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      Genji was immersed in preparations for his daughter's initiation ceremonies. Similar ceremonies were to be held for the crown prince in the Second Month. The girl was to go to court immediately afterwards.

It was now the end of the First Month. In his spare time Genji saw to blending the perfumes she would take with her. Dissatisfied with the new ones that had come from the assistant viceroy of Kyushu,* he had old Chinese perfumes brought from the Nijo~ storehouses.

“It is with scents as with brocades: the old ones are more elegant and congenial.

Then there were cushions for his daughter's trousseau, and covers and trimmings and the like. New fabrics did not compare with the damasks and red and gold brocades which an embassy had brought from Korea early in his father's reign. He selected the choicest of them and gave the Kyushu silks and damasks to the serving women.

He laid out all the perfumes and divided them among his ladies. Each of them was to prepare two blends, he said. At Rokujo~ and elsewhere people were busy with gifts for the officiating priests and all the important guests. Every detail, said Genji, must be of the finest. The ladies were hard at work at their perfumes, and the clatter of pestles was very noisy indeed.

Setting up his headquarters in the main hall, apart from Murasaki, Genji turned with great concentration to blending two perfumes the for-mulas for which—how can they have come into his hands?—had been handed down in secret from the day of the emperor Nimmyo~.* In a deeply curtained room in the east wing Murasaki was at work on blends of her own, after the secret Hachijo~ tradition.+ The competition was intense and the security very strict.

“Let the depths and shallows be sounded,” said Genji solemnly, “before we reach our decisions.” His eagerness was so innocent and boyish that few would have taken him for the father of the initiate.

The ladies reduced their staffs to a minimum and let it be known that they were not limiting themselves to perfumes but were concerned with accessories too. They would be satisfied with nothing but the best and most original jars and boxes and censers.

They had exhausted all their devices and everything was ready. Genji would review the perfumes and seal the best of them in jars.