On the morning of the next session, after a two-day recess, the Master and Otaké both complained of indigestion. Otaké said that the pain had awakened him at five.

No sooner had the sealed play, Black 109, been opened than Otaké excused himself, taking off his overskirt as he left.

“Already?” he said in astonishment, seeing on his return that White 110 had been played.

“It was rude of me not to wait,” said the Master.

Arms folded, Otaké was listening to the wind. “Might we call it a wintry gale, or are we still too early? I think we might, on the twenty-eighth of November.”

The west wind had quieted from morning, but an occasional gust still passed.

The Master had glared threateningly toward the upper left with White 108, but Otaké had defended with Black 109 and 111 and rescued his stones. Under White attack, the Black ranks in the corner faced difficulties. Would the Black stones die, would the kō situation³⁹ arise? The possibilities were as varied as in a textbook problem.

“I must do something about that corner,” said Otaké as Black 109 was opened. “It’s on long-term loan, and the interest is high.” And he proceeded to solve the riddle the corner had presented and to restore calm.

Today, surprisingly, the match had advanced five plays by eleven in the morning. Black 115 was not an easy play for Otaké, however. The time had come to stake everything on a grand assault.

Waiting for Black to play, the Master talked of eel restaurants in Atami, the Jubako and the Sawasho and the like. And he told of having come to Atami in the days before the railway went beyond Yokohama. The rest of the journey was by sedan chair, with an overnight stop in Odawara.

“I was thirteen or so, I suppose. Fifty and more years ago.”

“Ages and ages ago,” smiled Otaké. “My father would just about then have been born.” Complaining of stomach cramps, he left the board two or three times while deliberating his next move.

“He does take his time,” said the Master during one of the absences. “More than an hour already?”

“It will soon be an hour and a half,” said the girl who kept the records. The noonday siren blew. “Exactly a minute,” she said, looking at the stopwatch of which she was so proud. “It begins to taper off at fifty-five seconds.”

Back at the board, Otaké rubbed Salomethyl on his forehead and pulled at the joints of his fingers. He kept an eye medicine called Smile beside him. He had not seemed prepared to play before the noon recess, but at eight minutes after the hour there came the smart click of stone on board.

The Master grunted. He had been leaning on an armrest. Now he brought himself upright, his jaw drawn in, his eyes rolled upwards as if to bore a hole through the board. He had thick eyelids, and the deep lines from the eyelashes to the eyes set off the intentness of his gaze.

White now needed to defend his inner territories against the clear threat presented by Black 115. The noon recess came.

Otaké sat down at the board after lunch and immediately went back to his room for a throat medicine. A strong odor spread through the room. He put drops in his eyes and two hand-warmers in his sleeves.

White 116 took twenty-two minutes. The plays down to White 120 came in quick succession. The standard pattern would have had the Master falling quickly back with White 120, but he chose a firm block even though the result was an unstable triangular formation. The air was tense, for a showdown was at hand. If he had given ground it would have been to concede a point or two, and he could not make even so small a concession in so tight a match. He took just one minute for a play that could mean the fine difference between victory and defeat, and for Otaké it was like cold steel. And was the Master not already counting his points? He was counting with quick little jerks of his head. The count pressed on relentlessly.

Games can be won and lost by a single point. If White was clinging stubbornly to a mere two points, then it was for Black to step boldly forward. Otaké squirmed. For the first time a blue vein stood out on the round, childlike face. The sound of his fan was rough, irritable.

Even the Master, so sensitive to the cold, was nervously fanning himself. I could not look at the two of them. Finally the Master let out his breath and slipped into an easier posture.

“I start thinking and there’s no end to it,” said Otaké, whose play it was. “I’m warm. You must forgive me.” And he took off his cloak. Prompted by Otaké, the Master pulled back the neck of his kimono with both hands and thrust his head forward. There was something a little comical about the act.

“It’s hot, it’s hot. Here I am taking forever again. I wish I didn’t have to.” Otaké seemed to be fighting back a reckless impulse. “I have a feeling I’m going to make a mistake. Make a botch of the whole thing.”

After meditating on the problem for an hour and forty-four minutes, he sealed his Black 121 at three forty-three in the afternoon.

For the twenty-one plays during the three Itō sessions, Black 101 to Black 121, Otaké had used eleven hours and forty-eight minutes. The Master had used only one hour and thirty-seven minutes. Had it been an ordinary match, Otaké would have exhausted his time allotment on a mere eleven plays.

One could see in the divergence a spiritual incompatibility, and perhaps something physiological as well. The Master too was known as a careful, deliberate player.