After the first Itō session there was a disagreement, so considerable that the date for the next session was uncertain.

As at Hakoné, the Master requested a modification of the rules because of his illness. Otaké refused to accede. He was more stubborn than he had been at Hakoné. Perhaps Hakoné had given him all the amendments he could tolerate.

I was in no position to write of the inside happenings and do not remember them as well as I might, but they had to do with the schedule.

Four-day recesses had been agreed upon, and the agreement had been honored at Hakoné. The recesses were of course to recover from the strain of a session, but for the Master, sealed in at the Naraya as required by the “canning” system, they had the perverse effect of adding to the strain. As the Master’s condition became serious, there had been talk of shortening the recesses. Otaké had stubbornly rejected any such proposals. His one concession had been to move the last Hakoné session up a day. It had been limited to the Master’s White 100; and although the schedule itself was on the whole maintained, the plan of having the sessions last from ten in the morning until four in the afternoon was abandoned.

Since the Master’s heart condition was chronic and there was no way of knowing when it would improve, Dr. Inada of St. Luke’s with great reluctance allowed the expedition to Itō, and asked that if at all possible the match be finished within a month. The Master’s eyelids were somewhat swollen at the first session.

There was concern lest the Master fall ill again, and a wish to have him free from the pressures of competition as soon as possible; and the newspaper wanted somehow to bring to a conclusion this match so popular among its readers. Delays would be dangerous. The only solution was to shorten the recesses. But Otaké was uncompromising.

“We’ve been friends for a long time,” said Murashima of the Fifth Rank. “Let me talk to him.”

Both Otaké and Murashima had come to Tokyo from the Osaka region as boys. Murashima had become a pupil of the Master’s, Otaké had become apprenticed to Suzuki of the Seventh Rank; but no doubt Murashima took the optimistic view that, in view of their old friendship and their relations in the world of Go, a special plea from him would be effective. He went so far as to tell Otaké of the Master’s ailments, however, and the result was to stiffen Otaké’s resistance. Otaké went to the managers: so they had kept the Master’s condition secret from him, and were asking him to do battle with an invalid?

Otaké was no doubt angered, and thought it a blot on the game, that Murashima, a disciple of the Master’s, should have a room at the inn and be seeing the Master. When Maeda of the Sixth Rank, a disciple of the Master’s and brother-in-law to Otaké, had visited Hakoné, he had avoided the Master’s room and stayed at a different inn. And probably Otaké could not tolerate the thought that such matters as friendship and sympathy should be brought into a disagreement over a solemn and inviolable contract.

But what probably bothered him most was the thought of again having to challenge the aged Master; and the fact that his adversary was the Master made his position the more difficult.

The situation went from bad to worse. Otaké began to talk of forfeiting the match. As at Hakoné, Mrs. Otaké came from Hiratsuka with her baby and sought to mollify him. A certain Tōgō, practitioner of the art of healing by palm massage, was called in. He was well known among Go players, Otaké having recommended him to numbers of colleagues. Otaké’s admiration was not limited to Tōgō the healer: he also respected Tōgō’s advice in personal matters. There was something of the religious ascetic about Tōgō. Otaké, who read the Lotus Sutra every morning, had a way of believing absolutely in anyone he was inclined to respect, and he was a man with a deep sense of obligation.

“He will listen to Tōgō,” said one of the managers. “Tōgō seems to think he should go on with the game.”

Otaké said that this would be my chance to give Tōgō’s healing powers a try. It was an honest and friendly suggestion. I went to Otaké’s room. Tōgō felt here and there with the palms of his hands.

“There’s nothing at all wrong with you,” he said promptly. “You are delicate, but you will live a long life.” But for some moments he continued to hold his hands over my chest.

I too brought a hand to my chest, and noted with surprise that the quilted kimono over the right side was warm. He had brought his hands near but not touched me. The kimono was warm on the right side only, and chilly on the left. He explained that the warmth came from certain poisonous elements. I had been aware of nothing abnormal in the region of my lungs, and X-rays had revealed no abnormality. Yet I had from time to time sensed a certain pressure toward the right side, and so perhaps I had in fact been suffering from some slight indisposition. Even granting the effectiveness of Tōgō’s methods, I was startled that the warmth should have come through the heavy quilting.

Tōgō said that Otaké’s destiny was in the match, and to forfeit it would make him an object of universal derision.

The Master could only await the outcome of the negotiations. Since no one had informed him of the finer points, he was probably unaware that Otaké thought of forfeiting the match. He grew fretfully impatient as the days went by in useless succession. He drove to the Kawana Hotel for a change of scene and invited me to go with him. The next day I in turn took Otaké.

Though threatening to forfeit the game, Otaké had remained sealed up at the inn, and I was fairly sure that he would presently be coaxed into a compromise. On the twenty-third a compromise was in fact reached: there would be play every three days, and the sessions would end at four in the afternoon. The compromise came on the fifth day after the first Itō session.

When at Hakoné the four-day recess had been shortened to three, Otaké had said that he could not get enough rest in three days, and that two-and-a-half-hour sessions were too short. He could not find his pace. Now the three days were shortened to two.