Yet I am certain that you will like to be told, since it must have been, that this made no difference; she made no mistakes. That she did no discredit to Shijiro Arisuga. That, in fact, in a fashion difficult to fathom, save by the doctrine of reincarnation, so had she become him in all matters of action that she never even thought of herself as Hoshiko. She was Shijiro Arisuga—when there was to be fighting—and always had been. And this was no easy thing for such a flower as Hoshiko. For Arisuga had been a man. So that, as one thinks on it, one is not irreparably offended at the possibility of Hoshiko, by a living reincarnation, having become another being. How do we know? And, how else could she have accomplished it?
But putting aside all possible differences concerning that, in this rejoice: the sun-flag was never borne with greater daring!
ZANZI, LOVER OF BATTLES
XXX
ZANZI, LOVER OF BATTLES
At Tokyo there was a contest between the Hakodate regiment and the Guards for the color-bearer who had been decorated by the emperor. Hoshiko wished to go on—mad as Arisuga once was for the fight.
(Perhaps we had better call her Arisuga from this on? Yet, you may then forget that she was Hoshiko; you may forget that each moment was a new expiation for happiness. No, we shall continue to call her Hoshiko—that you may remember.)