12

Having waited so long, clinging to the hope that he would come someday, the princess was of course delighted. Yet she regretted that he must see her in these circumstances. The various robes that were gifts from the assistant viceroy's wife had been put aside, for she did not like the giver. The old women had put them in a scented Chinese chest. Now they came out again, pleasantly scented. The princess let herself be dressed and received Genji from behind the yellow curtains of the last interview with her aunt.

“Although we have seen so little of each other,” said Genji, “I have not ceased to think of you all this time. I have waited impatiently for some sign that you too still care. Although I did not detect any welcoming cedars this evening,* I did somehow feel these groves pulling at me. And so you have won the game.”

He pushed the curtain slightly aside. She was as shy and withdrawn as ever, he could see, and she was not immediately able to answer. Finally, impressed that he should have made his way through the undergrowth, she gathered courage for a few tentative syllables.

“I can imagine that it has been uncommonly difficult for you these last few years,” said Genji. “I myself seem incapable of changing and forgetting, and it would interest me to know how it strikes you that I should have come swimming through these grasses, with no idea at all whether you yourself might have changed. Perhaps I may ask you to forgive the neglect. I have neglected everyone, not only you. I shall consider myself guilty of breach of promise if I ever again do anything to displease you.”

The warmly affectionate utterances came forth in far larger numbers than he had any real feeling for. Everything urged against spending the night here. Having made excuses, he was about to leave. The pine tree was not one which he himself had planted, but someone had planted it, many years ago—years that seemed like a dream.

“I obey the waving summons of wisteria

Because it flows, at your gate, from the waiting tree.

“Yes, it has been many years. Things have changed, not always for the better. Someday I must tell you of my struggles with the fisherman's net and the angler's line.* Another thing that seems strange, now that I think of it, is my complete confidence that you would refuse to tell anyone else the story of your unhappy springs and autumns.”

“I have waited and waited, to no avail, it seems.

Wisteria, not the waiting pine, has brought you.”

The faint stirring behind the curtains, the faint perfume that came to him from her sleeves, made him feel that she had perhaps improved a little with age. The setting moon streamed unobstructed through the open doors, both the gallery and the eaves having collapsed. He could see to the farthest corners of the room. The furnishings which she kept as they had always been made it seem a much finer house than the roof sagging under the weight of ferns would have led him to imagine. She was very unlike —and the contrast was touching—the princess in the old romance who destroyed the tower.+ Her stoicism in the face of poverty gave her a certain dignity. It had made her worth remembering. He hated to think of his own selfishness through the years.

Nor could the lady of the orange blossoms have been described as a bright, lively, modern sort. The difference between the two ladies, indeed, as he saw them in quick succession, did not seem very great; and the safflower princess's defects were minimized.