Shrine in Kamakura. Kamakura writers born under the sign of the zodiac
under which this year fell were to perform the exorcism.
I opened the envelope, and immediately was the captive of the dead face.
The pictures were a success. They were of a man asleep, and at the same
time they had the quiet of death about them.
I had knelt at the side of the dead Master, who lay on his back, and so I
was looking up at him from an angle. The absence of a pillow was the mark
of death, and the face was tilted ever so slightly upward, so the strong jaw
and the large mouth, just perceptibly open, stood out even more
prominently. The powerful nose seemed almost oppressively large. There
was profound sorrow in the wrinkles at the closed eyes and the heavily
shaded forehead.
The light through the half-opened night doors came from the feet, and
the light from the ceiling struck the lower part of the face; and, since the
head tilted slightly backward, the forehead was in shadow. The light struck
from the jaw over the cheeks, and thence toward the rise of the eyebrows
and hollow eyes to the bridge of the nose. Looking more closely, I saw that
the lower lip was in shadow and the upper lighted, and between them, in
the deep shadow of the mouth, a single upper tooth could be seen. White
hairs stood out in the short mustache. There were two large moles on the
right cheek, the farther from the camera. I had caught their shadows, and
the shadows too of the veins at the temples and forehead. Horizontal
wrinkles crossed the forehead. Only a single tuft of the short-cropped hair
above caught the light. The Master had stiff, coarse hair.
