Page:The Sacred Tree (Waley 1926).pdf/249

Rh report this to Genji when the moon came out from behind a cloud, lighting up the front of the house. He then noticed a trellis roll-door which was half pulled up. A curtain behind it moved. It almost seemed as though some one were there. Koremitsu, feeling oddly enough quite nervous, turned back and approached this door, clearing his throat loudly as he did so. In answer to this signal a very aged, decrepit voice answered from within the room. ‘Well, what is it? Who are you?’ ‘It is Koremitsu,’ he answered, ‘could you tell Jijū that I should like to speak to her?’ ‘Jijū?’ the aged voice answered, ‘you cannot speak to her, she has gone away. But would not I do just as well?’ The voice was incredibly ancient and croaking, but he recognized it as that of one of the gentlewomen whom he used to meet here in former days. To those within, inured as they were to years of absolute isolation, the sudden apparition of this figure wrapped in a great hunting cloak, was a mystery so startling and inexplicable that for a while it did not occur to them that their visitor could be other than some fox-spirit or will-o’-the-wisp masquerading in human form. But the apparition behaved with reassuring gentility and coming right up to the doorway now addressed them as follows: ‘I must make it my business to find out exactly how matters stand. If you can assure me that, on your mistress’s side, nothing has changed since the time when we used to come here, then I think you will find His Highness my master no less ready to help you than he was in days gone by. Can I trust you to let her know that we halted here to-night? I must be able to report to my master that his message is in safe hands….’ The old lady and her companions burst out laughing. ‘Listen to him!’ they cried, ‘asking whether Madam has altered her way of life, whether she has taken to new friends! Do you suppose, young man,