Page:The Sacred Tree (Waley 1926).pdf/252

246 when she remembered the clothes that her aunt had brought for her to travel in. She had thought at the time that her father would have considered them very unsuitable and had put them aside after a mere hasty glance. The servants had packed them in a scented Chinese trunk and now brought them out, smelling deliciously fragrant. She could not receive him in what she was wearing and she had nothing else to change into. Much as she disapproved of her aunt’s taste, what could she do but let them dress her in these new-fangled clothes? Thus equipped she took her seat behind the smoky curtains-of-state and waited. Presently Genji entered the room. ‘It is a long time since we have held any communication, is it not?’ he said, ‘but on my side at any rate that does not mean that there has been any change of feeling. I was all the while expecting to hear from you and was determined that I would not be the first to give a sign of life. At last however the sight of the familiar tree-groups by your gate overcame this resolution and I could not forbear….’ So saying he lifted one corner of the curtains that surrounded her daïs and peeped in. As in old days she was utterly overcome by confusion, and sat for some while unable to make any kind of rejoinder. At last, almost inaudibly, she murmured something about its being ‘kind of him to have found his way … through all those wet bushes … such a scramble!’

‘I am afraid you have been having a very dull time,’ he went on; ‘but pray give me credit for to-night’s persistence. It showed some devotion, did it not, that I should have forced my way into the heart of this tangled, dripping maze, without a word of invitation or encouragement? I am sure you will forgive me for neglecting you for so long when I tell you that for some while past I have seen absolutely no one. Not having received a word of