Page:The Sacred Tree (Waley 1926).pdf/208

202 To Genji’s Fiftieth Day letter the Lady of Akashi sent the following reply: ‘Alas that to the little crane who calls to you from among the numberless islands of the deep, you do not come, though the Fiftieth Day be come.’ ‘I am for a thousand reasons,’ she continued, ‘in great despondency concerning our future; and for that very reason occasional kindnesses such as you have to-day shown to me are all the more precious. As for myself I do not rightly know what will become of me. But I earnestly hope that our daughter at any rate may live to be a consolation to you rather than an embarrassment and anxiety.’

Genji carried this letter about with him and constantly re-read it half aloud to himself, pausing over every sentence with fond deliberation; Murasaki could not fail to notice his preoccupation and once, hearing him thus employed, she murmured the song: ‘Far from me have you drifted as those boats that, starting from Mikuma shore, now row far out at sea.’ She had not meant him to hear. But he looked up and said sharply: ‘Do you really think that it is so bad as that! I should have thought you would understand exactly what such a letter as this must mean to me. It is perfectly natural that I should be interested, deeply interested in an occasional budget of news from a place where I spent so long a time, and if in reading it I come across references which remind me suddenly of some interesting event or experience of those days, I think it is quite natural that I should occasionally break out into an exclamation, or something of that sort. It would be much better if you simply pretended not to hear. But here is the letter.’ He held it out to her, but in such a way that she could only see the outer fold upon which the address was written. Examining the writing she saw at once that