10

He overslept the next morning, when he was to return to the city. He had meant to go directly back, but great crowds had gathered at the Katsura villa, and several men from the city had even made their way to Oi.

“How very inconvenient and embarrassing,” he muttered as he dressed. “I had meant it to be rather more of a retreat.”

He had no choice but to go off with them. He stood in the doorway fondling the little girl, who was in her nurse's arms.

“It is very selfish of me, but I can see that I won't be able to let her out of my sight. What am I to do? Must you be so far away?”

“Yes,” said the nurse, “the fact that you are nearer only makes things worse.”

In her arms, the child was straining towards him.

“There seems to be no end to my troubles. I hate the thought of being away from you for even a minute, my sweet. But just look at this. You are sorry to see me go, but your mother does not seem to be. She could comfort me a little, if she chose.”

The nurse smiled and transmitted the message.

The lady hung back. This morning's farewell seemed more difficult than all the years away from him. There was just a little too much of the grand lady in this behavior, thought Genji. Her women, urging her on, had to agree. Finally she came forward. Her profile, half hidden by the curtain, was wonderfully soft and gentle. She might have been a princess. He pulled the curtain back and offered some last affectionate words of farewell. His men were in a great hurry to be off, and he was about to follow. He looked back again. Though she was remarkably good at hiding her emotions, she was gazing at him now with open regret. He seemed even handsomer than at Akashi. Then he hadoueemed a little slender for his height. He had filled out, and no one could have found fault with his proportions or his manner, the essence of mature dignity. Perfection from head to foot, she thought—though she may have been a prejudiced observer.

The young guards officer whose fortunes had sunk and risen with Genji's—he who had had reproachful words for the god of Kamo*—now wore the cap of the Fifth Rank, and was in his glory. Waiting to take Genji's sword, he spied a woman inside the blinds.

“It may seem that I have forgotten the old days,” he said, rather self-importantly, one may have thought, “but that is because I have been on good behavior. The breezes that awoke me this morning seemed very much like the sea breezes at Akashi. I looked in vain for a way to tell you so.

“This mountain village, garlanded in eightfold mists, is not inferior, we have found, to that where the boat disappears among the island mists. All that had seemed wanting was that the pines were not the pines of old. It is a comfort to find that there is one who has not forgotten.” +

Scarcely what he had hoped for—and he had been fond of her. “I will see you again,” he said, and returned to Genji's side.