Page:The Sacred Tree (Waley 1926).pdf/234

228 ‘Hush, how can you suggest such a thing!’ answered the princess. ‘What would people think if they heard you? So long as I am alive no such disrespect to my poor Father’s memory shall ever be committed. I know quite well that the grounds have become rather wild and dismal; but this was his home, his dear spirit haunts the place, and I feel that so long as I am here I am never far off from him. That has become my only comfort….’ She broke off in tears, and it was impossible to allude to the subject again. Her furniture too, though entirely out of fashion, was much of it very beautiful in an old-world way, and enquiries were constantly coming from those who made it their business to understand such matters and had heard that she possessed a work by such and such a master of some particular time and school. Such proposals she regarded merely as an ill-bred comment upon her poverty and indeed complained of them bitterly to the aforementioned gentlewoman. ‘But, Madam,’ the lady protested, ‘it is not at all an unusual thing….’ And to convince her mistress that funds must somehow or other be procured she began to call her attention to various dilapidations, the repair of which could not safely be deferred for a single day. But it made no difference. The idea of selling any of her possessions seemed to the princess utterly untenable. ‘If he had not meant me to keep them, he would not have put them here,’ she said; ‘I cannot bear to think of them becoming ornaments in ordinary, worldly people’s houses. I do not think he would wish me to…,’ and that was all that could be got out of her.

Visitors and even letters were now absolutely unknown at the Hitachi Palace. True, her elder brother the Zen priest on the rare occasions when he came up to the Capital, usually visited the palace. But he did little more than poke his head in and go away. He was a particularly vague