“He’s turned into a sweet old gentleman. I doubt if it would have
happened if he had won that last game.”
“I will see you in Atami,” I said to the Master as I left the hotel.
The Master and his wife arrived at the Urokoya on January 15. I had
been staying at the Juraku from some days earlier. My wife and I went to
the Urokoya on the afternoon of the sixteenth. The Master immediately
brought out a chess board, and we played two games. I am an inept chess
player and was not enthusiastic, and he had no trouble defeating me even at
a rook-bishop handicap.
He urged repeatedly that we stay for dinner and a
good talk.
“It’s really too cold,” I said. “When it’s warmer we must go to the
Jubako or the Chikuyō.” There had been flurries of snow that day.
The Master was fond of eels.
After we left he had a hot bath, I was told. His wife had to help him.
Later, in bed, he was taken with chest pains and had trouble breathing. He
died before dawn two days later. Takahashi informed us by telephone. I
opened the shutters. The sun was not yet up. I wondered if that last visit
had been too much of a strain.
“And he was so eager to have us for dinner,” said my wife.
“Yes.”
“And she kept urging us too. I thought it was wrong of you to refuse. She
had told the maid that we would be with them for dinner.”
“I knew that. But I was afraid he might catch cold.”
“I wonder if he understood. He did want us to stay, and I wonder if he
wasn’t hurt. He didn’t at all want us to go. We should have quietly
accepted. Don’t you suppose he was lonely?”
“Yes. But he was always lonely.”
