The tale of Genji
with him in order that the affair may be hushed up. No doubt he is
circulating the story that she is a child merely in order to put us
off the scent.’ And this opinion was shared by the rest.
The Emperor too had heard that there was someone living with Genji and
thought it a great pity. ‘You are treating the Minister very badly,’
he said. ‘He has shown the greatest possible devotion to you ever
since you were a mere baby and now that you are old enough to know
better you behave like this towards him and his family! It is really
most ungrateful.’
Genji listened respectfully, but made no reply. The Emperor began to
fear that his marriage with Aoi had proved a very unhappy one and was
sorry that he had arranged it. ‘I do not understand you,’ he said.
‘You seem to have no taste for gallantry and do not, so far as I can
see, take the slightest interest in any of the ladies-in-waiting whom
one might expect you to find attractive, nor do you bother yourself
about the various beauties who in one part of the town or another are
now in request; but instead you must needs pick up some creature from
no one knows where and wound the feelings of others by keeping
her as your mistress!’
Though he was now getting on in years the Emperor had himself by no
means ceased to be interested in such matters. He had always seen to
it that his ladies-in-waiting and palace-servants should be remarkable
both for their looks and their intelligence, and it was a time when
the Court was full of interesting women. There were few among them
whom Genji could not by the slightest word or gesture have made his
own. But, perhaps because he saw too much of them, he did not find
them in the least attractive. Suspecting this, they would occasionally
experiment upon him with some frivolous remark. He answered so staidly
that they saw a flirtation would be impossible and some of them came
to the conclusion that he was rather a dull, prudish young man.
There was an elderly lady-of-the-bedchamber who, though she was an
excellent creature in every other way and was very much liked and
respected, was an outrageous flirt. It astonished Genji that despite
her advancing years she showed no sign of reforming her reckless and
fantastic behaviour. Curious to see how she would take it he one day
came up and began joking with her. She appeared to be quite
unconscious of the disparity between their ages and at once counted
him as an admirer. Slightly alarmed, he nevertheless found her company
rather agreeable and often talked with her. But, chiefly because he
was frightened of being laughed at if anyone found out, he refused to
become her lover, and this she very much resented. One day she was
dressing the Emperor’s hair. When this was over his Majesty sent for
his valets and went with them into another room. Genji and the elderly
lady were left alone together. She was fuller than ever of languishing
airs and poses, and her costume was to the last degree stylish and
elaborate. ‘Poor creature,’ he thought, ‘How little difference it
all makes!’ and he was passing her on his way out of the room when
suddenly the temptation to give a tug at her dress became
irresistible. She glanced swiftly round, eyeing him above the rim of a
marvellously painted summer-fan. The eyelids beneath which she ogled
at him were blackened and sunken; wisps of hair projected untidily
around her forehead. There was something singularly inappropriate
about this gawdy, coquettish fan. Handing her his own instead, he took
it from her and examined it. On paper coated with a red so thick and
lustrous that you could see yourself reflected in it a forest of tall
trees was painted in gold. At the side of this design, in a hand which
though out-of-date was not lacking in distinction was written the poem
about the Forest of Oaraki.[13] He made no doubt that the owner of the
fan had written it in allusion to her own advancing years and was
expecting him to make a gallant reply. Turning over in his mind how
best to divert the extravagant ardour of this strange creature he
could, to his own amusement, think only of another poem[14] about the
same forest; but to this it would have been ill-bred to allude. He was
feeling very uncomfortable lest someone should come in and see them
together. She however was quite at her ease and seeing that he
remained silent she recited with many arch looks the poem: ‘Come to me
in the forest and I will cut pasture for your horse, though it be but
of the under leaf whose season is past.’ ‘Should I seek your
woodland,’ he answered, ‘my fair name would be gone, for down its
glades at all times the pattering of hoofs is heard,’ and he tried to
get away; but she held him back saying: ‘How odious you are! That is
not what I mean at all. No one has ever insulted me like this
before,’ and she burst into tears. ‘Let us talk about it some other
time,’ said Genji; ‘I did not mean ...’ and freeing himself from her
grasp he rushed out of the room, leaving her in great dudgeon. She
felt indeed after his repulse prodigiously old and tottering. All this
was seen by His Majesty who, his toilet long ago completed, had
watched the ill-assorted pair with great amusement from behind his
Imperial screen. ‘I am always being told,’ he said, ‘that the boy
takes no interest in the members of my household. But I cannot say
that he seems to me unduly shy,’ and he laughed. For a moment she was
slightly embarrassed; but she felt that any relationship with Genji,
even if it consisted of being rebuffed by him in public, was
distinctly a feather in her cap, and she made no attempt to defend
herself against the Emperor’s raillery. The story soon went the round
of the Court. It astonished no one more than Tō no Chūjō who, though
he knew that Genji was given to odd experiments, could not believe
that his friend was really launched upon the fantastic courtship which
rumour was attributing to him. There seemed no better way of
discovering whether it was conceivably possible to regard the lady in
such a light than to make love to her himself.
The attentions of so distinguished a suitor went a long way towards
consoling her for her late discomfiture. Her new intrigue was of
course carried on with absolute secrecy and Genji knew nothing about
it. When he next met her she seemed to be very cross with him, and
feeling sorry for her because she was so old he made up his mind that
he must try to console her. But for a long while he was completely
occupied by tiresome business of one kind and another. At last one
very dismal rainy evening when he was strolling in the neighbourhood
of the Ummeiden[15] he heard this lady playing most agreeably on
her lute. She was so good a performer that she was often called upon
to play with the professional male musicians in the Imperial
orchestra. It happened that at this moment she was somewhat downcast
and discontented, and in such a mood she played with even greater
feeling and verve. She was singing the ‘Melon-grower’s Song’[16];
admirably, he thought, despite its inappropriateness to her age. So
must the voice of the mysterious lady at O-chou have sounded in Po
Chü-i’s ears when he heard her singing on her boat at night[17]; and
he stood listening. At the end of the song the player sighed heavily
as though quite worn out by the passionate vehemence of her serenade.
Genji approached softly humming the ‘Azumaya’: ‘Here in the portico of
the eastern house rain splashes on me while I wait. Come, my beloved,
open the door and let me in.’ Immediately, indeed with an unseemly
haste, she answered as does the lady in the song ‘Open the door and
come in,’[18] adding the verse: ‘In the wide shelter of that portico
no man yet was ever splashed with rain,’ and again she sighed so
portentously that although he did not at all suppose that he alone was
the cause of this demonstration he felt it in any case to be somewhat
exaggerated and answered with the poem: ‘Your sighs show clearly that,
despite the song, you are another’s bride, and I for my part have no
mind to haunt the loggias of your eastern house.’ He would gladly have
passed on, but he felt that this would be too unkind, and seeing that
someone else was coming towards her room he stepped inside and
began talking lightly of indifferent subjects, in a style which though
it was in reality somewhat forced she found very entertaining.
It was intolerable, thought Tō no Chūjō, that Genji should be praised
as a quiet and serious young man and should constantly rebuke him for
his frivolity, while all the time he was carrying on a multiplicity of
interesting intrigues which out of mere churlishness he kept entirely
hidden from all his friends. For a long while Chūjō had been waiting
for an opportunity to expose this sanctimonious imposture, and when he
saw Genji enter the gentlewoman’s apartment you may be sure he was
delighted. To scare him a little at such a moment would be an
excellent way to punish him for his unfriendliness. He slackened his
pace and watched. The wind sighed in the trees. It was getting very
late. Surely Genji would soon begin to doze? And indeed he did now
look as though he had fallen asleep. Chūjō stole on tip-toe into the
room; but Genji who was only half dreaming instantly heard him, and
not knowing that Chūjō had followed him got it into his head that it
was a certain Commissioner of Works who years ago had been supposed to
be an admirer of the lady. The idea of being discovered in such a
situation by this important old gentleman filled him with horror.
Furious with his companion for having exposed him to the chance of
such a predicament: ‘This is too bad,’ he whispered ‘I am going home.
What possessed you to let me in on a night when you knew that someone
else was coming?’ He had only time to snatch up his cloak and hide
behind a long folding screen before Chūjō entered the room and going
straight up to the screen began in a business-like manner to fold it
up. Though she was no longer young the lady did not lose her head in
this alarming crisis. Being a woman of fashion she had on more than
one occasion found herself in an equally agitating position, and
now despite her astonishment, after considering for a moment what had
best be done with the intruder, she seized him by the back of his coat
and with a practised though trembling hand pulled him away from the
screen. Genji had still no idea that it was Chūjō. He had half a mind
to show himself, but quickly remembered that he was oddly and
inadequately clad, with his head-dress all awry. He felt that if he
ran for it he would cut much too strange a figure as he left the room,
and for a moment he hesitated. Wondering how much longer Genji would
take to recognize him Chūjō did not say a word but putting on the most
ferocious air imaginable drew his sword from the scabbard. Whereupon
the lady crying ‘Gentlemen! Gentlemen!’ flung herself between them in
an attitude of romantic supplication. They could hardly refrain from
bursting into laughter. It was only by day when very carefully painted
and bedizened that she still retained a certain superficial air of
youth and charm. But now this woman of fifty-seven or eight, disturbed
by a sudden brawl in the midst of her amours, created the most
astonishing spectacle as she knelt at the feet of two young men in
their ’teens beseeching them not to die for her. Chūjō however
refrained from showing the slightest sign of amusement and continued
to look as alarming and ferocious as he could. But he was now in full
view and Genji realized in a moment that Chūjō had all the while known
who he was and had been amusing himself at his expense. Much relieved
at this discovery he grabbed at the scabbard from which Chūjō had
drawn the sword and held it fast lest his friend should attempt to