Page:A Wreath of Cloud.djvu/219

Rh whose windows looked out on to the courtyard where the dancing was to take place. Murasaki was their neighbour, being separated from them only by a curtain. After performing before the ex-Emperor the dancers had been summoned to give a second display in front of Kōkiden’s apartments. It was consequently even later than had been anticipated when they at last arrived. Before they danced, they had to be served with their ‘mummers’’ portions. It was expected that, considering the lateness of the hour, this part of the proceedings, with its curious rites and observances, would be somewhat curtailed. But on the contrary Genji insisted upon its being carried out with even more than the prescribed elaboration. A faint light was showing in the east, the moon was still shining, but it had begun to snow again, this time harder than ever. The wind, too, had risen; already the tree-tops were swaying, and it became clear that a violent storm was at hand. There was, in the scene that followed, a strange discrepancy; the delicate pale green cloaks of the mummers, lined with pure white, fluttered lightly, elegantly to the movements of the dance; while around them gathered the gloom and menace of the rising storm. Only the cotton plumes of their head-gear, stiff and in a way graceless as they were, seemed to concord with the place and hour. These, as they swayed and nodded in the dance, had a strangely vivid and satisfying beauty.

Among those who sang and played for the dancers Yūgiri and Tō no Chūjō’s sons took the lead. As daylight came the snow began to clear, and only a few scattered flakes were falling when through the cold air there rose the strains of Bamboo River. I should like to describe