strove to comfort her with the verse: ‘Like the little pine-tree that at Takekuma from the big one grows, grafted to my deep roots long shall this stripling thrive secure.’ ‘Wait patiently,’ he added. She strove hard to persuade herself that he was right, that all was for the best. But now the carriages were moving away….
With the child rode the nurse and also a gentlewoman of good family called Shōshō, holding on their knees the Sword, the Heavenly Children[1] and other emblems of royalty. In the next carriage followed a band of youths and little girls whom he had brought to form the child’s escort on the homeward way. All the time they were driving to the Capital Genji was haunted by the image of the sorrow-stricken figure that had watched their departure. Small blame to her if at the moment she was feeling bitterly towards him!
It was quite dark when they arrived. So soon as the carriages had been drawn in, Shōshō and the nurse began looking about them at the splendours amid which they were now destined to reside. They felt indeed (coming as they did from rural and quite unpretentious surroundings) somewhat awestruck and ill at ease. But when they were shown the apartments which had been set aside for the new arrival, with a tiny bed, screens-of-state, and everything which a little lady could require, all beautifully set out and arranged, they began to take heart. The nurse’s own room was in the corridor leading to the western wing, on the north side of the passage.
The child had fallen asleep during the journey and while she was carried into the house had not cried or seemed at all put out. She was taken straight to Murasaki’s room
- ↑ The sword was the emblem of the child’s royal blood. The Heavenly Children were dolls which were intended to attract evil influences and so save the child from harm.
