The Pillow-Book of Sei Shōnagon Read Online Free PDF Page B

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 * 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 g ō na † 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?” ‡ 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 grownup person.
    A little girl got up in cloister-fashion * 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 neighbor’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 grownup people,” she says, and takes no more notice. Whereupon the child, after pulling everything