_Hito futa miyo Itsu muyu nana Yokokono tari Momochi yorodzu_, as one might say: _One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand!_--and as if one said also: _All of you, look at the door! Her Majesty has appeared. Hurrah! Our hearts are filled with happiness._ Then in the fury of the dance she untied her belt, she threw it impatiently aside; and, with draperies flowing, laughing and crying, she stamped and bounded on the elastic and resonant skin which she struck sharply with her feet. And, when they saw her robust and buxom form like that of a little girl, relief came into the hearts of all and they began to laugh. _The sun is no longer in the sky, and still there are not lamentations, but laughter?_ Amaterasu heard them, and her heart was filled with chagrin. Unable to conquer her curiosity, she softly opened the door of the cavern: “_Why are you laughing?_” A great ray swept across the assembled gods; it leaped the border of the earth; it illumined the moon in the empty sky. Suddenly the Day-Star flamed in the lifeless heavens. As an overripe fruit bursts, behold!--the blind earth could no longer contain the jealous eye, the burning fire of curiosity placed in its center, the woman who is the sun! “Why are you laughing?”--“Oh Amaterasu!” said Uzumé. And all the gods in unison cried, “Oh Amaterasu!” prostrating themselves. “Oh Amaterasu, you were not with us; you thought you had withdrawn your face from us; but look, here is some one more beautiful than you are! _Look!_” she said, showing the _gohei_, showing the sacred mirror which, concentrating the flame, produced an insupportable brilliance. “_Look!_” She saw; and, jealous, raptured, astonished, fascinated, she took one step out of the cavern; and instantly the night was gone! All the great worlds, that turn about the sun as an eagle circles his prey, were astonished to see the day shining in such an unaccustomed place and the little earth all devoured with glory, like a chandelier which disappears in its own light. She took one step out of the cavern, and immediately the strongest of the gods leaped forward to close the door behind her. Before her image, surrounded by seven rainbows,--adorable spirit, living fire, from which, with the divine face, emerged only two hands, two pink feet, and the curls of her hair,--so young, so formidable stood this brilliant and essential soul! And, like the swallow which lifts itself in larger and larger circles above the sparkling fields, so Amaterasu, reconquered by her own image, mounted toward her celestial throne. And Time began again with its first day! At the doorway of the Shinto temples, by means of a cord of straw, the earth still guards against the disappearance of its light; and, in the last recess of the bare sanctuary, they hide, instead of the Eleusinian fire, a little round mirror of polished metal. A VISIT