But they had to have a good reason--a casual visit would not do.
What would it be? He remembered that the Suzaku emperor would soon
be entering his fiftieth year, and an offering of new herbs seemed appropri-
ate. He gave orders for dark robes and other things a hermit might need
and asked the advice of others on how to arrange something worthy of the
occasion. The Suzaku emperor had always been fond of music and so Genji
began selecting dancers and musicians. Two of Higekuro's sons and three
of Yu~giri's, including one by Koremitsu's daughter, had passed the age of
seven and gone to court. There were young people too in Prince Hotaru's
<P 598>
house and other eminent houses, princely and common, and there were
young courtiers distinguished for good looks and graceful carriage. Every-
one was happy to make an extra effort for so festive an event. All the
masters of music and dance were kept busy.
The Suzaku emperor had given the Third Princess lessons on the
seven-stringed Chinese koto. She was still very young when she left him,
however, and he wondered what progress she might have made.
"How good if she could play for me. Perhaps in that regard at least
she has grown up a little."
He quietly let these thoughts be known and the emperor heard of
them. "Yes, I should think that with the koto at least she should have made
progress. How I wish I might be there."
Genji too heard of them. "I have done what I can to teach her," he
said. "She has improved a great deal, but I wonder whether her playing
is really quite good enough yet to delight the royal ear. If she goes unpre-
pared and has to play for him, she might have a very uncomfortable time
of it."
Turning his attention now to music lessons, he kept back none of his
secrets, none of the rare strains, complex medleys, and seasonal variations
and tunings. She seemed uncertain at first but presently gathered confi-
dence.
"There are always such crowds of people around in the daytime," he
said. "You have your left hand poised over the koto and are wondering
what to do with it, and along comes someone with a problem. The evening
is the time. I will come in the evening when it is quiet and teach you
everything I know."
He had given neither Murasaki nor the Akashi princess lessons on the
seven-stringed koto. They were most anxious to hear what must certainly
be unusual playing. The emperor was always reluctant to let the Akashi
princess leave court, but he did finally give permission for a visit, which
must, he said, be a brief one. She would soon have another child--she had
two sons and was five months pregnant--and the danger of defiling any
one of the many Shinto observances was her excuse for leaving. In the
Twelfth Month there were repeated messages from the emperor urging her
return. The nightly lessons in the Third Princess's rooms fascinated her and
aroused a certain envy. Why, she asked Genji, had he not taken similar
troubles with her?
Unlike most people, Genji loved the cold moonlit nights of winter.
With deep feeling he played several songs that went well with the snowy
moonlight. Adepts among his men joined him on lute and koto. In Murasa-
ki's wing of the house preparations were afoot for the New Year. She made
them her own personal concern.
"When it is warmer," she said more than once, "you really must let
me hear the princess's koto."
The New Year came.
<P 599>
The emperor was determined that his father's jubilee year begin with
the most solemn and dignified ceremony. A visit from the Third Princess
would complicate matters, and so a date towards the middle of the Second
Month was chosen. All the musicians and dancers assembled for rehearsals
at Rokujo~, which went on and on.
"The lady in the east wing has long been after me to let her hear your
koto," said Genji to the Third Princess. "I think a feminine concert on
strings is what we want. We have some of the finest players of our day
right here in this house. They can hold their own, I am sure of it, with the
professionals. My own formal training was neglected, but when I was a
boy I was eager to learn what was to be learned. I had lessons from the
famous masters and looked into the secret traditions of all the great houses.
I came upon no one who exactly struck me dumb with admiration. It is
even worse today. Young people dabble at music and pick up mannerisms,
and what passes for music is very shallow stuff indeed. You are almost
alone in your attention to this seven-stringed koto. I doubt that we could
find your equal all through the court"
She smiled happily at the compliment. Though she was in her early
twenties and very pretty, she was tiny and fragile and still very much a
child. He wished that she might at least look a little more grown-up.
"Your royal father has not seen you in years," he would say. "You
must show him what a fine young lady you have become."
Her women silently thanked him. That she had grown up at all was
because of the trouble he had taken with her.
Late in the First Month the sky was clear and the breeze was warm,
and the plums near the veranda were in full bloom. In delicate mists, the
other flowering trees were coming into bud.
"From the first of the month we will be caught up in our final rehears-
als," said Genji, inviting Murasaki to the Third Princess's rooms. "The
confusion will be enormous, and we would not want it to seem that you
are getting ready to go with us on the royal visit. Suppose we have our
concert now, while it is still fairly quiet."
All her women wanted to come with her, but she selected only those,
including some of rather advanced years, whose aptitude for music had
been shaped by serious study. Four of her prettiest little girls were also
with her, all of them in red robes, cloaks of white lined with red, jackets
of figured lavender, and damask trousers. Their chemises were also red,
fulled to a high sheen. They were as pretty and stylish as little girls can
be. The apartments of the Akashi princess were more festive than usual,
bright with new spring decorations. Her women quite outdid themselves.
Her little girls too were in uniform dress, green robes, cloaks of pink lined
with crimson, trousers of figured Chinese satin, and jackets of a yellow
Chinese brocade. The Akashi lady had her little girls dressed in quiet but
unexceptionable taste: two wore rose plum and two were in white robes
<P 600>
lined with red, and all four had on celadon-green cloaks and purple jackets
and chemises aglow with the marks of the fulling blocks.
The Third Princess, upon being informed that she was to be hostess
to such a gathering, put her little girls into robes of a rich yellowish green,
white cloaks lined with green, and jackets of magenta. Though there was
nothing overdone about this finery, the effect was of remarkable richness
and elegance.
The sliding doors were removed and the several groups separated
from one another by curtains. A cushion had been set out for Genji himself
at the very center of the assembly. Out near the veranda were two little
boys charged with setting the pitch, Tamakazura's elder son on the _sho~_
pipes and Yu~giri's eldest on the flute. Genji's ladies were behind blinds
with their much-prized instruments set out before them in fine indigo
covers, a lute for the Akashi lady, a Japanese koto for Murasaki, a thirteen-
stringed Chinese koto for the Akashi princess. Worried lest the Third
Princess seem inadequate, Genji himself tuned her seven-stringed koto for
her.
"The thirteen-stringed koto holds its pitch on the whole well
enough," he said, "but the bridges have a way of slipping in the middle
of a concert. Ladies do not always get the strings as tight as they should.
Maybe we should summon Yu~giri. Our pipers are rather young, and they
may not be quite firm enough about bringing things to order."
Yu~giri's arrival put the ladies on their mettle. With the single excep-
tion of the Akashi lady they were all Genji's own treasured pupils. He
hoped that they would not shame him before his son. He had no fears
about the Akashi princess, whose koto had often enough joined others in
His Majesty's own presence. It was the Japanese koto that was most likely
to cause trouble. He felt for Murasaki, whose responsibility it would be.
Though it is a rather simple instrument, everything about it is fluid and
indefinite, and there are no clear guides. All the instruments of spring
were here assembled. It would be a great pity if any of them struck a sour
note.
Yu~giri was in dashingly informal court dress, the singlets and most
especially the sleeves very nicely perfumed. It was evening when he ar-
rived, looking a little nervous. The plums were so heavy with blossom in
the evening light that one might almost have thought that a winter snow
had refused to melt. Their fragrance mixed on the breeze with the wonder-
fully delicate perfumes inside the house to such enchanting effect that the
spring warbler might have been expected to respond immediately.
"I know I should let you catch your breath," said Genji, pushing a
thirteen-stringed koto towards his son, "but would you be so kind as to
try this out and see that it is in tune? There are no strangers here before
whom you need feel shy."
Bowing deeply (his manners were always perfect), Yu~giri tuned the
<P 601>
instrument in the _ichikotsu_ mode and waited politely for further instruc-
tions.
"You must get things started for us," said Genji. "No false notes, if
you please."
"I fear I do not have the qualifications to join you."
"I suppose not," smiled Genji. "But would you wish to have it said
that a band of ladies drove you away?"
Yu~giri played just enough to make quite sure the instrument was in
tune and pushed it back under the blinds.
The little boys were very pretty in casual court dress. Their playing
was of course immature, but it showed great promise.
The stringed instruments were all in tune and the concert began. Each
of the ladies did beautifully, but the lute somehow stood out from the
other instruments, sedately and venerably quiet and yet with great au-
thority. Yu~giri was listening especially for the japanese koto. The tone was
softly alluring and the plectrum caught at the strings with a vivacity which
seemed to him very novel. None of the professed masters could have done
better. He would not have thought that the Japanese koto had such life in
<P 602>
it. Clearly Murasaki had worked hard, and Genji was pleased and satisfied.
The thirteen-stringed Chinese koto, a gentle, feminine sort of instru-
ment, takes its place hesitantly and deferentially among the other instru-
ments. As for the seven-stringed koto, the Third Princess was not quite a
complete master yet, but her playing had an assurance that did justice to
her recent labors. Her koto took its place very comfortably among the
other instruments. Yes, thought Yu~giri, who beat time and sang the lyrics,
she had acquired a most admirable touch. Sometimes Genji too would beat
time with his fan and sing a brief passage. His voice had improved with
the years, filled out and taken on a dignity it had not had before. Yu~giri's
voice was almost as good. I would be very hard put indeed to describe the
pleasures of the night, which was somehow quieter as it filled with music.
It was the time of the month when the moon rises late. The flares at
the eaves were just right, neither too dim nor too strong. Genji glanced at
the Third Princess. She was smaller than the others, so tiny indeed that she
seemed to be all clothes. Hers was not a striking sort of beauty, but it was
marked by very great refinement and delicacy. One thought of a willow
sending forth its first shoots toward the end of the Second Month, so
delicate that the breeze from the warbler's wing seems enough to disar-
range them. The hair flowing over a white robe lined with red also sug-
gested the trailing strands of a willow. One knew that she was the most
wellborn of ladies. Beside her the Akashi princess seemed gentle and
delicate in a livelier, brighter way, and somehow deeper and subtler too,
trained to greater diversity. One might have likened her to a wisteria in
early morning, blooming from spring into summer with no other blossoms
to rival it. She was heavy with child and seemed uncomfortable. She
pushed her koto away and leaned forward on an armrest which, though
the usual size, seemed too large for her. Genji would have liked to send
for a smaller one. Her hair fell thick and full over rose plum. She had a most
winning charm in the soft, wavering light from the eaves.
Over a robe of pink Murasaki wore a robe of a rich, deep hue, a sort
of magenta, perhaps. Her hair fell in a wide, graceful cascade. She was of
just the right height, so beautiful in every one of her features that they
added up to more than perfection. A cherry in full bloom--but not even
that seemed an adequate simile.
One would have expected the Akashi lady to be quite overwhelmed
by such company, but she was not. Careful, conservative taste was evident
in her grooming and dress. One sensed quiet depths, and an ineffable
elegance which was all her own. She had on a figured "willow" robe, white
lined with green, and a cloak of a yellowish green, and as a mark of respect
for the other ladies, a train of a most delicate and yielding gossamer.
Everything about her emphasized her essential modesty and unassertive-
ness, but there was much that suggested depth and subtlety as well. Again
as a mark of respect, she knelt turned somewhat away from the others with
her lute before her and only her knees on the green Korean brocade with
