Turning, beyond the rocks, he came upon the shallow flight of stairs that led upward. Narrow at first, they widened until he could no longer see their limits at either hand. He mounted, moving through blue nothingness.

He came into the garden.

There were shrubs of all shades and textures of blue, and vines that climbed what might have been walls--though they grew too densely for him to be certain--and stone benches of seeming random situation.

Wisps of mist drifted here also, slowly, seeming almost to hover. He heard birdsongs above him and from within the vines.

He advanced into the place, passing at irregular intervals large chunks of stone that glittered like polished quartz. Little rainbows danced about them and hordes of large blue butterflies seemed attracted by the shining. They swarmed, pirouetted, lighted a moment, returned to the air.

Far ahead, he saw a barely distinct shape, so vast as to be unbelievable, did he possess that critical faculty which gives rise to disbelief.

It was the form of a woman that he saw, half-hid amid bewilderments of blue, a woman whose hair, blue-black, swept the skies to the farthest horizons, whose eyes he could not see, but only feel, as though she watched from all directions, while her aura and partly glimpsed lineaments were, he knew, the _anima_ of the world. Then came to him a feeling of immense power and immense restraint.

As he drew nearer to that place in the garden, she vanished. The feeling of her presence persisted.

He became aware of a blue stone summerhouse, situated behind a high stand of shrubbery.

The light faded as he neared it until, when he entered, he felt once again the sorry realization that he would only glimpse a smile, a fluttering eyelid, an earlobe, a strand of hair, the sheen of blue moonbeams upon a restless forearm or shoulder. Never had he, nor would he--he felt--look her full in the face, describe with his eyes her entire form.