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great distance that separated us. You have compared us to the two wings of a bird. Such was never our position. You were always far above me, and if I have risen from insignificance to high rank and office I know quite well that it is entirely your doing. Perhaps I ought more frequently to have acknowledged this obligation; but as one grows older one tends more and more to take things for granted . . . .’ Tō no Chūjō, who had arrived in such ill-humour, was now speaking almost apologetically. It was at this point that Genji ventured upon an allusion to the rainy night’s conversation,^[1] then to Yūgao, and last to Tō no Chūjo’s little daughter, Tamakatsura. ‘I have news concerning her which will very much surprise you,’ Genji said at last, and, without going into the whole story, broke to Tō no Chūjo the news that Yūgao was long ago dead, and that Tamakatsura had for some while been living with him.

Tears sprang to Chūjō’s eyes. ‘I think that at the time when I first lost sight of her,’ he said at last, ‘I told you and some of my other friends about my endeavours to trace Yūgao and her child. It would have been better not to speak of the matter; but I was so wretched that I could not contain myself. However, the search brought no result, and at last I gave up all hope. It was only recently, when my accession to high office induced all kinds of odd and undesirable creatures in every quarter to claim relationship with me, that I began to think once more about this true child of mine. How much more gladly would I have acknowledged and welcomed Yūgao’s daughter than the band of discreditable and unconvincing claimants who henceforward thronged my gates! But now that I know she is in good hands . . .’ Gradually the conversation drifted back to that rainy night and to the theories which