Read it through once

After this they visited a succession of holy places. At last Bugo no Suke suggested a pilgrimage to the Temple of the Hasegawa Kwannon. ‘There is no deity in Japan,’ he said, ‘who has in recent times worked so many miracles as this Goddess of Hatsuse. I am told that the fame of her shrine has spread even to China,[102] and far off though Tsukushi is, I know that Lady Tamakatsura has for years past been deeply interested in the achievements of this Divinity and shown an exemplary piety towards her. I believe that a visit to Hatsuse would do more for our young lady than anything else.’ It was decided that, to give it a greater significance, the pilgrimage should be made on foot and, despite her great age and infirmity, the old nurse would not be left behind. Tamakatsura, wholly unused to such experiences, felt scared and wretched as, pilgrims in front and behind, she tramped wearily on, turning to right or left when she was bid, but otherwise too deeply buried in her own thoughts to notice what went on around her. What had she done, she asked herself over and over again, to deserve this downtrodden existence? And as she dragged foot after foot along the dusty road she prayed earnestly to Buddha, saying ‘O Much-Honoured One, if my mother is indeed no longer in this world, grant that, wherever it be, her soul may look upon me with compassion and her prayers bring me quick release, that I may take refuge in the place where her spirit dwells. And if she is still alive, grant, O Buddha, that I may one day meet her face to face.’ So she prayed, and while she did so suddenly remembered that it was a useless prayer. For she was very young when Yūgao disappeared, had only the haziest recollection of her appearance, and even if the prayer were answered, would certainly pass her mother unrecognized! Dismal as these reflections would at any time have been, they were doubly so now, worn out as she was by the fatigue of the journey. The party had indeed travelled at a very leisurely pace and it was not till the hour of the Snake, on the fourth day, that they at last reached Tsuba Market.[103] Tamakatsura was by this time more dead than alive; they attempted to improvise a carrying-chair, but the pain in her legs was so great that she could not bear to be moved, and there was nothing for it but to let her rest at the inn.