Page:The Sacred Tree (Waley 1926).pdf/123

Rh to him? There was some sense in this, but on Genji their prudence made a most painful and dispiriting impression. He suddenly felt the world was inhabited by a set of mean and despicable creatures, none of whom were worth putting oneself out for in any way at all.

He spent the whole of that day quietly with Murasaki at his palace. He was to start soon after midnight. She hardly knew him as he stood before her dressed in his queer travelling clothes. ‘The moon has risen,’ he said at last. ‘Come out to the door and see me start. I know that at the last minute I shall think of all kinds of things I meant to say to you to-day. Even when I am only going away for a few nights, there are always so many things to remember….’ He raised the curtain-of-state behind which she was sitting and drew her with him towards the portico. She was weeping bitterly. Her feet would not obey her and she stumbled haltingly at his side. The moonlight fell straight upon her face. He looked down at her tenderly. The thought came to him that he might die at Suma. Who would look after her? What would become of her? He was indeed no less heart-broken than she; but he knew that if he gave way to his feelings her misery would only be increased and he recited the verse: ‘We who so long have sworn that death alone should part us, must suffer life for once to cancel all our vows.’ He tried to speak lightly, but when she answered: ‘Could my death pay to hold you back, how gladly would I purchase a single moment of delay,’ he knew that she was not speaking idly. It was terrible to leave her, but he knew that by daylight it would be harder still, and he fled from the house. All the way down to the river her image haunted him and it was with a heart full to bursting that he went aboard the ship. It was a season when the days are long, and meeting with a favourable wind they found themselves