Anthology of Japanese Literature/Kagerō Nikki

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Kagerō Nikki

 

The “Kagerō Nikki” is the journal of a noblewoman known only as “the mother of Michitsuna.” Beyond what she herself tells us, almost nothing is known of her life except that she probably died in 995. Her journal covers the years 954 to 974 and deals principally with her unhappy marriage to a distant kinsman, Fujiwara Kaneie (the “Prince” in the excerpts given here), who later became civil dictator. In this selection an attempt has been made to trace the main aspects of her relations with her husband by giving excerpts from the first two of the three volumes of the journal. It should be remembered that at this period husbands and wives of the nobility lived in separate establishments.

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The years of my youth have passed, and I can see little in them that suggests greatness. It is, I suppose, natural that I should have fallen into such mediocrity. I am less handsome than most, and my character is hardly remarkable. But as the days and nights have gone by in monotonous succession, I have had occasion to read most of the old romances, and I have found them masses of the rankest fabrication. Perhaps, I think to myself, the events of my own life, if I were to put them down in a journal, might attract attention, and indeed those who have been misled by the romancers might find in it a description of what the life of a well-placed lady is really like. But I must begin at the beginning, and I see that my memories of those first years have blurred. I shall not be surprised then if one finds traces of fiction here too….

It had become clear that I was to have a child. I passed a most unpleasant spring and summer, and toward the end o£ the eighth moon gave birth to a boy. The Prince showed every sign of affection.

But the following month I received a shock. Toying with my writing box one morning just after he had left, I came upon a note obviously intended for another woman. My chagrin was infinite, and I felt that I must at least send something to let him know I had seen the thing. “Might this be a bill of divorcement,” I wrote, “this note that I see for another?”

As the weeks went, by my anxiety increased. Toward the end of the tenth moon he stayed away three nights running, and when he finally appeared he explained nonchalantly that he had hoped by ignoring me for a few days to find out what my feelings really were. But he could not stay the night: he had an appointment, he said, which could not very well be broken. I was of course suspicious, and I had him trailed. I found that he spent the night in a house off a certain narrow side street. It was so, then, I thought. My worst suspicions were confirmed.

Two or three days later later I was awakened toward dawn by a pounding on the gate. It was he, I knew, but I could not bring myself to let him in, and presently he went off, no doubt to the alley that interested him so….

His visits became still more infrequent. I began to feel listless and absent-minded as I had never been before, and I fell into the habit of forgetting things I had left lying around the house. “Perhaps he has given me up completely,” I would say to myself; “and has he left behind nothing to remember him by?” And then, after an interval of about ten days, I got a letter asking me to send him an arrow he had left attached to the bed pillar. He had indeed left that behind—I remembered now.

I returned it with a verse: “I am aroused by this call for an arrow, even as I wonder what is to bring memories.”

My house was directly on his way to and from the palace, and in the night or early in the morning I would hear him pass. He would cough to attract my attention. I wanted not to hear, but, tense and unable to sleep, I would listen through the long nights for his approach. If only I could live where I would not be subjected to this, I thought over and over. I would hear my women talking among themselves of his current indifference—“He used to be so fond of her,” they would say—and my wretchedness would increase as the dawn came on….

Summer came, and a child was born to his paramour. Loading the lady into his carriage and raising a commotion that could be heard through the whole city, he came hurrying past my gate—in the worst of taste, I thought. And why, my women loudly asked one another, had he so pointedly passed our gate when he had all the streets in the city to choose from? I myself was quite speechless, and thought only that I should like to die on the spot. I knew that I would be capable of nothing as drastic as suicide, but I resolved not to see him again.

Three or four days later I had a most astonishing letter: “I have not been able to see you because we have been having rather a bad time of it here. Yesterday the child was born, however, and everything seems to have gone off well. I know that you will not want to see me until the defilement has worn off.”

I dismissed the messenger without a reply. The child, I heard, was a boy, and that of course made things worse.

He came calling three or four days later, quite as though nothing unusual had happened. I did my best to make him uncomfortable, and shortly he left….

It began to appear that the lady in the alley had fallen from favor since the birth of her child. I had prayed, at the height of my unhappiness, that she would live to know what I was then suffering, and it seemed that my prayers were being answered. She was alone, and now her child was dead, the child that had been the cause of that unseemly racket. The lady was of frightfully bad birth—the unrecognized child of a rather odd prince, it was said. For a moment she was able to use a noble gentleman who was unaware of her shortcomings, and now she was abandoned. The pain must be even sharper than mine had been. I was satisfied….

It had become painful even to get his rare letters, little flashes into the past, and I was sure, moreover, that there would be more insults like the recent one as long as he could pass my gate. I determined therefore to go away, as I had planned earlier, to that temple in the western mountains, and to do so before he emerged from his penance.

The mountain road was crowded with associations. We had traveled it together a number of times, and then there had been that time, just at this season, when he had played truant from court and we had spent several days together in this same temple. I had only three attendants with me this time.

I hurried up to the main hall. It was warm, and I left the door open and looked out. The hall was situated on an eminence in a sort of mountain basin. It was heavily wooded and the view was most effective, although it was already growing dark and there was no moon. The priests made preparations for the early watch, and I began my prayers, still with the door open.

Just as the conch shells blew ten there was a clamor at the main gate. I knew the Prince had arrived. I quickly lowered the blinds, and, looking out, saw two or three torches among the trees.

“I have come to take your mother back,” he said to the boy, who went down to meet him. “I have suffered a defilement, though, and cannot get out. Where shall we have them pick her up?”

The boy told me what he had said, and I was quite at a loss to know how to handle such madness. “What can you be thinking of,” I sent back, “to come off on such a weird expedition? Really, I intend to stay here only the night. And it would not be wise for you to defile the temple. Please go back immediately—it must be getting late.”

Those were the first of a great number of messages the boy had to deliver that night, up and down a flight of stairs that must have been more than a hundred yards long. My attendants, sentimental things, found him most pathetic.

Finally the boy came up in tears: “He says it is all my fault—that I am a poor one not to make a better case for him. He is really in a rage.” But I was firm—I could not possibly go down yet, I said.

“All right, all right,” the Prince stormed. “I can’t stay here all night. There is no help for it—hitch the oxen.”

I was greatly relieved. But the boy said that he would like to go back to the city with his father, and that he would probably not come again. He went off weeping. I was quite desolate: how could he, whom of all in the world I had come most to rely on, leave me like this? But I said nothing, and presently, after everyone had left, he came back alone.

He was choked with tears. “He says I am to stay until I am sent for.”

I felt extremely sorry for the boy, but I tried to distract him by ridiculing his weakness. Surely he did not think his father would abandon him, too, I said….

I spent the days in the usual observances and the nights praying before the main Buddha. Since the place was surrounded by hills and there seemed no danger of my being seen, I kept the blinds up; but once, so great still was my lack of self-possession, I hastily started to lower them when an unseasonal thrush burst into song in a dead tree nearby.

Then the expected defilement approached, and I knew I should have to leave. But in the city a rumor had spread that I had become a nun, and I felt sure I could not be comfortable there. I decided therefore to withdraw to a house some distance below the temple. My aunt visited me there, but she found it a strange and unsettling place.

Five or six days after my removal came the night of the full moon. The scene was a lovely one. The moon flooded through the trees, while over in the shadow of the mountain great swarms of fireflies wheeled about. An uninhibited cuckoo made me think ironically of how once, long ago and back in the city, I had waited with some annoyance for a cuckoo that refused to repeat his call. And then suddenly, so near at hand that it seemed almost to be knocking on the door, came the drumming of a moor hen. All in all it was a spot that stirred in one the deepest emotions.

There was no word from the Prince. But I had come here by my own choice, and I was content.

In the evenings came the booming of the great sunset bells and the hum of the cicadas, and the choruses of small bells from the temples in the hills around us, chiming in one after another as though afraid to be left out, and the chanting of Sutras from the shrine on the hill in front of us.

Five days or so later the defilement passed and I returned to the temple….

Then, after a time, I got several letters from the city. They all said the same thing; it appeared that the Prince was starting out to see me again, and that if I did not go back with him this time public opinion would label my behavior completely outrageous; that this was surely the last time he would come after me, and that if, after he had thus done everything possible to move me, I should come weakly back to the city by myself, I would be publicly laughed at.

My father had just that day come back from the provinces, and he hurried up to see me. “I had thought it would not be unwise for you to go away for a little while by yourself,” he said, “but now that I see how the boy has wasted away I think it would be best for you to return. I can take you back today or tomorrow, whichever would be better. I shall come for you whenever you say.”

It was clear that he was ordering me home. I felt quite drained of strength.

“Well, tomorrow then,” he said, and started for the city.

My mind jumped about like the fisherman’s job in the poem—what could I do? And then came the usual shouting, and I knew the Prince had arrived. This time there was no hesitation. He marched straight in. I pulled up a screen to hide behind, but it was no use.

“Terrible,” he exclaimed, as he watched me burning incense and fingering my beads, the Sutras spread out in front of me. “Worse even than I had expected. You really do seem to have run to an extreme. I thought you might be ready to leave by this time, but I now suspect that it would be a sin and a crime to take you back.” And, turning to my son, “How about it? Do you feel like staying on?”

“I don’t like the idea at all,” the boy answered, his eyes on the floor, “but what can we do?”

“Well, I leave it to you. If you think she should go back, have the carriage brought up.”

And almost before he had finished speaking, the boy began dashing about, picking things up, poking them into bags, loading the carts, tearing the curtains down and rolling them into bundles. I was taken quite by surprise, and could only watch helplessly. The Prince was most pleased with himself. Now and then he would exchange an amused wink with the boy.

“Well, we have everything cleaned up,” he finally said. “There is not much for you to do but come with us. Tell your Buddha politely that you are leaving—that is the thing to do, I hear.” He seemed to think it all a great joke.

I was too numb to answer, but somehow I managed to keep the tears back, and still I held out. The carriage was brought up at about four, and at dark, when I still showed no sign of getting in, the Prince turned to my son in great annoyance.

“All right, all right, I am going back,” he exclaimed. “I leave everything to you.”

The boy, almost in tears, took my hand and pleaded with me to get in, and finally, since nothing else seemed possible, I allowed myself to be taken away, quite in a daze. Outside the main gate we divided up for the trip back, and the Prince got in with me. He was in a fine humor, but I was unable to appreciate his witty remarks. My sister was riding with us, however—she felt it would be all right since it was already dark^[1]—and now and then she took up the conversation.

We reached the city at about ten in the evening. My people had of course known of his trip and my probable return, and had cleaned the place thoroughly and left the gates open for us. Barely conscious, I lay down behind a curtain. Immediately one of my women came bustling up. “I thought of gathering seeds from the pinks,” she said, “but the plants died. And then one of your bamboos fell over, but I had it put back up again.” I thought it would be better to discuss these problems some other time, and did not answer….

The New Year lists were published on the twenty-fifth, and the Prince, I heard, was made a senior councilor. I knew that his promotion probably would keep him from me more than ever, and when people came around to congratulate me it was as if they were joking. My son, however, appeared more delighted than he could say.

The following day the Prince sent a note: “Does this happy event mean nothing to you? Is that why you have sent no congratulations?” And toward the end of the month, “Has something happened to you? We have been very busy here, but it is not kind of you to ignore me.” And thus my silence had the effect of making him the petitioner, a position that had to then been exclusively mine. “It is sad that your duties keep you so busy,” I answered. I was sure that he had no intention of visiting me.

The days went by, and it became clear that I was right. But I had finally learned not to let his silence bother me. I slept very well at night.

Then one evening after I had gone to bed I was startled by a most unusual pounding outside. Someone opened the gate. I waited rather nervously, and presently the Prince was at the end door demanding to be let in. My people, all in night dress, scurried about for shelter. I was no better dressed than they, but I crawled to the door and let him in.

“You so seldom come any more even to pass the time of day,” I said, “that the door seems to have gotten a little stiff.”

“It is because you are always locking me out that I do not come,” he retorted pleasantly. And how would one answer that? …

My house was meanwhile going to ruin. My father suggested that it would be best to let it out, since my retinue was a small one, and move into his place on the Nakagawa. I had spoken to the Prince many times of the possibility that I might move, but now that the time approached I felt I should let him know I was finally leaving. I sent to tell him that I wanted to talk to him, but he replied coldly that he was in retreat. “If that is how he feels,” I said to myself. I went ahead with the move.

The new place fronted on the river, near the mountains. I found it rather satisfying to think that I was there by my own choice.

The Prince apparently did not hear for two or three days that I had moved. Then, on the twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth, I had a letter complaining that I had not informed him.

“I did think of telling you,” I answered, “but this is such a poor place that I assumed you would not want to visit it. I had hoped to see you once more where we used to meet.”

I spoke as though I considered our separation final, and he seemed to agree. “You are perhaps right. It might not be easy for me to visit you there.” And I heard no more for some weeks.

The ninth moon came. Looking out early one morning after the shutters were raised, I saw that a mist had come in over the garden from the river, so that only the summits of the mountains to the east were visible. Somehow it seemed to shut me in from the world, alone. …

The New Year came, and on the fifteenth the boy’s men lit ceremonial fires to chase out the devils. They made rather a party of it, well on into the night. “Quiet down a bit,” someone shouted, and I went to the edge of the room for a look. The moon was bright, and the mountains to the east shone dim and icy through the mist. Leaning quietly against a pillar, I thought about myself and my loneliness, how I should like to go off to a mountain temple somewhere if only I could, and how I had not seen him for five months, not since the end of the summer. I could not keep back my tears. “I would join my song with the song thrush,” I whispered to myself, “but the thrush has forgotten the New Year.”

TRANSLATED BY EDWARD SEIDENSTICKER

1. It was improper for women to reveal their faces to men other than their husbands.