been to imagine the joy and excitement with which on some far distant yet inevitable day he would retrace his steps to the City. Now that day had come, and to be returning was indeed very pleasant. But all the while, mingled with delightful anticipations, was the strange fear that he might never be able to re-visit the place of his banishment! His servants however were all in high spirits, and this, combined with the bustle of numerous friendly deputations from the Capital, created an atmosphere of general liveliness and excitement, despite the obvious depression that all these signs of departure brought to the host under whose roof the numerous visitors were lodged. The seventh month had begun, and the summer weather was even more delightful than usual. Why, wondered Genji, was he, who took such pleasure in quiet and harmless pursuits, doomed on every occasion to find himself involved in the most harrowing and disastrous situations? It had not indeed escaped the notice of those who knew him best that a fresh complication, of the kind they already knew only too well, had arisen in his life. For several months on end he had never once mentioned the lady’s name, and they began to hope that the affair had run its course. But the curiously subdued state of his spirits on the very eve of departure told them only too plainly that this hope was premature. It was whispered that all this trouble had arisen from Yoshikiyo’s indiscreet eloquence upon the occasion when after Genji’s cure they had climbed the mountain summit and looked down towards the western seas.[1] Yoshikiyo himself, as indeed he had every reason to be, was very much irritated by the whole affair.
Two days before his departure Genji visited the house on the hill some hours earlier than was his wont. He had
- ↑ See vol. i, pp. 137 seq. Some texts call Yoshikiyo ‘Yoshizane,’ as I have done in vol. i. See above, p. 113.
