“I left on July 8, eighty whole days ago,” said Shūsai the Master, back in his Setagaya house upon his release from St. Luke’s. “I’ve been away all through the summer and on into the fall.”

He strolled a few blocks that day, his longest venture forth in two months. His legs were weak from the months in bed. Two weeks after he left the hospital he was able, with considerable effort, to sit on his heels in the formal manner.

“I’ve been trained to the proper way for fifty years now. Actually I’ve found it easier to sit on my heels than to sit cross-legged. But after all that time in bed I couldn’t manage any more. At meals I would cross my legs under the tablecloth. No, it wasn’t really that I sat cross-legged. I’d throw these skinny legs of mine out in front of me. I’d never done that before in my life. I’ll have to get used to long bouts of sitting on my heels or I won’t be able to go on with the game. I’ve been working on it as best I can, but I have to admit I still have trouble.”

The season had come for horse racing, of which he was so fond. He had to be careful of his heart, but finally he could contain himself no longer.

“I thought up a good excuse. I said I had to give my legs a trial, and went out to the Fuchu track. Somehow I’m happier when I’m at the races. I felt better about my game. But I was exhausted when I got home. I suppose the core isn’t very solid any more. I went again and could see no reason at all why I shouldn’t be playing. I decided today that we could begin on the eighteenth.”

These remarks were taken down for publication by Kurosaki, a reporter for the Nichinichi. The “today” was November 9. Play would thus be resumed some three months after the last Hakoné session, August 14. Since winter was approaching, the Dankōen in Itō was chosen as the new game site.

The Master and his wife, escorted by a disciple, Murashima of the Fifth Rank, and by Yawata, secretary of the Go Association, arrived at the Dankōen on November 15, three days in advance of play. Otaké of the Seventh Rank arrived on November 16.

The tangerine groves were beautiful in the hills, and down at the coast the bitter oranges were turning gold. It was cloudy and chilly on the fifteenth, and on the sixteenth there was a light rain. The radio reported snow here and there over the country. But the seventeenth was one of those warm late-autumn Izu days when the air is sweet and soft. The Master walked to the Otonashi Shrine and Jonoiké Pond. The expedition was unusual. The Master had never been fond of walking.

On the evening before the first Hakoné session he had called a barber to the inn, and at the Dankōen too, on the seventeenth, he had himself shaved. As at Hakoné, his wife stood behind him supporting his head.

“Do you dye hair?” he asked the barber. His eyes were turned quietly on the afternoon garden.

He had had his white hair dyed before leaving Tokyo. It may have seemed rather unlike the Master to dye his hair in preparation for battle, but perhaps he was bringing himself together after his collapse.

He had always clipped his hair short, and there was something amusingly incongruous about the long hair carefully parted and even dyed black. The Master’s tawny skin and strong cheekbones emerged from the lather.

Though not as pale and swollen as at Hakoné, it was still not a healthy face.

I had gone to the Master’s room immediately upon my arrival.

“Yes,” he said, absently as always. “I was examined at St. Luke’s the day before I came. Dr. Inada had his doubts. My heart still isn’t right, he said, and there’s a little water on the pleurae. And then the doctor here at Itō has found something in my bronchial tubes. I suppose I’m catching cold.”

“Oh?” I could think of nothing to say.

“I’m not over the first ailment and I get a second and a third. Three seems to be the grand total at the moment.”

“Please don’t tell Mr. Otaké, sir.” People from the Association and the Nichinichi were present.

“Why?” The Master was puzzled.

“He’ll start being difficult again if he finds out.”

“And so we shouldn’t keep secrets from him.”

“It would be better not to tell him,” agreed the Master’s wife. “You’ll only put him off. It will be Hakoné all over again.”

The Master was silent.

He spoke openly of his condition to anyone who asked.

He had stopped both the tobacco and the evening drink of which he was so fond. At Hakoné he had almost never gone out, but now he forced himself to walk and to eat hearty meals. Perhaps dyeing his hair was another manifestation of his resolve.

I asked whether at the end of the match he meant to winter in Atami or Itō or return to St. Luke’s.

He replied, as if taking me into his confidence: “The question is whether I last that long.”

And he said that his having come so far was probably a matter of “vagueness.”