The tale of Genji
herself from strangers lest their poor opinion of her looks should put
me out of countenance.
‘I meanwhile, becoming used to her homely looks, was well content with
her character, save for this one article of jealousy; and here she
showed no amendment. Then I began to think to myself “Surely, since
she seems so anxious to please, so timid, there must be some way of
giving her a fright which will teach her a lesson, so that for a while
at least we may have a respite from this accursed business.” And
though I knew it would cost me dear, I determined to make a pretence
of giving her up, thinking that since she was so fond of me this would
be the best way to teach her a lesson. Accordingly I behaved with the
greatest coldness to her, and she as usual began her jealous fit and
behaved with such folly that in the end I said to her, “If you want to
be rid for ever of one who loves you dearly, you are going the right
way about it by all these endless poutings over nothing at all. But if
you want to go on with me, you must give up suspecting some deep
intrigue each time you fancy that I am treating you unkindly. Do this,
and you may be sure I shall continue to love you dearly. It may well
be that as time goes on, I shall rise a little higher in the world and
then....”
‘I thought I had managed matters very cleverly, though perhaps in the
heat of the moment I might have spoken somewhat too roughly. She
smiled faintly and answered that if it were only a matter of bearing
for a while with my failures and disappointments, that did not trouble
her at all, and she would gladly wait till I became a person of
consequence. “But it is a hard task” she said “to go on year after
year enduring your coldness and waiting the time when you will at last
learn to behave to me with some decency; and therefore I agree with
you that the time has come when we had better go each his own way.”
Then in a fit of wild and uncontrollable jealousy she began to pour
upon me a torrent of bitter reproaches, and with a woman’s savagery
she suddenly seized my little finger and bit deep into it. The
unexpected pain was difficult to bear, but composing myself I said
tragically “Now you have put this mark upon me I shall get on worse
than ever in polite society; as for promotion, I shall be considered a
disgrace to the meanest public office and unable to cut a genteel
figure in any capacity, I shall be obliged to withdraw myself
completely from the world. You and I at any rate shall certainly not
meet again,” and bending my injured finger as I turned to go, I
recited the verse “As on bent hand I count the times that we have met,
it is not one finger only that bears witness to my pain.” And she, all
of a sudden bursting into tears ... “If still in your heart only you
look for pains to count, then were our hands best employed in
parting.” After a few more words I left her, not for a moment thinking
that all was over.
‘Days went by, and no news. I began to be restless. One night when I
had been at the Palace for the rehearsal of the Festival music, heavy
sleet was falling; and I stood at the spot where those of us who came
from the Palace had dispersed, unable to make up my mind which way to
go. For in no direction had I anything which could properly be called
a home. I might of course take a room in the Palace precincts; but I
shivered to think of the cheerless grandeur that would surround me.
Suddenly I began to wonder what she was thinking, how she was looking;
and brushing the snow off my shoulders, I set out for her house. I own
I felt uneasy; but I thought that after so long a time her anger must
surely have somewhat abated. Inside the room a lamp showed dimly,
turned to the wall. Some undergarments were hung out upon a large,
warmly-quilted couch, the bed-hangings were drawn up, and I made sure
that she was for some reason actually expecting me. I was priding
myself on having made so lucky a hit, when suddenly, “Not at home!”;
and on questioning the maid I learnt that she had but that very night
gone to her parents’ home, leaving only a few necessary servants
behind. The fact that she had till now sent no poem or conciliatory
message seemed to show some hardening of heart, and had already
disquieted me. Now I began to fear that her accursed suspiciousness
and jealousy had but been a stratagem to make me grow weary of her,
and though I could recall no further proof of this I fell into great
despair. And to show her that, though we no longer met, I still
thought of her and planned for her, I got her some stuff for a dress,
choosing a most delightful and unusual shade of colour, and a material
that I knew she would be glad to have. “For after all” I thought “she
cannot want to put me altogether out of her head.” When I informed her
of this purchase she did not rebuff me nor make any attempt to hide
from me, but to all my questions she answered quietly and composedly,
without any sign that she was ashamed of herself.
‘At last she told me that if I went on as before, she could never
forgive me; but if I would promise to live more quietly she would take
me back again. Seeing that she still hankered after me I determined to
school her a little further yet, and said that I could make no
conditions and must be free to live as I chose. So the tug of war went
on; but it seems that it hurt her far more than I knew, for in a
little while she fell into a decline and died, leaving me aghast at
the upshot of my wanton game. And now I felt that, whatever faults she
might have had, her devotion alone would have made her a fit wife for
me. I remembered how both in trivial talk and in consideration of
important matters she had never once shown herself at a loss, how in
the dyeing of brocades she rivalled the Goddess of Tatsuta who tints
the autumn leaves, and how in needlework and the like she was not less
skilful than Tanabata, the Weaving-lady of the sky.’
Here he stopped, greatly distressed at the recollection of the lady’s
many talents and virtues.
‘The Weaving-lady and the Herd boy’ said Tō no Chūjō ‘enjoy a love
that is eternal. Had she but resembled the Divine Sempstress in
this, you would not, I think, have minded her being a little less
skilful with her needle. I wonder that with this rare creature in mind
you pronounce the world to be so blank a place.’
‘Listen’ replied Uma no Kami ‘About the same time there was another
lady whom I used to visit. She was of higher birth than the first; her
skill in poetry, cursive writing, and lute-playing, her readiness of
hand and tongue were all marked enough to show that she was not a
woman of trivial nature; and this indeed was allowed by those who knew
her. To add to this she was not ill-looking and sometimes, when I
needed a rest from my unhappy persecutress, I used to visit her
secretly. In the end I found that I had fallen completely in love with
her. After the death of the other I was in great distress. But it was
no use brooding over the past and I began to visit my new lady more
and more often. I soon came to the conclusion that she was frivolous
and I had no confidence that I should have liked what went on when I
was not there to see. I now visited her only at long intervals and at
last decided that she had another lover.
‘It was during the Godless Month,[5] on a beautiful moonlight night.
As I was leaving the Palace I met a certain young courtier, who, when
I told him that I was driving out to spend the night at the
Dainagon’s, said that my way was his and joined me. The road passed my
lady’s house and here it was that he alighted, saying that he had an
engagement which he should have been very sorry not to fulfil. The
wall was half in ruins and through its gaps I saw the shadowy waters
of the lake. It would not have been easy (for even the moonbeams
seemed to loiter here!) to hasten past so lovely a place, and when he
left his coach I too left mine.
‘At once this man (whom I now knew to be that other lover whose
existence I had guessed) went and sat unconcernedly on the bamboo
skirting of the portico and began to gaze at the moon. The
chrysanthemums were just in full bloom, the bright fallen leaves were
tumbling and tussling in the wind. It was indeed a scene of wonderful
beauty that met our eyes. Presently he took a flute out of the folds
of his dress and began to play upon it. Then putting the flute aside,
he began to murmur “Sweet is the shade”[6] and other catches. Soon a
pleasant-sounding native zithern[7] began to tune up somewhere within
the house and an ingenious accompaniment was fitted to his careless
warblings. Her zithern was tuned to the autumn-mode, and she played
with so much tenderness and feeling that though the music came from
behind closed shutters it sounded quite modern and passionate,[8] and
well accorded with the soft beauty of the moonlight. The courtier was
ravished, and as he stepped forward to place himself right under her
window he turned to me and remarked in a self-satisfied way that
among the fallen leaves no other footstep had left its mark. Then
plucking a chrysanthemum, he sang:
Strange that the music of your lute,
These matchless flowers and all the beauty of the night,
Have lured no other feet to linger at your door!
and then, beseeching her pardon for his halting verses, he begged her
to play again while one was still near who longed so passionately to
hear her. When he had paid her many other compliments, the lady
answered in an affected voice with the verse:
Would that I had some song that might detain
The flute that blends its note
With the low rustling of the autumn leaves.
and after these blandishments, still unsuspecting, she took up the
thirteen-stringed lute, and tuning it to the _Banjiki_ mode[9] she
clattered at the strings with all the frenzy that fashion now demands.
It was a fine performance no doubt, but I cannot say that it made a
very agreeable impression upon me.
‘A man may amuse himself well enough by trifling from time to time
with some lady at the Court; will get what pleasure he can out of it
while he is with her and not trouble his head about what goes on when
he is not there. This lady too I only saw from time to time, but such
was her situation that I had once fondly imagined myself the only
occupant of her thoughts. However that night’s work dissolved the last
shred of my confidence, and I never saw her again.
‘These two experiences, falling to my lot while I was still so young,
early deprived me of any hope from women. And since that time my view
of them has but grown the blacker. No doubt to you at your age they
seem very entrancing, these “dew-drops on the grass that fall if they
are touched,” these “glittering hailstones that melt if gathered in
the hand.” But when you are a little older you will think as I do.
Take my advice in this at least; beware of caressing manners and soft,
entangling ways. For if you are so rash as to let them lead you
astray, you will soon find yourselves cutting a very silly figure
in the world.’
Tō no Chūjō as usual nodded his assent, and Genji’s smile seemed such
as to show that he too accepted Uma no Kami’s advice. ‘Your two
stories were certainly very dismal’ he said, laughing. And here Tō no
Chūjō interposed: ‘I will tell you a story about myself. There was a
lady whose acquaintance I was obliged to make with great secrecy. But
her beauty well rewarded my pains, and though I had no thought of
making her my wife I grew so fond of her that I soon found I could not
put her out of my head and she seemed to have complete confidence in
me. Such confidence indeed that when from time to time I was obliged
to behave in such a way as might well have aroused her resentment, she
seemed not to notice that anything was amiss, and even when I