Page:The Tale of Genji.pdf/241

Rh snatched the cloak from him and would not give it back. ‘Very well then,’ said Genji; ‘if you are to have my cloak I must have yours,’ and so saying he pulled open the clasp of Chūjō’s belt and began tugging his cloak from his shoulders. Chūjō resisted and a long tussle followed in which the cloak was torn to shreds. ‘Should you now get it in exchange for yours, this tattered cloak will but reveal the secrets it is meant to hide,’ recited Tō no Chūjō; to which Genji replied with an acrostic poem in which he complained that Chūjō with whom he shared so many secrets should have thought it necessary to spy upon him in this fashion. But neither was really angry with the other and setting their disordered costumes to rights they both took their departure. Genji discovered when he was alone that it had indeed upset him very much to find his movements had been watched, and he could not sleep. The lady felt utterly bewildered. On the floor she found a belt and a buckle which she sent to Genji next day with a complicated acrostic poem in which she compared these stranded properties to the weeds which after their straining and tugging the waves leave upon the shore. She added an allusion to the crystal river of her tears. He was irritated by her persistency but distressed at the shock to which she had been subjected by Chūjō’s foolish joke, and he answered with the poem: ‘At the antics of the prancing wave you have good cause to be angry; but blameless indeed is the shore on whose sands it lashed.’ The belt was Chūjō’s; that was plain for it was darker in colour than his own cloak. And as he examined his cloak he noticed that the lower half of one sleeve was torn away. What a mess everything was in! He told himself with disgust that he was becoming a rowdy, a vulgar night-brawler. Such people, he knew, were always tearing their clothes and making themselves ridiculous. It was time to reform.