in and out of the house all day even at ordinary times that they hardly noticed the guests who had assembled in their little mistress’s honour. It was only when she raised her arms for the Binding of the Sleeves that the unwonted gesture caught their attention; they had never seen her in so pretty a pose before.
Meanwhile the mother at Ōi was all the more wretched because she now felt that her misery was self-inflicted. Had she been firm, the child might still be with her and life in some measure endurable. She could not believe that so extreme a course could really have been indispensable to its interests and bitterly repented of her docility. Even the grandmother, who had been foremost in urging the sacrifice, missed the baby sadly and went about the house with tears in her eyes. But news had reached them of the pains which Genji was bestowing upon its upbringing, and she felt no doubt that she had advised for the best.
A peculiar compunction prevented the Lady of Akashi from sending any gift or message to the child which was no longer hers, but she took immense pains in contriving presents for all its companions and attendants from the nurse downwards, and would spend hours in the matching of colours and the choosing of stuffs.
Genji did not at all want her to think that, now she had parted with the child, his visits were going to become any the less frequent, and though it was very difficult to arrange, he made a point of going out to Ōi before the turn of the year. It must at the best of times, he thought, be an uninteresting place to live in; but at any rate she had had the child to look after, and (what with getting it up and putting it to bed) that seemed to occupy a good deal of time. How she managed to get through the day now he could not imagine, and coming away from this visit with a heavy heart he henceforward wrote to her almost daily. Fortu-
