Page:The Sacred Tree (Waley 1926).pdf/176

170 to go on horseback. He was accompanied only by Koremitsu and one or two of his other trusted servants. The house stood a little way back from the shore and while he climbed to it he was all the time looking down over the bays that spread out on every side. He remembered the verse: ‘Would that to one who loves what I love I now might show it, this moon that lies foundered at the bottom of the bay!’ For the first time since he had agreed to set out upon this excursion he remembered the lady at his palace far away, and at that moment he could hardly resist turning his horse’s head and riding straight to the Capital. ‘O thou, my milk-white pony, whose coat is as the moon-beams of this autumn night, carry me like a bird through the air that though it be but for a moment I may look upon the lady whom I love!’ So he murmured as he approached the house, which was thickly girt with an abundance of fine timber. It was indeed a house impressively situated and in many ways remarkable; but it had not the conveniences nor the cheerful aspect of the house on the shore. So dark and shut-in an appearance did it present as he drew near, that Genji soon began to imagine all its inhabitants as necessarily a prey to the deepest melancholy and felt quite concerned at the thought of what they must suffer through living in so cheerless a place. The Hall of Meditation stood close by and the sound of its bell blent mournfully with the whispering of the pine-trees that on the steep uneven ground grew precariously out of a ledge of rock, their roots clutching at it like some desperate hand. From the plantations in front of the house came a confused wailing of insect voices.

He looked about him. That part of the house which he knew to be occupied by the lady and her servants wore an air of festive preparation. Full in the moonlight a door stood significantly ajar. He opened it. ‘I wish to rest for a few minutes,’ he said; ‘I hope you have no objection