the fact that she had probably always lived in small houses where everything was huddled together, and he was amused at the idea that this large mansion should overawe her. They drove in, and while a room was being got ready, they remained in the carriage which had been drawn up alongside of the balustrade. Ukon, looking very innocent all the while, was inwardly comparing this excursion with her mistress’s previous adventures. She had noticed the tone of extreme deference with which this latest lover had been received by the steward, and had begun to draw her own conclusions.
The mist was gradually clearing away. They left the coach and went into the room which had been prepared for them. Though so quickly improvised, their quarters were admirably clean and well-provided, for the steward’s son had previously been a trusted house servant of Genji’s and had also worked at the Great Hall. Coming now to their room he offered to send for some of Genji’s gentlemen, “For,” he said, “I cannot bear to see you going unattended.” “Do nothing of the kind,” said Genji; “I have come here because I do not wish to be disturbed. No one but yourself is to know that I have used this house,” and he exacted a promise of absolute secrecy. No regular meal had been prepared, but the steward brought them a little rice porridge. Then they lay down again to sleep together for the first time in this unfamiliar and so strangely different place.
The sun was high when they woke. Genji went and opened the shutters himself. How deserted the garden looked! Certainly here there was no one to spy upon them. He looked out into the distance: dense woods fast turning to jungle. And nearer the house not a flower or bush, but only unkept, autumn grasslands, and a pond choked with weeds. It was a wild and desolate place. It seemed that the steward and his men must live in some outbuilding or lodge at a distance from the house; for here there was no sign or sound of life. “It is, I must own, a strange and forsaken place to which we have come. But no ghost or evil fairy will dare molest you while I am here.”
It pained her very much that he still was masked;[1] and indeed
- ↑ I.e. covered part of his face with a scarf or the like, a practice usual with illicit lovers in medieval Japan.
