Read it through once

The Southern Gardens were just being laid out with wild plants from the countryside when the high winds began, and that impatient longing which the poet attributes to the young lespidezas[192] was indeed fulfilled in all too ample measure. Morning after morning Murasaki too saw the dew roughly snatched from leaf and flower. She was sitting thus one day on watch at her window, while Genji played with the little princess in a neighbouring room. It happened that Yūgiri had occasion to come across from the eastern wing. When he reached the door at the end of the passage he noticed that the great double-doors leading into Murasaki’s room were half-open. Without thinking what he was doing, he paused and looked in. Numerous ladies-in-waiting were passing to and fro just inside, and had he made any sound they would have looked up, seen him and necessarily supposed that he had stationed himself there on purpose to spy upon those within. He saw nothing for it but to stand dead still. Even indoors the wind was so violent that screens would not stand up. Those which usually surrounded the high daïs were folded and stacked against the wall. There, in full view of any one who came along the corridor, reclined a lady whose notable dignity of mien and bearing would alone have sufficed to betray her identity. This could be none other than Murasaki. Her beauty flashed upon him as at dawn the blossom of the red flowering cherry flames out of the mist upon the traveller’s still sleepy eye. It was wafted towards him, suddenly imbued him, as though a strong perfume had been dashed against his face. She was more beautiful than any woman he had ever seen. The hangings of her daïs had broken away from the poles and now fluttered in the wind like huge flags. Her ladies made vain attempts to recapture these flapping curtain-ends, and in the course of the struggle (only half-visible to Yūgiri) something very amusing evidently occurred, for Murasaki suddenly burst into peals of laughter. Soon however she became serious again. For here too, though in a lesser degree, the wind was working irreparable havoc, and at each fresh blast he saw her turn a despairing gaze towards her newly-planted beds. Several of her gentlewomen, thought Yūgiri, as his eye accustomed itself to the scene, were noticeably good-looking; but there was not one whose appearance could for more than an instant have distracted his attention from the astonishing creature at whose command they served. Now he understood why it was that Genji had always taken such pains to keep him away from her. His father was wise enough to know that no one could possibly see her thus without losing all control of himself. Genji had indeed, in forbidding him all access to her rooms, foreseen just such a contingency as had at this moment occurred. The boy, suddenly realizing the extreme insecurity of his hiding-place and at the same time overwhelmed with shame at the mere thought of being discovered in such a situation, was about to dart into safety, when a door on the left opened and Genji himself entered the room. ‘What a wind!’ he said as he surveyed the exposed condition of her daïs. ‘It would really be better just now if you left all the shutters closed. You probably do not realize that you and your ladies are at this moment exposing yourselves completely to the view of any gentleman who may happen to come this way....’ Yūgiri had already withdrawn his eye from the crack; but the sound of Genji’s voice aroused in him an invincible curiosity, and he returned to his former position. His father was bending over Murasaki and whispering something in her ear; now he was laughing. It seemed to Yūgiri very odd that this high-spirited, handsome, quite young-looking man should really be his father. As for Genji’s companion—he could not imagine that she could ever have been more beautiful than at this moment. He gazed spell-bound, and would certainly have crouched at his chink for hours to come, had not the door on the opposite side of the passage suddenly blown wide open, thus leaving his hiding-place embarrassingly exposed. Reluctantly he withdrew (as was now possible, for Murasaki’s attendants had all retired to the far end of the room), and working his way round to the verandah, he called to Genji as though he had just arrived from the Eastern Wing. His father answered the greeting and presently joined him, saying to Murasaki as he left the room something which evidently referred to the imperfectly fastened passage-door. ‘Look there!’ Genji was saying crossly; ‘is not that just what I told you? You must really be more careful....’ ‘This,’ thought Yūgiri, ‘is indeed a tribute to the devotion of her guards during all these years! Only a tempest capable of hurling rocks through the air and uprooting whole forests can so far disarm their vigilance that for a few seconds she is exposed to the curiosity of the passer-by.’ He was bound to confess that towards him at any rate the dreaded hurricane had done its best to act a benevolent part.