CHAPTER IV YŪGAO

fear, Sir’ said Ukon ‘all her life she has been subject to these nightmare fits.’ He remembered now how tired she had seemed in the morning and how she had lain with her eyes turned upwards as though in pain. ‘I will go myself and wake someone’ he said; ‘I am tired of clapping with only echoes to answer me. Do not leave her!’ and drawing Ukon towards the bed he went in the direction of the main western door. But when he opened it, he found that the lamp in the cross-wing had also gone out. A wind had risen. The few attendants he had brought with him were already in bed. There was indeed only the steward’s son (the young man who had once been Genji’s body-servant), and the one young courtier who had attended him on all his visits. They answered when he called and sprang to their feet. ‘Come with a candle,’ he said to the steward’s son, ‘and tell my man to get his bow and keep on twanging the string as loud as he can. I wonder anyone should sleep so soundly in such a deserted place. What has happened to Koremitsu?’ ‘He waited for some time, but as you seemed to have no need of him, he went home, saying he would