seem that he was the one privileged to administer reproofs.
It was the usual thing: Tō no Chūjō was always spying out his secrets. Genji thought it a splendid coup on his part to have learned and concealed from his friend the whereabouts of “the wild carnation.”
They were too fond of each other to say goodbye on the spot. Getting into the same carriage, they played on their flutes as they made their way under a pleasantly misted moon to the Sanjō mansion. Having no outrunners, they were able to pull in at a secluded gallery without attracting attention. There they sent for court dress. Taking up their flutes again, they proceeded to the main hall as if they had just come from court. The minister, eager as always for a concert, joined in with a Korean flute. He was a fine musician, and soon the more accomplished of the ladies within the blinds had joined them on lutes. There was a most accomplished lady named Nakatsukasa. Tō no Chūjō had designs upon her, but she had turned him away. Genji, who so rarely came to the house, had quite won her affections. News of the infatuation had reached the ears of princess Omiya, Tō no Chūjō‘s mother, who strongly disapproved of it. Poor Naka- tsukasa was thus left with her own sad thoughts, and tonight she sat forlornly apart from the others, leaning on an armrest. She had considered seeking a position elsewhere, but she was reluctant to take a step that would prevent her from seeing Genji again.
The two young men were both thinking of that koto earlier in the evening, and of that strange, sad house. Tō no Chūjō was lost in a most unlikely reverie: suppose some very charming lady lived there and, with patience, he were to make her his, and to find her charming and sad beyond description — he would no doubt be swept away by very confused emotions. Genji’s new adventure was certain to come to something.
Both seem to have written to the Hitachi princess. There were no answers. Tō no Chūjō thought this silence deplorable and incomprehensible. What a man wanted was a woman who though impoverished had a keen and ready sensibility and let him guess her feelings by little notes and poems as the clouds passed and the grasses and blossoms came and went. The princess had been reared in seclusion, to be sure, but such extreme reticence was simply in bad taste. Of the two he was the more upset.
A candid and open sort, he said to Genji: “Have you had any answers from the Hitachi lady? I let a drop a hint or two myself, and I have not had a word in reply.”
So it had happened. Genji smiled. “I have had none myself, perhaps because I have done nothing to deserve any.”
It was an ambiguous answer which left his friend more restless than ever. He feared that the princess was playing favorites.
Genji was not in fact very interested in her, though he too found her silence annoying. He persisted in his efforts all the same. Tō no Chūjō was an eloquent and persuasive young man, and Genji would not want to be rejected when he himself had made the first advances. He summoned Tayū for solemn
“It bothers me a great deal that she should be so unresponsive. Perhaps she judges me to be among the frivolous and inconstant ones. She is wrong. My feelings are unshakable. It is true that when a lady makes it known that she does not trust me I sometimes go a little astray. A lady who does trust me and who does not have a meddling family, a lady with whom I can be really comfortable, is the sort I find most pleasant.”
“I fear, sir, that she is not your ‘tree in the rain.’ She is not, I fear, what you are looking for. You do not often these days find such reserve. And she told him a little more about the princess.
“From what you say, she would not appear to be a lady with a very sand manner or very grand accomplishments. But the quiet, naïve ones have a charm of their own.” He was thinking of “the evening face.”
He had come down with malaria, and it was for him a time of secret longing; and so spring and summer passed.
Sunk in quiet thoughts as autumn came on, he even thought fondly of those fullers’ blocks and of the foot pestle that had so disturbed his sleep. He sent frequent notes to the Hitachi princess, but there were still no answers. In his annoyance he almost felt that his honor was at stake. He must not be outdone.
He protested to Tayū. “What can this mean? I have never known anything like it.”
She was sympathetic. “But you are not to hold me responsible, sir. I have not said anything to turn her against you. She is impossibly shy, and I can do nothing with her.”
“Outrageously shy — that is what I am saying. When a lady has not reached the age of discretion or when she is not in a position to make decisions for herself, such shyness is not unreasonable. I am bored and lonely for no very good reason, and if she were to let me know that she shared my melancholy I would feel that I had not approached her in vain. If I might stand on that rather precarious veranda of hers, quite without a wish to go further, I would be satisfied. You must try to understand my feelings, though they may seem very odd to you, and take me to her even without her permission. I promise to do nothing that will upset either of you.”
He seemed to take no great interest generally in the rumors he collected, thought Tayū, and yet he seemed to be taking very great interest indeed in at least one of them. She had first mentioned the Hitachi princess only to keep the conversation from lagging.
These repeated queries, so earnest and purposeful, had become a little tiresome. The lady was of no very great charm or talent, and did not seem right for him. If she, Tayū, were to give in and become his intermediary, she might be an agent of great unhappiness for the poor lady, and if she refused she would seem unfeeling.
The house had been forgotten by the world even before Prince Hitachi died. Now there was no one at all to part the undergrowth. And suddenly light had come filtering in from a quite unexpected source, to delight the princess’s lowborn women. She must definitely answer him, they said. But she was so maddeningly shy that she refused even to look at his notes.
Tayū made up her mind. She would find a suitable occasion to bring Genji to the princess’s curtains, and if he did not care for her, that would be that. If by chance they were to strike up a brief friendship, no one could possibly reprove Tayū herself. She was a rather impulsive and headstrong young woman, and she does not seem to have told even her father.
It was an evening toward the end of the Eighth Month when the moon was late in rising. The stars were bright and the wind sighed through the pine trees. The princess was talking sadly of old times. Tayū had judged the occasion a likely one and Genji had come in the usual secrecy. The princess gazed uneasily at the decaying fence as the moon came up. Tayū persuaded her to play a soft strain on her koto, which was not at all displeasing. If only she could make the princess over even a little more into the hospitable modern sort, thought Tayū, herself so willing in these matters. There was no one to challenge Genji as he made his way inside. He summoned Tayū.
“A fine thing,” said Tayū, feigning great surprise. “Genji has come. He is always complaining about what a bad correspondent you are, and I have had to say that there is little I can do. And so he said that he would come himself and give you a lesson in manners. And how am I to answer him now? These expeditions are not easy for him and it would be cruel to send him away. Suppose you speak to him — through your curtains, of course.”
The princess stammered that she would not know what to say and withdrew to an inner room. Tayū thought her childish.
“You are very inexperienced, my lady,” she said with a smile. “It is all right for people in your august position to make a show of innocence when they have parents and relatives to look after them, but your rather sad circumstances make this reserve seem somehow out of place.”
The princess was not, after all, one to resist very stoutly. “If I need not speak to him but only listen, and if you will lower the shutters, I shall receive him.”
“And leave him out on the veranda? That would not do at all. He is not a man, I assure you, to do anything improper.” Tayū spoke with great firmness. She barred the doors, having put out a cushion for Genji in the next room.
The lady was very shy indeed. Not having the faintest notion