6

The carolers were out this year.* They went from the main palace to the Suzaku Palace of the retired emperor and thence to Rokujo~. The way being a long one, it was dawn when they arrived. A moon hung in a cloudless sky and a light fall of snow set the garden off to weirdly delicate effect. Everyone wanted to be his best when he came to Rokujo~. It was an age well provided with fine musicians, and the sound of flute rang high through the grounds. Genji had invited all his ladies to watch, and there they all were along the east and west wings and galleries. Tamakazura had been invited to the south front of the main hall, where she was introduced to Genji's daughter. Murasaki watched from behind a curtain.

Dawn was already coming on as the carolers did honor to Kokiden, the mother of the Suzaku emperor. There should have been only light refreshments at Rokujo~, but Genji had in fact had an elaborate banquet set out. The moon was almost too bright in the dawn sky and there were snow flurries. A wind came down through the tall pines. The soft yellow-greens and whites of the carolers did nothing to break the cold, white calm, and the cloth posies in their caps, far from seeming to intrude with too much color, moved over the scene with a light grace such as to make the onlookers feel that years were being added to their lives. Yu~giri and To~ no Chu~jo~'s sons were the handsomest and proudest of the carolers. Day broke amid new flurries of snow, “Bamboo River” + fell on freezing air, and the dancing and the singing—I longed to paint the scene, though certain that my efforts must fall short of the actuality.

The sleeves emerging from the blinds as each of the ladies sought to outdo all the others made one think of a tapestry spread out in a spring haze. It was all quite magical, if in a very slightly unsettling way, the high caps so far from the ordinary and the noisy congratulations and all the trappings and appurtenances. The carolers went off in full daylight, bearing as always the evidences of Genji's munificence. The ladies dispersed. Genji lay down to rest, and arose when the sun was high.

“Yu~giri may have sung a little less well than Ko~bai,” # he said to Murasaki, “but only a very little. Ours is a good day for music. The ancients may have been better at scholarship and learning, but I think we more than hold our own in the gentler pursuits. I wanted to make a sober public servant of him and to keep him from wasting his time on the frivolities that took up so much of my own. But it is right that he should find time for them too. Unrelieved sobriety is itself an excess.”

In obvious pleasure at his son's performance, he interrupted himself to hum “The Delight of Ten Thousand Springs.” *

“We must arrange a day of music for ourselves. Our own private recessional.” +

He carefully undid the fine cloths in which the instruments had been stored away, and dusted and tuned them; and it would seem that the ladies were already hard at practice.

{Butterflies}