Facing
Genji to the upper left is the retired emperor Reizei, whom all connoisseurs
of the Tale of Genji know to be Genji’s own son, but who to the
world within the novel was believed to be his half-brother. In other words,
we have again a case of hidden illegitimacy: where Genji appeared in the
previous painting with his secretly false son, he appears here with his
secretly true son, and in both cases the result is a scene of emotional
ambiguity. Just as Genji is separated from his public son Yûgiri
by a pillar, so he is separated from his private son Reizei by an overhead
beam.