2

In the Twelfth Month there was a royal outing to Oharano.+ Like everyone else, the ladies of Rokujo~ set out in their carriages to watch. The procession, very splendid even for a royal outing, left the palace early in the morning and proceeded south along Suzaku and west on Gojo~. Carriages lined the streets all the way to the river Katsura. The princes and high officials were beautifully fitted out. Their guards and grooms, very good-looking and of generally matching heights, were in the finest of livery. All the ministers and councillors and indeed the whole court had turned out for the occasion, the higher ranks dressed uniformly in yellowgreen robes and lavender singlets. Even the skies seemed intent on favoring the occasion, for there were flurries of snow. The princes and high courriers in charge of the falcons were in fine hunting dress. The falconers from the guards were even more interesting, all in printed robes of most fanciful design. Everything was very grand and very novel, and the carriages of the spectators fought for places. Some among the spindly carriages of the lesser ladies emerged from the struggle with broken wheels. The better carriages had gathered at the approaches to the floating bridge.

Tamakazura was among the spectators. As she surveyed the splendid courtiers in such intense competition, it was her verdict that no one compared with the emperor in his red robes. He looked neither to the right nor to the left. Then there was her own father, To~ no Chu~jo~ (almost no one knew that he was her father). He was handsome and dignified, in the prime of manhood, though of course circumscribed in his dress by the codes relating to his office. He was quite the finest of the courtiers—but her eye returned to the royal palanquin. The generals and captains and other high officials who had most of the young women swooning interested her very little. Yes, the emperor was the best of them—though Genji so resembled him that they might have been mistaken for each other. Perhaps it was only her imagination that the emperor was a shade the grander of the two. She was sure that she would have to look very far, in any case, to find their equal. She had thought, because of Genji and Yu~giri, that men of good family were all endowed with superior looks, but the competition today exacted casualties in such numbers that she was inclined to dismiss most of the men she saw as scarcely human. Prince Hotaru was present, as also was General Higekuro, always very solemn and important, and today in very grand uniform, quiver and all. His face was dark and his beard heavy, and she did not think him pleasing—though it would have been too much to expect his roughness to meet the standards of carefully tended femininity. She sniffed contemptuously. Genji had suggested that she go to court. She had heard much about the embarrassments and insults which a court lady must be prepared to put up with, but now she wondered whether it might not after all be rather nice to serve His Majesty, though not as one of the ladies of the bedchamber.

The procession reached Oharano, where awnings had been put out. The high courtiers changed to informal court dress and hunting dress. Refreshments were brought from Genji's Rokujo~ mansion. The emperor had invited Genji to join the hunt, but Genji had replied that a defilement made it impossible for him to go out. By a guards officer the emperor sent a brace of pheasants tied to a leafy branch. I shall not seek to record the contents of the royal letter, but this was the poem:

“Deep in the snows of this Mount Oshio

Are ancient pheasant tracks. Would you might see them.” *

But I wonder if in fact precedent can be found for inviting a chancellor to be in attendance upon a royal hunt.

Genji received the messenger very ceremoniously and sent back this answer:

“The snows beneath the pines of Oshio

Have never known so mighty a company.” +

These are the bits I gathered, and I may not have recorded them accurately.

Genji wrote to Tamakazura the next day. “I suppose you saw the emperor? Did you find yourself inclining a little in the direction I have suggested?”

It was a cozy, friendly sort of note on prim white paper, containing none of the usual innuendos. It pleased her and yet she smiled wryly. He had been very clever at reading her thoughts.

“It was all rather confused and unclear,” she wrote back.

“Amid deep snows upon a day of clouds

How does one see the radiance far above?”