Clothed in garments that obliterated all trace of form or suggestion, of a texture that hid the weave and a making that disclosed no stitch, yet displayed a handiwork as perfect as it was simple; her hair waved and fastened round without an ornament or a device that could be seen; her feet sandalled in earthen-like wood, and her nails pink and cheeks olive and eyes trustful, Yodogima revealed in her presence and strove with a purpose all that time had been able to wrest from an humbler beginning. The green turf, the broken sky line, birds of plumage and the fragrance of flowers, the open expanse or covered nook, all bespoke a care and a concern intended to move and to weld mankind.
Yodogima remained seated, underneath the shade, amid an environment made, not creative. The sun drove its rays fiercer and more propellingly against Ieyasus stand. It remained for him to give; she could but receive. Love beamed from every distance, floated in close upon them, arose subtilely within, grew hard without, compelling, exacting, and vital. Ieyasu strode down the chiselled steps—overcome with the joy of doing, forgetful of every mandate in restraint—and falling upon his knees before her, whispered:
Yodogima, I love you.
Her song only quickened, then lowered a little, perhaps the least bit pathetically.
There was neither exultation nor regret, though for the moment a faint realization of duty—arising from a constantly receding past, battling against an urgently progressive present—flushed apparently, then whitened perceptibly her face: she sang more sweetly, if less deeply, than before.
Ieyasus eyes fell to the pebbled floor and his soul seared with anticipation.
Would she bid defiance away, under the stress of heart? Or would she starve self, to uphold tradition? The tanka progressed, and Ieyasu trembled underneath advancements harsher demands; time had wrought his inevitable change. Ages ago his nearest ancestors had snatched the coveted morsel and gorged unchallenged behind a fiercer deity. Yet still farther back and over that again stood Amaterasu, benign, supreme, unquestioned. Whence this fleeting thought of man? Were he but the crude remnant of an unbroken descent thence the God of gods? Man, only a product of decline, groping his way from past to present; often recovering, then again but losing; only to sink still lower, more hopelessly, till dust once and forever claimed him? Were hell his goal, or heaven his due? The tanka alone answered.
Her notes quickened, and it strengthened him: there remained but a single verse, and it seemed as if breathing were a penalty.
Sakuma passed them by, at some distance, in the garden below. The concerned captain had just left the council chamber, and walking as if in a hurry, toward the armory, not far distant, underneath the inner ramparts, at the farther side of the castle enclosure, without observing the lovers, well hidden behind the overhanging vines long drooping branches—they were as unmindful of him as he was careless about them—Sakuma only heard, though marvelled its more than usual pathos the last informing strains of Yodogimas world-appealing message.
Knowing though who her auditor might be and divining the occasion for such feeling—only the last measures had reached him distinctly—there appeared no need for any closer contact: the grizzled veteran went his way, determined, however convinced.