She did not stir.”‘Like the grasses at full tide,’” she said softly, her sleeve over her mouth.
“That was unkind. So you have already learned to complain? I would not wish you to tire of me, you see, as they say the fishermen tire of the sea grasses at Ise.”
He had someone bring a thirteen-stringed koto.
“You must be careful. The second string breaks easily and we would not want to have to change it.” And he lowered it to the hyōō mode.
After plucking a few notes to see that it was in tune, he pushed it toward her. No longer able to be angry, she played for him, briefly and very competently. He thought her delightful as she leaned forward to press a string with her left hand. He took out a flute and she had a music lesson. Very quick, she could repeat a difficult melody after but a single hearing. Yes, he thought, she was bright and amiable, everything he could have wished for. “Hosoroguseri” made a pretty duet, despite its outlandish name. She was very young but she had a fine sense for music. Lamps were brought and they looked at pictures together. Since he had said that he would be going out, his men coughed nervously, to warn him of the time. If he did not hurry it would be raining, one of them said. Murasaki was suddenly a forlorn little figure. She put aside the pictures and lay with her face hidden in a pillow.
“Do you miss me when I am away?” He stroked the hair that fell luxuriantly over her shoulders.
She nodded a quick, emphatic nod.
“And I miss you. I can hardly bear to be away from you for a single day. But we must not make too much of these things. You are still a child, and there is a jealous and difficult lady whom I would rather not offend. I must go on visiting her, but when you are grown up I will not leave you ever. It is because I am thinking of all the years we will be together that I want to be on good terms with her.”
His solemn manner dispelled her gloom but made her rather uncomfortable. She did not answer. Her head pillowed on his knee, she was presently asleep.
He told the women that he would not after all be going out. His retinue having departed, he ordered dinner and roused the girl.
“I am not going,” he said.
She sat down beside him, happy again. She ate very little.
“Suppose we go to bed, then, if you aren’t going out.” She was still afraid he might leave her.
He already knew how difficult it would be when the time came for the final parting.
Everyone of course knew how many nights he was now spending at home. The intelligence reached his father-in-law’s house at Sanjō.
“How very odd. Who might she be?” said the women. “We have not been able to find out. No one of very good breeding, you may be sure, to judge from the way she clings to him and presumes upon his affection. Probably someone he ran into at court and lost his senses over, and now he has hidden her away because he is ashamed to have people see her. But the oddest thing is that she’s still a child.”
“I am sorry to learn that the Minister of the Left is unhappy with you,” the emperor said to Genji. “You cannot be so young and innocent as to be unaware of all he has done for you since you were a very small boy. He has been completely devoted to you. Must you repay him by insulting him?”
It was an august reproach which Genji was unable to answer.
The emperor was suddenly sorry for him. It was clear that he was not happy with his wife. “I have heard no rumors, it is true, that you are promiscuous, that you have scattered your affections too liberally here at court and elsewhere. He must have stumbled upon some secret.”
The emperor still enjoyed the company of pretty women. He preferred the pretty ones even among chambermaids and seamstresses, and all the ranks of his court were filled with the best-favored women to be found. Genji would joke with one and another of them, and few were of a mind to keep him at a distance. Someone among them would remark coyly that perhaps he did not like women; but, no doubt because she offered no novelty, he would answer so as not to give offense and refuse to be tempted. To some this moderation did not seem a virtue.
There was a lady of rather advanced years called Naishi. She was wellborn, talented, cultivated, and widely respected; but in matters of the heart she was not very discriminating. Genji had struck up relations, interested that her wanton ways should be so perdurable, and was taken somewhat aback at the warm welcome he received. He continued to be interested all the same and had arranged a rendezvous. Not wanting the world to see him as the boy lover of an aged lady, he had turned away further invitations. She was of course resentful.
One morning when she had finished dressing the emperor’s hair and the emperor had withdrawn to change clothes, she found herself alone with Genji. She was bedecked and painted to allure, every detail urging him forward. Genji was dubious of this superannuated coquetry, but curious to see what she would do next. He tugged at her apron. She turned around, a gaudy fan hiding her face, a sidelong glance — alas, the eyelids were dark and muddy — emerging from above it. Her hair, which of course the fan could not hide, was rough and stringy. A very poorly chosen fan for an old lady, he thought, giving her his and taking it from her. So bright a red that his own face, he was sure, must be red from the reflection, it was decorated with a gold painting of a tall grove. In a corner, in a hand that was old-fashioned but not displeasingly so, was a line of poetry: “Withered is the grass of Oaraki.” Of all the poems she could have chosen!
“What you mean, I am sure, is that your grove is summer lodging for the cuckoo.”
They talked for a time. Genji was nervous lest they be seen, but Naishi was unperturbed.
“Sere and withered though these grasses be,
They are ready for your pony, should you come.”
She was really too aggressive.
“Were mine to part the low bamboo at your grove,
It would fear to be driven away by other ponies.
“And that would not do at all.”
He started to leave, but she caught at his sleeve. “No one has ever been so rude to me, no one. At my age I might expect a little courtesy.”
These angry tears, he might have said, did not become an old lady.
“I will write. You have been on my mind a great deal.” He tried to shake her off but she followed after.
“‘As the pillar of the bridge —’” she said reproachfully.
Having finished dressing, the emperor looked in from the next room. He was amused. They were a most improbable couple.
“People complain that you show too little interest in romantic things,” he laughed, “but I see that you have your ways.”
Naishi, though much discommoded, did not protest with great vehemence. There are those who do not dislike wrong rumors if they are about the right men.
The ladies of the palace were beginning to talk of the affair, a most surprising one, they said. Tō no Chūjō heard of it. He had thought his own affairs varied, but the possibility of a liaison with an old woman had not occurred to him. An inexhaustibly
