<P 745>
her dignity, and the two girls often spent the night together, passing the
time at music and more frivolous pursuits. Ko~bai's daughter accepted the
other as her mentor and they got on very well together. The princess was
an extremely retiring young lady, not completely open even with her own
mother. It was indeed a degree of reserve that attracted unfavorable com-
ment, though it stopped short of positive eccentricity. She was, as a matter
of fact, a rather charming girl in her way, far better favored, certainly, than
most.
Ko~bai was feeling guilty about his stepdaughter, left out of all the
excitement.
"You must make certain decisions," he said to Makibashira. "I will do
everything for her that I would do for one of my own daughters."
"She seems to be completely without the hopes and plans one expects
a young girl to have," said Makibashira, brushing away a tear. "I certainly
would not want to insist upon them. I suppose I must call it fate and keep
her with me. She will have problems when I am gone, I am afraid, but
perhaps people won't laugh at her if she becomes a nun." And she added
that in spite of everything the girl had a great deal to recommend her.
Ko~bai was determined to be a good father, and he wished that the girl
would cooperate at least to the extent of letting him see her.
"It is not kind of you to insist upon hiding yourself." He had taken
to stealing up to her curtains and searching for a hole or a gap, but he
always went away disappointed.
"I want to be father and mother to you," he continued, having posted
himself firmly before her curtains, "and I am hurt that you should treat
me like a stranger."
Her answers, in very soft tones, suggested great elegance, as indeed
did everything about her. He wanted more than ever to see her. He was
not prepared to admit that his own daughters were not the finest young
ladies in the land, but he suspected that the princess might outshine them.
The world was too wide and varied, that was the trouble. A man might
think he had a peerless daughter, and somewhere a lovelier lady was
almost certain to appear. Yes, he really must have a look at the princess.
"It has been a month and more since I last had the pleasure of hearing
you play. Things have been in such a frightful stir. The girl in the west
rooms is absolutely mad about the lute, you know. Do you think she has
possibilities? The lute should be left alone unless it is played well. Give
her a lesson or two, please, if you have nothing better to do. I am not the
man I once was, and I never had regular lessons, but I was a passable
musician in my day. I can still tell good from bad on almost any instru-
ment. You are very parsimonious with your playing, but I do occasionally
catch an echo, and it brings back old memories. Lord Yu~giri is still with
us, of course, to keep the Rokujo~ tradition alive. Then there is his brother,
the middle councillor, and there is Prince Niou. I am sure that they could
<P 746>
have held their own against the best of the old masters. I am told that they
are very serious about their music, though they may not have quite Yu~-
giri's confident touch. Each time I hear your own lute I think how much
it resembles his. People are always saying that the most important thing
is tact and forbearance in the use of the left hand. That is important, of
course, but a misplaced bridge can be a disaster, and for a lady a gentle
touch with the right hand is very important too. Come, now, let me hear
you play. A lute, someone!"
Her women were on the whole much less reticent than she, though
one of them, very young and from a very good family, had annoyed him
by withdrawing to a distant corner.
"Just see my lady, will you, way off over there. Who has she been led
to think she is?"
<N 4>
His son came in, wearing casual court dress, more becoming, Ko~bai
thought, than full regalia.
He gave the boy a message for the daughter at court. "I cannot be with
you this evening. You must do without me. Perhaps you can say that I am
not feeling well." That business out of the way, he smiled and turned to
other business. "Bring your flute with you one of these days. It may be
what your sister here needs to encourage her. Do you ever play for His
Majesty? And do you please him, in your infantile way?"
He set the boy to a strain in the _so~jo~_ mode, which he managed very
commendably.
"Good, very good. I can see that you have profited from our little
musicales. And now you must join him," he said to the princess.
She played with obvious reluctance and declined to use a plectrum,
but the brief duo was very pleasing indeed. Ko~bai whistled an accompani-
ment, rich and full.
He looked out at a rose plum in full bloom just below this east
veranda.
"Magnificent. Am I right in thinking that Prince Niou is living in the
palace these days? Take him a branch--the one who knows best knows
best. How well I remember the days when Genji was young. They called
him'the shining one.' It would have been when he was a guards com-
mander, and I was a page, as you are now. I was lucky enough to attract
his attention, and I never shall forget the pleasure it gave me. They talk
about Prince Niou and his good friend Kaoru, and indeed they have
become very fine young gentlemen. I may have been heard to say that they
are not like Genji, really not like him at all, but that is because for me there
can never be another Genji. I find myself choking up at the thought that
I once stood there beside him. And I was never so very close to him. For
those that were it must seem as if something had gone very wrong, that
they should be here without him." His voice had become somewhat husky.
Seeking to control himself, he broke off a plum branch and, handing it to
<P 747>
the boy, pushed him towards the door. "Prince Niou is the only one left
who reminds me of him. When the Blessed One died his disciples thought
they saw something of his radiance in Prince Ananda, and ventured to
hope that he had come back. For me Prince Niou is the light in all the
darkness."
Full of youthful good spirits once more, he dashed off a poem on a
bit of scarlet paper and folded it inside a sheet of notepaper the boy
chanced to have with him.
"A purposeful breeze wafts forth the scent of our plum.
Will not the warbler be first to heed the summons?"
The boy rushed off to the palace, delighted at the prospect of seeing
Niou, whom he found emerging from the empress's audience chamber.
Niou singled him out among the throngs in her anterooms.
<N 5>
"Why did you have to run off in such a hurry last night? How long
have you been here this evening?"
"I was sorry I had to go. I came earl y this evening because they said
you might still be here." He spoke as one man to another.
<P 748>
"You must come and see me at Nijo~ sometime. It is a more comfortable
sort of place, and it seems to attract young people, I don't really know
why."
The stir had subsided. Sensing an intimate $$ tete-a-tete, the throngs
were withdrawing.
"So my brother, the crown prince, is letting you have a little time of
your own for a change? It used to be that he had to have you with him
every moment of the day. Does it make you a little jealous, that your sister
is occupying so much of his attention?"
"You are not to think I wanted it that way. If it had been you,
now-- Confidently he took a seat beside the prince.
"They insist on treating me like a child. If that is their view of me,
there is not much that I can do about it. Yet I cannot help being annoyed.
Perhaps you might remind another sister, the one whose rooms face east,
I am told, that we come from the same worn-out old family, and so
perhaps we might be friends."
It was the boy's opportunity to present the plum branch.
Niou smiled. "I am glad it is not a peace offering." He was delighted
with it. The scent and color and the distribution of the blossoms surpassed
anything he had seen in the palace gardens.
"I've heard it said that the rose plum puts everything into its color and
lets the white plum have all the perfume, but here we have color and
perfume all in the same blossoms."
The plum blossom had always been among his favorites. The boy was
delighted to have brought such pleasure.
"You are on duty this evening, I believe? Why don't you stay here
with me?"
And so the boy was not after all able to call on the crown prince. The
scent of the plum blossoms was rather overwhelmed by the scent from
Niou's robes. Lying beside him, the boy thought he had never met a more
charming gentleman.
"And my cousin, the mistress of your plums? Was she not invited
to come into the crown prince's service?"
"I don't think I've ever heard anyone mention it--but I did hear my
father say that the one who knows best knows best."
Niou's informants had apprised him of the fact that Ko~bai was more
concerned about his own daughter than Prince Hotaru's. Since she did not
happen to be Niou's favorite, he did not immediately answer Ko~bai's
poem.
Early the next morning he did have a poem ready for the boy to take
with him. It was not perhaps a very warm one.
<P 749>
"If I were one who followed inviting scents
Perhaps I might be summoned by the wind."
"Do not let yourself become involved in talks with the aged," he said
more than once to the boy. "Have a quiet talk with someone nearer your
own age."
These remarks had the effect of making the boy feel responsible for
his royal sister. His father's daughters were more open with him and
seemed more like sisters, and his childish view of the princess was almost
worshipful. Yes, he must find her a good husband. He wished well for all
his sisters, and the tasteful gaiety of the crown prince's household made
him think that the royal one among them had had very bad luck. How
good it would be to see her at Niou's side! The branch of plum blossoms
had produced most encouraging hints.
<N 6>
He delivered Niou's poem to his father.
"Not very friendly, I must say. But it is amusing to see what a prim
and proper face he is putting on for us. I suppose he is aware that Yu~giri
and all the rest of us think him a little too much of a ladies' man. The
primness does not accord very well with his talents in that direction."
If he was annoyed he quickly recovered, and today again got off a
friendly note:
"Ever fragrant, the royal sleeves touch the blossoms
And bring them into higher and higher repute.
"I must ask to be forgiven if I seem frivolous."
Perhaps, thought Niou, it was worth taking seriously. He answered:
"Were I to follow the fragrance of the blossoms,
Might I not be accused of wantonness?"
Ko~bai thought it a bit stiff, when things had been going so well.
<N 7>
Makibashira came home from court. "The boy seems to have spent
a night at the palace not long ago. When he left the next morning everyone
was admiring the marvelous perfume.'Aha,' said the crown prince,'he has
been with my brother Niou.' The crown prince is very quick in these
things. And that, he said, was why he was being neglected himself. We all
thought it very amusing. Had you written to Prince Niou? Somehow it
didn't seem as if you had."
"I had indeed. He has always been fond of plum blossoms, and the
rose plum is so unusually fine this year that I could not let the opportunity
pass. I broke off a branch and sent it to him. He gives off such an extraordi-
nary scent himself. I doubt that you could find in all the wardrobes of all
the grand ladies a robe with a finer scent burnt into it. With Lord Kaoru
it all comes naturally. He seems to have no interest at all in perfumes. It
is very curious, really--what do you suppose he has been up to in other
lives? One plum blossom may go by the same name as another, but it's the
<P 750>
roots that make all the difference. Prince Niou was kind enough to praise
this one of ours, and I must say that it deserves to be praised." So the plum
became his excuse for discussing Niou.
<N 8>
Prince Hotaru's daughter was old enough to know what was expected
of young ladies, and she took careful note of what went on around her.
She had evidently concluded with some firmness that marriage was not for
her. Men are easily swayed by power and prestige, and Ko~bai's daughters,
with their influential father behind them, had already had many earnest
proposals. The princess had lived a quiet, withdrawn sort of life by com-
parison. But Niou seemed to have decided that she was the one for him.
Ko~bai's son, now among his regular attendants, was kept busy delivering
secret notes.
Ko~bai had hopes of his own and watched for evidence that they had
been noticed. Indeed he was already making plans.
Makibashira thought him rather pathetic. "He has it all wrong. This
stream of letters might have some point if the prince were even a little
interested."
Niou was spurred to new efforts by the silence with which his notes
were greeted. Makibashira occasionally sought to coax an answer from her
daughter. Niou's prospects were bright and a girl could certainly do worse.
But the princess found it hard to believe that he was serious. He was
known to be keeping up numerous clandestine liaisons, and his trips to Uji
