The Master was like a starved urchin in his appetite for games. Shut up
in his room with his games, he was doing his heart ailment no good. An
introspective person, however, not given to easy switches of mood, he
probably found that only games quieted his nerves and turned his mind
from Go. He never went for walks.
Most professional Go players like other games as well, but the Master’s
addiction was rather special. He could not play an easy, nonchalant match,
letting well enough alone. There was no end to his patience and endurance.
He played day and night, his obsession somewhat disquieting. It was less as
if he were playing to dispel gloom or beguile tedium than as if he were
giving himself up to the fangs of gaming devils. He gave himself to
mahjong and billiards just as he gave himself to Go. If one put aside the
inconvenience he caused his adversaries, it might have been said, perhaps,
that the Master himself was forever true and clean. Unlike an ordinary
person with preoccupations of some intensity, the Master seemed to be lost
in vast distances.
Even in the interval between a session and dinner, he would be at one
game or another. Iwamoto would not yet have finished his flagon of saké
when the Master would come impatiently for him.
At the end of the first Hakoné session, Otaké asked the maid for a Go
board as soon as he was back in his room. We could hear stones clicking as,
apparently, he reviewed the course of the game. The Master, now in a
cotton kimono, promptly appeared at the managers’ office. With great
dispatch he defeated me at five and six matches of Ninuki Renju.
“But it’s such a lightweight game,” he said fretfully as he went out.
“We’ll play chess. There’s a board in Mr. Uragami’s room.”
