Page:The Sacred Tree (Waley 1926).pdf/181

Rh Henceforward his nights at Akashi were again spent in solitude.

He amused himself by making sketches upon which he afterwards scribbled whatever thoughts happened to be passing through his mind. These he sent to Murasaki, inviting her comments. No method of correspondence could have been better calculated to move and interest her. The distance between them seemed in some sort to have been annihilated. She too, at times when she was feeling out of spirits or at a loss for employment, would also make sketches of the scenes around her, and at the same time she jotted down all that was happening to her day by day in the form of a commonplace book or diary.

What, she wondered, would she have to write in her diary? And he in his?

The New Year had come. At the Palace nothing was now talked of save the Emperor’s illness, and the Court was full of restless speculation. The only child of the present Emperor was a boy born to him by Princess Jōkyōden, daughter of the new Minister of the Right. But he was only two years old and therefore of no particular account. The Heir Apparent, Fujitsubo’s son, was also a minor. The Emperor was fully determined to resign the Throne to him at the earliest opportunity, but should he do so it would be necessary to appoint a regent. There were so few people to whom it would be in any way possible to entrust the affairs of government that it seemed a pity Genji should be out of the running. His presence was indeed becoming in every way more and more imperative, and at last the Emperor decided to recall him, whether Kōkiden approved or not. Since the end of the year her illness had taken a more serious turn. The Emperor