this sudden exhibition of coldness, he exclaimed in deep mortification ‘This is a disgrace, a hideous disgrace,’ and he looked very rueful indeed. For a while he said no more, but lay sighing deeply, in great distress. At last he recited the poem ‘I knew not the nature of the strange tree[1] that stands on Sono plain, and when I sought the comfort of its shade, I did but lose my road,’ and sent it to her. She was still awake, and answered with the poem ‘Too like am I in these my outcast years to the dim tree that dwindles from the traveller’s approaching gaze.’ The boy was terribly sorry for Genji and did not feel sleepy at all, but he was afraid people would think his continual excursions very strange. By this time, however, everyone else in the house was sound asleep. Genji alone lay plunged in the blackest melancholy. But even while he was raging at the inhuman stubbornness of her new-found and incomprehensible resolve, he found that he could not but admire her the more for this invincible tenacity. At last he grew tired of lying awake; there was no more to be done. A moment later he had changed his mind again, and suddenly whispered to the boy ‘Take me to where she is hiding!’ ‘It is too difficult’ he said, ‘she is locked in and there are so many people there. I am afraid to go with you.’ ‘So be it’ said Genji, ‘but you at least must not abandon me’ and he laid the boy beside him on his bed. He was well content to find himself lying by this handsome young Prince’s side, and Genji, we must record, found the boy no bad substitute for his ungracious sister.
- ↑ The hahakigi or ‘broom-tree’ when seen in the distance appears to offer ample shade; but when approached turns out to be a skimpy bush.
