We
now move on past the troubled curtain into the troubled room where Genji
sits holding the newborn baby. Here as before the scene is filled with
the tension of a secret being kept back. Genji knows that the real father
of the child is the dead Kashiwagi. But the rest of the world, here represented
by several lady attendants, believe the child to be Genji’s own. So he
must pretend to be a proud father, while in fact he is a victim of adultery.
But adultery was an everyday matter in the world of Genji, and his true
feeling is more one of sadness, sadness over the death of the likable Kashiwagi,
over the anguish of the young Nyosan, and over the uncertain fate of the
newborn child.