had happened? Her women had no way of knowing when the line had been crossed. One morning Genji was up early and Murasaki stayed on and on in bed. It was not at all like her to sleep so late. Might she be unwell? As he left for his own rooms, Genji pushed an inkstone inside her bed curtains.
At length, when no one else was near, she raised herself from her pillow and saw beside it a tightly folded bit of paper. Listlessly she opened it. There was only this verse, in a casual hand:
“Many have been the nights we have spent together
Purposelessly, these coverlets between us.”
She had not dreamed he had anything of the sort on his mind. What a fool she had been, to repose her whole confidence in so gross and unscrupulous a man.
It was almost noon when Genji returned. “They say you’re not feeling well. What can be the trouble? I was hoping for a game of Go.”
She pulled the covers over her head. Her women discreetly withdrew. He came up beside her.
“What a way to behave, what a very unpleasant way to behave. Try to imagine, please, what these women are thinking.”
He drew back the covers. She was bathed in perspiration and the hair at her forehead was matted from weeping.
“Dear me. This does not augur well at all.” He tried in every way he could think of to comfort her, but she seemed genuinely upset and did not offer so much as a word in reply.
“Very well. You will see no more of me. I do have my pride.”
He opened her writing box but found no note inside. Very childish of her — and he had to smile at the childishness. He stayed with her the whole day, and he thought the stubbornness with which she refused to be comforted most charming.
Boar-day sweets were served in the evening. Since he was still in mourning, no great ceremony attended upon the observance. Glancing over the varied and tastefully arranged foods that had been brought in cypress boxes to Murasaki’s rooms only, Genji went out to the south veranda and called Koremitsu.
“We will have more of the same tomorrow night,” he said, smiling “though not in quite such mountains. This is not the most propitious day.”
Koremitsu had a quick mind. “Yes, we must be careful to choose lucky days for our beginnings.” And, solemnly and deliberately: “How many rat-day sweets am I asked to provide?”
“Oh, I should think one for every three that we have here.”
Koremitsu went off with an air of having informed himself adequately. A clever and practical young fellow, thought Genji.
Koremitsu had the nuptial sweets prepared at his own house. He told no one what they signified.
Genji felt like a child thief. The role amused him and the affection he now felt for the girl seemed to reduce his earlier affection to the tiniest mote. A man’s heart is a very strange amalgam indeed! He now thought that he could not bear to be away from her for a single night.
The sweets he had ordered were delivered stealthily, very late in the night. A man of tact, Koremitsu saw that Shōnagon, an older woman, might make Murasaki uncomfortable, and so he called her daughter.
“Slip this inside her curtains, if you will,” he said, handing her an incense box. “You must see that it gets to her and to no one else. A solemn celebration. No carelessness permitted.”
She thought it odd. “Carelessness? Of that quality I have had no experience.”
“The very word demands care. Use it sparingly.”
Young and somewhat puzzled, she did as she was told. It would seem that Genji had explained the significance of the incense box to Murasaki.
The women had no warning. When the box emerged from the curtains the next morning, the pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. Such numbers of dishes — when might they have been assembled? — and stands with festooned legs, bearing sweets of a most especial sort. All in all, a splendid array. How very nice that he had gone to such pains, thought Shōnagon. He had overlooked nothing. She wept tears of pleasure and gratitude.
“But he really could have let us in on the secret,” the women whispered to one another. “What can the gentleman who brought them have thought?”
When he paid the most fleeting call on his father or put in a brief appearance at court, he would be impossibly restless, overcome with longing for the girl. Even to Genji himself it seemed excessive. He had resentful letters from women with whom he had been friendly. He was sorry, but he did not wish to be separated from his bride for even a night. He had no wish to be with these others and let it seem that he was indisposed.
“I shall hope to see you when this very difficult time has passed.”
Kokiden took note of the fact that her sister Oborozukiyo, the lady of the misty Moon, seemed to have fond thoughts of Genji.
“Well, after all,” said her father, the Minister of the Right, “he has lost the lady most important to him. If what you suggest with such displeasure comes to pass, I for one will not be desolate.”
“She must go to court,” thought Kokiden. “If she works hard, she can make a life for herself there.”
Genji had reciprocated the fond thoughts and was sorry to hear that she might be going to court; but he no longer had any wish to divide his affections. Life was short, he would settle them upon one lady. He had aroused quite enough resentment in his time.
As for the Rokujō lady, he pitied her, but she would not make a satisfactory wife. And yet, after all, he did not wish a final break. He told himself that if she could put up with him as he had been over the years, they might be of comfort to each other.
No one even knew who Murasaki was. It was as if she were without place or identity. He must inform her father, he told himself. Though avoiding display, he took great pains with her initiation ceremonies. She found this solicitude, though remarkable, very distasteful. She had trusted him, she had quite entwined herself about him. It had been inexcusably careless of her. She now refused to look at him, and his jokes only sent her into a more sullen silence. She was not the old Murasaki. He found the change both sad and interesting.
“My efforts over the years seem to have been wasted. I had hoped that familiarity would bring greater affection, and I was wrong.”
On New Year’s Day he visited his father and the crown prince. He went from the palace to the Sanjō mansion. His father-in-law, for whom the New Year had not brought a renewal of spirits, had been talking sadly of things gone by. He did not want this kind and rare visit to be marred by tears, but he was perilously near weeping. Perhaps because he was now a year older, Genji seemed more dignified and mature, and handsomer as well. In Aoi’s rooms the unexpected visit reduced her women to tears. The little boy had grown. He sat babbling and laughing happily, the resemblance to the crown prince especially strong around the eyes and mouth. All the old fears came back which his own resemblance to the crown prince had occasioned. Nothing in the rooms had been changed. On a clothes rack, as always, robes were laid out for Genji; but there were none for Aoi.
A note came from Princess Omiya. “I had become rather better at controlling my tears, but this visit has quite unsettled me.
