THE FIRST SONG OF THE YEAR
With the morning of the New Year’s[114] Day began a spell of the most
delightful weather. Soft air, bright sunshine, and not a cloud to
be seen in the whole sky. In every garden, on the humblest piece of
waste ground, young shoots that formed each day a clearer patch of
green were pushing up amid the snow; while over the trees hung a mist,
stretched there, so it seemed, on purpose that the wonders it was
hiding might later come as a surprise. Nor was this pleasant change
confined to garden and wood; for men and women also, without knowing
why, suddenly felt good-humoured and hopeful. It may be imagined then
what an enchantment these first spring days, everywhere so delightful,
cast upon the gardens of Genji’s palace, with their paths of jade-dust,
their groves and lakes. It would be impossible here to describe in
any way that would not be both tedious and inadequate the beauties
of the four domains which Genji had allotted to his favourites. But
this I may say, that the Spring Garden,[115] with its great orchards
of fruit trees at this moment far excelled the rest, and even behind
her screens-of-state Murasaki breathed an atmosphere that was heavily
laden with the scent of plum-blossom. Indeed the place was a Heaven
upon earth; but a Heaven adapted to human requirements by the addition
of numerous comforts and amenities. The Princess[116] from Akashi was
still living in Murasaki’s apartments. The younger among the
gentlewomen-in-waiting had been placed at her disposal; while the
older among them, and such as had distinguished themselves in any way,
were retained by Murasaki. On the third day they were already gathered
together in front of the Mirror Cake[117] reciting ‘For a thousand
years may we dwell under thy shadow’ and other New Year verses, with
a good deal of laughter and scuffling, when Genji’s unexpected entry
suddenly caused many pairs of hands to fly back into an attitude of
prayer. The ladies looked so uncomfortable at having been caught
treating the ceremonies of the day with undue levity, that Genji said
to them laughing: ‘Come now, there is no need to take the prayers on
our behalf so seriously. I am sure each of you has plenty of things
she would like to pray for on her own account. Tell me, all of you,
what you most desire in the coming year, and I will add my prayers to
yours.’ Among these ladies was a certain Chūjō,[118] one of his own
gentlewomen, whom he had transferred to Murasaki’s service at the time
of his exile. She knew well enough, poor lady, what thing _she_ most
desired. But she only said: ‘I tried just now to think of something to
pray for on my own account; but it ended by my saying the prayer: “May
he endure long as the Mountain of Kagami in the country of Ōmi.”[118]
The morning had been occupied in receiving a host of New Year visitors;
but now Genji thought he would call upon the various inhabitants of
his palace, to give them his good wishes and see how they looked in
their New Year clothes. ‘Your ladies,’ he said to Murasaki, ‘do not
seem to take these proceedings seriously. I found them romping
together, instead of saying their prayers. You and I will have to hold
a service of our own.’ So saying he recited the prayer, not without
certain additions which showed that he took the business only a trifle
more seriously than the ladies whom he had just criticized. He then
handed her the poem: ‘May the course of our love be clear as the waters
of yonder lake, from which, in the spring sunshine, the last clot of
ice has melted away.’ To this she answered: ‘On the bright mirror of
these waters I see stretched out the cloudless years love holds for us
in store.’ Then (as how many times before!) Genji began telling her
that, whatever was reported of him or whatever she herself observed,
she need never have any anxiety. And he protested, in the most violent
and impressive terms, that his passion for her underlay all that he
felt or did, and could not be altered by any passing interest or fancy.
She was for the moment convinced, and accepted his protestations
ungrudgingly.
Besides being the third of the year it was also the Day of the Rat[120]
and therefore as fine an occasion for prayers and resolutions as could
possibly have been found.
His next visit was to the little girl from Akashi. He found her maids
and page-boys playing New Year games on the mound in front of her
windows, and pulling up the dwarf pine-trees, an occupation in which
they seemed to take a boundless delight. The little princess’s rooms
were full of sweetmeat boxes and hampers, all of them presents from her
mother. To one toy, a little nightingale perched upon a sprig of the
five-leafed pine, was fastened a plaintive message: ‘In _my_ home the
nightingale’s voice I never hear, ...’[121] and with it the poem:—
O nightingale, to one that many months,
While strangers heard you sing,
Has waited for your voice, grudge not to-day
The first song of the year!
Genji read the poem and was touched by it; for he knew that only under
the stress of great emotion would she have allowed this note of sadness
to tinge a New Year poem. ‘Come, little nightingale!’ he said to the
child, ‘you must make haste with your answer; it would be heartless
indeed if in the quarter whence these pretty things come you were
ungenerous with your spring-time notes!’ and taking his own ink-stone
from a servant who was standing by, he prepared it for her and made her
write. She looked so charming while she did this that he found himself
envying those who spent all day in attendance upon her, and he felt
that to have deprived the Lady of Akashi year after year of so great a
joy was a crime for which he would never be able to forgive himself. He
looked to see what she had written. ‘Though years be spent asunder, not
lightly can the nightingale forget the tree where first it nested and
was taught to sing.’ The flatness of the verse had at least this much
to recommend it—the mother would know for certain that the poem had
been written without grown-up assistance!
The Summer Quarters[122] were not looking their best; indeed at this
time of year they could hardly be expected not to wear a somewhat
uninteresting air. As he looked about him he could see no object
that was evidence of any very pronounced taste or proclivity;
the arrangements betokened, rather, a general discrimination and
good-breeding. For many years past his affection for her had remained
at exactly the same pitch, never flagging in the slightest degree,
and at the same time never tempting him to the extremer forms
of intimacy. In this way there had long ago grown up between them a
relationship far more steady and harmonious than can ever exist between
those who are lovers in the stricter sense of the term. This morning
he spoke to her for a while from behind her curtains-of-state. But
presently he cautiously raised a corner of one curtain, and he looked
in. How little she had changed! But he was sorry to see that the New
Year’s dress he had given her was not a great success. Her hair had
of late years grown much less abundant, and in order to maintain the
same style of coiffure, she had been obliged to supplement it by false
locks. To these Genji had long ago grown accustomed. But he now began
trying to imagine how she appeared to other people, and saw at once
that to them she must seem a very homely, middle-aged person indeed. So
much the better, then, that he who loved her had this strange power of
seeing her as she used to be, rather than as she was now. And she on
her side—what if she should one day grow weary of him, as women often
did of those who gave them so little as he had done!
Such were the reflexions that passed through Genji’s mind while he sat
with her. ‘We are both singularly fortunate,’ he concluded to himself.
‘I, in my capacity for self-delusion; she in hers for good-tempered
acceptance of whatever comes her way.’ They talked for a long while,
chiefly of old times, till at last he found that he ought to be on his
way to the Western Wing.
Considering the short time that Tamakatsura had been in residence
she had made things look uncommonly nice. The number and smartness
of her maids gave the place an air of great animation. The large
and indispensable articles of furniture had all arrived; but many
of the smaller fittings were not yet complete. This was in a way
an advantage; for it gave to her rooms a look of spaciousness
and simplicity which had a peculiar charm. But it was the mistress
of these apartments who, when she suddenly appeared upon the scene,
positively confounded him by her beauty. How perfectly she wore that
long, close-fitting robe, with its pattern of mountain-kerria! Here,
he thought, contrasting her inevitably with the lady to whom he had
just said farewell, here was nothing that it might be dangerous to
scrutinize, nothing that kindness bade him condone; but radiance,
freshness, dazzling youth from tip to toe. Her hair was somewhat
thinned out at the ends, in pursuance, perhaps, of some vow made during
the days of her tribulation; and this gave to her movements an ease and
freedom which strangely accorded with the bareness of her quarters. Had
he chosen any but his present rôle,[123] he would not now be watching
her flit unconstrainedly hither and thither across her room.... She,
however, having by this time grown used to his informal visits, enjoyed
his company to the full and would even have had him treat her with a
shade less deference ... when suddenly she remembered that he was only
a make-believe father after all, and then it seemed to her that she
had already countenanced far greater liberties than their situation
demanded. ‘For my part,’ said Genji at last, ‘I feel as though you
had been living with us for years, and am certain that I shall never
have cause to repent your coming. But you have not progressed so fast
in friendship with the other inmates of my household as I have done
in mine with you. I notice you do not visit Lady Murasaki. I am sorry
for this, and hope that in future you will make use of her apartments
without formality of any sort whenever you feel inclined. You could
be of great help to the little girl who lives with her. For example,
if you would take charge of her music-lessons.... You would find
every one in that quarter most affable and forthcoming.... Do promise
me to try!’ ‘If you wish it,’ was all she said; but in a voice which
indicated that she really meant to obey.
It was already becoming dark when he arrived at the Lady of Akashi’s
rooms. Through an open door a sudden puff of wind carried straight
towards him from her daïs a blend of perfumes as exquisite as it was
unfamiliar. But where was the Lady herself? For a while he scanned the
room in vain. He noticed a writing-case, and near it a great litter of
books and papers. On a long flat cushion bordered with Chinese brocade
from Lo-yang lay a handsome zithern; while in a brazier which, even in
the dim light, he could see to be an object of value and importance,
there burned some of that incense which is known as ‘The Courtier’s
Favourite.’ This was the scent which pervaded the whole room and,
blending with a strong odour of musk, created the delicious perfume
which Genji had noticed when he first turned into the corridor. Coming
close enough to examine the papers which lay scattered about the daïs,
he saw that though there were many experiments in different styles,
some of them quite interesting, there were no efforts towards the
more extravagant and pretentious forms of cursive. Her child’s letter
of thanks for the toy bird and tree had already arrived, and it was
evident that, in her delight, she had just been copying out a number
of classic poems appropriate to such an occasion. But among these was
written a poem of her own: ‘Oh joy untold! The nightingale that, lured
by the spring flowers, to distant woods was gone, now to its valley
nest again repairs.’ She had also copied out the old poems: ‘I waited
for thy song’ and ‘Because my house is where the plum-tree blooms,’
and many other snatches and fragments such as were likely to run
in the head of one to whom a sudden consolation had come. He took up
the papers one by one, sometimes smiling, yet ashamed of himself for
doing so. Then he wetted the pen and was just about to write a message
of his own, when the Lady of Akashi suddenly appeared from a back
room. Despite the splendours by which she was now surrounded she still
maintained a certain deference of manner and anxiety to please which
marked her as belonging to a different class. Yet there was something
about the way her very dark hair stood out against the white of her
dress, hanging rather flat against it, that strangely attracted him.
It was New Year’s night. He could not very well absent himself from
his own apartments, for there were visitors coming and Murasaki was
expecting him....
Yet it was in the Lady of Akashi’s rooms that he spent the night, thus
causing considerable disappointment in many quarters, but above all in
the southern wing, where Murasaki’s gentlewomen made bitter comments
upon this ill-timed defection.
It was still almost dark when Genji returned, and he persuaded himself
that, though he had stayed out late, it could not be said that he
had been absent for a night. To the Lady of Akashi, on her side it
seemed that he was suddenly rising to leave her just as the night was
beginning. Nevertheless, she was enraptured by his visit. Murasaki
would no doubt have sat up waiting for him, and he was quite prepared
to find her in rather a bad humour. But one never knows, and in order
to find out he said: ‘I have just had the most uncomfortable doze. It
was too childish.... I fell asleep in my chair. I wish some one had
woken me. It was the most mistaken kindness....’ But no! She did not
reply, and seeing that for the moment there was no more to be done, he
lay back and pretended to be asleep; but as soon as it was broad
daylight got up and left the room.
Next day there was a great deal of New Year’s entertaining to be done,
which was fortunate, for it enabled him to save his face. As usual,
almost the whole Court was there,—princes, ministers and noblemen.
There was a concert and on Genji’s part a grand distribution of
trinkets and New Year presents. This party was an occasion of great
excitement for the more elderly and undistinguished of the guests; and
it may be imagined with what eagerness it was this year awaited by the
younger princes and noblemen, who were perpetually on the look-out for
adventure and flattered themselves that the new inmate[124] of Genji’s
palace was by no means beyond their reach. A gentle evening breeze
carried the scent of fruit-blossom into every corner of the house; in
particular, most fragrant of all, the plum-trees in Murasaki’s garden
were now in full bloom. It was at that nameless hour which is neither
day nor night. The concert had begun; delicate harmonies of flute and
string filled the air, and at last came the swinging measure of ‘Well
may this Hall grow rich and thrive,’[125] with its animated refrain
‘Oh, the saki-grass so sweet,’ in which Genji joined with excellent
effect. This indeed was one of his peculiar gifts, that whatever was
afoot, whether music, dancing or what not, he had only to join in and
every one else was at once inspired to efforts of which they would not
have imagined themselves capable.
Meanwhile the ladies of the household, in the seclusion of their
rooms, heard little more than a confused din of horse-hoofs and
carriage-wheels, their plight being indeed much like that of the least
deserving among the Blest, who though they are reborn in Paradise,
receive an unopened lotus-bud as their lodging.[126] But still worse
was the position of those who inhabited the old Eastern Wing; for
having once lived at any rate within ear-shot of such festivities as
this, they now saw themselves condemned to an isolation and lack of
employment which every year would increase. Yet though they might
almost as well have renounced the Court and ensconced themselves ‘by
mountain paths where Sorrow is unknown,’ they did nothing of the kind
nor, real though their grievances were, did the slightest complaint
ever cross their lips. Indeed, save that they were left pretty much
to their own devices, they had little else to complain of. They were
housed in the utmost comfort and security. Those of them who were
religious had at least the certainty that their pious practices would
not be interrupted; while those who cared for study had plenty of time
to fill a thousand copy-books with native characters. As regards their
lodging and equipment, they had only to express a desire for it to be
immediately gratified. And sometimes their benefactor actually called
upon them, as indeed happened this spring, so soon as the busy days of
the New Festival were over.
Suyetsumu was after all the daughter of Prince Hitachi, and as such
was entitled to keep up a considerable degree of state. Genji had
accordingly provided her with a very ample staff of attendants. Her
surroundings indeed were all that could be desired. She herself had
changed greatly in recent years. Her hair was now quite grey, and
seeing that she was embarrassed by this and was evidently wondering
what impression it would make upon him, he at first kept his eyes
averted while he spoke to her. His gaze naturally fell upon her
dress. He recognized it as that which he had given her for New Year;
but it looked very odd, and he was wondering how he had come to give
her so unsuitable a garment, when he discovered that the fault was
entirely that of the wearer. Over it she had put a thin mantle of dull
black crepe, unlined, and so stiff that it crackled when she moved.
The woven dress which he had given her was meant to wear under a heavy
cloak, and naturally in her present garb she was, as he could see,
suffering terribly from the cold. He had given her an ample supply of
stuff for winter cloaks. What could she have done with it all? But with
Suyetsumu nothing seemed to thrive, every stuff became threadbare,
every colour turned dingy, save that of one bright flower....[127] But
one must keep such things out of one’s head; and he firmly replaced the
open flap of her curtain.
She was not offended. It was quite enough that year after year, he
should preserve the same unmistakable signs of affection; for did he
not always treat her as an intimate and equal, taking her completely
into his confidence and addressing her always in the most informal
manner imaginable? If this were not affection, what else could it be?
He meanwhile was thinking what a uniquely depressing and wearisome
creature she was, and deciding that he must really make up his mind
to be a little kinder to her, since it was certain that no one else
intended to take the business off his hands.
He noticed that while she talked her teeth positively chattered with
cold. He looked at her with consternation. ‘Is there no one,’ he asked,
‘whose business it is to take charge of your wardrobe? It does not
seem to me that stiff clumsy over-garments are very well suited to
your present surroundings. This cloak of yours, for example. If
you cannot do without it, then at any rate be consistent and wear it
over a dress of the same description. You cannot get yourself up in
one style on top and another underneath.’ He had never spoken to her
so bluntly before, but she only tittered slightly. ‘My brother Daigo
no Azari,’ she said at last, ‘promised to look after those warm stuffs
for me, and he carried them all off before I had time to make them
into dresses. He even took away my sables.[128] I am so cold without
them....’ Her brother evidently felt the cold even more than she did,
and Genji imagined him with a very red nose indeed. Simplicity was no
doubt an engaging quality; but really this lady carried it a little too
far. However, with her it was certainly no affectation, and he answered
good-humouredly: ‘As far as those sables are concerned, I am delighted
to hear what has become of them. I always thought they were really
meant to keep out the rain and snow. Next time your brother goes on a
mountain pilgrimage.... But there is no need for _you_ to shiver. You
can have as much of this white material as you like, and there is
nothing to prevent your wearing it sevenfold thick, if you find you
cannot keep warm. Please always remind me of such promises. If I do not
do things at once, I am apt to forget about them. My memory was never
very good and I have always needed keeping up to the mark. But now that
there are so many conflicting claims upon my time and attention,
nothing gets done at all unless I am constantly reminded....’ And
thinking it safest to act while the matter was still in his mind, he
sent a messenger across to the New Palace for a fresh supply of silks
and brocades.
The Nijō-in was kept in perfect order and repair; but the fact that
it was no longer the main residence somehow or other gave it an air
of abandonment and desolation. The gardens, however, were as
delightful as ever. The red plum-blossom was at its best, and it seemed
a pity that so much beauty and fragrance should be, one might almost
say, wasted. He murmured to himself the lines: ‘To see the springtide
to my old home I came, and found within it a rarer flower than any that
on orchard twigs was hung!’
She heard the words; but luckily did not grasp the unflattering
allusion.[129]
He also paid a brief visit to Utsusemi, now turned nun. She had
installed herself in apartments so utterly devoid of ornament or
personal touches of any kind that they had the character of official
waiting-rooms. The only conspicuous object which they contained was a
large statue of Buddha, and Genji was lamenting to himself that sombre
piety, to the exclusion of all other interest, should have possessed so
gracious and gentle a spirit, when he noticed that the decoration of
her prayer-books, the laying of her altar with its dishes of floating
petals—these and many another small sign of elegance seemed to betray a
heart that was not yet utterly crushed by the severities of religion.
Her blue-grey curtains-of-state showed much taste and care. She sat
so far back as scarcely to be seen. But one touch of colour stood out
amid the gloom; the long sleeves of the gay coat he had sent her showed
beneath her mantle of grey, and moved by her acceptance of this token
he said with tears in his eyes: ‘I know that I ought not now even to
remember how once I felt towards you. But from the beginning our love
brought to us only irritation and misery. It is as well that, if we
are to be friends at all, it must now be in a very different way.’ She
too was deeply moved and said at last: ‘How can I doubt your good will
towards me, seeing at what pains you have been to provide for
me, protect me.... I should be ungrateful indeed....’ ‘I daresay many
another lover suffered just as I did,’ he said, attempting a lighter
tone; ‘and Buddha condemns you to your present life as a penance for
all the hearts you have broken. And how the others must have suffered
if their experience was anything like mine! Not once but over and over
again did I fall in love with you; and those others.... There, I knew
that I was right. You are thinking, I am sure, of an entanglement
beside which our escapade pales into insignificance.’ His only
intention was to divert the conversation from their own relationship,
and he was speaking quite at random. But she instantly imagined that
he had in some circuitous way got wind of that terrible story ...[130]
and blushing she said in a low voice: ‘Do not remind me of it. The mere
fact that you should have been told of it is punishment enough ...’ and
she burst into tears.
He did not know to what she referred. He had imagined that her
retirement from the world was merely due to increasing depression and
timidity. How was he to converse with her, if every chance remark threw
her into a fit of weeping? He had no desire to go away; but he could
not think of any light topic upon which to embark, and after a few
general enquiries he took his leave. If only it were Lady Suyetsumu who
was the nun and he could put Utsusemi in her place! So Genji thought
as on his way back he again passed by the red-nosed lady’s door. He
then paid short visits to the numerous other persons who lived upon
his bounty, saying to such of them as he had not seen for some time:
‘If long intervals sometimes elapse between my visits to you, you must
not think that my feelings towards you have changed. On the contrary,
I often think what a pity it is that we so seldom meet. For time
slips away, and bound up with every deep affection is the fear that
Death may take us unawares....’ Nor was there anything the least
insincere in these speeches; in one way or another he did actually feel
very deeply about each of the persons to whom they were made. Unlike
most occupants of the exalted position which he now held, Genji was
entirely devoid of pomposity and self-importance. Whatever the rank of
those whom he was addressing, under whatever circumstances he met them,
his manner remained always equally kind and attentive. Indeed, by that
thread and that alone hung many of his oldest friendships.
This year there was to be the New Year’s mumming.[131] After performing
in the Imperial Palace the dancers were to visit the Suzaku-in[132] and
then come on to Genji’s. This meant covering a good deal of ground,
and it was already nearing dawn when they arrived. The weather had at
first been somewhat uncertain, but at dusk the clouds cleared away,
and bright moonlight shone upon those exquisite gardens, now clad in
a thin covering of snow. Many of the young courtiers who had recently
come into notice showed unusual proficiency on instruments of one kind
and another. There were flute-players in abundance, and nowhere that
night did they give a more admirable display than when they welcomed
the arrival of the mummers in front of Genji’s palace. The ladies
of the household had been apprised of the ceremony, and they were
now assembled in stands which had been set up in the cross-galleries
between the central hall and its two wings. The lady of the western
side[133] was invited to witness the proceedings in company with
the little princess from Akashi, whose windows looked out on
to the courtyard where the dancing was to take place. Murasaki was
their neighbour, being separated from them only by a curtain. After
performing before the ex-Emperor the dancers had been summoned to give
a second display in front of Kōkiden’s apartments. It was consequently
even later than had been anticipated when they at last arrived. Before
they danced, they had to be served with their ‘mummers’’ portions. It
was expected that, considering the lateness of the hour, this part
of the proceedings, with its curious rites and observances, would be
somewhat curtailed. But on the contrary Genji insisted upon its being
carried out with even more than the prescribed elaboration. A faint
light was showing in the east, the moon was still shining, but it had
begun to snow again, this time harder than ever. The wind, too, had
risen; already the tree-tops were swaying, and it became clear that a
violent storm was at hand. There was, in the scene that followed, a
strange discrepancy; the delicate pale green cloaks of the mummers,
lined with pure white, fluttered lightly, elegantly to the movements
of the dance; while around them gathered the gloom and menace of the
rising storm. Only the cotton plumes of their head-gear, stiff and in a
way graceless as they were, seemed to concord with the place and hour.
These, as they swayed and nodded in the dance, had a strangely vivid
and satisfying beauty.
Among those who sang and played for the dancers Yūgiri and Tō no
Chūjō’s sons took the lead. As daylight came the snow began to clear,
and only a few scattered flakes were falling when through the cold
air there rose the strains of _Bamboo River_.[134] I should like to
describe the movements of this dance—how the dancers suddenly rise
on tip-toe and spread their sleeves like wings and with how delightful
an effect voice after voice joins in the lively tune. But it has truly
been said that such things are beyond the painter’s art; and still
less, I suppose, can any depiction of them be expected of a mere
story-teller.
The ladies of the household vied with one another in the decoration
of their stalls. Gay scarfs and favours hung out on every side;
while shimmering New Year dresses now dimly discovered behind drawn
curtains-of-state, now flashing for a moment into the open as some
lady-in-waiting reached forward to adjust a mat or rescue a fan, looked
in the dawning light like a meadow of bright flowers ‘half-curtained
by the trailing mists of Spring.’ Seldom can there have been seen so
strange and lovely a sight. There was, too, a remote, barbaric beauty
in the high turbans of the dancers, with their stiff festoons of
artificial flowers; and when at last they entoned the final prayer,
despite the fact that the words were nonsense and the tune apparently
a mere jangle of discordant sounds, there was in the whole setting of
the performance something so tense, so stirring that these savage cries
seemed at the moment more moving than the deliberate harmonies by which
the skilled musician coldly seeks to charm our ear.
After the usual distribution of presents, the mummers at last withdrew.
It was now broad daylight, and all the guests retired to get a little
belated sleep. Genji rose again towards mid-day. ‘I believe that Yūgiri
is going to make every bit as good a musician as Kōbai,’[134] he said,
while discussing the scenes of the night before. ‘I am astonished by
the talent of the generation which is now growing to manhood.
The ancients no doubt far excelled us in the solid virtues; but our
sensibilities are, I venture to assert, far keener than theirs. I
thought at one time that Yūgiri was quite different from his companions
and counted upon turning him into a good, steady-going man of affairs.
My own nature is, I fear, inherently frivolous, and not wishing him
to take after me I have been at great pains to implant in him a more
serious view of life. But signs are not wanting that under a very
correct and solemn exterior he hides a disposition towards just
those foibles which have proved my own undoing. If it turns out that
his wonderful air of good sense and moderation are mere superficial
poses, it will indeed be annoying for us all.’ So he spoke, but he
was in reality feeling extremely pleased with his son. Then, humming
the tune[135] that the mummers sing at the moment when they rise to
depart, Genji said: ‘Seeing all the ladies of the household gathered
together here last night has made me think how amazing it would be
if we could one day persuade them to give us a concert. It might be
a sort of private After Feast.’[136] The rumour of this project soon
spread through the palace. On every hand lutes and zitherns were being
pulled from out the handsome brocade bags into which they had been so
carefully stowed away; and there was such a sprucing, polishing and
tuning as you can scarcely imagine; followed by unremitting practice
and the wildest day-dreams.
[114] The year began in the spring. Genji was now 36.
[115] Murasaki’s.
[116] The child born at Akashi.
[117] Served on the evening of the third day of the year, with radish
and oranges.
[118] She had always been in love with Genji.
[119] Kagami = ‘Mirror.’
[120] The first of the cyclical signs.
[121] You are silent as this toy bird and send me no New Year
greetings.
[122] Allotted to the Lady from the Village of Falling Flowers.
[123] That of father.
[124] Tamakatsura.
[125] Well may this house grow rich and thrive—
Oh, the saki-grass, the saki-grass so sweet—
Of the saki-grass, three leaves, four leaves, so trim
Are the walls of this house made.
[126] And consequently cannot see the Buddha nor hear his Word.
[127] _Hana_ = ‘nose’ and ‘flower.’
[128] See vol. i, p. 200.
[129] _Hana_ = ‘flower’ and ‘nose.’ See above.
[130] Her relations with Ki no Kami, her stepson. See vol. ii,
p. 257.
[131] A band of young noblemen going round dancing and singing in
various parts of the Palace and at the houses of the great on
the 14th day of the 1st month. See vol. i, p. 207.
[132] The residence of the ex-Emperor and his mother, Kōkiden.
[133] Tamakatsura.
[134] ‘In the garden of flowers at the end of the bridge that crosses
Bamboo River—in the garden of flowers set me free, with youths
and maidens round me.’
[135] Tō no Chūjō’s son, famous for the beauty of his voice. See
vol. ii, p. 87.
[136] The _Bansuraku_ or ‘Joy of Ten Thousand Springs.’
[137] The After Feast is held in the Emperor’s Palace.