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20 lessons; her Majesty has merely picked up a little here and there, as she felt inclined. All the same, I have thought it best to say nothing about the matter to anybody. . . .'

We gather, however, that what in the long run made Akiko's Court distasteful to Murasaki was not the seriousness of the women so much as the coarseness and stupidity of the men. Michinaga, Akiko's father, was now forty-two. He had already been Prime Minister for some fourteen years, and had carried the fortunes of the Fujiwara family to their apogee. It is evident that he made love to Murasaki, though possibly in a more or less bantering way. In 1008 she writes: 'From my room beside the entrance to the gallery I can see into the garden. The dew still lies heavy and a faint mist rises from it. His Excellency is walking in the garden. Now he has summoned one of his attendants and is giving directions to him about having the moat cleared. In front of the orange trees there is a bed of lady-flowers (ominabeshi) in full bloom. He plucks a spray and returning to the house hands it to me over the top of my screen. He looks very magnificent. I remember that I have not yet powdered my face and feel terribly embarrassed. "Come now," he cries, "be quick with your poem, or I shall lose my temper." This at any rate gives me a chance to retire from his scrutiny; I go over to the writing-box and produce the following: "If these beyond other flowers are fair, 'tis but because the dew hath picked them out and by its power made them sweeter than the rest." "That's right," he said, taking the poem. "It did not take you long in the end." And sending for his own ink-stone he wrote the answer: "Dew favours not; it is the flower's thoughts that flush its cheeks and make it fairer than the rest."'

The next reference to Michinaga's relations with Murasaki