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[1] when she is too old for her present duties I really cannot imagine.'
It was not likely that Murasaki, who passed such biting judgments on her companions, would herself escape criticism. In her diary she tells us the following anecdote: 'There is a certain lady here called Sayemon no Naishi who has evidently taken a great dislike to me, though I have only just become aware of it. It seems that behind my back she is always saying the most unpleasant things. One day when some one had been reading The Tale of Genji out loud to the Emperor, his Majesty said: "This lady has certainly been reading the Annals of Japan. She must be terribly learned." Upon the strength of this casual remark Naishi spread a report all over the Court that I prided myself on my enormous learning, and henceforth I was known as "Dame Annals" wherever I went.'
The most interesting parts of the Diary are those in which Murasaki describes her own feelings. The following passage refers to the winter of 1008 A.D.: 'I love to see the
- ↑ Murasaki suggests that Shōnagon will lose Akiko's confidence and be dismissed. There is indeed a tradition (Kojidan, vol. ii) that when some courtiers were out walking one day they passed a dilapidated hovel. One of them mentioned a rumour that Sei Shōnagon, a wit and beauty of the last reign, was now living in this place. Whereupon an incredibly lean hag shot her head out at the door, crying 'Won't you buy old bones, old rags and bones?' and immediately disappeared again.
