Born in 1874, the Master had celebrated his sixty-fourth birthday a few
days before with a modest private gathering appropriate to a time of
national crisis.
“I wonder which of us is older, the Kōyōkan or I,” he remarked before
the second session.
He reminisced upon the fact that such Meiji Go players as Murase Shuho
of the Eighth Rank and Shuei, Master in the Honnimbō line to which he
himself belonged, had played in this Kōyōkan.
The second session was held in an upstairs room which had the mellow
look of Meiji about it. The decorations were in keeping with the name
Kōyōkan, “House of the Autumn Leaves.” The sliding doors and the
openwork panels above were decorated with maple leaves, and the screen
off in a corner was bright with maple leaves painted in the Korin fashion.
The arrangement in the alcove was of evergreen leaves and dahlias. The
doors of this eighteen-mat room had been opened to the fifteen-mat room
next door, so that the somewhat exaggerated arrangement did not seem out
of place. The dahlias were slightly wilted. No one entered or left the room
save a maid with flowered bodkins in a childlike Japanese coiffure who
occasionally came to pour tea. The Master’s fan, reflected in a black
lacquer tray on which she had brought ice water, was utterly quiet. I was
the only reporter present.
Otaké of the Seventh Rank was wearing an unlined black kimono of
glossy habutaé silk and a crested gossamer-net cloak. Somewhat less
formal today, the Master wore a cloak with embroidered crests. The first
day’s board had been replaced.
