Soon the deep gate of the Government edifice is before her. Into the hollow shadow she slips, whispers a prayer, and kneels. Then, according to ancient rule, she takes off her long under-girdle of strong soft silk, and with it binds her robes tightly about her, making the knot just above her knees. For no matter what might happen in the instant of blind agony, the daughter of a samurai must be found in death with limbs decently composed. And then, with steady precision, she makes in her throat a gash, out of which the blood leaps in a pulsing jet. A samurai girl does not blunder in these matters: she knows the place of the arteries and the veins.
At sunrise the police find her, quite cold, and the two letters, and a poor little purse containing five yen and a few sen (enough, she had hoped, for her burial); and they take her and all her small belongings away.
Then by lightning the story is told at once to a hundred cities.
The great newspapers of the capital receive it; and cynical journalists imagine vain things, and try to discover common motives for that sacrifice: a secret shame, a family sorrow, some disappointed love. But no; in all her simple life there had been nothing hidden, nothing weak, nothing unworthy; the bud of the lotus unfolded were less virgin. So the cynics write about her only noble things, befitting the daughter of a samurai.
The Son of Heaven hears, and knows how his people love him, and augustly ceases to mourn.
The Ministers hear, and whisper to one another, within the shadow of the Throne: "All else will change; but the heart of the nation will not change."
Nevertheless, for high reasons of State, the State pretends not to know.