clean in financial matters were also mistaken, said Zekken, and he could
offer ample evidence to refute them.
Nor did the Master offer anyone a word of thanks during his retirement
match. His wife took responsibility for such niceties. He was not presuming
upon his rank and title. He was being himself.
When professionals in the Go world came to him with problems, he
would grunt and fall silent, and it was very difficult indeed to guess his
views. Since one could hardly press a point upon so exalted a person, he
must have been a source of much uncertainty, I sometimes thought. His
wife would act as aide and moderator, seeking to temper his unconditional
silence.
This somewhat dull and insensitive side of his nature, the slowness of
apprehension that he himself had called “vagueness,” was very apparent in
his hobbies and diversions. In chess and Renju of course, and in billiards
and mahjong as well, he was the despair of his adversaries for the time he
spent in thought.
He played billiards a number of times with Otaké and myself during our
stay in Hakoné. He would score perhaps seventy if the other player were
generous. Otaké kept careful tally, as became a professional. “Forty-two for
me, fourteen for Wu …”
The Master would think out each stroke at his leisure, and after he had
taken up his position he would draw the cue endlessly back and forth
through his hand. One tends to think that in billiards good form depends
upon the speed of the flow from shoulder and arm to billiard ball, but in the
case of the Master there was no such flow at all. One quite lost patience as
he slipped the cue back and forth. But, watching, I would feel a kind of
sadness and affection.
When he played mahjong he would line up his tiles on a long, narrow
piece of white paper. Taking the neatness of the folded paper and the row of
