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54 began trying to tell the Emperor something; but he seemed unable to come to the point. It was strange that there should be any worldly matter concerning which the old priest retained such violent emotions. Perhaps, despite his reputation, he had once secretly pursued some hideous vendetta, had caused an innocent person to be entrapped, done away with … a thousand monstrous possibilities crowded to the Emperor’s mind. ‘Reverend Father,’ he said at last, ‘you have known me since I was a baby, and I have never once hidden anything from you. And now I learn that there is something which you have for a long time past been concealing from me. I confess, I am surprised.’ ‘There is nothing that I have kept from you,’ the old man cried indignantly. ‘Have I not made you master of my most secret spells, of the inner doctrines that Buddha forbids us to reveal? Do you think that I, who in these holy matters reposed so great a confidence in your Majesty, would have concealed from you any dealing of my own?

‘The matter of which I speak is one that has had grave results already and may possibly in the future entail worse consequences still. The reputations concerned are those of your late august Mother and of some one who now holds a prominent place in the government of our country … it is to Prince Genji that I refer. It is for their sake, and lest some distorted account of the affair should ultimately reach you from other sources, that I have undertaken this painful task. I am an old man and a priest; I therefore have little to lose and, even should this revelation win me your displeasure, I shall never repent of having made it; for Buddha and the Gods of Heaven showed me by unmistakable signs that it was my duty to speak.

‘You must know, then, that from the time of your Majesty’s conception the late Empress your mother was in evident