by Arthur Waley
“So Madam has started writing poems, has she?” he exclaimed. “I, for one, shall not read them,” and scrunching up the piece of paper, he marched off.
So it came about that Norimitsu and I, who had always been such good friends and allies, were for a while rather cool towards each other. Soon, however, he wrote to me saying: “I may have been to blame; but even if you don’t wish to see me, I hope you do not regard our old alliance as altogether a thing of the past. That, after all, would mean the breaking of a good many promises. . . .”
It was a favorite saying of his that people never sent him poems so long as they liked him. “It’s a sure sign that they have turned against one,” he used to say. “When you have made up your mind that you can bear me no longer, just send me one of those, and I shall know what to make of it.”
Despite this warning, Shōnagon sent him another acrostic poem. “I don’t suppose he ever read it,” she continues, “and in any case he never answered. Soon afterwards he was promoted to the Fifth Rank and became Lieutenant-Governor of Tōtōmi; since when our friendship has come completely to an end. . . .”
The following dates from about the same time:
A Court lady, when she is on holiday, needs to have both her parents alive.* She will get on best in a house where people are always going in and out, where there is a great deal of conversation always going on in the back rooms, and where at the gate there is a continual clatter of horsemen. Indeed, she would far rather have too much noise than too little.
It is very annoying if one is living in someone else’s house and a friend comes from Court, either openly or in secret, just to ask how long one will be away or to apologize for not having written (“I did not even know you were on holiday . . .”)—it is, as I say, extremely annoying, particularly if he is a lover, to have the owner of the house coming and making a scene (“very dangerous ... at this time of night too,” and more in the same style) merely because one has opened the front door for a moment, to let the visitor in. Then later on: “Is the big gate locked?” To which the porter grunts in an injured tone: “There’s someone here still. Am I to lock him in?” “Well, lock up directly he goes,” says the landlord. “There have been a lot of burglaries round here lately.” All of which is not very pleasant to overhear.
After this the master of the house is continually poking out his head to see whether the visitor is still there, to the great amusement of the footmen whom the guest has brought with him. Most alarming of all is to hear these footmen doing an imitation of the landlord’s voice. What a row there will be if he hears them!
It may happen that someone, who neither appears to be nor indeed is in any way a lover, finds it more convenient to come at night. In that case he will not feel inclined to put up with the churlishness of the family, and saying: “Well, it is rather late; and as it seems to be such a business for you to open the gate . . .” he will take his departure.
But if it is someone of whom the lady is really fond, and after she has told him again and again that she dare not receive him, he nevertheless goes on waiting outside her room till dawn; at which point the porter, who has during his nightly rounds continually lingered regretfully by the gate, exclaims in a tone intended to be heard: “The morning’s come” (as though such a thing had never happened before!) “and that front gate has been —* open all night,” whereupon in broad daylight, when there is no longer any point in doing so, he locks the gate—all that sort of thing is very trying.
As I have said, with real parents of one’s own, it would be all right. But step-parents can be a nuisance. One is always wondering how they will take things; and even a brother’s house can be very tiresome in this way.
Of course, what I really like is a house where there is no fuss about the front gate, and no one particularly minds whether it is midnight or morning. Then one can go out* and talk to whoever it may be—perhaps one of the princes, or of the lords attached to his Majesty’s service—sit all through a winter’s night with the shutters open, and after the guest has gone, watch him make his way into the distance. If he leaves just at daybreak, this is very agreeable, particularly if he plays upon his flute as he goes. Then, when he is out of sight, one does not hurry to go to bed, but discusses the visitor with someone, reviews the poems he made, and so gradually falls to sleep.
“I saw someone, who had no business here, in the corridor early this morning. There was a servant holding an umbrella over him. He was just going away....” So I heard one of the girls say, and suddenly realized that it was to a visitor of mine that she was referring!
However, I really didn’t know why she should describe him as “having no business here.” As a matter of fact, he is only a chige,† a person of quite comfortable eminence, whom I have every right to know, if I choose.
Presently a letter came from the Empress, with a message that I was to reply instantly. Opening it in great agitation, I saw a drawing of a huge umbrella; the person holding it was entirely hidden, save for the fingers of one hand. Underneath was written the quotation: “Since the morning when dawn broke behind the fringe of the Mikasa* Hills. . . .”
The whole affair was a trivial one, but her Majesty might easily have been cross about it, and when the letter came I was actually hoping that no one would mention the matter to her. And now, instead of a scolding, came only this joke, which, though it humiliated me, was really very amusing. I took another piece of paper and drawing upon it the picture of a heavy rainstorm, I wrote underneath: “It is a case of much cry and no rain.’’
MASAHIRO
Everyone laughs at Masahiro.† It must really be very painful for his parents and friends. If he is seen anywhere with at all a decent-looking servant in attendance upon him, someone is sure to send for the fellow and ask him whether he can be in his senses, to wait upon such a master. Everything at his house is extremely well done and he chooses his clothes with unusually good taste; but the only result is to make people say: “How nice those things would look on anyone else!”
It is true that he does sometimes talk in the most peculiar way. For example, he was sending home some things he had been using when on duty at the Palace and he called for two messengers. One came, saying that there was not more there than one man could easily carry. “You idiot,” said Masahiro, “I asked for two messengers because there is someone else’s things here as well as my own. You can’t ask one man to carry two men’s stuff, any more than you can put two pints into a one-pint pot.” What he meant no one knew; but there was loud laughter.
Once someone brought him a letter, asking for an immediate reply. “What a moment to choose!” Masahiro cried. “I can hear beans crackling on the stove. And why is there never either ink or brushes in this house? Someone must steal them. If it were something to eat or drink that got stolen, I could understand.…”
When the Emperor’s mother, Princess Senshi, was ill, Masahiro was sent from the Palace to inquire after her. When he came back, we asked him what gentleman had been in waiting upon the Princess. “So-and-so and so-and-so,” he said, mentioning four or five names. “No one else?” we said. “Oh yes,” answered Masahiro, “there were others there, only they had gone away.”
Once when I happened to be alone he came up to me and said: “My dear lady, I have something I must tell you about at once.” “Well, what is it?” I asked. “Something,” he said, “that I have just heard one of the gentlemen say.” And coming quite close to my curtain: “I overheard someone who instead of saying ‘Bring your body up closer to mine,’ said ‘Bring your five limbs* ..:’” and he went off into fits of laughter.
Once on the second of the three Appointment nights† it fell to Masahiro to go round oiling the lamps. He rested his foot on the pedestal of a lamp-stand, and as it happened to have been recently covered with yutan* and was not yet dry, it stuck to him, and as soon as he started to move away the lamp-stand toppled over. So fast was the framework stuck to his stockinged foot, that the lamp banged along after him as
he walked, causing a regular earthquake at each step.
The Palace roll-call† has a special charm. Those who are actually waiting upon his Majesty do not have to attend it, but are checked offon the spot by officers who come from seat to seat. But the rest all come clattering out into the courtyard, pell-mell. In our quarters,‡ if one goes to that side and listens hard, one can actually hear the names, which must have caused a flutter in many a susceptible breast. . . . Some by their manner of answering win great approval, while on others very severe judgments are passed. When it is all over, the watchmen twang their bows, and there is another great clatter of shoes, among which is discernible the even heavier tread of the Chamberlain who is advancing to take up his position at the north-east corner of the balcony, where he kneels in the attitude catted the High Obeisance, facing the Emperor’s seat, while with his back to the watchmen he asks them who was there. . . . Sometimes, if for one reason or another a good many courtiers are absent, no roll-call is held, and when the headwatchman reports this, the Chamberlain generally asks him to explain the reason why there was no roll-call, and then retires. But when Masahiro is on duty he does not listen to what he is told, and if the young lords try to teach him his duties, flies into a temper, lectures them on the impropriety of omitting a roll-call, and is laughed at for his pains not only by these lords, but by the very watchmen whom he is rebuking.
On one occasion Masahiro left his shoes on the sideboard in the Royal pantry. Everyone who passed broke into exclamations of disgust and called upon the owner of the filthy things to take them away at once. It was very awkward, for though no one dared mention Masahiro’s name, everyone knew they were his. “Who do these things belong to? I haven’t the least idea,” said the Chief Steward or someone of that kind. Suddenly Masahiro appeared, saying: “Th ose dirty things are mine!” The fact that he had the face to come for them in person caused a fresh sensation.
Once when neither of the chamberlains was on duty and there was no one near the High Table, Masahiro took a dish of beans that was lying there and hiding behind the small partition,* began stealthily devouring them. Presently some courtiers came along and pulled away the partition.…
I have a great objection to gentlemen coming to the rooms of us ladies-in-waiting and eating there. Some gentlewomen have a tiresome habit of giving them food. Of course, if he is teased long enough and told that nothing can happen till he has eaten, a man will in the end give way. He cannot very well express disgust at what he is offered, cover up his mouth, or turn his head the other way. But for my part, even if they come very late and very drunk, I absolutely refuse to give them even so much as a bowl of rice. If they think this is mean, and don’t come again—well then, let them not come!
Of course, if one is at home and food is sent from the back room, one cannot interfere. But it is just as unpleasant.
Elsewhere Shōnagon says:
The things that workmen eat are most extraordinary. When the roof of the eastern wing was being mended, there were a whole lot of workmen sitting in a row and having dinner. I went across to that side of the house and watched. The moment the things were handed to them, they gulped down the gravy, and then, putting their bowls aside, ate up all the vegetables. I began to think that they were going to leave their rice, when suddenly they fell upon it and in a twinkling it had all disappeared. There were several of them sitting there together and they all ate in the same way; so I suppose it is a habit of builders. I can’t say I think that it is a very attractive one.
Another of Shōnagon’s butts was Fujiwara no Nobutsune, Assistant in the Board of Rites.
“I am very ready at making Chinese poems or Japanese,” he said to her one day,* “you need only give me a subject. . . .” “That is easily done,” I said. “It shall be a Japanese poem.” “Good,” he cried. “But you had better give me a whole lot, while you are about it. One would hardly be worth while.” But when I gave him the subject, he suddenly lost his nerve and said he must be going. Someone told us it was his handwriting that he was uneasy about. “He writes an atrocious hand in Chinese and Japanese,” this lady said, “and he has been laughed at about it so much that he is apt to take fright.”
In the days* when he had an appointment in the Board of Household Works, he sent a plan to some craftsman or other with “This is the way I want it done” written underneath in Chinese characters of a sort one would never have supposed anyone in the world could perpetrate. The document was such a monstrosity that I seized it and wrote in the margin “I should not do it quite in this way, or you will indeed produce a queer object.” The document then went to the Imperial apartments, where it was passed from hand to hand, causing a good deal of amusement.
Nobutsune was very angry about this.
ANNOYING THINGS
When one sends a poem or a kayeshi (“return-poem”) to someone and, after it has gone, thinks of some small alteration—perhaps only a couple of letters—that would have improved it.
When one is doing a piece of needlework in a hurry, and thinking it is finished unthreads the needle, only to discover that the knot at the beginning has slipped and the whole thing come undone. It is also very annoying to find that one has sewn back to front.
Once when her Majesty was staying at my Lord the Prime Minister’s house,* and she was with him in the western wing, to which he had retired in order to make room for her, we gentlewomen found ourselves herded together in the central building with very little to occupy us. We were romping and idling in the corridors, when someone came from the Empress, saying: “This dress is wanted in a hurry. Please get together and do it immediately. Her Majesty wants it back within the hour.”† What we were to make up was a piece of plain, undamasked silk.‡ We all collected along the front of the main hall, the work was given out piecemeal, and there was a wild race to see who could get her bit finished first. It was a maddening business, for one was not near enough to some of the others to see what they were doing.
Nurse Myōbu got hers done in no time, and laid it down in front of her. She had been told to sew the shoulders of the bodice, but had carelessly put the stuff inside out and without finishing off the work in any way had just slammed it down and gone off to amuse herself. When we came to put the dress together, the back seams did not fit properly, and it was clear there had been some mistake. There was a great deal of laughing and scolding. It was clearly Myōbu’s fault and everyone said she must do her seam over again.
“I should first like to know who has sewn anything wrong,” she burst out. “If anyone had sewn a piece of damask inside out, so that the pattern was wrong, of course she would have to do it again. But with plain silk, what difference can it make? If anyone has got to do it all over again, I should think it had better be one of the girls who did not do her share the first time.” “How can anyone have the face to suggest such a thing?” the others cried. But Myōbu could not be prevailed upon, and in the end Gen Shōnagon and some others were obliged to un-pick the stitches and put the thing right. It was amusing to watch the expression on their faces while they did so.
This all happened because her Majesty was to wait upon the Emperor at dusk and wanted the dress to be ready in time. “I shall know that the one who gets her work done quickest really loves me,” she had said.
It is particularly annoying if a letter goes astray and gets delivered to someone to whom one would never have dreamt of showing it. If the messenger would simply say straight out that he has made a mistake, one could put up with it. But he always begins arguing and trying to prove that he only did as he was told. It is this that is so trying, and if there was not always someone looking on, I am sure I should rush at him and strike him.
To plant a nice hagi* or susuki,† and then find someone with a long-box and gardening tools who has dug them up and is carrying them away—is a painful and annoying experience. The provoking part of it is that if a male even of the humblest description were on the spot, the wretch would never dare to do so. When one stops h
im and expostulates, he pretends he has only thinned them out a bit, and hurries off. I really cannot tell you how annoying it is.
One is staying with a provincial Governor or some small official of that kind, and a servant comes from some grand house. He speaks and behaves with the utmost rudeness and an air as much as to say “I know I am being rude; but people like you can’t punish me for it, so what do I care?” I find that very annoying.
A man picks up a letter that one does not want him to see and takes it with him into the courtyard, where he stands reading it. At the first moment one rushes after him in rage and desperation; but at the curtains one is obliged to stop, and while one watches him reading one can hardly prevent oneself from swooping down upon him and snatching it away.
A lady is out of humor about some trifle, and leaving her lover’s side goes and establishes herself on another couch. He creeps over to her and tries to bring her back, but she is still cross, and he, feeling that this time she has really gone too far, says: “As you please,” and returns to the big bed, where he ensconces himself comfortably and goes to sleep. It is a very cold night and the lady, having only an unlined wrap to cover herself with, soon begins to suffer. She thinks of getting up; but everyone else in the house is asleep and she does not know what to do or where to go. If she must needs have this quarrel, it would have been better, she thinks, to start it a little earlier in the evening. Then she begins to hear strange noises both in the women’s quarters and outside. She becomes frightened and softly creeps towards her lover, plucks at the bedclothes, and raises them. But he vexingly pretends to be fast asleep; or merely says: “I advise you to go on sulking a little longer.”