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own, be guilty of a serious offence. Accordingly he set out for the Third Ward, calling first at the old Princess's apartments. He was obliged to act with great secrecy, for he had pleaded only yesterday that a religious obligation confined him to his rooms. But lest she should be disappointed, he robed himself for the visit quite as magnificently as he would have done for the recent Procession. Her joy at the sight of this dazzling spectacle knew no bounds. Ill though she was, she immediately cast away all her troubles, dragged herself from her couch and received him, propped up on an easy chair.

She was evidently very much enfeebled; but she was perfectly well able to carry on a conversation. 'I always know how things are going here by watching Yūgiri,' Genji said to her. 'Lately he has been very absent-minded and depressed, and sometimes I have heard him sighing heavily when he was by himself. I knew this meant that he was worrying about you, and I felt I must come and enquire on my own account. Nowadays I do not even visit at the Palace except on very special occasions. I still hold the position of Grand Minister; but you would not find a single business document on my table. I live shut away in my own house, and am quite out of touch with everything that goes on in the outside world. You probably think it very reprehensible of me to withdraw from all public responsibilities at so early an age; and I know that you could quote to me cases, both ancient and modern, of indomitable old men who have gone on tottering to their government offices every day of their lives till their backs were bent double. If I do not manage to supply the world with so edifying a spectacle, it is partly because I feel myself wholly lacking in capacity for such matters, partly because I am by nature incurably indolent. . .' 'You're only making excuses because it's a very long time since you