RED PLUM

“They say the red plum that sets off a garden is all color but lacks the scent of the white, but these flowers are magnificent in both ways!” He was very fond of plum blossoms, and he granted these gratifying praise.

“I believe that you are on duty tonight. Just stay with me, then.” He would not dismiss the boy, who thus failed to go to the Heir Apparent’s at all. Instead he took supreme and childlike pleasure in lying beside His Highness, by His Highness’s own wish, enveloped in a marvelous fragrance that all but put the blossoms’ scent to shame.

(The Tale of Genji, chap. 43, pp. 799-800)