Read it through once

In point of fact, the person to whom Lady Tamakatsura had been thus unceremoniously compelled to give place was none other than her mother’s faithful maid, Ukon! For years past it had been the one comfort of the solitary and grief-stricken old lady's existence to make this pilgrimage, and Genji had always assisted her to do so with as much comfort as possible. So familiar was the journey that it no longer seemed to her in any way formidable; but having come on foot she was quite ready for a rest, and immediately lay down upon the nearest couch. Beside her was a thin partition of plaited reeds. Behind it she could hear people moving about, and presently some one entered who seemed to be carrying a tray of food. Then she heard a man’s voice saying: ‘Please take this to my Lady. Tell her I am very sorry it is so badly served; but I have done the best I can.’ From the tone in which he spoke it was evident that the lady to whom these apologies were to be conveyed was a person far above him in social position. Ukon’s curiosity was aroused. She peeped through a crack in the partition, and at once had the impression that she had seen the young man before. Who could it be? She racked her brains, but could not imagine. It would indeed have been strange had she been able to identify Bugo no Suke, who was a mere child when she last saw him, while now he was a full-grown man, much bronzed from exposure to the sun and winds of Tsukushi, and dressed in the poorest clothes. ‘Sanjō, my Lady is asking for you.’ So Bugo no Suke now cried, and to her astonishment Ukon saw that the old woman who answered to this name was also certainly some one whom she had once known. But here there could be no mistake. This Sanjō was the one who had been in service with Ukon in Yūgao’s house, and had afterwards (like Ukon herself) been one of the few servants whom Yūgao took with her to the house in the Fifth Ward. It seemed like a dream. Who was the Lady whom they were accompanying? She strained her eyes; but the bed in the room behind the partition was surrounded by screens and there was no possibility of seeing its occupant. She had made up her mind to accost the maid Sanjō and question her, when part of her doubt resolved itself spontaneously: the man must be that boy of Shōni’s, ... the one they used to call Hyōtōda, and the lady towards whom they showed such deference could be no other than Tamakatsura, Yūgao’s child by Tō no Chūjō. In wild excitement she called to Sanjō by name; but the old woman was busy serving the supper and for the moment she took no notice. She was very cross at being called away from her work like this, but whoever it was that wanted her seemed to be in a great hurry, and presently she arrived, exclaiming: ‘I can’t make it out. I’ve spent the last twenty years in service on the island of Tsukushi, and here’s a lady from Kyōto calling for me by my own name, as though she knew all about me. Well, Madam, I am called Sanjō. But I think it must be another Sanjō that you are wanting.’ As she drew near Ukon noticed that the old woman was wearing the most extraordinary narrow-sleeved overall on top of her frumpy old dress. She had grown enormously stout. The sight of her brought a sudden flush of humiliation to Ukon’s cheeks, for she realised that she herself was an old woman, and as Sanjō now looked to her, so must she, Ukon, for years past have appeared to all eyes save her own. ‘Look again! Do you not know me?’ she said at last, looking straight into Sanjō’s face. ‘Why, to be sure I do!’ cried the old lady, clapping her hands, ‘you were in service with my Lady. I was never so glad in my life. Where have you been hiding our dear mistress all this while?... Of course she is with you now?’ and in the midst of her excitement Sanjō began to weep; for the encounter had brought back to her mind the days when she was young. What times those had been! And how long, how cruelly long ago it all was! ‘First,’ answered Ukon gravely, ‘you must give me a little of your news. Is nurse with you? And what has happened to the baby girl ... and Ateki, where is she?’ For the moment Ukon could not bear to dash Sanjō’s hope to the ground; moreover it was so painful to her to speak of Yūgao’s death that she now listened in silence to Sanjō’s tale: mother, brother and sister were all there. Tamakatsura was grown to be a fine young lady and was with them too. ‘But here I am talking,’ said Sanjō at last, ‘when I ought to have run straight in to tell nurse, ...’ and with this she disappeared. After their first surprise the chief feeling of Ateki and her mother, upon the reception of this news, was one of indignation against Ukon, whom they supposed to have left their mistress in hiding all these years, callously indifferent to the suspense and misery of all her friends. ‘I don’t feel that I want to see her,’ said the old nurse at last, nodding in the direction of Ukon’s room, ‘but I suppose I ought to go.’ No sooner, however, was she sitting by Ukon’s couch, with all the curtains drawn aside, than both of them burst into tears. ‘What has become of her, where is my lady?’ the nurse sobbed. ‘You cannot imagine what I have been through in all these years. I have prayed again and again that some sign, some chance word, some dream might tell me where she was hiding. But not one breath of news came to us, and at last I thought terrible things—that she must be very far away indeed. Yes, I have even imagined that she must be dead, and fallen then into such despair that I hated my own life and would have ended it too, had not my love for the little girl whom she left with me held my feet from the Paths of Night. And even so, you see for yourself what I am.... It is but a faint flicker of life....’