One shoal had been traversed, and another lay ahead.

As soon as he heard of the compromise, the Master said: “We’ll begin tomorrow.”

But Otaké wanted to rest the next day and begin the day after.

Unhappy with the delay, the Master was poised to begin immediately. The matter seemed to him a simple enough one. But Otaké’s feelings were complicated. Weary from the long days of altercation, he needed rest and a change of mood before he resumed play. The two men were of two quite different natures. Otaké was moreover suffering from nervous indigestion. And the baby, at the inn with Mrs. Otaké, had caught cold and was running a high fever. Devoted to his family, Otaké was much concerned. He could not possibly play the next day.

But it had been very bad management to keep the Master waiting so long. The managers could not tell him, all eager for battle, that Otaké’s convenience demanded waiting a day longer. His “tomorrow” was for the managers absolute. Since there was also a difference in rank to consider, they sought to prevail upon Otaké. Already in a State of great tension, Otaké was much put out. He said he would forfeit the game.

Yawata of the Association and Goi of the Nichinichi sat in a small upstairs room, silent and to all appearances exhausted. They seemed on the verge of surrender. Neither was an eloquent or persuasive man. I sat with them after dinner.

The maid came for me. “Mr. Otaké says he would like to speak with you, please, Mr. Uragami. He is waiting in another room.”

“With me?” I was startled. The two looked at me. The maid led me to a large room in which Otaké was waiting alone. Though there was a brazier, the room was chilly.

“I am very sorry indeed to bother you. You have been a great help over the months, but I have decided I have no recourse but to forfeit the game.” His speech was abrupt and hurried. “I cannot go on as things are.”

“Oh?”

“And I at least wanted to apologize.”

I was only a battle reporter, scarcely a person to whom he need apologize. That I should all the same be the recipient of formal apologies seemed evidence of our esteem for each other. My position had changed. I could not let matters stand as they were.

I had been a passive observer of the disputes at Hakoné and after. They had not been my concern, and I had offered no opinion. Even now he was not asking my advice. He was informing me of his decision. Sitting with him and hearing of his tribulations, however, I felt for the first time that I should speak up, and indeed that I might possibly offer my services as mediator.

I spoke boldly. I said that as challenger in this the Master’s last game he was fighting in single combat, and he was also fighting a larger battle. He was the representative of a new day. He was being carried on by the currents of history. He had been through a year-long tournament to determine who would be the Master’s last challenger. Kubomatsu and Maeda had been the winners of an earlier elimination tournament among players of the Sixth Rank, and they had been joined by Suzuki, Segoé, Kato, and Otaké of the Seventh Rank in a tournament in which every player met every other. Otaké had defeated all five opponents. He had defeated two of his own teachers, Suzuki and Kubomatsu. Suzuki, it was said, would have bitter regrets for the rest of his life. In his prime he had won more games than he had lost as Black against the Master’s White, and the Master had avoided the next stage, at which they would play Black and White in alternation.³⁵ Perhaps, out of feelings for his old teacher, Otaké had wanted to let Suzuki have one last chance at the Master. Yet he had sent his teacher to defeat. And when he faced Kubomatsu, each of them with four victories, in the decisive match, he was again facing a teacher. One might therefore say that Otaké was playing for his two teachers in this contest with the Master. The young Otaké was no doubt a better representative of the active forces than were elders like Suzuki and Kubomatsu. His incomparable friend and rival, Wu of the Sixth Rank, would have been an equally appropriate representative, but Wu had five years earlier tried a radical opening against the Master and lost. And even though Wu had won a professional title, he had at the time been of the Fifth Rank, scarcely an eminence from which to face the Master at no handicap; and so the match had been of a different order from this the Master’s last match. Some twelve or thirteen years before, and some years too before his match with Wu, the Master had been challenged by Karigané of the Seventh Rank. The contest was really between the Go Association and the rival Kiseisha, and, though Karigané was among the Master’s rivals, he had over the years been the underdog. The Master won another victory, and that was all. And now “the invincible Master” was staking his title for the last time. The match had a far different import from those with Karigané and Wu. It was not likely that problems of succession would arise immediately if Otaké were to win, but the retirement match meant the end of an age and the bridge to a new age. There would be new vitality in the world of Go. To forfeit the match would be to interrupt the flow of history. The responsibility was a heavy one. Was Otaké really to let personal feelings and circumstances prevail? Otaké had thirty-five years to go before he reached the Master’s age—five more than the sum by the Oriental count of his years thus far. He had been reared by the Association in a day of prosperity, and the Master’s youthful tribulations were of a different world. The Master had carried the principal burden from the beginnings of modern Go in early Meiji through its rise to its recent prosperity. Was not the proper course for his successors to see this match, the last of his long career, to a satisfactory end? At Hakoné the Master had behaved in a somewhat arbitrary fashion because of his illness, but still an old man had endured pain and gone on fighting. Not yet fully recovered, he had dyed his hair black to continue the battle here at Itō. There could be little doubt that he was staking his very life on it. If his young adversary were to forfeit, the sympathies of the world would be with the Master, and Otaké must be resigned to sharp criticism. Even if Otaké’s case was a good one, he could expect nothing better than endless affirmations and denials, or perhaps a contest in mudslinging. He could not expect the world to recognize the facts. This last match would be history, and a forfeiture would be history too. The most important point of all was that Otaké carried responsibility for an emerging era. If the game were to end now, conjecture on the final outcome would become a matter of noisy and ugly rumors. Was it really right for a young successor to ruin the Master’s last game?

I spoke hesitantly and by fits and starts. Yet I made what were for me a remarkable number of points. Otaké remained silent. He did not agree to continue the match. He of course had his reasons, and repeated concessions had brought him to the breaking point. He had just made another concession, and been ordered as a result to play on the morrow. No one had shown the slightest concern for his feelings. He could not play well in the circumstances, and so the conscientious thing was not to play at all.

“If we postpone it a day, you will go on?”

“Yes, I suppose so. But there’s no good in it, really.”

“But you will play the day after tomorrow?”

I pushed for a clear answer. I did not say that I would speak to the Master. He continued to apologize.

I returned to the managers’ room. Goi lay with his head pillowed on an arm.

“He said he wouldn’t play, I suppose.”

“That’s what he wanted to tell me.” Yawata’s broad back was hunched over the table. “But it seems he will go on if we postpone it a day. Shall I ask the Master? Do I have your permission?”

I went to the Master’s room. “As a matter of fact, sir, I have a favor to ask. I know I’m not the one to do it, and you may think me presumptuous; but might we postpone our next session till the day after tomorrow? Mr. Otaké says that one more day is all he asks. His baby is running a high fever, and he is very upset. And he is having trouble with his digestion, I believe.”

The Master listened, a vacant expression on his face. But his answer was prompt: “That is entirely acceptable. We shall do as he wishes.”

Startled, I felt tears coming to my eyes.

The problem had been almost too easily disposed of. I found it difficult to leave immediately. I stayed for a time talking with the Master’s wife. The Master himself had nothing more to say, either about the postponement or about his adversary. A day’s postponement may seem like a small enough concession. The Master had waited a very long time, however, and for a player midway through a match, all poised for a session, to have his plans suddenly thrown into confusion was no small matter at all. Indeed it was of such magnitude that the managers could not bring themselves to approach the Master. He no doubt sensed that the request had taken all the resolve I had. His quiet, almost casual acquiescence touched me deeply.

I went to the managers and then to Otaké’s room.

“The Master agrees to play the day after tomorrow.”

Otaké seemed surprised.

“He has conceded a point this time. Perhaps if something else comes up you can concede a point?”

Mrs. Otaké, at the baby’s side, thanked me most courteously. The room was in great disorder.