CHAPTER X
THE TYPHOON
This year great pains had been taken to improve the Empress Akikonomu’s domain; and by now her gardens were aglow with the varied tints of innumerable frost-stained leaves and autumn flowers. Above all, the new pergolas made an admirable show, now that their timber, here stripped of bark, there used in its natural state, was thickly interwoven with blossoming boughs. And when at morning and evening the sun slanted across the dewy gardens, it was as though every flower and tree were decked with strings of glittering pearls. Those who but a few months back had been carried away by the spring-time loveliness of the Southern Garden, could not fail, as they gazed upon the colder beauty of this autumnal scene, with one accord to resume their earlier preference. The lovers of autumn have, I am persuaded, at all times embraced the larger part of mankind; and in thus returning to their allegiance the Empress’s companions were but following their natural bent.
So delighted was Akikonomu with the scene I have described that she asked for leave of absence from the Emperor and settled for a while in her own establishment. Unfortunately the anniversary of the late Prince Zembō’s[1] death fell in the eighth month, and it was with great anxiety that she watched Autumn’s almost hourly advance; for she feared that the best month would be over before she came out of mourning. Meanwhile she was confined to the house and all amusements were suspended.
The equinoctial gales were this year particularly violent. Then came a day when the whole sky grew black, and an appalling typhoon began. It would have been bad enough wherever one had been to see every tree stripped of its leaves just when they were at their loveliest, every flower stricken to the earth; but to witness such havoc in an exquisite garden, planned from corner to corner with endless foresight and care, to see those dew-pearls unthreaded in an instant and scattered upon the ground, was a sight calculated to drive the onlooker well nigh to madness. As time went on the hurricane became more and more alarming, till all was lost to view in a blinding swirl of fog and dust. But while she sat behind tightly closed shutters in a room that rocked with every fresh blast, it was with thoughts of autumn splendours irrevocably lost rather than with terror of the storm that the Empress’s heart was shaken.
The Southern Gardens were just being laid out with wild plants from the countryside when the high winds began, and that impatient longing which the poet attributes to the young lespidezas[2] was indeed fulfilled in all too ample measure. Morning after morning Murasaki too saw the dew roughly snatched from leaf and flower. She was sitting thus one day on watch at her window, while Genji played with the little princess in a neighbouring room. It happened that Yūgiri had occasion to come across from the eastern wing. When he reached the door at the end of the passage he noticed that the great double-doors leading into Murasaki’s room were half-open. Without thinking what he was doing, he paused and looked in. Numerous ladies-in-waiting were passing to and fro just inside, and had he made any sound they would have looked up, seen him and necessarily supposed that he had stationed himself there on purpose to spy upon those within. He saw nothing for it but to stand dead still. Even indoors the wind was so violent that screens would not stand up. Those which usually surrounded the high daïs were folded and stacked against the wall. There, in full view of any one who came along the corridor, reclined a lady whose notable dignity of mien and bearing would alone have sufficed to betray her identity. This could be none other than Murasaki. Her beauty flashed upon him as at dawn the blossom of the red flowering cherry flames out of the mist upon the traveller’s still sleepy eye. It was wafted towards him, suddenly imbued him, as though a strong perfume had been dashed against his face. She was more beautiful than any woman he had ever seen. The hangings of her daïs had broken away from the poles and now fluttered in the wind like huge flags. Her ladies made vain attempts to recapture these flapping curtain-ends, and in the course of the struggle (only half-visible to Yūgiri) something very amusing evidently occurred, for Murasaki suddenly burst into peals of laughter. Soon however she became serious again. For here too, though in a lesser degree, the wind was working irreparable havoc, and at each fresh blast he saw her turn a despairing gaze towards her newly-planted beds. Several of her gentlewomen, thought Yūgiri, as his eye accustomed itself to the scene, were noticeably good-looking; but there was not one whose appearance could for more than an instant have distracted his attention from the astonishing creature at whose command they served. Now he understood why it was that Genji had always taken such pains to keep him away from her. His father was wise enough to know that no one could possibly see her thus without losing all control of himself. Genji had indeed, in forbidding him all access to her rooms, foreseen just such a contingency as had at this moment occurred. The boy, suddenly realizing the extreme insecurity of his hiding-place and at the same time overwhelmed with shame at the mere thought of being discovered in such a situation, was about to dart into safety, when a door on the left opened and Genji himself entered the room. ‘What a wind!’ he said as he surveyed the exposed condition of her daïs. ‘It would really be better just now if you left all the shutters closed. You probably do not realize that you and your ladies are at this moment exposing yourselves completely to the view of any gentleman who may happen to come this way….’ Yūgiri had already withdrawn his eye from the crack; but the sound of Genji’s voice aroused in him an invincible curiosity, and he returned to his former position. His father was bending over Murasaki and whispering something in her ear; now he was laughing. It seemed to Yūgiri very odd that this high-spirited, handsome, quite young-looking man should really be his father. As for Genji’s companion—he could not imagine that she could ever have been more beautiful than at this moment. He gazed spell-bound, and would certainly have crouched at his chink for hours to come, had not the door on the opposite side of the passage suddenly blown wide open, thus leaving his hiding-place embarrassingly exposed. Reluctantly he withdrew (as was now possible, for Murasaki’s attendants had all retired to the far end of the room), and working his way round to the verandah, he called to Genji as though he had just arrived from the Eastern Wing. His father answered the greeting and presently joined him, saying to Murasaki as he left the room something which evidently referred to the imperfectly fastened passage-door. ‘Look there!’ Genji was saying crossly; ‘is not that just what I told you? You must really be more careful….’ ‘This,’ thought Yūgiri, ‘is indeed a tribute to the devotion of her guards during all these years! Only a tempest capable of hurling rocks through the air and uprooting whole forests can so far disarm their vigilance that for a few seconds she is exposed to the curiosity of the passer-by.’ He was bound to confess that towards him at any rate the dreaded hurricane had done its best to act a benevolent part.
Several retainers now arrived, reporting that the typhoon was assuming a very serious aspect. ‘It is from the north-east,’ they said, ‘so that here you are comparatively protected and have no notion of its real violence. Both the racing-lodge and the fishing-pavilion are in great danger….’ While those people were busy making fast various doors and shutters, and repairing the damage of the previous night, Genji turned to Yūgiri and said: ‘Where did you arrive from just now?’ ‘I spent the night at my grandmother’s,’ he replied. ‘But every one says that we are in for a very bad storm, and I felt I ought to come back here and see if I could be of any use…. But as a matter of fact it is far worse in the Third Ward than here in the Sixth. The mere noise of the wind, quite apart from everything else, is terrifying at my grandmother’s, and if you do not mind I think it would be a good thing if I went back there at once. She is as frightened as though she were a child of two, and it seems unkind to leave her….’ ‘Yes, by all means go back at once,’ answered Genji hastily. ‘One sometimes thinks that the notion of old people slipping back into a second childhood is a mere fable; but I have learnt lately from instances in my own family that it does really happen. Tell her, please, that I have heard how bad things are in the Third Ward and should certainly come myself, were I not satisfied that you will be able to do quite as much for her as I could.’
Yūgiri had a high sense of duty. It was his practice at this time to visit his grandmother at least once a day, and it would have been a ferocious wind indeed that could deter him either from setting out for the Third Ward or returning thence at the hour when his father usually asked for him. There were of course ‘times of observance’ when he was obliged to remain shut up in the Emperor’s Palace for several days on end. But otherwise neither pressure of public business nor attendance at state ceremonies and festivals, however much they might impinge upon his leisure, ever prevented him from calling first at the New Palace and then upon the old Princess, before he dreamt of embarking upon any amusement of his own. Still less upon such a day as this, when, bad as the storm was already, there seemed every prospect that it would soon develop into something more alarming still, could he have brought himself to leave the old lady in solitude.
She was, indeed, delighted that he had not failed her. ‘This is the worst typhoon there has ever been in my lifetime,’ she said; ‘and I can assure you I have seen a good many.’ She was trembling from head to foot. Now and again came a strange and terrifying sound; some huge bough that a single breath of the hurricane had twisted from its trunk, crashed in splinters to the ground. Apart from all other dangers, showers of tiles were falling from every roof. To go into the streets at all on such a day was indeed no very safe undertaking, and for a while she listened with mingled gratitude and alarm to the recital of his perils and escapes.
The old Princess’s lonely and monotonous existence contrasted strangely with the brilliant scenes amid which she had moved during the days of her husband’s remarkable ascendancy. Indeed, that the visits of this staid young grandson should mean so much to her showed only too plainly how far she had fallen from the days when her antechambers were thronged by the fashionable world. True, her name was still widely known and even reverenced in the country at large; but this was small consolation for the fact that her own son, Tō no Chūjō, had for some time past been far from cordial in his manner towards her. It was very good of Yūgiri to come on such an evening. But why was it that he looked so thoughtful? Perhaps the noise of the hurricane distracted him. It was certainly very alarming.
If Yūgiri fell into a meditative mood in this house, it was generally with memories of his little playmate[3] that his mind was employed. But to-night he had not, as a matter of fact, thought of her once; nor did the tempest disturb him. It was the face he had seen this morning, in the course of his unintended eavesdropping, which now continually haunted him, till he suddenly checked his imagination and asked himself remorsefully what had come over him that in this of all places another face than Kumoi’s should have filled his thoughts during a whole evening. And if it was a crime in him that he should presume to court Tō no Chūjō’s daughter, what view would his elders take if they should discover that he spent his leisure in thinking of Genji’s wife? He tried hard to think of other things; but after a moment or two the recollection of what he had seen that morning sprang back into his mind. Was all this a mere aberration on his part? He could not believe it; surely her beauty was indisputably of the kind that occurs only once or twice in a century—that a whole epoch may utterly lack? There was nothing to be wondered at in the impression which the sight of her had made upon him; if there was anything strange in the matter at all, it was that Genji, having such a wife as this, could ever have taken any interest in such creatures as the lady in the Eastern Wing.[4] That did indeed require some explanation. It was heart-rending that the most beautiful woman of her generation should fall to the lot of one whose other intimacies proved him so completely lacking in discrimination.
It was characteristic of Yūgiri’s high sense of propriety that when in his imaginings he became better acquainted with this lovely creature, it was not with Murasaki herself but with someone in every respect exactly like her that he pictured himself spending hours of enchanted bliss. Yes, that was what he needed; without it life, he had began to discover, was not worth living at all.
Towards dawn the wind became somewhat dank and clammy; before long sheets of rain were being swept onward by the hurricane. News came that many of the outbuildings at the New Palace had been blown to the ground. The main structure was so solidly built as to defy any storm. In the quarters inhabited by Genji there was, too, a continual coming and going, which served to mitigate the strain of those alarming hours. But the side wings of the palace were very sparsely inhabited. Yūgiri’s own neighbour, for example—the Lady from the Village of Falling Flowers—might easily be by this time in a pitiable state of panic. Clearly it was his duty to give her his support, and he set out for home while it was still dark. The rain was blowing crossways, and no sooner had he seated himself in his litter, than an icy douche poured in through the ventilator and drenched his knees. The town wore an inconceivably desolate and stricken air. In his own mind too there was a strange sensation; it was as though there also, just as in the world outside, the wonted landmarks and boundaries had been laid waste by some sudden hurricane. What had happened to him? For a moment he could only remember that it was something distressing, shameful. … Why, it was hideous! Yesterday morning…. That was it of course. He was mad; nothing more nor less than a raving lunatic. He had fallen in love with Murasaki!
He did indeed find his neighbour in the eastern wing sadly in need of a little support and encouragement. He managed however to convince her that the worst danger was over, and sending for some of his own carpenters had everything put to rights. He felt that he ought now to greet his father. But in the central hall everything was still locked and barred. He went to the end of the passage and leaning on the balustrade looked out into the Southern Garden. Even such trees as still stood were heeling over in the wind so that their tops almost touched the ground. Broken branches were scattered in every direction and what once had been flower-beds were now mere rubbish heaps, strewn with a promiscuous litter of thatch and tiles, with here and there a fragment of trellis-work or the top of a fence. There was now a little pale sunshine, that slanting through a break in the sky gleamed fitfully upon the garden’s woe-begone face; but sullen clouds packed the horizon, and as Yūgiri gazed on the desolate scene his eyes filled with tears. How came it, he asked himself, that he should be doomed time and again to long precisely for what it was impossible for him to obtain. He wiped away his tears, came close to Genji’s door and called. ‘That sounds like Yūgiri’s voice,’ he heard Genji say. ‘I had no notion it was so late….’ He heard his father rise. There was a pause, and then Genji laughed, perhaps at some remark that had been inaudible. ‘No indeed,’ he said. ‘You and I have fared better than most lovers. We have never known what it was to be torn from each other at the first streak of dawn, and I do not think that after all these years we should easily reconcile ourselves to such a fate.’ Even to overhear such a conversation as this gave Yūgiri a certain kind of pleasure. He could not make out a word of what Murasaki said in reply and judging from the laughter with which the conversation was constantly interrupted it was not of a very serious description. But he felt he could say to himself ‘That is what happens when they are alone together,’ and he went on listening. Now, however, there was a noise of swift footsteps. Evidently Genji was about to unbolt the door with his own hands. Conscious that he was standing far closer to it than was natural Yūgiri stepped back guiltily into the corridor. ‘Well,’ asked Genji, ‘was the Princess pleased to see you last night?’ ‘Yes, I think she was,’ answered Yūgiri. ‘She seems to be very much upset about something that has happened between her and my uncle Tō no Chūjō. She cried a great deal and I was very sorry for her.’ Genji smiled. ‘Oh, I know all about that business,’ he said. ‘She will soon get over it. You must persuade her not to brood upon such matters. He thinks she has been indiscreet, and is doing his best to make her feel uncomfortable about it. He cares immensely about the impression which his conduct makes on other people; and as regards his mother—he has always gone out of his way to convince the world that he is a paragon of filial devotion. So far as outward show is concerned, this is true enough. But I fancy that it is all done chiefly for the sake of appearances. The truth of the matter is that he has no very deep feelings towards anybody. This may seem a hard thing to say; but, on the other hand, I freely admit his good qualities. He is extremely well-informed and intelligent; he is musical to an extent which has become very rare in these days. In addition to all that, he is good-looking. As I have said, I think his feelings somewhat superficial. But we all have defects of one sort or another…. By the way, I ought to find out how the Empress has been getting on during this appalling hurricane. I wish you would find out if there is anything I can do for her…’ and he gave Yūgiri a note in which he said: ‘I am afraid the wind prevented you from getting much sleep. I myself find it a great strain and am feeling rather shaky; otherwise I should have come round to see you long ago….’
On approaching the Empress’s apartments he saw a little girl with a cage in her hand trip lightly into the garden; she had come to give the tame cicadas their morning sip of dew. Further off several ladies were wandering among the flower-beds with baskets over their arms, searching for such stray blossoms as might chance to have survived the tempest. Now and again they were hidden by great wreaths of storm-cloud that trailed across the garden with strange and lovely effect. Yūgiri called to the flower-gatherers. They did not start or betray the least sign of discomposure, but in an instant they had all disappeared into the house.
Being still a mere boy at the time when Akikonomu came to Genji’s house, he had been allowed to run in and out of her rooms just as he chose, and had thus become very intimate with several of her gentlewomen. While he was waiting for the Empress’s reply, two of these old acquaintances, a certain Saishō no Kimi, and a lady called Naishi, came into view at the end of the passage. He hailed them and had a long conversation. He used to think Lady Akikonomu a very splendid person; and he was still obliged to confess, as he now looked about him, that she lived in very good style and had shown excellent taste in the furnishing of her quarters. But since those days he had learnt to judge by very different standards, and a visit to this part of the palace no longer interested him in the slightest degree.
On his return to Murasaki’s rooms, he found all the shutters unbarred. Everything had resumed its normal course. He delivered the Empress’s reply, in which she said: ‘It may be very childish, but I own I have been much upset by the storm. I made sure that you would come and see to things here…. It would still be a great help to me if you could spare a moment….’ ‘I remember’, said Genji, ‘that she was always very easily upset by anything of this kind. I can imagine what a panic she and her ladies must have worked themselves up into during the course of the night! It was wrong of me not to see after her…’ and he started off towards the Empress’s apartments. But he found he had forgotten his cloak, and turning back to the high daïs he raised a corner of the curtain and disappeared within. For a moment Yūgiri caught sight of a light-coloured sleeve; his heart began to beat so loud that it seemed to him every one else in the room must be able to hear it, and he quickly averted his eyes from the daïs. There was an interval during which Genji was presumably adjusting his cloak at the mirror. Then Yūgiri heard his father’s voice saying: ‘I cannot help thinking that Yūgiri is really looking quite handsome this morning. No doubt I am partial, and to every one else he looks a mere hobbledehoy; for I know that at the between-stage he has now reached young men are usually far from prepossessing in appearance.’ After this there was a pause during which he was perhaps looking at his own countenance in the mirror, well content that the passage of time had as yet done so little to impair it. Presently Yūgiri heard him say very thoughtfully: ‘It is strange; whenever I am going to see Akikonomu I suddenly begin to feel that I am looking terribly shabby and unpresentable. I cannot think why she should have that effect on one. There is really nothing very remarkable about her, either in intellect or appearance. But one feels, I think, that she is all the while making judgments, which if they ever came to the surface, would seem oddly at variance with the mild femininity of her outward manner….’ With these words Genji re-appeared from behind the curtains. The look of complete detachment with which Yūgiri imagined he met his father’s gaze was perhaps not so successfully assumed as the boy supposed; for Genji suddenly halted and returning to the daïs whispered to Murasaki something about the door which had been left unfastened yesterday morning. ‘No, I am sure he didn’t,’ answered Murasaki indignantly. ‘If he had come along the corridor my people would have noticed. They never heard a sound….’ ‘Very queer, all the same,’ murmured Genji to himself as he left the room. Yūgiri now noticed that a group of gentlemen was waiting for him at the end of the cross-gallery, and he hastened to meet them. He tried to join in their conversation and even in their laughter; but he was feeling in no mood for society, and little as his friends expected of him in the way of gaiety, they found him on this occasion more obdurately low-spirited than ever before.
Soon however his father returned and carried him off to the Eastern Wing. They found the gentlewomen of this quarter engaged in making preparations to meet the sudden cold. A number of grey-haired old ladies were cutting out and stitching, while the young girls were busy hanging out quilts and winter cloaks over lacquered clothes-frames. They had just beaten and pulled a very handsome dark-red underrobe, a garment of magnificent colour, certainly unsurpassed as an example of modern dyeing—and were spreading it out to air. ‘Why, Yūgiri,’ said Genji, ‘that is your coat, is it not? I suppose you would have been wearing it at the Emperor’s Chrysanthemum Feast; but of course this odious hurricane has put a stop to everything of that sort. What a depressing autumn it is going to be!’
But Yūgiri could not summon up much interest in the round of visits upon which his father had embarked, and slipped away to the rooms of his little sister, the Princess from Akashi. The child was not there. ‘She is still with Madam,’ her nurse said. ‘She went later than usual to-day. She was so frightened of the storm that it was a long time before she got to sleep, and we had a job to get her out of bed at all this morning.’ ‘When things began to be so bad,’ said Yūgiri, ‘I intended to come round here and sit up with her; but then I heard that my grandmother was very much upset, and thought that I had better go to her instead. What about the doll’s house? Has that come to any harm?’ The nurse and her companions laughed. ‘Oh, that doll’s house!’ one of them exclaimed. ‘Why, if I so much as fanned myself the little lady would always cry out to me that I was blowing her dolls to bits. You can imagine, then, what a time we had of it when the whole house was being blown topsy-turvy, and every minute something came down with a crash…. You’d better take charge of that doll’s house. I don’t mind telling you I’m sick to death of it!’
Yūgiri had several letters to write, and as the little girl was still with her step-mother he said to the nurse: ‘Might I have some ordinary paper. Perhaps from the writing-case in your own room….’ The nurse however went straight to the little Princess’s own desk and taking the cover off her lacquered writing-case laid upon it a whole roll of the most elegant paper she could find. Yūgiri at first protested. But after all, was not a rather absurd fuss made about this young lady and her future? There was nothing sacrosanct about her possessions; and accepting the paper, which was of a thin, purple variety, he mixed his ink very carefully and, continually inspecting the point of his brush, began writing slowly and cautiously. The air of serious concentration with which he settled down to his task was very impressive; more so, indeed, than the composition itself, for his education had been chiefly upon other lines.
The poem was as follows: ‘Not even on this distracted night when howling winds drive serried hosts of cloud across the sky, do I for an instant forget thee, thou Unforgettable One.’ He tied this to a tattered spray of miscanthus that he had picked up in the porch. At this there was general laughter. ‘It’s clear you haven’t read your Katano no Shōshō’[5] said one of the nurses, ‘or you would at least choose a flower that matched your paper….’ ‘You are quite right,’ he answered rather sulkily, ‘I have never bothered my head about such matters. No doubt one ought to go tramping about the countryside looking for an appropriate flower; but I have no intention of doing so….’ He had always seemed to the nurses and other such ladies of the household very difficult to get anything out of. Apparently he did not care what impression he made upon them; and as a matter of fact they were beginning to think him rather priggish and stuck-up.
He wrote a second letter, and sending for his retainer Uma no Suké put this and the original note into the man’s hand. But evidently the two letters were to go in quite different directions.[6] For Uma no Suké, having scanned the addresses, entrusted one to a page boy and the other to a discreet, responsible-looking body-servant. These proceedings were accompanied by a great many whispered warnings and injunctions. The curiosity of the young nurses knew no bounds; but it remained wholly unsatisfied; for hard though they strained their ears, they could not catch a word.
Yūgiri was now tired of waiting and made his way to his grandmother’s house. He found her quietly pursuing her devotions, surrounded by gentlewomen not all of whom were either old or ill-looking. But in dress and bearing they formed a strange contrast to the chattering, frivolous young creatures from whom he had just parted. The nuns too, who had come to take part in the service, were by no means decrepit or disagreeable in person, a fact which gave an additional pathos to their assumption of this sombre and unbecoming guise.
Later in the day Tō no Chūjō called, and when the great lamp had been brought in, he and the old Princess had a long, quiet talk. At last she screwed up her courage to say: ‘It is a very long time since I saw Kumoi…’ and she burst into tears. ‘I was just going to suggest sending her round here in a day or two,’ said Tō no Chūjō. ‘I am not very happy about her. She is certainly thinner than she used to be, and there is sometimes a peculiar expression in her face…. It is almost as though she had something on her mind. I do not understand how it is that, while I have never had a moment’s anxiety over my boys, with these daughters of mine something goes wrong at every turn. And never through any fault of mine….’ He said this with an intonation that clearly showed he had not entirely forgiven her. She was sorely wounded by this obstinate injustice, but did not attempt to defend herself.
‘Talking of daughters,’ he went on, ‘you have probably heard that I have lately made a very unsuccessful addition to my household. You have no idea what worries I am going through….’ He spoke in a doleful tone, but no sooner were the words uttered than he burst out laughing. ‘I cannot bear to hear you talking in that way,’ said the old Princess. ‘Of one thing I am quite sure: if she is really your daughter she cannot be so bad as people are making out.’ ‘I think, all the same,’ said Tō no Chūjō, ‘that it might be possible to put too great a strain upon your habitual indulgence towards everything connected with me. That being so, I have no intention whatever of introducing her to you.’
- ↑ Her father; Rokujō’s husband, who died early.
- ↑ ‘I await your coming eagerly as waits the young lespideza, so heavy with dew, for the wind that shall disburden it.’
- ↑ Kumoi.
- ↑ The Lady from the Village of Falling Flowers.
- ↑ A tale of the ‘perfect lover,’ very popular in Murasaki’s day, but now lost. Cf. vol. i, p. 30.
- ↑ One to Kumoi, one to Koremitsu’s daughter.