to a fit of wild jealousy and resentment. To Genji these outbursts were by no means unattractive.
It occurred to him that the fifth day of the fifth month would be the fiftieth day of the child’s life, and he knew that his absence from the Prayers which would be held on that day would be extremely painful to the mother. If only he had them with him in the Capital, what a delightful affair he could make of this Fiftieth Day Ceremony! It was really too bad that a daughter of his should have come into existence in such an outlandish place as this. He ought never to have allowed it. And this was his first daughter. If it had been a boy he did not think he would have minded nearly so much. But this girl seemed very important, for he felt that in a sense all his misfortunes had come to him as a preliminary to her birth, and had, if one could put it so, no other goal or object. He lost no time in sending a messenger to Akashi with strict injunctions to arrive there on the fifth day without fail. The messenger duly arrived, bearing with him the most touching and gratifying tokens of Genji’s anxiety for the welfare of his friends. To the Lady of Akashi he sent an acrostic poem, lamenting that he should have left her to dwell, like the pine-tree that grows beneath the northern cliff, in a place of shadows, to which not even the rejoicings of the Fiftieth Day would bring an altering gleam. ‘My anxiety for you both,’ his letter continued, ‘is becoming too great a torment for me to bear. Things cannot go on like this and I have quite decided to bring you to the Capital. Do not however think that my care for you will end merely with that….’ She told her father of Genji’s decision, and this time at any rate the old man had good cause for that mixture of joy and weeping to which he was at all times prone. Looking round at Genji’s Fiftieth Day presents which lay about in astonishing
