Page:The Sacred Tree (Waley 1926).pdf/148

142 the last degree enervating and depressing; but in this villainous weather there was no question of so much as even sticking one’s head out of doors for two minutes. Needless to say no one came to visit him. At last a pitifully bedraggled figure hove into view, fighting its way through the storm. A messenger from the Nijō-in. So he announced himself; but the journey had reduced him to such a plight that Genji would scarce have known that this tattered, dripping mass was a human being at all. He was indeed a common peasant, such a one as in old days would have been unceremoniously bundled out of Genji’s path. Now Genji found himself (not without some surprise at the degree of condescension to which his misfortunes had brought him) welcoming the fellow as an equal, and commiserating with him upon his plight.

In her letter Murasaki said: ‘In these odious days when never for a single instant has the least gleam or break pierced our sodden sky, the clouds have seemed to shut you off from me and I know not behind which part of this dark curtain to look for you. “How fiercely must the tempests be blowing on your shore, when even here my sleeves are drenched with ceaseless spray!” ’

The letter was full of sad and tender messages. He had no sooner opened it than a darkness spread before his eyes and tears fell in floods, ‘belike to swell the margin of the sea.’

He learnt from the messenger that at Kyōto too the storm had raged with such violence and persistency that it had been proclaimed a national Visitation, and it was said that the great Service of Intercession had been held in the Palace. So great were the floods that the officers of the