In the set of gender-shift motifs just discussed, a man imagines another man as a woman; a woman imagines a man or boy as female; and a man viewing another man imagines himself as a woman. The tale also contains a passage in which women watching a man see in him a perfection of feminine beauty unattainable by women themselves. The moment occurs in “Yûgiri.”
After a journey through an uncharacteristically (for the author in this part of the work) theatrical landscape, Yûgiri has reached Ono, at the foot of Mt. Hiei, and stands before the house of Princess Ochiba, whom he is determined this time, at last, to possess. Her gentlewomen view him from behind blinds.
[9] He walked up to the double doors as usual and stood looking about him. The deep scarlet gown beneath his soft dress cloak, beaten beautifully transparent, glowed in the waning sunlight that lay guilelessly upon him, and with an entrancingly casual gesture he lifted his fan to cover his face, looking, so it seemed to the watching women, exactly as a woman should look, although none ever quite succeeds [onna koso kō wa aramahoshikere, sore dani e-aranu o].[22]
The women’s appraisal of Yûgiri exactly matches the stock explanation of why men perform female roles in kabuki: the kabuki onnagata is more feminine than any woman could ever be. This passage is unique in the tale. Yûgiri has been described as handsome, but nothing prepares the reader for this vision of him as a sort of trans-woman, and nothing later on supports it. The account of Yûgiri’s journey to Ono and the scene of his arrival there are almost parodic. Intentionally or not, passage [9] especially parodies passage [11], quoted below from “Suma.” The “Suma” scene is by the sea, the “Yûgiri” scene in the mountains; the “Suma” colors, centered on Genji’s clothes, are blue and green, while the “Yûgiri” colors, centered on the costume worn by Genji’s son, are red and sunset gold; the dazzled watchers in “Suma” are men, those in “Yûgiri” women; and while the watchers in “Suma” find Genji’s male company even more consoling than that of their girlfriends at home, for those in “Yûgiri,” Genji’s son makes a better woman than a woman. In one way or another, and more or less diffusely, passage [9] reverses all the others quoted.