The afternoon session was moved back to the usual site, Room 6 in the
main building. The sky clouded over from shortly after noon, and crows
cawed incessantly. There was a light above the board, a sixty-watt bulb.
The glare from a hundred watts would have been too much. Faint images
the color of the stones fell across the board. Perhaps in special observance
of this last session, the innkeeper had changed the hangings in the alcove
for twin landscapes by Kawabata Gyokushō.
statue of a Buddha on an elephant, and beside that a bowl of carrots,
cucumbers, tomatoes, mushrooms, trefoil parsley, and the like.
The last stages of a grand match, I had heard, were so horrible that one
could scarcely bear to watch. Yet the Master seemed quite unperturbed.
One would not have guessed that he was the loser. A flush came over his
cheeks from about the two hundredth play, and he seemed a trifle pressed
as for the first time he took off his muffler; but his posture remained
impeccable. He was utterly quiet when Otaké made the last play, Black
237.
As the Master filled in a neutral point, Onoda said: “It will be five
points?”
“Yes, five points,” said the Master. Looking up through swollen eyelids,
he made no motion toward rearranging the board. The game had ended at
forty-two minutes past two in the afternoon.
