The girl squatted at the edge of the pool. Judging it presumptive to touch a gourd dipper that had been used by the senior editor, she rinsed herself by splashing up palmfuls of water in a foolish and ineffective manner. She was a scrawny little thing, with a concave chest and nipples still those of a child, the patch of shame hair at her little jade gate hardly more than a black tuft of floss. She crept forward then sank into the hot water, emitting strangled little gasps of dismay at the shock of the heat, two lines of snot leaking suddenly from her nostrils.

Ox-Blossom returned his attention to the silver river of stars flowing above them, the milky beauty of it flooding across the autumn night’s sky.

It’s lovely up here in the mountains, he said, and the fragrant princess responded with a constricted squeak of assent.

Had she been here before?

She had not.

Probably you are unfamiliar with such gatherings.

She was unfamiliar with all things.

So a new experience for you, Ox-Blossom said in an avuncular manner; and when they retired to his personal chambers and the quilts spread there for them, he gave her instructions and gently corrected infelicities; then once one thing had led successfully to another, he asked if she couldn’t stop snuffling at least long enough for him to fall asleep.

The battles that Ox-Blossom had anticipated were joined throughout the day of the final cull; he won some, he lost some, and some were left unresolved. With the content of the compendium largely determined, they could begin arranging the poems into sequences, a task that would take several more days, with the undecided submissions used to fill any gaps.

In a moment of hubris, Ox-Blossom told the fragrant princess that when he returned to Edo, she would come with him, attached to his entourage, and a place would be found for her at the Sotobayama Family Compound, with appropriate duties and an older member of the household staff instructed to look after her.

That was it. The simple clarity of an honest emotion. And he smiled to think that if he hadn’t lost his little peony girl, then such an understanding might never have occurred to him.

The banquet on that second night was as sumptuous as had been the one the night before; and the good humor shared among the editors was sincere, for the conservatives had found in Ox-Blossom a tractable Tokugawa bureaucrat who would yield when pressed. while Ox-Blossom himself felt that he had preserved enough of the poems in their Old Master’s late manner to satisfy the requirements of his obligation. Celebratory wine cups were exchanged again and again, with the pleasures providers scrambling to fill and refill them; and there was a point late in the evening when Ox‐Blossom suddenly grasped the truth of the manner of lightness. He sent for an inkstone and brush, and he retrieved the scroll of summer poems he had made with the peony girl and added a concluding stanza at the bottom:

Autumn twilight; no one shares the sadness of what’s been lost: silk robes draped forlornly on a pine tree.

That was it. The simple clarity of an honest emotion. He smiled to think that if he hadn’t lost his little peony girl, then such an understanding might never have occurred to him.

The fragrant princess gazed at her new benefactor from her place in the corner. Her coif was enhanced with a few additional silver baubles although her runny nose seemed unimproved, and he wondered for a moment if he hadn’t been a bit precipitous in taking her into his service although of course corrections would always be an option.