If you cannot do without it, then at any rate be consistent and wear it over a dress of the same description. You cannot get yourself up in one style on top and another underneath.’ He had never spoken to her so bluntly before, but she only tittered slightly. ‘My brother Daigo no Azari,’ she said at last, ‘promised to look after those warm stuffs for me, and he carried them all off before I had time to make them into dresses. He even took away my sables.[1] I am so cold without them….’ Her brother evidently felt the cold even more than she did, and Genji imagined him with a very red nose indeed. Simplicity was no doubt an engaging quality; but really this lady carried it a little too far. However, with her it was certainly no affectation, and he answered good-humouredly: ‘As far as those sables are concerned, I am delighted to hear what has become of them. I always thought they were really meant to keep out the rain and snow. Next time your brother goes on a mountain pilgrimage…. But there is no need for you to shiver. You can have as much of this white material as you like, and there is nothing to prevent your wearing it sevenfold thick, if you find you cannot keep warm. Please always remind me of such promises. If I do not do things at once, I am apt to forget about them. My memory was never very good and I have always needed keeping up to the mark. But now that there are so many conflicting claims upon my time and attention, nothing gets done at all unless I am constantly reminded….’ And thinking it safest to act while the matter was still in his mind, he sent a messenger across to the New Palace for a fresh supply of silks and brocades.
The Nijō-in was kept in perfect order and repair; but the fact that it was no longer the main residence somehow or other gave it an air of abandonment and desolation.
- ↑ See vol. i, p. 200.
