The tale of Genji
neglected her for many weeks, she treated me as though I were still
coming every day. In the end indeed I found this readiness to receive
me whenever and however I came very painful, and determined for the
future to merit her strange confidence.
‘Her parents were dead and this was perhaps why, since I was all she
had in the world, she treated me with such loving meekness, despite
the many wrongs I did her. I must own that my resolution did not last
long, and I was soon neglecting her worse than before. During this
time (I did not hear of it till afterwards) someone who had discovered
our friendship began to send her veiled messages which cruelly
frightened and distressed her. Knowing nothing of the trouble she was
in, although I often thought of her I neither came nor wrote to her
for a long while. Just when she was in her worst despair a child was
born, and at last in her distress she plucked a blossom of the flower
that is called “Child of my Heart” and sent it to me.’
And here Tō no Chūjō’s eyes filled with tears.
‘Well’ said Genji ‘and did she write a message to go with it?’ ‘Oh
nothing very out-of-the-ordinary’ said Tō no Chūjō. ‘She wrote:
“Though tattered be the hillman’s hedge, deign sometimes to look with
kindness upon the Child-flower that grows so sweetly there.” This
brought me to her side. As usual she did not reproach me, but she
looked sad enough, and when I considered the dreary desolation of this
home where every object wore an aspect no less depressing than the
wailing voices of the crickets in the grass, she seemed to me like
some unhappy princess in an ancient story, and wishing her to feel
that it was for the mother’s sake and not the child’s that I had come,
I answered with a poem in which I called the Child-flower by its other
name “Bed-flower,” and she replied with a poem that darkly hinted at
the cruel tempest which had attended this Bed-flower’s birth. She
spoke lightly and did not seem to be downright angry with me; and when
a few tears fell she was at great pains to hide them, and seemed more
distressed at the thought that I might imagine her to be unhappy than
actually resentful of my conduct towards her. So I went away with an
easy mind and it was some while before I came again. When at last I
returned she had utterly disappeared, and if she is alive she must be
living a wretched vagrant life. If while I still loved her she had but
shown some outward sign of her resentment, she would not have ended
thus as an outcast and wanderer; for I should never have dared to
leave her so long neglected, and might in the end have acknowledged
her and made her mine forever. The child too was a sweet creature, and
I have spent much time in searching for them, but still without success.
‘It is, I fear, as sorrowful a tale as that which Uma no Kami has told
you. I, unfaithful, thought that I was not missed; and she, still
loved, was in no better case than one whose love is not returned.
I indeed am fast forgetting her; but she, it may be, cannot put me out
of her mind and I fear there may be nights when thoughts that she
would gladly banish burn fiercely in her breast; for now I fancy she
must be living a comfortless and unprotected life.’
‘When all is said and done’ said Uma no Kami ‘my friend, though I pine
for her now that she is gone, was a sad plague to me while I had her,
and we must own that such a one will in the end be sure to make us
wish ourselves well rid of her. The zithern-player had much talent to
her credit, but was a great deal too light-headed. And your diffident
lady, Tō no Chūjō, seems to me to be a very suspicious case. The world
appears to be so constructed that we shall in the end be always at a
loss to make a reasoned choice; despite all our picking, sifting and
comparing we shall never succeed in finding this in all ways and to
all lengths adorable and impeccable female.’
‘I can only suggest the Goddess Kichijō’[10] said Tō no Chūjō ‘and I
fear that intimacy with so holy and majestic a being might prove to be
impracticable.’
At this they all laughed and Tō no Chūjō continued: ‘But now it is
Shikibu’s turn and he is sure to give us something entertaining. Come
Shikibu, keep the ball rolling!’ ‘Nothing of interest ever happens to
humble folk like myself’ said Shikibu; but Tō no Chūjō scolded him for
keeping them waiting and after reflecting for a while which anecdote
would best suit the company, he began: ‘While I was still a student at
the University, I came across a woman who was truly a prodigy of
intelligence. One of Uma no Kami’s demands she certainly fulfilled,
for it was possible to discuss with her to advantage both public
matters and the proper handling of one’s private affairs. But not only
was her mind capable of grappling with any problems of this kind;
she was also so learned that ordinary scholars found themselves, to
their humiliation, quite unable to hold their own against her.
‘I was taking lessons from her father, who was a Professor. I had
heard that he had several daughters, and some accidental circumstance
made it necessary for me to exchange a word or two with one of them
who turned out to be the learned prodigy of whom I have spoken. The
father, hearing that we had been seen together, came up to me with a
wine-cup in his hand and made an allusion to the poem of The Two
Wives.[11] Unfortunately I did not feel the least inclination towards
the lady. However I was very civil to her; upon which she began to
take an affectionate interest in me and lost no opportunity of
displaying her talents by giving me the most elaborate advice how best
I might advance my position in the world. She sent me marvellous
letters written in a very far-fetched epistolary style and entirely in
Chinese characters; in return for which I felt bound to visit her, and
by making her my teacher I managed to learn how to write Chinese
poems. They were wretched, knock-kneed affairs, but I am still
grateful to her for it. She was not however at all the sort of woman
whom I should have cared to have as a wife, for though there may be
certain disadvantages in marrying a complete dolt, it is even worse to
marry a blue-stocking. Still less do princes like you and Genji
require so huge a stock of intellect and erudition for your support!
Let her but be one to whom the _karma_ of our past lives draws us in
natural sympathy, what matter if now and again her ignorance
distresses us? Come to that, even men seem to me to get along very
well without much learning.’
Here he stopped, but Genji and the rest, wishing to hear the end
of the story, cried out that for their part they found her a most
interesting woman. Shikibu protested that he did not wish to go on
with the story, but at last after much coaxing, pulling a comical wry
face he continued: ‘I had not seen her for a long time. When at last
some accident took me to the house, she did not receive me with her
usual informality but spoke to me from behind a tiresome screen. Ha,
Ha, thought I foolishly, she is sulking; now is the time to have a
scene and break with her. I might have known that she was not so
little of a philosopher as to sulk about trifles; she prided herself
on knowing the ways of the world and my inconstancy did not in the
least disturb her.
‘She told me (speaking without the slightest tremor) that having had a
bad cold for some weeks she had taken a strong garlic-cordial, which
had made her breath smell rather unpleasant and that for this reason
she could not come very close to me. But if I had any matter of
special importance to discuss with her she was quite prepared to give
me her attention. All this she had expressed with solemn literary
perfection. I could think of no suitable reply, and with an “at your
service” I rose to go. Then, feeling that the interview had not been
quite a success, she added, raising her voice “Please come again when
my breath has lost its smell.” I could not pretend I had not heard. I
had however no intention of prolonging my visit, particularly as the
odour was now becoming definitely unpleasant, and looking cross I
recited the acrostic “On this night marked by the strange behaviour of
the spider, how foolish to bid me come back to-morrow”[12] and calling
over my shoulder “There is no excuse for you”! I ran out of the
room. But she, following me “If night by night and every night we met,
in daytime too I should grow bold to meet you face to face.” Here in
the second sentence she had cleverly concealed the meaning “If I had
had any reason to expect you, I should not have eaten garlic.”’
‘What a revolting story’ cried the young princes, and then, laughing,
‘He must have invented it.’ ‘Such a woman is quite incredible; it must
have been some sort of ogress. You have shocked us, Shikibu!’ and they
looked at him with disapproval. ‘You must try to tell us a better
story than that.’ ‘I do not see how any story could be better’ said
Shikibu, and left the room.
‘There is a tendency among men as well as women’ said Uma no Kami ‘so
soon as they have acquired a little knowledge of some kind, to want to
display it to the best advantage. To have mastered all the
difficulties in the Three Histories and Five Classics is no road to
amiability. But even a woman cannot afford to lack all knowledge of
public and private affairs. Her best way will be without regular study
to pick up a little here and a little there, merely by keeping her
eyes and ears open. Then, if she has her wits at all about her, she
will soon find that she has amassed a surprising store of information.
Let her be content with this and not insist upon cramming her letters
with Chinese characters which do not at all accord with her feminine
style of composition, and will make the recipient exclaim in despair
“If only she could contrive to be a little less mannish!” And many of
these characters, to which she intended the colloquial pronunciation
to be given, are certain to be read as Chinese, and this will give the
whole composition an even more pedantic sound than it deserves. Even
among our ladies of rank and fashion there are many of this sort, and
there are others who, wishing to master the art of verse-making,
in the end allow it to master them, and, slaves to poetry, cannot
resist the temptation, however urgent the business they are about or
however inappropriate the time, to make use of some happy allusion
which has occurred to them, but must needs fly to their desks and work
it up into a poem. On festival days such a woman is very troublesome.
For example on the morning of the Iris Festival, when everyone is busy
making ready to go to the temple, she will worry them by stringing
together all the old tags about the “matchless root”[13] or on the 9th
day of the 9th month, when everyone is busy thinking out some
difficult Chinese poem to fit the rhymes which have been prescribed,
she begins making metaphors about the “dew on the chrysanthemums,”
thus diverting our attention from the far more important business
which is in hand. At another time we might have found these
compositions quite delightful; but by thrusting them upon our notice
at inconvenient moments, when we cannot give them proper attention,
she makes them seem worse than they really are. For in all matters we
shall best commend ourselves if we study men’s faces to read in them
the “Why so?” or the “As you will” and do not, regardless of times and
circumstances, demand an interest and sympathy that they have not
leisure to give.
‘Sometimes indeed a woman should even pretend to know less than she
knows, or say only a part of what she would like to say....’
All this while Genji, though he had sometimes joined in the
conversation, had in his heart of hearts been thinking of one person