“Princess Senshi and her ladies,” Murasaki writes, “are always going off to see the sunset or the fading of the moon at dawn, or pursuing some truant nightingale amid the flowering trees. The Princess herself is a woman of marked character, who is determined to follow her own tastes, and would contrive to lead at Court a life as detached as her present existence at the Kamo Shrine. How different from this place, with its perpetual: “The Empress has been summoned into the Presence and commands you to attend her,” or “Prepare to receive His Excellency the Prime Minister, who may arrive at any moment.” Princess Senshi’s apartments are not subject to the sudden alarms and incursions from which we suffer. There one could apply oneself in earnest to anything one cared for and was good at; there, occupied perhaps in making something really beautiful, one would have no time for those indiscreet conversations which at our own Court are the cause of so much trouble. There I should be allowed to live buried in my own thoughts like a tree-stump in the earth; at the same time, they would not expect me to hide from every man with whom I was not already acquainted; and even if I addressed a few remarks to such a person, I should not be thought lost to all sense of shame. Indeed, I can imagine myself under such circumstances becoming, after a certain amount of practice, quite lively and amusing!”
While pining for the elegance and freedom of Princess Senshi’s Court, Murasaki was employed by her earnest young mistress for a purpose that the world would have considered far more improper than the philandering of which Akiko so sternly disapproved. The Empress had a secret desire to learn Chinese. The study of this language was considered at the time far too rough and strenuous an occupation for women. There were no grammars or dictionaries, and each horny sentence had to be grappled and mastered like an untamed steer. That Akiko should wish to learn Chinese must have been as shocking to Michinaga as it would have been to Gladstone if one of his daughters had wanted to learn boxing. Murasaki had, as we have seen, picked up something of the language by overhearing her brother’s lessons. She did everything in her power to conceal this knowledge, even pretending (as she tells us in the Diary) that she could not read the Chinese characters on her mistress’s screen; but somehow or other it leaked out: “Since the summer before last, very secretly, in odd moments when there happened to be no one about, I have been reading with Her Majesty the two books of ‘Songs.’* There has of course been no question of formal lessons; Her Majesty has merely picked up a little here and there, as she felt inclined. All the same, I have thought it best to say nothing about the matter to anybody. . .”
We gather, however, that what in the long run made Akiko’s Court distasteful to Murasaki was not the seriousness of the women so much as the coarseness and stupidity of the men. Michinaga, Akiko’s father, was now forty-two. He had already been Prime Minister for some fourteen years, and had carried the fortunes of the Fujiwara family to their apogee. It is evident that he made love to Murasaki, though possibly in a more or less bantering way. In 1008 she writes: “From my room beside the entrance to the gallery I can see into the garden. The dew still lies heavy and a faint mist rises from it. His Excellency† is walking in the garden. Now he has summoned one of his attendants and is giving directions to him about having the moat cleared. In front of the orange trees there is a bed of lady-flowers (ominabeshi) in full bloom. He plucks a spray and returning to the house hands it to me over the top of my screen. He looks very magnificent. I remember that I have not yet powdered my face and feel terribly embarrassed. ‘Come now,’ he cries, ‘be quick with your poem, or I shall lose my temper.’ This at any rate gives me a chance to retire from his scrutiny; I go over to the writing-box and produce the following: ‘If these beyond other flowers are fair, ‘tis but because the dew hath picked them out and by its power made them sweeter than the rest.’ ‘That’s right,’ he said, taking the poem. ‘It did not take you long in the end.’ And sending for his own ink-stone he wrote the answer: ‘Dew favors not; it is the flower’s thoughts that flush its cheeks and make it fairer than the rest.’”
The next reference to Michinaga’s relations with Murasaki is as follows: “His Excellency the Prime Minister caught sight of The Tale of Genji in Her Majesty’s room, and after making the usual senseless jokes about it, he handed me the following poem, written on a strip of paper against which a spray of plum-blossom had been pressed: ‘How comes it that, sour as the plum-tree’s fruit, you have contrived to blossom forth in tale so amorous?’ To this I answered: ‘Who has told you that the fruit belies the flower? For the fruit you have not tasted, and the flower you know but by report.’*
“One night when I was sleeping in a room which opens onto the corridor, I heard someone tapping. So frightened was I that for the whole of the rest of the night I lay dead still on my bed, scarcely daring to breathe. Next morning came the following poem from His Excellency: ‘More patient than the water-rail that taps upon the tree-root all night long, in vain I loitered on the threshold of your inhospitable room.’ To this I answered: ‘So great was your persistence that for a water-rail I did indeed mistake you; and lucky am I to have made this merciful mistake.’”†
Again, in 1010: “Today His Excellency had an audience with the Emperor; when it was over they came out of the Audience Chamber together, and banqueted. As usual, His Excellency became very drunk and, fearing trouble, I tried to keep out of his way. But he noticed my absence and sent for me, crying out: ‘Here’s your mistress’s papa taking dinner with the Emperor; it is not everyone who gets the chance of being present on an occasion like this. You ought to be uncommonly grateful. Instead of which your one idea seems to be how to escape at the earliest possible moment. I can’t make you out at all!’
“He went on scolding me for some time, and then said: ‘Well, now you are here, you must make a poem. It is one of the days when the parent’s‡ poem is always made by a substitute. You will do as well as anybody; so be quick about it...’ I was afraid at first that if I showed myself he would behave in such a way as to make me feel very uncomfortable. But it turned out that he was not so extraordinarily drunk after all; indeed, he was in a very charming mood and, in the light of the great lamp, looked particularly handsome.”