Read it through once

On his return to Murasaki’s rooms, he found all the shutters unbarred. Everything had resumed its normal course. He delivered the Empress’s reply, in which she said: ‘It may be very childish, but I own I have been much upset by the storm. I made sure that you would come and see to things here.... It would still be a great help to me if you could spare a moment....’ ‘I remember said Genji, ‘that she was always very easily upset by anything of this kind. I can imagine what a panic she and her ladies must have worked themselves up into during the course of the night! It was wrong of me not to see after her ...’ and he started off towards the Empress’s apartments. But he found he had forgotten his cloak, and turning back to the high daïs he raised a corner of the curtain and disappeared within. For a moment Yūgiri caught sight of a light-coloured sleeve; his heart began to beat so loud that it seemed to him every one else in the room must be able to hear it, and he quickly averted his eyes from the daïs. There was an interval during which Genji was presumably adjusting his cloak at the mirror. Then Yūgiri heard his father’s voice saying: ‘I cannot help thinking that Yūgiri is really looking quite handsome this morning. No doubt I am partial, and to every one else he looks a mere hobbledehoy; for I know that at the between-stage he has now reached young men are usually far from prepossessing in appearance.’ After this there was a pause during which he was perhaps looking at his own countenance in the mirror, well content that the passage of time had as yet done so little to impair it. Presently Yūgiri heard him say very thoughtfully: ‘It is strange; whenever I am going to see Akikonomu I suddenly begin to feel that I am looking terribly shabby and unpresentable. I cannot think why she should have that effect on one. There is really nothing very remarkable about her, either in intellect or appearance. But one feels, I think, that she is all the while making judgments, which if they ever came to the surface, would seem oddly at variance with the mild femininity of her outward manner....’ With these words Genji re-appeared from behind the curtains. The look of complete detachment with which Yūgiri imagined he met his father’s gaze was perhaps not so successfully assumed as the boy supposed; for Genji suddenly halted and returning to the daïs whispered to Murasaki something about the door which had been left unfastened yesterday morning. ‘No, I am sure he didn’t,’ answered Murasaki indignantly. ‘If he had come along the corridor my people would have noticed. They never heard a sound....’ ‘Very queer, all the same,’ murmured Genji to himself as he left the room. Yūgiri now noticed that a group of gentlemen was waiting for him at the end of the crossgallery, and he hastened to meet them. He tried to join in their conversation and even in their laughter; but he was feeling in no mood for society, and little as his friends expected of him in the way of gaiety, they found him on this occasion more obdurately low-spirited than ever before.