The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon

Author:Sei Shonagon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2006-04-18T16:00:00+00:00

The woman he gazes at in secret is bending forward, so that her hair falls away from her head and hangs perhaps six inches before her face. It glows there like a candle, borrowing added light from the moonlight, and in astonishment at the sight the man chooses this moment to slip quietly away. 2

This was a tale that someone told.

[173] It’s quite delightful when the snow is falling, not thick on the ground, but softly, to lie as a thin cover.

It’s also delightful on an evening when the snow lies piled high, and two or three congenial friends settle down together around a brazier near the veranda to talk of this and that. Darkness descends as their conversation continues, but no lamp is lit nearby, and the light from the high-heaped snow beyond shines wonderfully white, while they sit idly stirring the ash in the brazier with the fire tongs as they talk on together, of moving and entertaining matters.

Just as they’re beginning to feel that the night must be growing late, they hear shod footsteps approaching. Startled, they peer out, and find that it’s a man who sometimes arrives like this, unannounced, at just such times.

‘I’ve been imagining how you’d be enjoying the snow today,’ he says, ‘but I was held up with one thing and another, and ended by spending the day elsewhere.’ No doubt he’s alluding to the poem ‘The man who comes to call today’. 1

They talk of the day’s happenings, and move from there to speak of all manner of other things.

They’ve put out a straw cushion for him, and he sits there on the veranda with one foot dangling over the edge, while they all talk on together, neither the man nor the ladies within showing any signs of tiring of the conversation, until the temple bell sounds for dawn. Just as the light is about to break he prepares to leave, and as he does so he most charmingly recites ‘snow lay thick upon certain mountains’. 2

If they’d been by themselves, the ladies wouldn’t really have been able to stay up like this talking till dawn, and after he’s gone they speak together of how much more delightful it was to have him there with them, and how charming and elegant he is.

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