Page:The Tale of Genji.pdf/201

Rh would go with him to the Great Hall. He sent at once for his breakfast, bidding them also serve the guest. Two carriages were drawn up waiting for them, but they both got into the same one. ‘You still seem very sleepy,’ said Chūjō in an aggrieved tone; ‘I am sure you have been doing something interesting that you do not want to tell me about.’

That day he had a number of important duties to perform and was hard at work in the Palace till nightfall. It did not occur to him till a very late hour that he ought at least to send the customary letter. It was raining. Myōbu had only the day before reproached him for using the princess’s palace as a ‘wayside refuge.’ To-day however he had no inclination whatever to halt there.

When hour after hour went by and still no letter came Myōbu began to feel very sorry for the princess whom she imagined to be suffering acutely from Genji’s incivility. But in reality the poor lady was still far too occupied with shame and horror at what had happened the night before to think of anything else, and when late in the evening Genji’s note at last arrived she could not understand in the least what it meant. It began with the poem: ‘Scarce had the evening mist lifted and revealed the prospect to my sight when the night rain closed gloomily about me.’ ‘I shall watch with impatience for a sign that the clouds are breaking,’ the letter continued. The ladies of the household at once saw with consternation the meaning of this note: Genji did not intend ever to come again. But they were all agreed that an answer must be sent, and their mistress was for the time being in far too overwrought a condition to put brush to paper; so Jijū (pointing out that it was late and there was no time to be lost) again came to the rescue: ‘Give a thought to the country folk who wait for moonlight on this cloudy night, though, while they gaze, so different their thoughts