Yodogima looked aloft and all around. Peace on earth and good-will toward men whispered from every nook and cranny. The birds sang it, the flowers smelled it, the world looked consistent, but the heart discerned a discordant note. Were death heaven’s only beginning, life’s sole end? No, no; it must not be, for I see with closed eyes, hear with muffled ears, feel without the sense of touch a Kami, whose works neither begin with worlds nor end in man; an illumination extending from heaven unto earth. There is no subtler hold than that we know; the things we see are but the shades of reality. Truth vainly lives apart and is infinite.

Sitting there enveloped, within a world as distinct as sublime, as far above earth as its canopy is broad, the mystic spell touched and warmed her as though its complement were at hand. The province of sex fastened upon her as the sun’s rays congeal and expand with each unhindered contact: communing, Yodogima had been less than human, had worse than mocked His divinest precept, were the bread and wine passed untasted.

Hideyoshi stood over, the world exacted its decrees, and conformity offered her an only excuse:

“I hear you,” replied she, “am conscious of my obligations, and would not defy that is. Take me as I am. I’ll serve you if Kami commands; let the law have its way, and make me what you like: in the name of all that has gone before and that is to be, let me and do you save, too, the honor of woman.”

That night the two-lipped cup once more went round—its never-ending course—and Yodogima became in law as she was in fact first of consequence at Hideyoshi’s court.

And if these things were inevitable, if there remained at Azuchi a soul forlorn and perchance bitter, perhaps welling up a still more ruthless indisposition, and if the ideal toward which a hapless, helpless woman had bent her every energy, sacrificed the body to preserve a soul, were attained—if all this had resulted in fact, there yet remained among them one in whose heart there lingered not only a burning, compelling sense of duty, but as well an abiding faith in truth.

Yodogima had not surrendered the spirit, nor had she submitted in pride, or bowed to falsehood, hate, or weakness—to her the world seemed as sweet and as wholesome as the battle had been swift or exacting.

Thence life portended a fullness that hitherto had been a dream.