9

It was now the Third Month. The cherries were in bud and then suddenly the sky was a storm of blossoms and falling petals. Young ladies who lived a secluded life were not likely to be charged with indiscretion if at this glorious time of the year they took their places out near the veranda. Tamakazura's daughters were perhaps eighteen or nineteen, beautiful and good-natured girls. The older sister had regular, elegant features and a sort of gay spontaneity which one wanted to see taken into the royal family itself. She was wearing a white cloak lined with red and a robe of russet with a yellow lining. It was a charming combination that went beautifully with the season, and there was a flair even in her way of quietly tucking her skirts about her that made other girls feel rather dowdy. The younger sister had chosen a light robe of pink, and the soft flow of her hair put one in mind of a willow tree. She was a tall, proud beauty with a face that suggested a meditative turn. Yet there were those who said that if an ability to catch and hold the eye was the important thing, then the older sister was the great beauty of the day.

They were seated at a Go board, their long hair trailing behind them. Their brother the chamberlain was seated near them, prepared if needed to offer his services as referee.

His brothers came in.

“How very fond they do seem to be of the child. They are prepared to submit their destinies to his mature judgment.”

Faced with this stern masculinity, the serving women brought them-selves to attention.

“I am so busy at the office,” said the oldest brother, “that I have quite abdicated my prerogatives here at home to our young lord chamberlain.”

“But my duties, I may assure you, are far more arduous,” said the second. “I am scarcely ever at home, and I have been pushed quite out of things.”

The young ladies were charming as they took a shy recess from their game.

“I often think when I am at work,” said the oldest brother, dabbing at his eyes, “how good it would be if Father were still with us.” He was twenty-seven or twenty-eight, and very handsome and well mannered. He wanted somehow to pursue his father's plans for the sisters.

Sending one of the women down into the garden, a veritable cherry orchard, he had her break off an especially fine branch.

“Where else do you find blossoms like these?” said one of the sisters, taking it up in her hand.

“When you were children you quarreled over that cherry. Father said it belonged to you” —and he nodded to his older sister— “and Mother said it belonged to _you_, and no one said it belonged to me. I did not exactly cry myself to sleep but I did feel slighted. It is a very old tree and it somehow makes me aware of how old I am getting myself. And I think of all the people who once looked at it and are no longer living.” By turns jocular and melancholy, the brothers paid a more leisurely visit than usual. The older brothers were married and had things to attend to, but today the cherry blossoms seemed important.

Tamakazura did not look old enough to have such fine sons. Indeed she still seemed in the first blush of maidenhood, not at all different from the girl the Reizei emperor had known. It was nostalgic affection, no doubt, that had led him to ask for one of her daughters.

Her sons did not think the prospect very exciting. “Present and im-mediate influence is what matters, and his great day is over. He is still very youthful and handsome, of course—indeed, it is hard to take your eyes from him. But it is the same with music and birds and flowers. Everything has its day, its time to be noticed. The crown prince, now—”

“Yes, I had thought of him,” said Tamakazura. “But Yu~giri's daughter dominates him so completely. A lady who enters the competition without very careful preparation and very strong backing is sure to find herself in trouble. If your father were still alive—no one could take responsibility for the distant future, of course, but he could at least see that we were off to a good start.” In sum, the prospect was discouraging.

When their brothers had left, the ladies turned again to the Go board. They now made the disputed cherry tree their stakes.

“Best two of three,” said someone.

They came out to the veranda as evening approached. The blinds were raised and each of them had an ardent cheering section. Yu~giri's son the lieutenant had come again to visit the youngest son of the house. The latter was off with his brothers, however, and his rooms were quiet. Finding an open gallery door, the lieutenant peered cautiously inside. An enchanting sight greeted him, like a revelation of the Blessed One himself (and it was rather sad that he should be so dazzled). An evening mist somewhat obscured the scene, but he thought that she in the red-lined robe of white, the “cherry” as it is called, must be the one who so interested him. Lovely, vivacious—she would be “a memento when they have fallen.” * He must not let another man have her. The young attendants were also very beautiful in the evening light.

The lady on the right was the victor. “Give a loud Korean cheer,” + said one of her supporters, and indeed they were rather noisy in their rejoicing. “It leaned to the west to show that it was ours all along, and you people refused to accept the facts.”

Though not entirely sure what was happening, the lieutenant would have liked to join them. Instead he withdrew, for it would not do to let them know that they had been observed in this happy abandon. Thereafter he was often to be seen lurking about the premises, hoping for another such opportunity.

The blossoms had been good for an afternoon, and now the stiff winds of evening were tearing at them.

Said the lady who had been the loser:

“They did not choose to come when I summoned them,

and yet I trmble to see them go away.” And her woman Saisho~, comfortingly:

“A gust of wind, and promptly they are gone.

My grief is not intense at the loss of such weaklings.”

And the victorious lady:

“These flowers must fall. It is the way of the world.

But do not demean the tree that came to me.”

And Tayu~, one of her women:

“You have given yourselves to us, and now you fall

At the water's edge. Come drifting to us as foam.”

A little page girl who had been cheering for the victor went down into the garden and gathered an armful of fallen branches.

“The winds have sent them falling to the ground,

But I shall pick them up, for they are ours.”

And little Nareki, a supporter of the lady who had lost:

“We have not sleeves that cover all the vast heavens.

We yet may wish to keep these fragrant petals.#

“Be ambitious, my ladies!”