to the extremer forms of intimacy. In this way there had long ago grown up between them a relationship far more steady and harmonious than can ever exist between those who are lovers in the stricter sense of the term. This morning he spoke to her for a while from behind her curtains-of-state. But presently he cautiously raised a corner of one curtain, and he looked in. How little she had changed! But he was sorry to see that the New Year’s dress he had given her was not a great success. Her hair had of late years grown much less abundant, and in order to maintain the same style of coiffure, she had been obliged to supplement it by false locks. To these Genji had long ago grown accustomed. But he now began trying to imagine how she appeared to other people, and saw at once that to them she must seem a very homely, middle-aged person indeed. So much the better, then, that he who loved her had this strange power of seeing her as she used to be, rather than as she was now. And she on her side—what if she should one day grow weary of him, as women often did of those who gave them so little as he had done!
Such were the reflexions that passed through Genji’s mind while he sat with her. ‘We are both singularly fortunate,’ he concluded to himself. ‘I, in my capacity for self-delusion; she in hers for good-tempered acceptance of whatever comes her way.’ They talked for a long while, chiefly of old times, till at last he found that he ought to be on his way to the Western Wing.
Considering the short time that Tamakatsura had been in residence she had made things look uncommonly nice. The number and smartness of her maids gave the place an air of great animation. The large and indispensable articles of furniture had all arrived; but many of the smaller fittings were not yet complete. This was in a way
