no large objects of furniture nor any of his more elaborate costumes, having resigned himself to the prospect of a completely bucolic existence. Finally he had to explain to Murasaki all the arrangements he had made about the servants who were to stay behind, and a hundred other matters. Into her charge too he put all the documents concerning his various estates and grazing-lands in different parts of the country. His granaries and store-houses he put into the keeping of the nurse Shōnagon whose vigilance and reliability he had often noted, giving her the help of one or two trusted household officers. And here again there were numerous arrangements to be made.
With the gentlewomen of his palace he had never been on intimate terms. But he kept them in a good humour by sending for them occasionally to talk with him, and he now summoned them all, saying to them: ‘I am afraid it will be rather dull here while I am away. But if any of you care to stay in my service on the chance that I may one day return to the Court, which if I live long enough is indeed certain to happen sooner or later,—please consider yourselves at the disposition of the Lady in the western wing.’ So saying he sent for all the other servants, high and low, and distributed suitable keepsakes among them.
No one was forgotten; to the nurse of Aoi’s little son and even to the servants at the ‘village of falling flowers’ he sent tokens of his appreciation, chosen, you may be sure, with the greatest taste and care.
To Oborozuki, despite a certain reluctance, he wrote at last: ‘That after what happened between us you should have ceased to communicate with me was both natural and prudent. But I would now have you know that the unparalleled ferocity of my enemies has at last driven me from the Court. “The rising torrent of your reproachful tears has carried me at last to the flood-mark of exile and
