That he was born, he says, he remembers exactly, he remembers that he was born, they lived on the first floor, and he sees himself, his body, down there far below, but he sees his soul as well — what did his soul look like? — well, it was white, and he couldn’t cry, because the umbilical cord was wound around his neck; and with that everything began, his entire life, and he had to cry but couldn’t, not figuratively, but because of the umbilical cord, he would have cried, but no sound came out of his throat, everyone watched him in fear, his father wasn’t even there, he remembers everything clearly; the room where he came into the world, the windows, the tatamis, the washbasins, all of the room’s objects, and where they were placed, and he remembers very well the feeling that he had been born, of where he had come from, and he understood immediately that he had now stepped into a different form, into a different existence, here somehow everything was harder: principally, breathing, and not only because of the umbilical cord around his neck, for someone immediately unwound it, the hardest thing of all was the breathing, that he had to take breaths or to put it more correctly, things weren’t even more difficult, but generally, everything seemed to have weight, everything became apparent together with its weight, that was the new thing, and inconceivable, and so very heavy, everything slowed down, and this everything was still bloody and slippery, and everything was slipping and was in shadow, as if somewhere the light was shining, the shadow of which only extended to here; but even today, when he conjures this memory up, he doesn’t know what was casting that shadow, he conjures it up with particular frequency, not even intending to, rather it just somehow floats into his consciousness, without any cause or precedent; that’s how it must have been, that was his birth, his father was not there, he wasn’t even there when they took him out of the room, he was not at home, during that time he was often away; the family was engaged in the respirator-mask trade, and the demand was great after the war, so his father didn’t live with his family but no one knew where, or with whom; he appeared only once a month, when he brought home his dirty clothes for his mother to launder, your father is a bad man, his mother said to him, but he never, not for a single instant, felt that, in any event, his father, if he had money, really did not live at home, the business went well, so that a month went by before his father took him into his arms, he brought the dirty laundry, and he looked at his son, and it is there very clearly within him that his father somehow held him at a distance from himself and thus examined him, but he didn’t sense that his father was bad: he was without any emotion at all, in the most objective manner possible, he determined that this is my father, while the father, in all likelihood, without any emotion at all and in the most objective manner, said, this is my son; this was his first meeting with his father, he recalls this as a very particular moment if he thinks about it, that first meeting, and in addition to its particularity, the most important thing was that it was the first, because later, afterward, for a good long time, he saw his father only very rarely, and his father hardly ever picked him up because he just showed up once a month, he took the money and brought the laundry, he waited until his mother gave him what he had brought one month ago — washed out and prepared — he hardly even sat down, or just for a little, and he always left immediately, hence it could be said that he grew up without a father, it could be said that his mother, abandoned, raised him, and the two of them lived together; he had no siblings, there was only him and his mother, altogether the two of them, his father showing up for only a few minutes once a month every month, so that he was alone very much of the time, indeed, in point of fact, he was always alone, all the time, this was his childhood and his youth, he says, and that is why later on he decided that if he reached manhood, he would have a huge family, and it turned out that way too, because here, he shows, is sensei Kimiko, and Sumiko-san, and Yumito-san, they are his daughters, and the littlest one, my son, is there, he says, Tomoaki, none of them are children anymore, and he has two grandchildren too: Maya-chan from Kimoko’s family, and Aya-chan from Sumiko’s family, he has a wife, Ribu-san, and next to her there is Amoru-san, but these are not the only people around him, but countless others as well, disciples in Kyõto, disciples in Tokyo, in Fujiyama and in Arayama, at least eighty people altogether, which of course doesn’t change anything about his solitude, because everyone is a soul, everyone; the family members and students he is addressing nod respectfully, who — now the pause in the Seiobo rehearsal is longer than usual, they see that the sensei is beginning to speak at greater length this time, he is talking to the guest and, well, at that point, as if a sign had been given, they sit all around their father and their grandfather and their master, because sensei Kimoko is there and Sumiko-san and Yumito-san and Tomoaki-san, and Maya-chan and Aya-chan are there, and there too — always a little detached from the others — is the mysterious silent Amoru-san, too, and of course the sensei’s most faithful disciples as well, Chiwako-san, Nozumu-san, and Himuko-san, and Ante-san and Haragu-san, and Gomu-Gomu and Raun, here in the Mahorowa, as the master calls his rehearsal space not far from the Kamigamo shrine, in the northwest corner of Kyõto, everyone is here, and they listen to their father and their grandfather and their master with the greatest of curiosity, although it is completely obvious that they have heard this quite a few times already and they know all of the master’s stories, so they know too the ones in which he speaks of himself, but perhaps it is just that fact that impresses them so much, the master always tells them with the same, precisely the same words, he never mixes up his words, never mixes up the order of events in the stories, and he always begins by saying that I remember that I was born, we lived on the first floor, and I see myself, my body, down there far below, but I see my own soul as well — never a single alteration, and this is passed on: the family members and the students themselves try to follow the master’s words exactly, when they begin to speak of him to someone with enthusiasm, in this way, the master’s story is passed on, just like a fairy-tale, although with the difference that in this story not even one single word may ever be altered, not even a single expression, no one may add anything to it, and no one may take anything away, he was born on December 22, 1947, in Kyõto, he says, the family home is still there, and even today it is his property, the street however has no name, it is a completely narrow, tiny alley, and it was always like that, it lies not far from the Nanna-jo and the Horikawa-dori intersection, across from the enormous Nishi-Hongan-ji temple, you have to picture the alley running parallel with the Nanna-jo, just a few houses on it and among them, there in the middle, was ours, he says, where the lower story was always used for business purposes — for the respirator-mask trade — even today it is like that, we lived on the upper floor, my mother and I, because there were only two of us in the house, my father, while the business was still operating, turned up once a month, for a very brief time, to leave his dirty clothes and take his clean ones, my mama was always working, she hardly had any time to be with me, so that I was alone so much, so very much, so that my solitude was truly profound, as profound as solitude could be, he says, and roughly at that point, as if touched by a magic wand, the family members and the students begin, by mutual consent — as if from this point on the story doesn’t really concern them — to return to their places, the places from where, listening to the beginning of the master’s story just now, they had gathered around him, the children and the grandchildren move at least ten meters to his left; generally this is how the private rehearsals, when the master rehearses by himself, proceed, and completely apart from him, in the background, so that the master will not be disturbed, are the children, chiefly Kimoko, the eldest girl, who herself has already reached the level of master; accordingly then, farther away from the father and grandfather, the disciples seek out an even more suitable distance from him to the right, or sit facing him by the wall of the Mahorowa, for the place of the master is sacred, no one may sit close to him, only Amoru-san, but only so she can supervise, keep accounts of, arrange the master’s affairs; Amoru-san, about whom someone not from here would hardly be able to say what it was she was doing, although she is always doing something during the rehearsals — he remembers a boy on a bicycle, he says; it was still before he himself began attending school, a boy fell down in the street with his bicycle, and he really had a bad fall, but everyone just laughed at him, just then there were a lot of us on the street, and everyone laughed at the boy, but not me, I wept, I felt so sorry for him, mainly because I felt how much his knee was hurting from the fall, my mother began saying enough already, stop crying, he’s already gone, he dusted off his trousers, got onto his bicycle, and he’s already cycled off toward the Horikawa, but he still just wept, he really felt sorry for him, so incredibly sorry for him, because the others had laughed at him; but this actually was not his own memory, he says, this was told to him by his mother much later, and so it remained like that, it became his own memory, and now he relates it as if he were recollecting something he remembered, which, however, he did, thanks to his mother, as, for example, when already in school, he says, we went to the swimming pool once, but there was one boy among us who did not dare to go in, he was afraid of water, he was afraid of the swimming pool, I understood what he was afraid of, though I myself was not afraid; yet everyone began to jeer at him, and I of course just burst out crying, I felt so sorry for him, they talked about it when I was older already, that as a small child it was always like that, I was always feeling sorry for somebody, and I was always weeping, and these have become memories that have accompanied me throughout my entire life, and so he continues unchecked, in his own particular way of speaking, repeating and repeating, there are numerous repetitions in the narration, but it’s as if he were doing it just for the rhythm, because his memory — if it is a question of the Noh — is formidable; if he is telling a story, as he is now, he keeps returning to each point, each