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      In Akikonomu's autumn garden the plantings were more beautiful by the day. All of the autumn colors were gathered together, and emphasized by low fences of black wood and red.* Though the flowers were familiar, they somehow seemed different here. The morning and evening dews were like gem-studded carpets. So wide that it seemed to merge with the autumn fields, this autumn garden made the women forget Murasaki's spring garden, which had so pleased them a few months before. They quite lost themselves in its cool beauties. The autumn side has always had the larger number of adherents in the ancient debate over the relative merits of spring and autumn. Women who had been seduced by the spring garden (so it is in this world) were now seduced by the autumn.

Akikonomu was in residence. Music seemed called for, but the anni-versary of her father's death came this Eighth Month. Though she was fearful for the well-being of her flowers as autumn deepened, they seemed only to be brighter and fresher. But then came a typhoon, more savage than in most years. Falling flowers are always sad, but to see the dews scatter like jewels from a broken strand was for her almost torment. The great sleeve which the poet had wanted as a defense against the spring winds+ she wanted against those of the autumn. The storm raged into the night, dark and terrible. Behind lowered shutters Akikonomu worried about her autumn flowers.