Page:The Sacred Tree (Waley 1926).pdf/47

Rh The autumn flowers were fading; along the reeds by the river the shrill voices of many insects blended with the mournful fluting of the wind in the pines. Scarcely distinguishable from these somewhere in the distance rose and fell a faint, enticing sound of human music. He had with him only a handful of outriders, and his attendants were by his orders dressed so as to attract as little notice as possible. They noted that this lack of show contrasted strangely with the elaborate pains which their master had bestowed upon his own equipment, and as they looked with admiration at the fine figure he cut, the more romantically disposed among them were thrilled at the thought that it had befallen them to accompany him upon a journey, every circumstance of which was calculated to stir to the depth such sensitive hearts as theirs. So delighted was Genji with the scene before him that he continually asked himself why it was that he had deferred this visit for so long; and he regretted that while Rokujō was at the Palace-in-the-Fields he had not made a constant practice of visiting her. They came at last to a group of very temporary-looking wooden huts surrounded by a flimsy brushwood fence. The archways, built of unstripped wood, stood out black and solemn against the sky. Within the enclosure a number of priests were walking up and down with a preoccupied air. There was something portentous in their manner of addressing one another and in their way of loudly clearing their throats before they spoke. In the Hill of Offering there was a dim flicker of firelight, but elsewhere no single sign of life. So this was the place where he had left one who was from the start in great distress of mind, to shift for herself week after week, month after month! Suddenly he realized with a terrible force all that she must have suffered. He hurried