Concerning Genji’s motives in general, the narrator of the tale is not necessarily as frank as she sometimes seems to be. For example, to excuse or explain his behavior she may cite his “peculiarity” (kuse), as she does in the opening passage of “Asagao.” The word resembles a wry apology, as though to say, “No, one cannot approve, but on the subject of so great a lord I can hardly say more, and besides, the things he does make such a good story.” When the narrator represents Genji himself, she may allow him to acknowledge a “warped and deplorable disposition,” but the effect is similar. The author of Mumyōzōshi likewise remarked that it is not for her to criticize Genji, even though there are many things about what he does that one might wish otherwise.^[78]

What are these things? Every reader can imagine some, and the Genji narrator certainly spells some out, to a degree. It appears early that Genji’s kuse is in the realm of irogonomi (gallantry, a penchant for lovemaking). It is romantic—a compelling urge to seek to make love to certain women. However, the subjective content of that urge in particular cases remains undisclosed. Why, really, does Genji (or would a living man in Genji’s place) find Akikonomu or Tamakazura all but irresistible? How does he weigh the attraction of each and the consequences of success? Both are daughters of former lovers, which suggests the erotic nostalgia stressed by Ōasa Yūji.^[79] Still, other motives are possible as well—for example, a wish in the case of Akikonomu secretly to appropriate yet another woman destined (like Oborozukiyo, but higher in rank) for the emperor, or in that of Tamakazura to leave his mark less on Yūgao’s daughter than on Tō no Chūjō’s. The narrator could not possibly attribute such thoughts to him. Then there is Utsusemi, a provincial governor’s wife. Genji was experimenting after the “rainy night conversation,” and he took Utsusemi’s flight from him as a challenge. Naturally he felt driven to win, especially since he had nothing at stake in the matter except his self-esteem. However, talk of his kuse, or the claim that “[Asagao’s] coolness maddened him, and he hated to admit defeat,”^[80] does not suffice fifteen years later, when Asagao is a respected princess and he has recently been offered the office of chancellor. Discretion seems to have restrained the author from attributing to him the ambition, and the maneuvering to achieve that ambition, without which his actions make little sense.

A classic study of court society by Norbert Elias shows that discretion, reticence, and caution are essential to the courtier’s failure or success.^[81] Court society is a network of hierarchical relationships sustained by a sophisticated etiquette that is not vain show. Instead it is the substance of each courtier’s (male or female) legitimate concern, since skill yields heightened prestige and a lapse can mean social ruin. The courtier strives to divine the motives and feelings of others while studiously avoiding betraying his own.

The veil, or filter, that intervenes between Genji and the reader is therefore double. First, Genji veils himself from others. Nothing in the tale contradicts Elias on this point. He is also likely at times to veil his motives even from himself. Second, the narrator of the tale, and even the author of an appreciation of the tale (Mumyōzōshi), protect him because, fictional or not, he is a great lord in the very court society to which they themselves belong. The representation of Genji, as of everyone else in the tale who “is anyone,” is therefore bound to be compressed in dynamic range and painted in permissible colors. The earlier chapters relate about Genji all sorts of more or less scandalous stories of which the narrator often claims to disapprove, but these do not actually breach decorum because Genji at the time is relatively junior and because in any case it is made clear from the beginning that they do not impugn his essential dignity. Later, when he rises to palace minister (in “Miotsukushi”) and beyond, his risk-taking will cease as far as the audience knows. Most of those who write on the tale would then have it prolonged not by continuing maneuvers to enhance his prestige, as Elias leads one to expect of the successful courtier, but by nostalgic pursuit (Asagao) or acceptance (the Third Princess) of only coincidentally prestigious women—women who merely represent someone else for whom he felt passion in the past.