had served in the Sanjō mansion of Genji’s father-in-law. “Shall I send for someone?”
“The last thing I want. I came here because I wanted to be in complete solitude, away from all possible visitors. You are not to tell a soul.”
The man put together a hurried breakfast, but he was, as he had said, without serving women to help him.
Genji told the girl that he meant to show her a love as dependable as “the patient river of the loons.” He could do little else in these strange lodgings.
The sun was high when he arose. He opened the shutters. All through the badly neglected grounds not a person was to be seen. The groves were rank and overgrown. The flowers and grasses in the foreground were a drab monotone, an autumn moor. The pond was choked with weeds, and all in all it was a forbidding place. An outbuilding seemed to be fitted with rooms for the caretaker, but it was some distance away.
“It is a forbidding place,” said Genji. “But I am sure that whatever devils emerge will pass me by.”
He was still in disguise. She thought it unkind of him to be so secretive, and he had to agree that their relationship had gone beyond such furtiveness.
“Because of one chance meeting by the wayside
The flower now opens in the evening dew.
“And how does it look to you?”
“The face seemed quite to shine in the evening dew,
But I was dazzled by the evening light.”
Her eyes turned away. She spoke in a whisper.
To him it may have seemed an interesting poem.
As a matter of fact, she found him handsomer than her poem suggested, indeed frighteningly handsome, given the setting.
“I hid my name from you because I thought it altogether too unkind of you to be keeping your name from me. Do please tell me now. This silence makes me feel that something awful might be coming.”
“Call me the fisherman’s daughter.” Still hiding her name, she was like a little child.
“I see. I brought it all on myself? A case of warekara?”
And so, sometimes affectionately, sometimes reproachfully, they talked the hours away.
Koremitsu had found them out and brought provisions. Feeling a little guilty about the way he had treated Ukon, he did not come near. He thought it amusing that Genji should thus be wandering the streets, and concluded that the girl must provide sufficient cause. And he could have had her himself, had he not been so generous.
Genji and the girl looked out at an evening sky of the utmost calm. Because she found the darkness in the recesses of the house frightening, he raised the blinds at the veranda and they lay side by side. As they gazed at each other in the gathering dusk, it all seemed very strange to her, unbelievably strange. Memories of past wrongs quite left her. She was more at ease with him now, and he thought her charming. Beside him all through the day, starting up in fright at each little noise, she seemed delightfully childlike. He lowered the shutters earl y and had lights brought.
“You seem comfortable enough with me, and yet you raise difficulties.”
At court everyone would be frantic. Where would the search be directed? He thought what a strange love it was, and he thought of the turmoil the Rokujō lady was certain to be in. She had every right to be resentful, and yet her jealous ways were not pleasant. It was that sad lady to whom his thoughts first turned. Here was the girl beside him, so simple and undemanding; and the other was so impossibly forceful in her de mands. How he wished he might in some measure have his freedom.
It was past midnight. He had been asleep for a time when an exceedingly beautiful woman appeared by his pillow.
“You do not even think of visiting me, when you are so much on my mind. Instead you go running off with someone who has nothing to recommend her, and raise a great stir over her. It is cruel, intolerable.” She seemed about to shake the girl from her sleep. He awoke, feeling as if he were in the power of some malign being. The light had gone out. In great alarm, he pulled his sword to his pillow and awakened Ukon. She too seemed frightened.
“Go out to the gallery and wake the guard. Have him bring a light.”
“It’s much too dark.”
He forced a smile. “You’re behaving like a child.”
He clapped his hands and a hollow echo answered. No one seemed to hear. The girl was trembling violently. She was bathed in sweat and as if in a trance, quite bereft of her senses.
“She is such a timid little thing,” said Ukon, “frightened when there is nothing at all to be frightened of. This must be dreadful for her.”
Yes, poor thing, thought Genji. She did seem so fragile, and she had spent the whole day gazing up at the sky.
“I’ll go get someone. What a frightful echo. You stay here with her.” He pulled Ukon to the girl’s side.
The lights in the west gallery had gone out. There was a gentle wind. He had few people with him, and they were asleep. They were three in number: a young man who was one of his intimates and who was the son of the steward here, a court page, and the man who had been his intermediary in the matter of the “evening faces.” He called out. Someone answered and came up to him.
“Bring a light. Wake the other, and shout and twang your bowstrings. What do you mean, going to sleep in a deserted house? I believe Lord Koremitsu was here.”
“He was. But he said he had no orders and would come again at dawn.”
An elite guardsman, the man was very adept at bow twanging. He went off with a shouting as of a fire watch. At court, thought Genji, the courtiers on night duty would have announced themselves, and the guard would be changing. It was not so very late.
He felt his way back inside. The girl was as before, and Ukon lay face down at her side.
“What is this? You’re a fool to let yourself be so frightened. Are you worried about the fox spirits that come out and play tricks in deserted houses? But you needn’t worry. They won’t come near me.” He pulled her to her knees.
“I’m not feeling at all well. That’s why I was lying down. My poor lady must be terrified.”
“She is indeed. And I can’t think why.”
He reached for the girl. She was not breathing. He lifted her and she was limp in his arms. There was no sign of life. She had seemed as defenseless as a child, and no doubt some evil power had taken possession of her. He could think of nothing to do. A man came with a torch. Ukon was not prepared to move, and Genji himself pulled up curtain frames to hide the girl.
“Bring the light closer.”
It was most a unusual order. Not ordinarily permitted at Genji’s side, the man hesitated to cross the threshold.
“Come, come, bring it here! There is a time and place for ceremony.”
In
