs:
‘Must we who once would not allow even the thickness of a garment to
part us be now far from each other for whole nights on end?’
[15] He used to splash his cheeks with water from a little bottle in
order that she might think he was weeping at her unkindness. She
exposed this device by mixing ink with the water.
[16] The reference of course is to the princess. ‘Though fair the
tree’ refers to her high birth.
CHAPTER VII
THE FESTIVAL OF RED LEAVES
The imperial visit to the Red Sparrow Court was to take place on the
tenth day of the Godless Month. It was to be a more magnificent sight
this year than it had ever been before and the ladies of the Palace
were very disappointed that they could not be present.[1] The Emperor
too could not bear that Fujitsubo should miss the spectacle, and he
decided to hold a grand rehearsal in the Palace. Prince Genji danced
the ‘Waves of the Blue Sea.’ Tō no Chūjō was his partner; but though
both in skill and beauty he far surpassed the common run of
performers, yet beside Genji he seemed like a mountain fir growing
beside a cherry-tree in bloom. There was a wonderful moment when the
rays of the setting sun fell upon him and the music grew suddenly
louder. Never had the onlookers seen feet tread so delicately nor head
so exquisitely poised; and in the song which follows the first
movement of the dance his voice was sweet as that of Kalavinka[2]
whose music is Buddha’s Law. So moving and beautiful was this dance
that at the end of it the Emperor’s eyes were wet, and all the princes
and great gentlemen wept aloud. When the song was over and,
straightening his long dancer’s sleeves, he stood waiting for the
music to begin again and at last the more lively tune of the second
movement struck up,—then indeed, with his flushed and eager face,
he merited more than ever his name of Genji the Shining One. The
Princess Kōkiden[3] did not at all like to see her step-son’s beauty
arousing so much enthusiasm and she said sarcastically ‘He is
altogether too beautiful. Presently we shall have a god coming down
from the sky to fetch him away.’[4] Her young waiting-ladies noticed
the spiteful tone in which the remark was made and felt somewhat
embarrassed. As for Fujitsubo, she kept on telling herself that were
it not for the guilty secret which was shared between them the dance
she was now witnessing would be filling her with wonder and delight.
As it was, she sat as though in a dream, hardly knowing what went on
around her.
Now she was back in her own room. The Emperor was with her. ‘At
to-day’s rehearsal’ he said, ‘The “Waves of the Blue Sea” went
perfectly.’ Then, noticing that she made no response, ‘What did you
think of it?’ ‘Yes, it was very good,’ she managed to say at last.
‘The partner did not seem to me bad either,’ he went on; ‘there is
always something about the way a gentleman moves and uses his hands
which distinguishes his dancing from that of professionals. Some of
our crack dancing-masters have certainly made very clever performers
of their own children; but they never have the same freshness, the
same charm as the young people of our class. They expended so much
effort on the rehearsal that I am afraid the festival itself may seem
a very poor affair. No doubt they took all this trouble because they
knew that you were here at the rehearsal and would not see the real
performance.’
Next morning she received a letter from Genji: ‘What of the rehearsal?
How little the people who watched me knew of the turmoil that all
the while was seething in my brain!’ And to this he added the
poem: ‘When sick with love I yet sprang to my feet and capered
with the rest, knew you what meant the fevered waving of my long
dancing-sleeve?’ Next he enjoined secrecy and prudence upon her, and
so his letter ended. Her answer showed that despite her agitation she
had not been wholly insensible to what had fascinated all other eyes:
‘Though from far off a man of China waved his long dancing-sleeves,
yet did his every motion fill my heart with wonder and delight.’
To receive such a letter from her was indeed a surprise. It charmed
him that her knowledge should extend even to the Court customs of a
land beyond the sea. Already there was a regal note in her words. Yes,
that was the end to which she was destined. Smiling to himself with
pleasure he spread the letter out before him, grasping it tightly in
both hands as a priest holds the holy book, and gazed at it for a long
while.
On the day of the festival the royal princes and all the great
gentlemen of the Court were in attendance. Even the Heir Apparent went
with the procession. After the music-boats had rowed round the lake
dance upon dance was performed, both Korean and of the land beyond the
sea. The whole valley resounded with the noise of music and drums. The
Emperor insisted upon treating Genji’s performance at the rehearsal as
a kind of miracle or religious portent, and ordered special services
to be read in every temple. Most people thought this step quite
reasonable; but Princess Kōkiden said crossly that she saw no
necessity for it. The Ring[5] was by the Emperor’s order composed
indifferently of commoners and noblemen chosen out of the whole realm
for their skill and grace. The two Masters of Ceremony, Sayemon no
Kami and Uyemon no Kami, were in charge of the left and right
wings of the orchestra. Dancing-masters and others were entrusted with
the task of seeking out performers of unusual merit and training them
for the festival in their own houses. When at last under the red
leafage of tall autumn trees forty men stood circle-wise with their
flutes and to the music that they made a strong wind from the hills
sweeping the pine-woods added its fierce harmonies, while from amid a
wreckage of whirling and scattered leaves the Dance of the Blue Waves
suddenly broke out in all its glittering splendour,—a rapture seized
the onlookers that was akin to fear.
The maple-wreath that Genji wore had suffered in the wind and thinking
that the few red leaves which clung to it had a desolate air the
Minister of the Left[6] plucked a bunch of chrysanthemums from among
those that grew before the Emperor’s seat and twined them in the
dancer’s wreath.
At sunset the sky clouded over and it looked like rain. But even the
weather seemed conscious that such sights as this would not for a long
while be seen again, and till all was over not a drop fell. His Exit
Dance, crowned as he was with this unspeakably beautiful wreath of
many coloured flowers, was even more astonishing than that wonderful
moment on the day of the rehearsal and seemed to the thrilled
onlookers like the vision of another world. Humble and ignorant folk
sitting afar on tree-roots or beneath some rock, or half-buried in
deep banks of fallen leaves—few were so hardened that they did not
shed a tear. Next came the ‘Autumn Wind’ danced by Lady Jōkyōden’s
son[7] who was still a mere child. The remaining performances
attracted little attention, for the audience had had its fill of
wonders and felt that whatever followed could but spoil the
recollection of what had gone before.
That night Genji was promoted to the First Class of the Third Rank and
Tō no Chūjō was promoted to intermediate standing between the First
and Second Classes of the Fourth Rank. The gentlemen of the court were
all promoted one rank. But though they celebrated their good fortune
with the usual rejoicings they were well aware that they had only been
dragged in Genji’s wake and wondered how it was that their destinies
had come to be linked in this curious way with those of the prince who
had brought them this unexpected piece of good fortune.
Fujitsubo now retired to her own house and Genji, waiting about for a
chance of visiting her, was seldom at the Great Hall and was
consequently in very ill odour there. It was soon after this that he
brought the child Murasaki to live with him. Aoi heard a rumour of
this, but it reached her merely in the form that someone was living
with him at his palace and she did not know that it was a child. Under
these circumstances it was quite natural that she should feel much
aggrieved. But if only she had flown into an honest passion and abused
him for it as most people would have done, he would have told her
everything and put matters right. As it was, she only redoubled her
icy aloofness and thus led him to seek those very distractions of
which it was intended as a rebuke. Not only was her beauty so flawless
that it could not fail to win his admiration, but also the mere fact
that he had known her since so long ago, before all the rest, made him
feel towards her a tenderness of which she seemed quite unaware. He
was convinced however that her nature was not at bottom narrow and
vindictive, and this gave him some hope that she would one day relent.
Meanwhile as he got to know little Murasaki better he became the more