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Rh has only made you worse. I cannot bear to leave you in such pain. Tell me what it is that hurts so much?’ And so saying he made as though to come to her side. ‘Do not come to me!’ she cried out in terror, ‘I am grown hideous; you would not know me. Does what I say seem to you very strange and disjointed? It may be that my thoughts wander a little, for I am dying. Thank you for bearing patiently with me at such a time. I am much easier in my mind now that I have had this talk with you. I had meant to for a long time….’ ‘I am touched,’ replied Genji, ‘that you should have thought of me as a person to whom you could confide these requests. As you know, my father the late Emperor had a very large number of sons and daughters; for my part, I am not very intimate with any of them. But, when his brother died, he also regarded Lady Akikonomu here as though she were his own child and for that reason I have every right to regard her as my sister and help her in just those ways which a brother might. It is true that I am a great deal older than she is; but my own family is sadly small, and I could well afford to have some one else to look after….’

After his return he sent incessantly to enquire after her progress and constantly wrote to her. She died some eight days later. He was deeply distressed, for a long while took no interest in anything that happened and had not the heart to go even so far as the Emperor’s Palace. The arrangements concerning her funeral and many other matters about which she had left behind instructions fell entirely upon him, for there was no one else to whom her people could apply. Fortunately the officers who had been attached to Lady Akikonomu’s suite while she was at Ise still remained in her service and they were able to give her a certain