Page:The Sacred Tree (Waley 1926).pdf/190

184 And now Murasaki, who at the moment of his departure had vowed in her poem that ‘could it but purchase an hour of respite, life itself was a price she would not grudge to pay,’ was glad that the gift which in her despair she had bartered so lightly, had not indeed been taken from her!

In these three years she had grown even handsomer than before. At first he could not make out in what way it was that her appearance was altered. But when they were alone together he noticed that her hair, which even before he went away had begun to be almost too thick, had been cleverly thinned out. He had to confess that this new way of wearing it became her very well. But suddenly, while he watched her with fond satisfaction, the pleasant thought that she would always be near him was interrupted by a very different image. There rose before his mind the figure of the lady whom he had left behind in that sad mansion above the bay. Plainly as though she were with him he saw her loneliness, her misery, her despair. Why was it that time after time he of all people should find himself in this odious position? Lest Murasaki should feel that things were passing through his mind which he must hide from her, he began telling her about the lady of the shore. But he took such evident pleasure in dilating upon this subject that his frankness had the effect of convincing her that the matter was a far more serious one than she had before supposed. ‘It is not for myself I mind,’ she quoted, only half meaning him to understand. How terrible that he had lost three whole years of her company, and lost them, too, in punishment for those very infidelities which he would now have given so much to undo!