disorders had misled those about her and prevented them from recognizing the true nature of her condition. This explanation was accepted by everyone.
The Emperor himself was full of tender concern, and though messengers kept him constantly informed, the gloomiest doubts and fancies passed continually through his mind. Genji was at this time visited by a most terrifying and extraordinary dream. He sent for interpreters, but they could make little of it. There were indeed certain passages to which they could assign no meaning at all; but this much was clear: the dreamer had made a false step and must be on his guard. ‘It was not my dream’ said Genji, feeling somewhat alarmed. ‘I am consulting you on behalf of someone else,’ and he was wondering what this ‘false step’ could have been when news reached him of the Princess’s condition. This then was the disaster which his dream had portended! At once he wrote her an immense letter full of passionate self-reproaches and exhortations. But Ōmyōbu, thinking that it would only increase her agitation, refused to deliver it, and he could trust no other messenger. Even the few wretched lines which she had been in the habit of sending to him now and again had for some while utterly ceased.