Page:The Sacred Tree (Waley 1926).pdf/242

230 Among them none was more renowned for the sanctity of his life and the wide range of his studies than Princess Suyetsumu’s brother, the Abbot of Daigoji. On his way back from the ceremony, he looked in for a moment at the Hitachi Palace. ‘I have just been celebrating the Eight Readings in Prince Genji’s palace,’ he said; ‘a magnificent ceremony! It is a pleasure to take part in such a service as that! I cannot imagine anything more beautiful and impressive. A veritable paradise—I say it in all reverence—a veritable paradise on earth; and the prince himself, so calm and dignified, you might have thought him an incarnation of some holy Buddha or Bodhisat. How came so bright a being to be born into this dim world of ours?’ So saying, he hurried off to his temple. Unlike ordinary, worldly men and women he never wasted time in discussing sordid everyday affairs or gossiping about other people’s business. Consequently he made no allusion to the embarrassed circumstances in which his sister was living. She sometimes wondered whether even the Saints whom he worshipped would, if they had found some one in a like situation, really have succeeded in behaving with so splendid an indifference.

She was indeed beginning to feel that she could hold out no longer, when one day her aunt suddenly arrived at the palace. This lady was quite prepared to meet with the usual rebuffs; but having on this occasion come in a comfortable travelling coach stored with everything that the princess could need during a journey she did not for an instant doubt that she would gain her point. With an air of complete self-confidence she bustled towards the front gate. No sooner had the porter begun trying to open it than she realized into what a pitch of decay her niece’s property had fallen. The doors were off their hinges, and as soon as they were moved tottered over sideways, and