The nameless woman, sometimes called Lady Sarashina, who wrote the eleventh-century Heian memoir As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams, remembers what happened soon after she arrived as a young girl in the capitol Heian-kyo:
"As I was leaving she asked, 'What would you like as a present? I am sure you don't want anything too practical. I'd like to give you something you will really enjoy.' And so it was that she presented me with fifty-odd volumes of The Tale of Genji in a special case, together with copies of Zai, Togimi, Serikawa, Shirara, Asauzu, and many other tales. Oh, how happy I was when I came home with all these books in a bag!"
What bibliophile doesn't thrill with envious admiration at those words....
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