To be quite precise, the match ended at 2:42 on the afternoon of December 4, 1938. The last play was Black 237, by the Master’s opponent.

Silently, the Master filled in a neutral point.

“It will be five points?” said one of the judges, Onoda of the Sixth Rank, his manner polite and distant. He probably spoke from solicitude for the Master, whom he wished to spare the discomfort of having the board rearranged on the spot,³ and his defeat by five points made quite clear.

“Yes, five points,” muttered the Master. Looking up through swollen eyelids, he made no motion toward rearranging the board.

None among the functionaries who crowded the room was able to speak.

“If I hadn’t gone into the hospital we would have had it over with at Hakoné.” The Master spoke calmly, as if to relieve the heaviness in the air.

He asked how much time he had used in play.

“White—nineteen hours and fifty-seven minutes. Three minutes more, sir, and it would have been exactly half the time you were allowed,” said the youth who was keeping the records. “Black used thirty-four hours and nineteen minutes.”

High-ranking players are usually given ten hours of play, but for this match an exception was made and the time allotment increased fourfold. Black still had several hours left, but the thirty-four hours he had used were extraordinary all the same, indeed probably unique in all the annals of the game since the imposition of time limits.

It was almost three when the game ended. The maid came with tea. The company sat in silence, all eyes on the Go board.

The Master poured for his opponent, Otaké of the Seventh Rank.

Since offering the proper words of thanks at the end of the game, the young Otaké had sat motionless, head bowed. His hands rested side by side on his knees, his always pale face was blanched.

Roused by the Master, who had begun to put away the white stones, he began putting the black stones in their bowl. The Master stood up and, as on ordinary days, nonchalantly left the room. He had offered no comment on the play. The younger player of course had no comment to make. Matters might have been different had he been the loser.

Back in my room, I looked out the window. With astonishing speed Otaké had changed to a padded kimono and stepped down into the garden. He was sitting on a bench at the far side, all alone, arms tightly folded. His eyes were on the ground. His attitude there in the wide, cold garden, in the approaching twilight of late autumn, suggested deep meditation.

I opened a glass door at the veranda. “Mr. Otaké,” I called. “Mr. Otaké.”

He turned and glanced up at me, as if in annoyance. Perhaps he was weeping.

I went back into my room. The Master’s wife had come in.

“It has been a long time, and you have been very good to us.”

I exchanged a few remarks with her, and Otaké had already left the garden. With another quick change, he made the rounds, this time in formal kimono, of the Master’s room and the rooms of the various managers and organizers. He came to my room as well.

I went to pay my respects to the Master.