That morning we moved to the Naraya Inn. The next day, the eleventh,
after a recess of some twelve or thirteen days, play was resumed in an
outbuilding. The Master lost himself in the game, and his waywardness left
him. Indeed he was as quiet and docile as if he had assigned custody of
himself to the managers.
The judges for the Master’s last match were Onoda and Iwamoto, both of
the Sixth Rank. Iwamoto arrived at one on the afternoon of the eleventh.
Taking a chair on the veranda, he sat gazing at the mountains. It was the
day on which, according to the calendar, the rainy season ended, and indeed
the sun was out for the first time in some days. Branches cast shadows over
the wet ground, golden carp were bright in the pond. When play began,
however, the sky was lightly clouded over once more. There was a strong
enough breeze that the flowers in the alcove swayed gently. Aside from the
waterfall in the garden and the river beyond, the silence was broken only by
the distant sound of a rock-cutter’s chisel. A scent of red lilies wafted in
from the garden. In the almost too complete silence a bird soared grandly
beyond the eaves. There were sixteen plays in the course of the afternoon,
from sealed White 12 to sealed Black 27.
After a recess of four days, the second Hakoné session took place on July
16. The girl who kept the records had always before worn a dark blue
kimono speckled with white. Today she had changed to summer dress, a
kimono of fine white linen.
This outbuilding was almost a hundred yards across the garden from the
main building. The noon recess came, and the figure of the Master going
alone down the path caught my eye. Just beyond the gate of the outbuilding
was a short slope, and the Master bent forward as he climbed it. I could not
