CHAPTER VI THE SAFFRON-FLOWER

converse with her visitor, a delicious scent of sandal-wood⁸³ invaded his nostrils, and this piece of coquetry at once raised his hopes. He began to tell her with great earnestness and eloquence how for almost a year she had continually occupied his thoughts. But not a word did she answer; talking to her was no better than writing! Irritated beyond measure he recited the verse: ‘If with a Vow of Silence thus ten times and again my combat I renew, ’tis that against me at least no sentence of muteness has been passed.’ ‘Speak at least one word of dismissal,’ he continued; ‘do not leave me in this bewilderment.’ There was among her ladies one called Jijū, the daughter of her old nurse. Being a girl of great liveliness and intelligence she could not bear to see her mistress cutting such a figure as this and stepping to her side she answered with the poem: ‘The bell⁸⁴ had sounded and for a moment silence was imposed upon my lips. To have kept you waiting grieves me, and there let the matter rest.’ She said the words in such a way that Genji was completely taken in and thought it was the princess who had thus readily answered his poem. He had not expected such smartness from an aristocratic lady of the old school; but the