Read it through once

‘Would that, like the smoke of the watch-fires that mounts and vanishes at random in the empty sky, the smouldering flame of passion could burn itself away!’ So she recited, adding: ‘I do not know what has come over you. Please leave me at once or people will think....’ ‘As you wish,’ he answered, and was stepping into the courtyard, when he heard a sound of music in the wing occupied by the Lady from the Village of Falling Flowers. Some one seemed to be playing the flute to the accompaniment of a Chinese zithern. No doubt Yūgiri was giving a small party. The flute-player could be none other than Tō no Chūjō’s eldest son Kashiwagi; for who else at Court performed with such marvellous delicacy and finish? How pleasant would be the effect, thought Genji, if they would consent to come and give a serenade by the streamside, in the subdued light of those flickering torches! ‘I long to join you,’ he wrote, ‘but, could you see the pale, watery shadows that the watch-flares are casting here in the garden of the western wing, you would know why I am slow to come....’ He sent this note to Yūgiri, and presently three figures appeared out of the darkness. ‘I should not have sent for you,’ he called to them, ‘had you not played “The Wind’s voice tells me....” It is a tune that I can never resist.’ So saying he brought out his own zithern. When he had played for a while, Yūgiri began to improvise on his flute in the Banshiki mode.[189] Kashiwagi attempted to join in, but his thoughts were evidently employed elsewhere,[190] for again and again he entered at the wrong beat. ‘Too late,’ cried Genji, and at last Kōbai was obliged to keep his brother in measure by humming the air in a low monotone like the chirping of a meditative grasshopper. Genji made them go through the piece twice, and then handed his zithern to Kashiwagi. It was some while since he had heard the boy play and he now observed with delight that his talent was not by any means confined to wind-instruments. ‘You could have given me no greater pleasure,’ he said, when the piece was over. ‘Your father is reckoned a fine performer on the zithern; but you have certainly more than overtaken him.... By the way, I should have cautioned you that there is some one seated just within who can probably hear all that is going on out in this portico. So to-night there had better not be too much drinking. Do not be offended, for I was really thinking more of myself than of you. Now that I am getting on in years I find wine far more dangerous than I used to. I am apt to say the most indiscreet things....’