My family had moved to Karuizawa at the end of July, and I had been
commuting between Karuizawa and Hakoné. Since the trip took seven
hours each way, I had to leave my summer house the day before a session.
After a session I would spend the night in Hakoné or Tokyo. Each session
thus cost me three days. With sessions each fifth day, I had to set out again
after a two-day rest. Then I had to do my reports, and it was an
unpleasantly rainy summer, and in the end I was exhausted. The reasonable
thing, it might be said, would have been to stay on at the Hakoné inn; but
after each session I would hurry off, scarcely finishing my dinner.
It was hard for me to write about the Master and Otaké when we were
together at the inn. Even when I stayed overnight at Hakoné I would go
down to Miyanoshita or Tōnosawa. It made me uncomfortable to write
about them and then be with them at the next session. Since I was reporting
on a match sponsored by a newspaper, I had to arouse interest. A certain
amount of embroidering was necessary. There was little chance that my
amateur audience would understand the more delicate niceties of Go, and
for sixty or seventy installments
appearance and gestures and general behavior of the players my chief
material. I was not so much observing the play as observing the players.
They were the monarchs, and the managers and reporters were their
subjects. To report on Go as if it were a pursuit of supreme dignity and
importance—and I could not pretend to understand it perfectly—I had to
respect and admire the players. I was presently able to feel not only interest
in the match but a sense of Go as an art, and that was because I reduced
myself to nothing as I gazed at the Master.
I was in a deeply pensive mood when, on the day the match was finally
recessed, I boarded a train at Ueno Station for Karuizawa. As I put my
