Page:The Tale of Genji.pdf/188

182 instrument and it is unlikely that she has not inherited some of his skill.’ ‘Oh, I am afraid she is not worth your coming to hear,’ said Myōbu. ‘You are very discouraging,’ he answered, ‘but all the same I shall hide there one of these nights when the full moon is behind the clouds and listen to her playing; and you shall come with me.’ She was not best pleased; but just then even upon the busy Palace a springtime quiet seemed to have settled, and being quite at leisure she consented to accompany him. Her father’s house was at some distance from the town and for convenience he sometimes lodged in Prince Hitachi’s palace. Myōbo got on badly with her step-mother, and taking a fancy to the lonely princess’s quarters she kept a room there.

It was indeed on the night after the full moon, in just such a veiled light as Genji had spoken of, that they visited the Hitachi palace. ‘I am afraid,’ said Myōbu, ‘that it is not a very good night for listening to music; sounds do not seem to carry very well.’ But he would not be thus put off. ‘Go to her room’ he said, ‘and persuade her to play a few notes; it would be a pity if I went away without hearing her at all.’ Myōbu felt somewhat shy of leaving him like this in her own little private room. She found the princess sitting by the window, her shutters not yet closed for the night; she was enjoying the scent of a blossoming plum-tree which stood in the garden just outside. It did indeed seem just the right moment. ‘I thought how lovely your zithern would sound on such a night as this,’ she said, ‘and could not resist coming to see you. I am always in such a hurry, going to and from the Palace, that do you know I have never had time to hear you play. It is such a pity.’ ‘Music of this sort,’ she replied, ‘gives no pleasure to those who have not studied it. What do they care for such matters who all day long run hither and thither in the