Page:The Tale of Genji.pdf/204

198 Four or five elderly gentlewomen were in the room. They were preparing their mistress’s supper in Chinese vessels which looked like the famous ‘royal blue’ ware, but they were much damaged and the food which had been provided seemed quite unworthy of these precious dishes. The old ladies soon retired, presumably to have their own supper. In a closet opening out of the main road he could see a very chilly-looking lady in an incredibly smoke-stained white dress and dirty apron tied at the waist. Despite this shabbiness, her hair was done over a comb in the manner of Court servants in ancient days when they waited at their master’s table, though it hung down untidily. He had sometimes seen figures such as this haunting the housekeeper’s rooms in the Palace, but he had no idea that they could still actually be seen waiting upon a living person! ‘O dear, O dear,’ cried the lady in the apron, ‘what a cold winter we are having! It was not worth living so long only to meet times like these,’ and she shed a tear. ‘If only things had but gone on as they were in the old Prince’s time!’ she moaned. ‘What a change! No discipline, no authority. To think that I should have lived to see such days!’ and she quivered with horror like one who ‘were he a bird would take wing and fly away.’ She went on to pour out such a pitiful tale of things gone awry that Genji could bear it no longer, and pretending that he had just arrived tapped at the partition-door. With many exclamations of surprise the old lady brought a candle and let him in. Unfortunately Jijū had been chosen with other young persons to wait upon the Vestal Virgin and was not at home. Her absence made the house seem more rustic and old-fashioned than ever, and its oddity struck him even more forcibly than before.

The melancholy snow was now falling faster and faster.