Page:The Tale of Genji.pdf/211

Rh understand why I was feeling rather uncomfortable. You may not believe it, but the princess means you to wear this jacket on New Year’s Day. I am afraid I cannot take it back to her; that would be too unkind. But if you like I will keep it for you and no one else shall see it. Only please, since it was to you that she sent, just have one look at it before it goes away.’ ‘But I should hate it to go away,’ said Genji; ‘I think it was so kind of her to send it.’ It was difficult to know what to say. Her poem was indeed the most unpleasant jangle of syllables that he had ever encountered. He now realized that the other poems must have been dictated to her, perhaps by Jijū or one of the other ladies. And Jijū too it must surely be who held the princess’s brush and acted as writing-master. When he considered what her utmost poetic endeavour would be likely to produce he realized that these absurd verses were probably her masterpiece and should be prized accordingly. He began to examine the parcel; Myōbu blushed while she watched him. It was a plain, old-fashioned, buff-coloured jacket of finely woven material, but apparently not particularly well cut or stitched. It was indeed a strange present, and spreading out her letter he wrote something carelessly in the margin. When Myōbu looked over his shoulder she saw that he had written the verse: ‘How comes it that with my sleeve I brushed this saffron-flower that has no loveliness either of shape or hue?’

What, wondered Myōbu, could be the meaning of this outburst against a flower? At last turning over in her mind the various occasions when Genji had visited the princess she remembered something which she had herself noticed one moonlit night, and though she felt the joke was rather unkind, she could not help being amused. With practised