Page:The Sacred Tree (Waley 1926).pdf/137

Rh She seemed to have become very demure. ‘Had you in truth been minded to visit me, what easier than to cut the cable that drags you past this shore?’ So he wrote and again: ‘You are a little taken aback, I think, to find me “among the fishers at their toil.” ’ So much did he long for some distraction that he would indeed have been delighted if she had found courage to come ashore; nor is this strange when we remember how not far away from this same place a mighty exile found solace in the company of an ostler.

In the Capital Genji’s absence was still universally deplored. His step-brothers and some of the noblemen with whom he was most intimate had in the early days of his exile sent sometimes to enquire about him and had composed elegies in his honour, to which he had replied. This soon reached Kōkiden’s ears. She was furious at this proof of his continued popularity: ‘It is unheard of,’ she burst out angrily, ‘that a man condemned of offences against the Government of his country should be allowed to live as he pleases and even share in the literary pastimes of the Court. There he sits (by the way I hear he has got a very pretty house!) railing all day at the Government, and no doubt experimenting on loyal servants of the Crown for all the world like that man in the History Book who declared that a stag was a horse.’ Henceforward Genji received no letters from Court.

The lady at the Nijō-in remained inconsolable. The servants in the eastern wing had at first been somewhat reluctant to transfer their services to her; but after a while