15

Genji lay wide awake, not pleased at the prospect of sleeping alone. He sensed that there was someone in the room to the north. It would be the lady of whom they had spoken. Holding his breath, he went to the door and listened.

“Where are you?” The pleasantly husky voice was that of the boy who had caught his eye.

“Over here.” It would be the sister. The two voices, very sleepy, resembled each other. “And where is our guest? I had thought he might be somewhere near, but he seems to have gone away.”

“He's in the east room.” The boy's voice was low. “ I saw him. He is every bit as handsome as everyone says.”

“If it were daylight I might have a look at him myself.” The sister yawned, and seemed to draw the bedclothes over her face.

Genji was a little annoyed. She might have questioned her brother more energetically.

“I'll sleep out toward the veranda. But we should have more light.” The boy turned up the lamp. The lady apparently lay at a diagonal remove from Genji. “And where is Chu~jo~? I don't like being left alone.”

“She went to have a bath. She said she'd be right back.” He spoke from out near the veranda.

All was quiet again. Genji slipped the latch open and tried the doors. They had not been bolted. A curtain had been set up just inside, and in the dim light he could make out Chinese chests and other furniture scattered in some disorder. He made his way through to her side. She lay by herself, a slight little figure. Though vaguely annoyed at being disturbed, she evidently took him for the woman Chu~jo~ until he pulled back the covers.

“I heard you summoning a captain,” he said, “and I thought my prayers over the months had been answered.*

She gave a little gasp. It was muffled by the bedclothes and no one else heard.

“You are perfectly correct if you think me unable to control myself. But I wish you to know that I have been thinking of you for a very long time. And the fact that I have finally found my opportunity and am taking advantage of it should show that my feelings are by no means shallow.”

His manner was so gently persuasive that devils and demons could not have gainsaid him. The lady would have liked to announce to the world that a strange man had invaded her boudoir.

“I think you have mistaken me for someone else,” she said, outraged, though the remark was under her breath.

The little figure, pathetically fragile and as if on the point of expiring from the shock, seemed to him very beautiful.

“I am driven by thoughts so powerful that a mistake is completely out of the question. It is cruel of you to pretend otherwise. I promise you that I will do nothing unseemly. I must ask you to listen to a little of what is on my mind.”

She was so small that he lifted her easily. As he passed through the doors to his own room, he came upon the Chu~jo~ who had been summoned earlier. He called out in surprise. Surprised in turn, Chu~jo~ peered into the darkness. The perfume that came from his robes like a cloud of smoke told her who he was. She stood in confusion, unable to speak. Had he been a more ordinary intruder she might have ripped her mistress away by main force. But she would not have wished to raise an alarm all through the house.

She followed after, but Genji was quite unmoved by her pleas.

“Come for her in the morning,” he said, sliding the doors closed.

The lady was bathed in perspiration and quite beside herself at the thought of what Chu~jo~, and the others too, would be thinking. Genji had to feel sorry for her. Yet the sweet words poured forth, the whole gamut of pretty devices for making a woman surrender.

She was not to be placated. “Can it be true? Can I be asked to believe that you are not making fun of me? Women of low estate should have husbands of low estate.”

He was sorry for her and somewhat ashamed of himself, but his answer was careful and sober. “You take me for one of the young profligates you see around? I must protest. I am very young and know nothing of the estates which concern you so. You have heard of me, surely, and you must know that I do not go in for adventures. I must ask what unhappy entanglement imposes this upon me. You are making a fool of me, and nothing should surprise me, not even the tumultuous emotions that do in fact surprise me.”

But now his very splendor made her resist. He might think her obsti-nate and insensitive, but her unfriendliness must make him dismiss her from further consideration. Naturally soft and pliant, she was suddenly firm. It was as with the young bamboo: she bent but was not to be broken. She was weeping. He had his hands full but would not for the world have missed the experience.

“Why must you so dislike me?” he asked with a sigh, unable to stop the weeping. “Don't you know that the unexpected encounters are the ones we were fated for? Really, my dear, you do seem to know altogether too little of the world.”

“If I had met you before I came to this,” she replied, and he had to admit the truth of it, “then I might have consoled myself with the thought —it might have been no more than self-deception, of course—that you would someday come to think fondly of me. But this is hopeless, worse than I can tell you. Well, it has happened. Say no to those who ask if you have seen me.” *

One may imagine that he found many kind promises with which to comfort her.

The first cock was crowing and Genji's men were awake.

“Did you sleep well? I certainly did.”

“Let's get the carriage ready.”

Some of the women were heard asking whether people who were avoiding taboos were expected to leave again in the middle of the night.

Genji was very unhappy. He feared he could not find an excuse for another meeting. He did not see how he could visit her, and he did not see how they could write. Chu~jo~ came out, also very unhappy. He let the lady go and then took her back again.

“How shall I write to you? Your feelings and my own—they are not shallow, and we may expect deep memories. Has anything ever been so strange?” He was in tears, which made him yet handsomer. The cocks were now crowing insistently. He was feeling somewhat harried as he composed his farewell verse:

“Why must they startle with their dawn alarums

When hours are yet required to thaw the ice?”

The lady was ashamed of herself that she had caught the eye of a man so far above her. His kind words had little effect. She was thinking of her husband, whom for the most part she considered a clown and a dolt. She trembled to think that a dream might have told him of the night's happenings.

This was the verse with which she replied:

“Day has broken without an end to my tears.

To my cries of sorrow are added the calls of the cocks.”

It was lighter by the moment. He saw her to her door, for the house was coming to life. A barrier had fallen between them. In casual court dress, he leaned for a time against the south railing and looked out at the garden. Shutters were being raised along the west side of the house. Women seemed to be looking out at him, beyond a low screen at the veranda. He no doubt brought shivers of delight. The moon still bright in the dawn sky added to the beauty of the morning. The sky, without heart itself, can at these times be friendly or sad, as the beholder sees it. Genji was in anguish. He knew that there would be no way even to exchange notes. He cast many a glance backward as he left.

At Sanjo~ once more, he was unable to sleep. If the thought that they would not meet again so pained him, what must it do to the lady? She was no beauty, but she had seemed pretty and cultivated. Of the middling rank, he said to himself. The guards officer who had seen them all knew what he was talking about.