at her zithern. So far as he could hear it at this distance, he did not find the music displeasing; but Myōbu in her anxiety and confusion thought the tune very dull and wished it would occur to the princess to play something rather more up-to-date. The place where Genji was waiting was well screened from view and he had no difficulty in creeping unobserved into the house. Here he called for Myōbu, who pretending that the visit was a complete surprise to her said to the princess: ‘I am so sorry, here is Prince Genji come to see me. I am always getting into trouble with him for failing to secure him your favour. I have really done my best, but you do not make it possible for me to give him any encouragement, so now I imagine he has come to deal with the matter for himself. What am I to say to him? I can answer for it that he will do nothing violent or rash. I think that considering all the trouble he has taken you might at least tell him that you will speak to him through a screen or curtain.’ The idea filled the princess with consternation. ‘I should not know what to say to him,’ she wailed and as she said the words bolted towards the far side of the room with a bashfulness so infantile that Myōbu could not help laughing. ‘Indeed, Madam,’ she said, ‘it is childish of you to take the matter to heart in this way. If you were an ordinary young lady under the eye of stern parents and brothers, one could understand it; but for a person in your position to go on for ever being afraid to face the world is fantastic.’ So Myōbu admonished her and the princess, who could never think of any argument against doing what she was told to do, said at last: ‘If I have only to listen and need not say anything he may speak to me from behind the lattice-door, so long as it is well locked.’ ‘I cannot ask him to sit on the servant’s bench,’ said Myōbu. ‘You really need not be afraid that he will do anything violent or sudden.’ Thus persuaded,
