Page:The Tale of Genji.pdf/233

Rh absurd name is an excellent tune) she accompanied him though with a childish touch, yet in perfect time.

The great lamp was brought in and they began looking at pictures together. But Genji was going out that night. Already his attendants were assembled in the courtyard outside. One of them was saying that a storm was coming on. He ought not to wait any longer. Again Murasaki was unhappy. She was not looking at the pictures, but sat with her head on her hands staring despondently at the floor. Stroking the lovely hair that had fallen forward across her lap Genji asked her if she missed him when he was away. She nodded. ‘I am just the same,’ he said. ‘If I miss seeing you for a single day I am terribly unhappy. But you are only a little girl and I know that whatever I do you will not think harsh thoughts about me; while the lady that I go to see is very jealous and angry so that it would break her heart if I were to stay with you too long. But I do not at all like being there and that is why I just go for a little while like this. When you are grown up of course I shall never go away at all. I only go now because if I did not she would be so terribly angry with me that I might very likely die and then there would be no one to love you and take care of you at all.’ He had told her all he could, but still she was offended and would not answer a word. At last he took her on his knee and here to his great embarrassment she fell asleep. ‘It is too late to go out now,’ he said after a while, turning to the gentlewomen who were in attendance. They rose and went to fetch his supper. He roused the child. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I did not go out after all.’ She was happy once more and they went to supper together. She liked the queer, irregular meal, but when it was over she began again to watch him uneasily. ‘If you are really not going out,’ she said, ‘why