Page:The Sacred Tree (Waley 1926).pdf/261

Rh at the time, found this dereliction very hard to forgive. Their old relations were never resumed; but the Captain was still numbered among the favourite gentlemen of his household. Iyo no Suke’s son, Ki no Kami, had become governor of Kawachi and was consequently no longer on the spot. The younger son, Ukon no Jō, had, as will be remembered, followed Genji into exile and now stood very high in his favour. His position was envied not only by this young Captain of the Guard but by many another who in the days of Genji’s adversity had thought it wiser to leave him to his fate.

Soon after this Genji sent for the Captain and gave him a letter to be taken to his sister. ‘So was this affair, which he thought had come to an end long ago, still dragging on after all these years?’ the young man asked himself as he carried the letter to Iyo no Suke’s house. ‘Did not our meeting of the other day seem almost as though it had been arranged by Fate? Surely you too must have felt so.’ With the letter was the acrostic poem: ‘Though on this lake-side Fate willed that we should meet, upon its tideless shore no love-shell can we hope to find.’ ‘How bitterly I envied the Guardian of the Pass,’ he added.

‘I hope you will send an answer,’ said the Captain. ‘He has got it into his head that I behaved badly to him some time ago. I should be very glad if I could get back on to the old terms with him. I do not myself see much point in correspondences of this kind; but when anyone writes to me such a letter as I suppose this to be, I take care to write a civil answer. No one blames me for that; and still less is a woman thought the worse of for showing