Looking about him at these melancholy precincts, Genji was at first unable to speak. They had become in every way a nunnery: the blinds and curtains, all a drab gray-green, glimpses of gray and yellow sleeves--melancholy and at the same time quietly, mysteriously beautiful. He looked out into the garden. The ice was melting from the brook and the pond, and the willow on the bank, as if it alone were advancing boldly into spring, had already sent out shoots. "Uncommonly elegant fisherfolk,"* he whispered, himself an uncommonly handsome figure.

Her reply was faint and low, from very near at hand, for the chapel was small and crowded with holy objects:

The Tale of Genji, Murasaki Shikibu [trans; Edward G. Seidensticker]
* Ama means both "fisherman" and "nun." The pun is repeated in Genji's poem.