that it was something distressing, shameful. … Why, it was hideous! Yesterday morning…. That was it of course. He was mad; nothing more nor less than a raving lunatic. He had fallen in love with Murasaki!
He did indeed find his neighbour in the eastern wing sadly in need of a little support and encouragement. He managed however to convince her that the worst danger was over, and sending for some of his own carpenters had everything put to rights. He felt that he ought now to greet his father. But in the central hall everything was still locked and barred. He went to the end of the passage and leaning on the balustrade looked out into the Southern Garden. Even such trees as still stood were heeling over in the wind so that their tops almost touched the ground. Broken branches were scattered in every direction and what once had been flower-beds were now mere rubbish heaps, strewn with a promiscuous litter of thatch and tiles, with here and there a fragment of trellis-work or the top of a fence. There was now a little pale sunshine, that slanting through a break in the sky gleamed fitfully upon the garden’s woe-begone face; but sullen clouds packed the horizon, and as Yūgiri gazed on the desolate scene his eyes filled with tears. How came it, he asked himself, that he should be doomed time and again to long precisely for what it was impossible for him to obtain. He wiped away his tears, came close to Genji’s door and called. ‘That sounds like Yūgiri’s voice,’ he heard Genji say. ‘I had no notion it was so late….’ He heard his father rise. There was a pause, and then Genji laughed, perhaps at some remark that had been inaudible. ‘No indeed,’ he said. ‘You and I have fared better than most lovers. We have never known what it was to be torn from each other at the first streak of dawn, and I do not think that after all these years we should easily reconcile ourselves to such a fate.’ Even to
