CHAPTER VII THE FESTIVAL OF RED LEAVES

rather agreeable and often talked with her. But, chiefly because he was frightened of being laughed at if anyone found out, he refused to become her lover, and this she very much resented. One day she was dressing the Emperor’s hair. When this was over his Majesty sent for his valets and went with them into another room. Genji and the elderly lady were left alone together. She was fuller than ever of languishing airs and poses, and her costume was to the last degree stylish and elaborate. ‘Poor creature,’ he thought, ‘How little difference it all makes!’ and he was passing her on his way out of the room when suddenly the temptation to give a tug at her dress became irresistible. She glanced swiftly round, eyeing him above the rim of a marvellously painted summer-fan. The eyelids beneath which she ogled at him were blackened and sunken; wisps of hair projected untidily around her forehead. There was something singularly inappropriate about this gawdy, coquettish fan. Handing her his own instead, he took it from her and examined it. On paper coated with a red so thick and lustrous that you could see yourself reflected in it a forest of tall trees was painted in gold. At the side of this design, in a hand which though out-of-date was not lacking in distinction was written the poem about the Forest of Oaraki.¹⁰⁷ He made no doubt that the owner of the fan had written it in allusion to her own advancing years and was expecting him to make a gallant reply. Turning over in his mind how best to divert the extravagant ardour of this strange creature he could, to his own amusement, think only of another poem¹⁰⁸ about the same forest; but to this it would have been ill-bred to allude. He was feeling very uncomfortable lest someone should come in and see them together. She however was quite at her ease and seeing that he remained silent she recited with many arch looks the poem: ‘Come to me in the forest and I will cut pasture for your horse, though it be but of the under leaf whose season is past.’ ‘Should I seek your woodland,’ he answered, ‘my fair name would be gone, for down its glades at all times the pattering of hoofs is heard,’ and he tried to get away; but she held him back saying: ‘How odious you are! That is not what I mean at all.