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242 but find it in your heart to admit me for one single moment to your presence, you would earn my undying gratitude, even though I should never see you again. For I should thus enjoy a respite, the first for many months, from the tortures which I now endure….’ ‘I have never seen Prince Sochi making love,’ said Genji as he read the letter. ‘It would be a sight worth seeing. Please tell him he may come,’ and he began suggesting the terms in which she should reply. But the idea did not at all appeal to her, and alleging that she was feeling giddy and could not, at the moment, possibly handle a pen, she attempted to lead the conversation into other channels. ‘But there is no need that you should write yourself,’ said Genji, returning to his project; ‘we will dictate a letter between us.’

Among Tamakatsura’s gentlewomen there was none in whom she placed any great confidence. The only exception was a certain Saishō no Kimi, a daughter of her mother’s younger brother, who seemed to have far more sense than most young women. Hearing that this girl was in difficult circumstances Tamakatsura had sent for her to see what could be done; and finding that Saishō was not only the sort of person whom it would be useful in a general way to have about her, but was also an unusually good pen-woman, she retained this young cousin in her service. Genji, who knew that Tamakatsura often used the girl as her amanuensis, now sent for Saishō and proceeded to dictate a letter. For he was consumed by an overwhelming curiosity to see how his half-brother, with whose conduct in all other situations he was so familiar, would conduct himself at such an interview as this. As for Tamakatsura, she had, since the occasion of Genji’s unpardonable indiscretion, begun to pay a good deal more attention to the communications of her suitors. She had no reason to give any preference to Prince Sochi; but he, as much as any other