8

He went next to see the lady of the orange blossoms. Perhaps because the weather had suddenly turned chilly and she had not been expecting guests, her older women were at their sewing and her younger women were pressing bolts of cotton on long, narrow boxes of some description. Scattered about the room were red silks beaten to a soft luster and gossamers of a delicate saffron.

“Underrobes for Yu~giri? What a pity that you should have gone to so much trouble when the royal garden party is sure to be called off. Everything has been blown to pieces. We are going to have a wasted and unlovely sort of autumn.”

The fabrics were very beautiful indeed. She was every bit as accom-plished at this sort of thing as Murasaki. A cloth with a floral pattern, just out of the dyeing vats, was to become an informal court robe for Genji himself. The dyes, from new flowers, were excellent.

“It would suit Yu~giri better,” he said as he left. “It is a little too youthful for me.”