Minister, and of the Minister who above all others enjoyed the greatest influence and esteem. She was the only child of the Emperor’s sister and had been brought up with a full sense of her own dignity and importance. The least slight, the merest hint of disrespect came to her as a complete surprise. To Genji all these pretensions naturally seemed somewhat exaggerated and his failure to make allowances for them increased her hostility.
Aoi’s father was vexed by Genji’s seeming fickleness, but so soon as he was with him he forgot all his grievances and was always extremely nice to him. When Genji was leaving next day his father-in-law came to his room and helped him to dress, bringing in his own hands a belt which was an heirloom famous far and wide. He pulled straight the back of Genji’s robe which had become a little crumpled, and indeed short of bringing him his shoes performed in the friendliest way every possible small service. ‘This,’ said Genji handing back the belt, ‘is for Imperial banquets or other great occasions of that kind.’ ‘I have others much more valuable,’ said the Minister, ‘which I will give you for the Imperial banquets. This one is not of much account save that the workmanship of it is rather unusual,’ and despite Genji’s protests he insisted upon buckling it round him. The performance of such services was his principal interest in life. What did it matter if Genji was rather irregular in his visits? To have so agreeable a young man going in and out of one’s house at all was the greatest pleasure he could imagine.
Genji did not pay many New Year’s visits. First he went to the Emperor, then the Heir Apparent and the Ex-Emperor, and after that to Princess Fujitsubo’s house in the Third Ward. As they saw him enter the servants of the house noticed how much he had grown and altered in the last year. ‘Look how he has filled out,’ they said, ‘even since his last visit!’ Of the Princess herself he was only allowed a distant glimpse. It gave him many forebodings. Her child had been expected in the twelfth month and her condition was now causing some anxiety. That it would at any rate be