During retreats of this kind, or indeed whenever I am away from home, I do not find it sufficient merely to have grooms and servants with me. One needs several companions of one’s own class, who are pleased by the same things as oneself—indeed, it is as well to bring with one as many friends as possible. There may among one’s maids be some who are less tiresome than the rest. But on the whole one knows all their opinions too well.

Gentlemen appear to share my feelings about this question; for I notice they always make up an agreeable party beforehand, when they are going on pilgrimage to a temple....

Often the common people who come to Hasedera show a gross lack of respect for the better sort of visitors, lining up in front of one’s pew (tsubone) so close that they brush one with the tails of their coats. There comes on me sometimes a strong desire to make this pilgrimage, and then when I have braved the terrifying noise of the waters, struggled up the dangerous causeway, and pressed into my seat, impatient to gaze at last upon the glorious countenance of Buddha, it is exasperating to find my view barred by a parcel of common white-robed priests and country-people, swarming like caterpillars, who plant themselves there without the slightest regard for those behind them. Often, while they were performing their prostrations, I have come near to rolling them over sideways!

When very grand people come, steps are taken to keep a clear space in front of them. But, of course, for ordinary people they won’t take the trouble to interfere. If one sends for some priest with whom one has influence and asks him to speak, he will sometimes go so far as to say, ‘Would you mind making a little more room there, please?’ But the moment his back is turned, it is as bad as before.

Shōnagon records that once when she was attending a great service at the Bodai Temple, someone sent her a note saying, ‘Come back at once. I am very lonely.’ ‘As a matter of fact,’ she tells us, ‘I was at the moment so much worked up by what was going on around me, that I had quite made up my mind never to quit the place again (to become a nun); and I cared as little as old Hsiang Chung[77] whether people at home were waiting for me.

A Recitant[78] ought to be good-looking. It is only if it is a pleasure to keep one’s eyes on him all the time that there is any chance of religious feeling (tōtosa) being aroused. Otherwise one begins looking at something else and soon one’s attention wanders from what he is reading; in which case ugliness becomes an actual cause of sin.

(Written later)

The time has come for me to stop putting down ideas of this kind. Now that I am getting to be a good[79] age, and so on, it frightens me to discover that I ever wrote such blasphemous stuff. I remember that whenever any priest was reported to be of particular piety I would rush off immediately to the house where he was giving his readings. If this was the state of mind in which I arrived, I see now that I should have done better to stay away.

Retired Chancellors ... finding time lie heavy on their hands, often go once or twice to services of this kind. Soon the habit grows upon them, and they will come even in the hottest days of summer, vaunting conspicuous under-jackets and light purple or blue-grey trousers; and often one will see one of them there with a taboo-ticket[80] in his cap, apparently in the belief that the sanctity of the performance he is attending is such as to excuse him from any of the observances proper to this particular day. He bustles in, makes some remark to the holy man who is occupied with the service, but even while he is doing so continually casts back glances at some ladies who are just being deposited from their carriage, and indeed seems ready to take an interest in anything that turns up. Presently he discovers in the audience some friend whom he has not seen for a long time, and with many exclamations of astonishment and delight comes across and sits next to him. Here he chats, nods, tells funny stories, opens his fan wide and titters behind it, rattles a string of dandified beads, fiddles with his hands, and all the while looks round in every direction. He discusses what sort of carriages the people come in, finding fault with some and praising others, compares the services held recently at various houses—an Eight Recitations at so-and-so’s, a Dedication of Scriptures given by someone else—and all this while he does not hear a word of what the priest is reading. And indeed, it would not interest him much if he did; for he has heard it all so often that it could no longer possibly make any impression upon him.

Stray Notes

One writes a letter, taking particular trouble to get it up as prettily as possible; then waits for the answer, making sure every moment that it cannot be much longer before something comes. At last, frightfully late, is brought in—one’s own note, still folded or tied exactly as one sent it, but so finger-marked and smudged that even the address is barely legible. ‘The family is not in residence,’ the messenger says, giving one back the note. Or ‘It is his day of observance and they said they could not take any letters in.’ Such experiences are dismally depressing.

One has been expecting someone, and rather late at night there is a stealthy tapping at the door. One sends a maid to see who it is, and lies waiting, with some slight flutter of the breast. But the name one hears when she returns is that of someone completely different, who does not concern one at all. Of all depressing experiences, this is by far the worst.

Someone comes, with whom one has decided not to have further dealings. One pretends to be fast asleep, but some servant or person connected with one comes to wake one up, and pulls one about, with a face as much as to say ‘What a sleep-hog!’ This is always exceedingly irritating.

If someone with whom one is having an affair keeps on mentioning some woman whom he knew in the past, however long ago it is since they separated, one is always irritated.

It is very tiresome when a lover who is leaving one at dawn says that he must look for a fan or pocket-book that he left somewhere about the room last night. As it is still too dark to see anything, he goes fumbling about all over the place, knocking into everything and muttering to himself, ‘How very odd!’ When at last he finds the pocket-book he crams it into his dress with a great rustling of the pages; or if it is a fan he has lost, he swishes it open and begins flapping it about, so that when he finally takes his departure, instead of experiencing the feelings of regret proper to such an occasion, one merely feels irritated at his clumsiness....

It is important that a lover should know how to make his departure. To begin with, he ought not to be too ready to get up, but should require a little coaxing: ‘Come, it is past daybreak. You don’t want to be found here ...’ and so on. One likes him, too, to behave in such a way, that one is sure he is unhappy at going and would stay longer if he possibly could. He should not pull on his trousers the moment he is up, but should first of all come close to one’s ear and in a whisper finish off whatever was left half-said in the course of the night. But though he may in reality at these moments be doing nothing at all, it will not be amiss that he should appear to be buckling his belt. Then he should raise the shutters, and both lovers should go out together at the double-doors, while he tells her how much he dreads the day that is before him and longs for the approach of night. Then, after he has slipped away, she can stand gazing after him, with charming recollections of those last moments. Indeed, the success of a lover depends greatly on his method of departure. If he springs to his feet with a jerk and at once begins fussing round, tightening in the waist-band of his breeches, or adjusting the sleeves of his Court robe, hunting-jacket or what not, collecting a thousand odds and ends, and thrusting them into the folds of his dress, or pulling in his over-belt—one begins to hate him.

I like to think of a bachelor—an adventurous disposition has left him single—returning at dawn from some amorous excursion. He looks a trifle sleepy; but, as soon as he is home, draws his writing-case towards him, carefully grinds himself some ink and begins to write his next-morning letter—not simply dashing off whatever comes into his head, but spreading himself to the task and taking trouble to write the characters beautifully. He should be clad in an azalea-yellow or vermilion cloak worn over a white robe. Glancing from time to time at the dewdrops that still cling to the thin white fabric of his dress, he finishes his letter, but instead of giving it to one of the ladies who are in attendance upon him at the moment, he gets up and, choosing from among his page-boys one who seems to him exactly appropriate to such a mission, calls the lad to him, and whispering something in his ear puts the letter in his hand; then sits gazing after him as he disappears into the distance. While waiting for the answer he will perhaps quietly murmur to himself this or that passage from the Sūtras. Presently he is told that his washing-water and porridge are ready, and goes into the back room, where, seated at the reading-table, he glances at some Chinese poems, now and then reciting out loud some passage that strikes his fancy. When he has washed and got into his Court cloak, which he wears as a dressing-gown (without trousers), he takes the 6th chapter of the Lotus Scripture and reads it silently. Precisely at the most solemn moment of his reading—the place being not far away—the messenger returns, and by his posture it is evident that he expects an instant reply. With an amusing if blasphemous rapidity the lover transfers his attention from the book he is reading to the business of framing his answer.

One day when the Lord Abbot[81] was visiting his sister, the Mistress of the Robes, in her apartment, there came a fellow to her balcony, saying, ‘A terrible thing has happened to me, and I don’t know where to go and complain.’ He seemed to be on the verge of tears. ‘What is the matter?’ we asked him. ‘I was obliged to leave home for a little while,’ he replied, ‘and while I was away my miserable house was burnt to the ground. For days past I have been living on charity, squeezed into other people’s houses, like a gōna[82] in an oyster-shell. The fire began in one of the hay-lofts belonging to the Imperial Stables. There is only a thin wall between, and the young lads sleeping in my night-room came near to being roasted alive. They didn’t manage to save a thing.’

The Mistress of the Robes laughed heartily at this, and I, seizing a slip of paper, wrote the poem: ‘If the sunshine of Spring was strong enough to set the royal fodder ablaze, how could you expect your night-room to be spared?’[83] I tossed this to him, amid roars of laughter on the part of the other gentlewomen, one of whom said to the man, ‘Here’s a present from someone who is evidently much upset at your house having been burnt down.’ ‘What’s the use of a poem-slip to me?’ he asked. ‘It won’t go far towards paying for the things I’ve lost.’ ‘Read it first!’ said someone. ‘Read it, indeed!’ he said. ‘I would gladly, if I knew so much as half a letter....’ ‘Well then, get someone to read it to you,’ said the same lady. ‘The Empress has sent for us and we must go to her at once. But with a document such as that in your hands, you may be certain that your troubles are over.’ At this there were roars of laughter. On our way to the Empress’s rooms, we wondered whether he really would show it to anyone, and whether he would be very furious when he heard what it was.

We told her Majesty the story, and there was a lot more laughing, in which the Empress joined. But she said afterwards that we all seemed to her completely mad.

Pretty Things

The face of a child that has its teeth dug into a melon.

A baby sparrow hopping towards one when one calls ‘chu, chu’ to it; or being fed by its parents with worms or what not, when one has captured it and tied a thread to its foot.

A child of three or so, that scurrying along suddenly catches sight of some small object lying on the ground, and clasping the thing in its pretty little fingers, brings it to show to some grown-up person.

A little girl got up in cloister-fashion[84] tossing back her head to get the hair away from her eyes when she wants to look at something.

Children

A child of four or five comes in from a neighbour’s house and gets into mischief, taking hold of one’s things, throwing them about all over the room, and perhaps breaking them. One keeps on scolding the creature and pulling things out of its hands, and at last it is beginning to understand that it cannot have everything its own way, when in comes the mother, and knowing that it will now get its way the child points at something that has taken its fancy, crying ‘Mama, show me this!’ and tugs at the mother’s skirts. ‘I am talking to grown-up people,’ she says, and takes no more notice. Whereupon the child, after pulling everything about, finally extracts the object it coveted. At this the mother just says ‘Naughty!’ without making any attempt to take the thing away and put it into safety; or perhaps, ‘Don’t do that; you’re spoiling it,’ but evidently more amused than angry. One dislikes the parent as much as the child. It is indeed agonizing to stand by and see one’s possessions submitted to such treatment.

Among ‘embarrassing things,’ Shōnagon mentions ‘An unpleasant-looking child being praised and petted by parents who see it not as it is but as they would like it to be. Having to listen while its parents repeat to one the things the child has said, imitating its voice.’

And again, ‘Sometimes when in the course of conversation I have expressed an opinion about someone and perhaps spoken rather severely, a small child has overheard me and repeated the whole thing to the person in question. This may get one into a terrible fix....

I have the same feeling if someone is telling me a sad story. I see the tears in his eyes and do indeed agree that what he says is very sad; but somehow or other my own tears will not flow. It is no use trying to contort one’s face into an expression of woe; in fact, nothing is any good.

Of the gentlewomen’s apartments attached to the Empress’s own quarters, those along the Narrow Gallery are the most agreeable. When the wooden blinds[85] at the top are rolled up, the wind blows in very hard, and it is cool even in summer. In winter, indeed, snow and hail often come along with the wind; but even so, I find it very agreeable. As the rooms have very little depth and boys,[86] even when so near to the Imperial apartments, do not always mind their manners, we generally ensconce ourselves behind screens, where the quiet is delightful, for there is none of the loud talk and laughter that disturb one in other quarters of the Palace.

I like the feeling that one must always be on the alert. And if this is true during the day, how much more so at night, when one must be prepared for something to happen at any moment. All night long one hears the noise of footsteps in the corridor outside. Every now and then the sound will cease in front of some particular door, and there will be a gentle tapping, just with one finger; but one knows that the lady inside will have instantly recognized the knock. Sometimes, this soft tapping lasts a long while; the lady is no doubt pretending to be asleep. But at last comes the rustle of a dress or the sound of someone cautiously turning on her couch, and one knows that she has taken pity on him.

In summer she can hear every movement of his fan, as he stands chafing outside; while in winter, stealthily though it be done, he will hear the sound of someone gently stirring the ashes in the brazier, and will at once begin knocking more resolutely, or even asking out loud for admittance. And while he does so, one can hear him squeezing up closer and closer against the door.

In the fifth month I love driving out to some mountain village. The pools that lie across the road look like patches of green grass; but while the carriage slowly pushes its way right through them, one sees that there is only a scum of some strange, thin weed, with clear, bright water underneath. Though it is quite shallow, great spurts fly up as our horsemen gallop across, making a lovely sight. Then, where the road runs between hedges, a leafy bough will sometimes dart in at the carriage window; but however quickly one snatches at it, one is always too late.

Sometimes a spray of yomogi will get caught in the wheel, and for a moment, as the wheel brings it level, a delicious scent hovers at our window.

I love to cross a river in very bright moonlight and see the trampled water fly up in chips of crystal under the oxen’s feet.

In the second month something happens in the Hall of the Grand Council. I really don’t know exactly what it is, but they call it the Tests.[87] About the same time there is a thing they call the Shakuden. I believe it is then that they hang up Kuji[88] and the rest. They also present something called the Sōmei to the Emperor and Empress. It comes in a stone pot and includes some very queer stuff.

People value sympathy more than anything in the world. This is particularly true of men; but I do not exclude women. One always regrets an unkind remark, even if it was obviously quite unintentional; and it is easy, without entering very deeply into someone else’s sorrow, to say ‘How unfortunate!’ if the situation is indeed unfortunate, or ‘I can imagine what he is going through,’ if the person in question is likely to be much perturbed. And this works even better if one’s remark is made to someone else and repeated than if it is heard at first hand.

One ought always to find some way of letting people know that one has sympathized. With one’s relations and so on, who expect fond inquiries, it is difficult to get any special credit. But a friendly remark to someone who sees no reason to expect it is always certain to give pleasure. This all sounds very easy and obvious; but surprisingly few people put it into practice. It seems as though people with nice feelings must necessarily be silly, and clever people must always be ill-natured, men and women too. But I suppose really there must be lots of nice, clever people, if only one knew them.

Features that one particularly likes continue to give one the same thrill of pleasure every time one looks at a face. With pictures it is different; once we have seen them a certain number of times, they cease to interest us; indeed, the pictures on a screen that stands close to your usual seat, however beautiful they may be, you will never so much as glance at!

Again, an object (such as a fan, mirror, vase) may be ugly in general, but have some particular part which we can look at with pleasure. Faces do not work like this; they affect us disagreeably unless they can be admired as a whole.

[Plan for a Story]

A young man, who has lost his mother. The father is very fond of him, but marries again. The stepmother is very disagreeable, and the young man ceases to have any dealings with her part of the house. There is a difficulty about his clothes; they have to be mended by his old nurse or perhaps by a maid who used to be in the mother’s service. He is given quarters in one of the wings, as though he were a guest, with pictures on the screens and panels, by first-rate masters too. At Court he cuts a very good figure and is liked by everyone. The Emperor takes quite a fancy to him and is always sending for him to join in concerts and so on. But the young man is always depressed, feels out of place, and discontented with his mode of life. His nature must be amorous to the verge of eccentricity. He has an only sister, married to one of the highest noblemen in the land, who dotes upon her and gratifies her every whim. To this sister the young man confides all his thoughts, finding in her society his greatest consolation.

Things that make one Happy

Getting hold of a lot of stories none of which one has read before.

Or finding Vol. 2 of a story one is in a great state of excitement about, but was previously only able to secure the first volume. However, one is often disappointed.

To pick up a letter that someone has torn up and thrown away, and find that one can fit the pieces together well enough to make sense.

When one has had a very upsetting dream and is sure it means that something disagreeable is going to happen, it is delightful to be told by the interpreter[89] that it does not signify anything in particular.

Things that give me an Uncomfortable Feeling

A child that has been brought up by a nasty foster-mother. Of course, this is not its fault. But somehow one always thinks of its connexion with such a person as a disagreeable quality in the child itself. ‘I can’t understand why it is’ (says the foster-mother to the father of the child) ‘that you should be so fond of all the other young gentlemen, and yet seem to take no trouble about this child and even to hate the sight of it.’

She speaks in loud tones of indignation. Probably the child does not understand exactly what is being said; but it runs to the woman’s knees and bursts into tears.

Another thing that makes me feel uncomfortable is when I have said I do not feel well and some girl of whom I am not very fond comes and lies by me, brings me things to eat, pities me, and without any response on my part, begins following me about and continually coming to my assistance.

Toothache

A girl of seventeen or eighteen with very beautiful hair, which she wears down her back, spreading in a great, bushy mass; she is just nicely plump, and has a very pale skin. One can see that she is really very pretty; but at the moment she has toothache very badly, her fringe is all drabbled with tears and (though she is quite unconscious of the fact) her long locks are dangling in great disorder. Her cheek, where she has been pressing it with her hand, is flushed crimson, which has a very pretty effect.

Illness

It is the eighth month. A girl is wearing an unlined robe of soft white stuff, full trousers, and an aster[90] mantle thrown across her shoulders with very gay effect. But she has some terrible malady of the chest. Her fellow ladies-in-waiting come in turns to sit with her, and outside the room there is a crowd of very young men inquiring about her with great anxiety: ‘How terribly sad!’ ‘Has she ever had such an attack before?’ and so on. With them no doubt is her lover, and he, poor man, is indeed beside himself with distress. But as likely as not it is a secret attachment, and, fearful of giving himself away, he hangs about on the outskirts of the group, trying to pick up news. His misery is a touching sight.

Now the lady binds back her beautiful long hair and raises herself on her couch in order to spit, and harrowing though it is to witness her pain, there is even now a grace in her movements that makes them pleasurable to watch. The Empress hears of her condition and at once sends a famous reciter of the Scriptures, renowned for the beauty of his voice, to read at her bedside. The room is in any case very small, and now to the throng of visitors is added a number of ladies who have simply come to hear the reading. It is impossible to accommodate them all behind the screens-of-state. At this exposed bevy of young women the priest constantly glances while he reads, for which he will certainly suffer in the life to come.

A house with tall pine-trees all round it. The courtyards are spacious, and as all the kōshi[91] are raised, the place has a cool, open look. In the main room there is a four-foot screen, with a hassock in front of it, on which is seated a priest about thirty years old or a little more. He himself is by no means ill-looking; but what strikes one most is the extreme elegance of his brown robe and mantle of thin lustrous silk. He is reciting the spells of the Thousand-Handed One, fanning himself meanwhile with a clove-dyed fan.

Within must lie a person gravely afflicted by some kind of possession; for presently there edges her way out from the inner room a rather heavily built girl, who is evidently going to act as ‘medium.’[92] She has fine hair, and is undeniably a handsome creature. She is dressed in an unlined robe of plain silk and light-coloured trousers. When she has seated herself in front of a little three-foot screen placed at right-angles to that of the priest, he wheels round and puts into her hand a minute, brightly polished rod. Then in sudden spasms of sound, with eyes tightly shut, he reads the Spell, which is certainly very impressive. A number of gentlewomen have come out from behind the curtains and stand watching in a group.

Before long a shiver runs through the medium’s limbs and she falls into a trance. It is indeed extraordinary to watch the priest at work and see how stage by stage his incantations take effect. Behind the medium is ... a slim boy in his teens (perhaps her brother), with some of his friends. From time to time they fan her. Their attitude is quiet and reverent; but if she were conscious, how upset she would be to expose herself thus in front of her brother’s friends! Though one knows that she is not really suffering, one cannot help being distressed by her continual wailing and moaning. Indeed, some of the sick woman’s friends, feeling sorry for the medium, creep up to the edge of her screen and try to arrange her disordered clothing in a more decent way.

After a while it is announced that the sick woman is somewhat better. Hot water and other necessaries are brought along from the back of the house by a succession of young maids, who, tray in hand, cannot forbear to cast a hurried glance in the direction of the holy man.... At last, at the hour of the Monkey (4 p.m.), having reduced the possessing spirit to an abject condition, the priest dismisses it. On coming to, the medium is amazed to find herself outside the screen, and asks what has been happening. She feels terribly ashamed and embarrassed, hides her face in her long hair, and glides swiftly towards the women’s quarters. But the priest stops her for a moment, and, having performed a few magic passes, says to her, with a familiar smile that she finds very disconcerting, ‘That’s right! Now you’re quite yourself again, aren’t you?’ Then he turns to the others and says: ‘I would stay a little longer, but I am afraid I am at the end of my free time....’ He is about to leave the house; but they stop him, crying: ‘We should like so much to make an offering. Perhaps you would tell us....’ He takes no notice and is hurrying away, when a lady of good birth, possibly one of the daughters of the house, comes up to the curtains that screen off the women’s quarters and bids her servants tell the holy man that, thanks to his merciful condescension in visiting the house, the sick woman’s sufferings had been much relieved, for which they all wished to thank him from the bottom of their hearts. Would he have time to come again to-morrow? ‘The disorder,’ says he, ‘is of a very obstinate nature, and I do not think it would be safe to leave off. I am very glad that what I have done has already had some effect.’ And without another word he goes away, making everyone feel as though the Lord Buddha himself had been with them in the house.

In the eighth month of 998, at the time of her second confinement, the Empress went to stay with Taira no Narimasa,[93] the Superintendent of her Household, bringing with her Princess Osako, her first child. The Imperial Litter, writes Shōnagon, was carried in at the east gate, which had been rebuilt on purpose. But we ladies were driven round to the small north gate. We did not think there would be anyone on duty at the guard-house, and some of us had let our hair get into great disorder. We had, indeed, taken for granted that we should be brought right up to the house itself, so that it would not matter if we arrived rather untidy. Unfortunately the gate was so small that our carriages, with their high awnings, could not go through. Matting was laid down for us from here to the house, and in a very bad temper we all got out and walked. So far from being deserted, the guard-house was full of courtiers and servants, who stared in a way that was very annoying. I told the Empress about this and she said, laughing, ‘There are people here too with eyes in their heads! I do not know why you should suddenly become so careless.’ ‘But we had the carriages all to ourselves,’ I said, ‘and it would have seemed very odd if we had begun fussing about how we looked. Any way, at a house such as this surely all the gates ought to be big enough to admit a carriage! I shall make fun of him about it when he comes.’ At this moment Narimasa did indeed arrive, carrying an inkstand, which he begged me to accept for her Majesty’s use. ‘We are not best pleased with you,’ I said. ‘Why do you live in a house with such small gates?’ ‘I am a person of small importance,’ he answered, smiling, ‘and my gates are built to match.’ ‘Is there not a story about someone who increased the height of his gate?’ I asked. This seemed to surprise him. ‘I know what you are thinking of,’ he said. ‘The story of Yü Ting-kuo. But pardon me, I thought that only musty old scholars knew of such things. Even I should not have understood you, did I not happen to have strayed a little in those paths myself.’[94] ‘Paths indeed!’ I exclaimed. ‘I do not think much of your paths. The matting got buried in them and we fell about in every direction. An appalling scene....’

‘There has been a lot of rain,’ he said. ‘I am sure you did. Well, well; you’ll be saying something else unpleasant in a minute. I am going,’ and off he went. ‘What happened?’ asked the Empress. ‘You seem to have frightened Narimasa away.’ ‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘I was only telling him how we could not get through the north gate.’ Then I went to my own room.

I shared it with several of the younger girls. We were all so tired that we did not bother about anything, and went straight to sleep. Our room was in the east wing, and had a sliding door leading into the passage under the eaves at the back of the building. The bolt of this door was missing, but we did not notice it. Our host, however, who was naturally familiar with the peculiarities of the house, presently came to the door, and, pushing it open an inch or two, said in a queer, hollow voice: ‘May one venture?’ This he repeated several times. I opened my eyes, and there he was, standing behind a chink that was now about five inches wide. No doubt about who it was, for he happened to be in the full glare of a lamp we had put behind our screen. It was really very funny. In an ordinary way he was the last person in the world to take liberties; but he apparently had some curious idea that having the Empress in his house entitled him to treat the other guests as he pleased. ‘Look what is there!’ I cried, waking the girl next to me. ‘Would you ever have expected it?’ At this they all raised their heads, and, seeing him still standing at the door, burst into fits of laughter. ‘Who goes there?’ I challenged him at last. ‘Show yourself!’ ‘It’s the master of the house,’ he answered, ‘come to have a word with the lady in charge.’ ‘It was your gate I complained of,’ I said. ‘I never suggested that our door needed attention.’ ‘Yes, yes,’ he answered, ‘it is just that business of the gate that I have come about. Might I venture for one moment...?’ ‘No, of course he cannot,’ said all the girls in chorus. ‘Just look at the state we are in!’ ‘Ah well, if there are young persons[95]...’ and he disappeared, closing the door behind him, amid loud laughter.

Really, if a man finds the door open, the best thing he can do is to walk in. If he solemnly announces himself he can hardly expect encouragement.

Next day when I was with the Empress I told her about this. ‘It sounds very unlike him,’ she said, laughing. ‘It must have been your exploit yesterday (the allusion to the story of Yü Kung) that interested him in you. But he is a kind fellow, and I am sorry you are always so hard upon him.’

Her Majesty had been giving orders about the costumes for the little girls who were to wait upon Princess Osako. Suddenly (and this time I really think one could hardly be expected not to smile) Narimasa came to ask whether her Majesty had decided—what colour the facings of the children’s vests were to be! He was also worried about the Princess’s meals. ‘If they are served in the ordinary way,’ he said, ‘it won’t look well. To my mind, she ought to have a tayny[96] platter and a tayny dish-stand....’ ‘And be waited upon by the little girls for whom you have designed such lovely underclothes,’ I added. ‘You should not laugh at Narimasa,’ the Empress said to me afterwards. ‘I know everyone does it; but he is such a straightforward, unpretentious creature ...’ and I was glad of this scolding.

One day when I was with her Majesty and nothing particular was going on, someone came and said that the Superintendent wished to see me. Her Majesty overheard this and said, laughing: ‘I wonder how he means to make a butt of himself this time! You’d better go and see.’ I found him waiting for me outside. ‘I mentioned that unfortunate business about the gate to my brother Korenaka,’ he said, ‘and he thought it was very serious. “I should advise you to obtain an interview with the lady at an hour when she has leisure to discuss the matter in all its bearings.” That was what my brother advised.’

How very interesting! I was wondering whether he would not make some reference to his strange visit the other night. But he merely added: ‘So I trust you will allow me to wait upon you in your room. At some spare moment when you have nothing better to do ...’ and with a bow he took his leave.

When I went back into the room the Empress asked me what was the matter. I told her what he had said, adding: ‘I don’t understand why he sent for me, specially when I was on duty too. Surely he might have come round to my room later on.’ ‘He thought,’ replied the Empress, ‘that it would give you pleasure to hear what a respect Korenaka has for you; that is why he was in a hurry to tell you. You must remember that Korenaka is a tremendous figure in his eyes.’ She looked so charming while she was saying this!

Three months later, the Empress’s second child, Prince Atsuyasu,[97] was born. In the second month of the next year (a.d. 1000) she was raised to the rank of Imperial Consort, that is to say, was made of equal importance with the Emperor himself, having previously been merely a sort of chief Queen. In the fourth month she returned to the Palace, and in the eighth fell seriously ill.

Meanwhile the Emperor’s attention was concentrated chiefly upon his new concubine, Akiko (daughter of the Prime Minister, Michinaga), who had arrived at the Palace just a year ago, at the age of eleven.

Speaking of this time, the Eigwa Monogatari (Chapter 7) contrasts the gloom of the sick Empress’s quarters with the scenes of winter-carnival that went on in the Emperor’s apartments.

‘Certain princes, still faithful to the Empress, came constantly to inquire after her, and in conversation with her ladies-in-waiting described how the gosechi festival had been kept in various great houses of the Capital. These gentlemen were received by Sei Shōnagon or some other of her Majesty’s ladies.’

On the 29th day of the twelfth month (a.d. 1000) the Empress Sadako died, having a few hours previously given birth to a daughter, the Princess Yoshiko.

What became of Sei Shōnagon after her mistress’s death we do not know. We hear no more of her till 1009, when Murasaki Shikibu, author of The Tale of Genji, writes in her Diary: ‘Sei Shōnagon’s most marked characteristic is her extraordinary self-satisfaction. But examine the pretentious compositions in Chinese script which she scatters so liberally over the Court, and you will find them to be a mere patchwork of blunders. Her chief pleasure consists in shocking people; and as each new eccentricity becomes only too painfully familiar, she gets driven on to more and more outrageous methods of attracting notice. She was once a person of great taste and refinement; but now she can no longer restrain herself from indulging, even under the most inappropriate circumstances, in any outburst that the fancy of the moment suggests. She will soon have forfeited all claim to be regarded as a serious character, and what will become of her when she is too old for her present duties I really cannot imagine.’

And what did become of her? There is a tradition (Kojidan, vol. ii) that when some courtiers were out one day they passed a dilapidated hovel. One of them mentioned a rumour that Sei Shōnagon, a wit of the last reign, was now living in this place. Whereupon an incredibly lean hag shot her head out of the door, crying: ‘Won’t you buy old bones?’ This, if we are to accept the story, was the last of Shōnagon’s famous ‘literary allusions’; for there is here a reference to the story of Kuo Wei, who maintained that there were racehorses so precious that even their bones were worth procuring.

There is, too, in the Zoku Senzaishū (Book 18) a poem sent by Shōnagon ‘when she was old and living in retirement to someone who tried to visit her’:

The character of Shōnagon appears in her book as a series of contradictions. She is desperately anxious not merely to be liked, but to occupy the foremost place in the affections of all whom she knows. Yet her behaviour, as she herself records it, seems consistently calculated to inspire fear rather than affection. Again, she seems at some moments wholly sceptical, at others profoundly religious; now unusually tender-hearted, now egotistical and cold. Yet all this does not imply that her character was in reality complicated to an unusual degree, but comes from the fact that she reveals herself to us entirely and, as it were, from every facet, whereas most writers of diaries and the like, however little conscious intention they may have of publishing their confessions, instinctively present themselves always in the same light. Her detachment about herself is paralleled by a curious aloofness from all the associated emotions of a scene, so that she can describe a sick-bed as though it were a sunset, without the slightest attempt to arouse pity, or for that matter the least fear of provoking disgust.

Perhaps the strongest impression we get is of her extreme fastidiousness and irritability, which must have made her a formidable companion. She probably got on better with the Empress than with anyone else because her reverence for the Imperial Family compelled her in the August Presence to keep her nerves in check.

As a writer she is incomparably the best poet of her time, a fact which is apparent only in her prose and not at all in the conventional uta for which she is also famous. Passages such as that about the stormy lake or the few lines about crossing a moonlit river show a beauty of phrasing that Murasaki, a much more deliberate writer, certainly never surpassed. As for Shōnagon’s anecdotes, their vivacity is apparent even in translation. Neither in them nor in her more lyrical passages is there any hint of a search for literary effect. She gives back in her pages, with apparently as little effort of her own as a gong that sounds when it is struck, the whole warmth and glitter of the life that surrounded her; and the delicate precision of her perceptions makes diarists such as Lady Anne Clifford (whose name occurs to me at random) seem mere purblind Hottentots.

This gift manifests itself incidentally in her extraordinary power of conveying character. Yukinari, Masahiro and Narimasa, despite their uniform absurdity, live with extraordinary distinctness; as does the Empress herself, the only other woman whom the authoress allows to figure in her pages.

Her style is very much less ‘architected’ than Murasaki’s; but there are moments when she begins building up a huge network of dependent clauses in a manner extremely close to Genji, and often one feels that the earlier book leads us, so to speak, to the brink of the other. This fits in with the presumed dates. Genji was probably begun in 1001, when Murasaki lost her husband, and the Pillow-Book seems, with the possible exception of two or three entries, to have been written before the twelfth month of 1000, when the Empress Sadako died.

Shōnagon has often been spoken of as learned. Our only source of information on the subject is her own book. In it she shows signs of having read the Mēng-ch’iu, a collection of edifying Chinese anecdotes, much studied by Japanese children from the ninth to the nineteenth century. She knows too some poems by Po Chü-i (the easiest of Chinese writers) and refers once to the Analects of Confucius. In Japanese literature she knows the usual round of poems from the Kokinshū and Gosenshū. To speak, as European writers have done, of her vast acquaintance with Chinese literature, is an anachronism; for in her time only fragments of this literature had reached Japan. The great poets of the eighth century, for example, were entirely unknown. But the term ‘learned’ is in any case a relative one. A modern lady-in-waiting who had read a little Greek (or even only a little Gilbert Murray) would certainly pass as learned in her own circle; while at Girton no one would be impressed. And it is likely enough that the attainments by which Shōnagon dazzled the Palace would at the Fujiwara Academy have passed quite unnoticed.

It is, in fact, her extreme readiness of wit rather than her erudition that makes Shōnagon remarkable. I have not been able in my extracts to do her full justice in this respect, because in order to appreciate her allusions and repartees one must be in a position to grasp them immediately. Wit, more often than not, evaporates in the process of explanation.

But the brilliance of an allusion such as that to the Analects[98] may perhaps be vaguely surmised. That anyone possessed of such a gift should enjoy using it seems natural enough. Almost every anecdote in her book centres round some clever repartee or happy quotation of her own. For this she has been reproached, and Murasaki has made her colleague’s shitari-gao (‘have done it!’ look, i.e. air of self-satisfaction) proverbial. In life Shōnagon may indeed have been as insupportable as Murasaki evidently found her; but in the Pillow-Book her famous shitari-gao makes no disagreeable effect. We feel that Shōnagon displays her agile wits with the same delight as an athlete takes in running or leaping.

The Japanese excelled at portraiture. But the portraits that survive are those of statesmen and priests. The ‘Yoritomo,’ by Takanobu (the obstinate-looking man in black triangular garments squatting with a white tablet hugged to his breast[99]), and the Shōichi Kokushi (that old one-eyed priest spread out over a great armchair), by Chō Densu, are among the greatest products of Japanese art. But I recollect no portraits of women till a much later date. Murasaki and Shōnagon we know only as posterity imagined them—that is to say, as conventional Court beauties of the Heian period. One does not, however, in reading the Pillow-Book, get the impression of a woman in whose life her own appearance figured in any very important way. Had she, on the other hand, been downright ugly, it would have been impossible to secure her a post as lady-in-waiting. We may suppose then that her looks were moderate. We certainly cannot accept the argument of M. Revon: ‘Si elle n’avait pas été distinguée de sa personne elle n’aurait pas raillé comme elle fait, les types vulgaires’—reasoning which shows a fortunate unfamiliarity with the conversation of plain women. But we have no reason to doubt that Shōnagon had many lovers. Stress is usually laid on her affairs with Tadanobu, to which, however, she devotes only some few, rather insipid pages. I imagine that her real lovers were for the most part people of her own rank; whereas Tadanobu, rather circuitously (it was owing to his sister’s marriage with the Empress’s brother) soon became a pezzo grosso. But in the ’eighties of the tenth century he was well within Shōnagon’s reach, and if they were ever lovers, it may have been before her arrival at Court.

Here is the longest passage which deals with their relationship:

Tadanobu, having heard and believed some absurd rumour about me, began saying the most violent things—for example, that I wasn’t fit to be called a human being at all and he couldn’t imagine how he had been so foolish as to treat me like one. I was told that he was saying horrible things about me even in the Imperial apartments. I felt uncomfortable about it, but I only said, laughing: ‘If these reports are true, then that’s what I’m like and there is nothing more to be done. But if they are not true, he will eventually find out that he has been deceived. Let us leave it at that....’ Henceforward, if he passed through the Black Door room and heard my voice from behind the screens he would bury his face in his sleeve, as though the merest glimpse of me would disgust him. I did not attempt to explain matters, but got in the habit of always looking in some other direction.

Two months later matters had advanced some way towards a reconciliation, for Shōnagon writes:

He sent for me to come out to him, and (though I did not respond) we met later by accident. ‘Darling,’ he said, ‘why have we given up being lovers? You know now that I have stopped believing those stories about you. I cannot conceive what is the obstacle. Are two people who have been friends for so many years really to drift apart in this way? As it is, my duties bring me constantly in and out of their Majesties’ apartments. But if that were to stop, our friendship would simply vanish, with nothing to show for all that has taken place between us.’ ‘I have no objection to our coming together again,’ I said. ‘In fact, there is only one thing I should be sorry for. If we were seeing one another in the way you mean, I should certainly stop praising you[100]—as I constantly do at present—in her Majesty’s hearing, with all the other gentlewomen sitting by. You won’t, I am sure, misunderstand me. One is embarrassed under such circumstances, something inside one sticks and one remains tongue-tied.’ He laughed. ‘Am I then never to be praised except by people who know nothing about me?’ he asked. ‘You may be certain,’ I said, ‘that if we become good friends again I shall never praise you. I cannot bear people, men or women, who are prejudiced in favour of someone they are intimate with or get into a rage if the mildest criticism of someone they are fond of is made in their presence.’ ‘Oh, I can trust you not to do that!’ he exclaimed.

I will end with a more general question. Women, it will have struck the reader, seem to play an inordinately large rôle in the literary life of the Heian period. How came they here to secure a position that their sex has nowhere else been able to achieve?

As far as the production of literature went, women did not, in fact, enjoy so complete a monopoly as European accounts of the period would suggest. But convention obliged men to write in Chinese,[101] and not merely to use the Chinese language, but to compose essays and poems the whole attitude and content of which were derived from China. It may be objected that a potentially great writer would not have submitted to these restrictions—that he would have broken out into the vernacular, like Dante or Paracelsus. But this is to demand that a literary genius should also possess the many qualities essential to a successful reformer. The use of the native kana (the only form of character in which the Japanese language could be written with reasonable facility) was considered unmanly, and to use it would have made a writer as self-conscious as a London clubman would feel if he were to walk down Bond Street in skirts.

Women, anthropologists tell us, are often the repositories of a vanishing or discarded culture. And their conservatism becomes more marked where the mastering of a new script is involved; for women, though quick at acquiring spoken languages, have seldom shown much aptitude for the study of difficult scripts. To a minor degree, the same phenomenon was repeated in Japan a thousand years later. While the energy of male writers was largely absorbed in acquiring a foreign culture, and their output was still too completely derivative to be of much significance, there arose a woman[102] whose work, hitching straight on to the popular novelettes of the eighteenth century, has outlived the pseudo-European experimentations of her contemporaries. The fact that the men of the ’nineties in Japan were absorbed in imitating Turgenev does not, however, explain the occurrence of such a prodigy as Ichyō (a working seamstress who in the years between nineteen and twenty-four produced twenty-five longish stories, forty volumes of diary, and six of critical essays); nor does the convention which obliged men to write in Chinese explain the appearance during the Heian period of such female geniuses as Ono no Komachi, Michitsuna’s mother, Izumi Shikibu, Sei Shōnagon and Murasaki—a state of affairs all the more remarkable seeing that from the fourteenth to the end of the nineteenth century not a single woman writer of any note made her appearance in Japan.

The following tables will facilitate comparison with the original: