Page:The Sacred Tree (Waley 1926).pdf/194



INCE the night of his so vivid and disquieting dream, the late Emperor had been constantly in Genji’s thoughts. He longed to succour his father’s soul, weighed down as it was (if the words of that nightly apparition were indeed to be trusted) by a load of earthly sin. Now that he was back in the City he was anxious to lose no time, and the great ceremony of the Eight Readings, for which he had begun to make arrangements soon after his return, was duly carried out in the Godless Month. The manner in which this function was attended showed that Genji had fully regained his former ascendancy.

Ill though she was, Kōkiden still had sufficient interest in what went on about her to be furious at this recrudescence of a force which she confidently supposed herself to have annihilated. But the Emperor, much as he stood in awe of her, was now obsessed by the idea that if he again disobeyed the late Emperor’s injunction some terrible calamity would overtake him. The feeling that he had successfully insisted upon Genji’s recall quite braced him, and the pain in his eyes, which had till recently been very troublesome, now began to show signs of improvement. But he did not somehow feel that he was likely to be very much longer on the Throne. There were many matters which he desired to see satisfactorily settled while he was