5

The emperor had two ladies and there was no room for a third. Prince Hyo~bu's plans for sending his daughter to court had foundered. He could only hope that as the emperor grew older he would be in a more receptive mood.

The emperor loved art more than anything else. He loved to look at paintings and he painted beautifully. Akikonomu was also an accom-plished artist. He went more and more frequently to her apartments, where the two of them would paint for each other. His favorites among the young courtiers were painters and students of painting. It delighted him to watch this new lady, so beautiful and so elegant, casually sketching a scene, now and again pulling back to think the matter over. He liked her much better now.

To~ no Chu~jo~ kept himself well informed. A man of affairs who had strong competitive instincts, he was determined not to lose this competition. He assembled master painters and he told them exactly what he wanted, and gave them the best materials to work with. Of the opinion that illustrations for the works of established authors could always be counted on, he chose his favorites and set his painters to illustrating them. He also commissioned paintings of the seasons and showed considerable flair with the captions. The emperor liked them all and wanted to share his pleasure with Akikonomu; but To~ no Chu~jo~ objected. The paintings were not to leave the Kokiden apartments.

Genji smiled. “He was that way when he was a boy, and in many ways he still is a boy. I do not think it a very deft way to manage His Majesty. I'll send off my whole collection and let him do with it as he pleases.”

All the chests and bookcases at Nijo~ were ransacked for old paintings and new, and Genji and Murasaki sorted out the ones that best suited current fancies. There were interesting and moving pictures of those sad Chinese ladies Yang Kuei-fei and $$ Wang Chao-chun.* Genji feared, however, that the subjects were inauspicious.

Thinking this a good occasion to show them to Murasaki, he took out the sketchbooks and journals of his exile. Any moderately sensitive lady would have found tears coming to her eyes. For Murasaki those days had been unrelieved pain, not easily forgotten. Why, she asked, had he not let her see them before?

“Better to see these strands where the fishermen dwell

Than far away to weep, all, all alone.

“I think the uncertainty might have been less cruel.”

It was true.

“Now more than in those painful days I weep

As tracings of them bring them back to me.”

He must let Fujitsubo see them. Choosing the more presentable scrolls, the ones in which life upon those shores came forward most vividly, he could almost feel that he was back at Akashi once more.

Hearing of Genji's activities, To~ no Chu~jo~ redoubled his own efforts. He quite outdid himself with all the accessories, spindles and mountings and cords and the like. It was now the middle of the Third Month, a time of soft, delicious air, when everyone somehow seemed happy and at peace. It was also a quiet time at court, when people had leisure for these avocations. To~ no Chu~jo~ saw a chance to bring the young emperor to new raptures. He would offer his collection for the royal review.

Both in the Kokiden apartments and in Akikonomu's Plum Pavilion there were paintings in endless variety. Illustrations for old romances seemed to interest both painter and viewer. Akikonomu rather preferred secure and established classics, while the Kokiden girl chose the romances that were the rage of the day. To the casual observer it might have seemed perhaps that her collection was the brighter and the more stylish. Connoisseurs among the court ladies had made the appraisal of art their principal work.