Determined to possess him, she begins to study what it means to be human, performing the fox’s mysterious magic in order to have that which she most desires. Meanwhile, one of the foxes, a young female called Kitsune, is equally fascinated by the humans who have unexpectedly invaded her domain and falls in love with Yoshifuji. But Yoshifuji’s wife, Shikujo, fears the countryside, the foxes in particular, and their effect on her husband, whose erratic behaviour is becoming ever more incomprehensible to her. He is fascinated by the foxes who live in the garden, and who seem to represent the freedom which is missing from his own life, rigidly governed as it was by the protocols of court and city. Having inadvertently fallen from favour at court, Yoshifuji has returned to his neglected country estate to ponder his future. The world of the Japanese court is equally subtle, with a wealth of meaning made manifest in the manner of a gesture or the colour of a robe. In the fox’s world, nothing is ever quite as it seems. To the Japanese, the fox is a subtle creature, a shape-shifter, an illusionist whose magic is the stuff of deception.
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