The Pillow Book: Sections 187–221 Summary & Analysis

Sei talks about the thrill produced by various winds, especially storm winds. The day after a typhoon, the garden is in disarray, with leaves lodged in the lattices—a surprisingly delicate effect. When an elegant lady emerges after a storm-disrupted night, wearing her autumn colors, it’s a particularly “splendid” sight—she gazes at the disheveled garden and recites the poem, “I see why the word ‘storm.’”

It’s “elegantly intriguing” to overhear things at night—a meal being served, game-pieces or fire tongs being moved at a distance, a hushed conversation, or the distinct rustlings of different people’s clothes. The delicate blend of incense is also elegantly intriguing. Captain Tadanobu’s subtle blend of incense would linger long after he visited.

Sei makes lists of islands, beaches, woods, temples, sutras, manifestations of Buddhas, and well-known tales, as well as games, dances, and musical instruments, both stringed and wind instruments. The various kinds of wind instruments bring to mind festivals, such as the Provisional Kamo Festival. It’s delightfully overcast and snowy, the indigo cloaks and artificial flowers standing out brightly. Even better is the imperial progress—amidst the pageantry, “you lost all sense of the fact that you spend your everyday life” in the Emperor’s proximity.

The Return of the Kamo High Priestess is also delightful. It’s hot at this time of year, and everyone is sweating, but the thrilling call of the hototogisu is heard. Once the procession is past, everyone pushes and shoves to leave, but one avoids the fray by taking a route through a mountain village, attaching sprays from a deutzia hedge to one’s carriage.

On the way to the Kamo Shrine, working women are singing in the rice fields. At first the sight is fascinating, but soon one is dismayed to make out their song, which is “something very rude about the dear hototogisu.”

When one is on one’s way somewhere, and one sees a “fine-looking fellow” carrying an official-looking letter, ones wonder what business he’s conducting. Or if one sees a pleasant-looking girl, her clogs caked with mud, carrying a package or some books somewhere, one wishes one could ask her about what she’s carrying. On the other hand, if one meets a rude servant, one can easily guess the character of her employers.

Sei finds it “irritating” to see a poorly-dressed person going somewhere in a “miserable carriage.” It’s one thing if she’s attending a sermon, but if she’s going to the Kamo Festival or another event were one takes care with one’s very sleeves, one wonders why she even shows up.

One day, a man with an umbrella is seen on the palace grounds, and rumors circulate that he’s there for Sei. Later, by way of inquiry, the Empress sends Sei the beginning lines of a poem, prompting Sei to think “how marvelous [the Empress] is,” even in trivial matters. Sei replies with a note saying, “That umbrella has left me ‘in wet clothes.’”