there outside, along the streets of Ise, they hung their heads and for differing reasons did not utter a single word to each other, in this way an hour passed until they were able to make their way back to the main entrance, so that this time they would go along the shaded dirt path leading between the majestic trees, at least as far as the center of the main shrine, to have a look at the honden — to put it more precisely, what interested them the most — the so-called kodenchi, the fenced-in empty space in direct proximity to the honden, which twenty years ago served as the location of the old honden, but since the demolition and complete removal of the honden twenty years ago, it was now, following the stipulations, strewn and made completely level, just like the other subsidiary shrines in this sacred forest, with roughly cut pieces of white limestone; they wanted all the same to see the place that — as the Japanese formulated it to his Western friend — was the honden’s reflected image but without the honden, because it is really like this in Ise, in the two sanctuaries of this small city, that is in the forests of Naikū and Gekū, there lies, in direct proximity to each significant complex of buildings, pressing up, as it were, against the existing group of buildings, an empty space of the exact same size as in the existing group of buildings, the empty lots stand there next to the building complexes, covered with white stones cut into fist-sized pieces, and they literally shine in the pure moonlight for twenty years: a group of buildings, an empty space, an empty space, a group of buildings, this is how everything has proceeded here in Ise since the edict of Temmu, because according to legend he was the one, the Emperor Temmu in the seventh century, who first commanded in six hundred and something that every twenty years the entire structure of shrines in both Naikū and Gekū, that is both the inner shrine to Amaterasu Ōmikami, as well as the outer shrine to Toyooke Ohokami — would be rebuilt again and again, namely that on the neighboring tracts of land, left empty and corresponding with complete accuracy to the basic plan of the buildings now standing, the individual buildings would be constructed again and the old ones would be demolished, although Temmu’s edict states that not just the copy of all these buildings has to be rebuilt again, but that the same buildings must be rebuilt once again, and everything — every beam, piece of masonry, dowel, corbel, overlay — really, with a hair’s breadth accuracy, must be rebuilt in the same way and at the same time and in the same place, so that it may be renewed, so that it may be maintained in the freshness of birth, and if we are speaking of Naikū — and we are speaking of that because of the two visitors — it is so that Amaterasu Ōmikami, the sun-deity, would not leave us and would remain among us, and then — delighting in the radiating strength of the freshness — she does not leave us, and remains among us, as long as this renewal truly sustains the two great shrines in time: sustains the hondens of Naikū and Gekū, i.e., the shōden within the hondens, which serves as a residence for the deities; the three treasures, and the fencing encircling them as well, are all as if they had just come into being today, in the true vividness of creation, in the realm of a truly eternal present, because in this way all of the hinoki-wood is always fresh, because in this way the gilded beams are always fresh, the roofs and the steps are fresh, all of the joinings and planings are fresh, one can always feel that the carpenter has left off his work just a moment ago, that he has just lifted his chisel from the plank of wood, and so that every single piece of hinoki always has the sweet fragrance of hinoki; the Ise shrine, accordingly, has been shining forth in freshness ever since the year of six hundred and something, just as the main shrine of Naikū shines as well over there, where the two of them are now looking, but they turn their gaze away already, to here, onto the kodenchi, onto this emptiness, onto this unbuilt-ness, onto this pure possibility with its white stones, where altogether this emptiness is broken only by a little hut, serving as the basis for future work and protecting the sacred column, the shin no mihashira, in the middle of the back part of the area; they are looking at this space, which burns, so to speak, in anticipation, this space that will be the location of the 71st Shikinen Sengū, that of the 71st rebuilding, that is to say immediately, as it is now March, and the 71st Shikinen Sengū begins in May, that is, there are eight years left before the change that occurs every twenty years will take place in 2013, the Jingū Shicho gets eight years from Emperor Temmu until the twenty years are up, and for the new, that is for the current assembled buildings of the Ise Shrine, to be regenerated; this is what they wrote to each other, this is what they analyzed in their letters between Japan and Europe, when the idea first emerged of what a wonderful thing it would be for an architecture student and a local resident interested in Japanese culture to follow, in its entirety, how a Shikinen Sengū such as this proceeds in its countless ceremonies, moreover not just to follow it but to understand something of it, the Western friend wrote innocently, yes, the Japanese responded with a certain disquiet, perhaps suspecting something of that complicated process about which no one could have any knowledge in advance, so closed to the entire world was this process, no one could know anything about it, only the Emperor and the relative of the Emperor who represented the imperial family, as it happened the Emperor’s older sister — then, of course, the dai-gūji, the high priest, himself closely tied to the imperial family, the priests of Ise, and finally the miya-daikus, the actual instruments in the hand of continual divine creation, or more simply put the temple carpenters, and only in this case, the case of Ise, it is necessary immediately to add that we are speaking of the carpenters of the Ise shrine, because they were trained by the Jingū Shicho itself, it named them, it engaged them, it employed them, it took care of them and buried them, and they could not undertake any other line of work, only this; they could not enter into any other kind of employment, only this; the work, in the strictest sense, lasted until the end of their lives, for they were not just any sort of carpenter but ritual carpenters who worked, in the operation of the rebuilding of the shrine, with particular tools, particular materials, particular methods, in a word with a particular consciousness, completely secluded from the public, in secret as it were, just as all of the participants of the Ise Shikinen Sengū worked in secret, from the carpenters all the way to the high priests, a secrecy which in the very first place could be explained by the seemingly greatest likelihood that the purity of the process — one of the most important objectives of Shintō — could be maintained from the beginning until its completion and that, well, then it was exactly this, this openness, this so-called modern Japan, and not least of all the thorough secularization of the system of patronage, that caused or compelled, from year to year, the confidential inner circle of the Shikinen Sengū to relinquish something from this great secrecy, with the Emperor’s family at the forefront, Kuniaki Kuni by name, the current high priest of the shrine, the older brother of Princess Kōjun, the son of Prince Asaakira Kuni, who felt that the Ise Shrine should be opened up to the world, and this meant that already the previous Shikinen Sengū, at the time of the seventieth rebuilding, had admitted journalists and television reporters to certain ceremonies; moreover, under the patronage of the Jingū Shicho itself, a documentary film was made about the Shikinen Sengū process, which although revealing hardly anything about it, still gave a kind of superficial account, at the very least drawing attention, moreover the general public’s attention, to the fact that there is something called the Shikinen Sengū; yet the high priest considered — and the previously mentioned confidential inner circle of the Shikinen Sengū agreed with him — that it would still be better if the Jingū Shicho would keep a firm hold on what was divulged and what wasn’t, nevertheless it did happen here that a film was made in such a way that it seemed to be revealing something while still concealing the essence of things in the usual way; in a word, from the viewpoint of the initiators of greater openness, it proved to be the height of success; in the history of knowledge of the Shikinen Sengū, however, it proved to be an absolute hodgepodge, indeed directly misleading, everyone in Japan knew this, yet hardly anyone said anything about it, nor did anyone connected to the Emperor’s family; people treated the affairs of the Emperor’s family with the deepest possible sympathy, tact, attentiveness, and patience, and with gratitude for everything with which the Kunaicho — that is, the Imperial Household Agency, in its representation of the imperial family — honored Japan in bringing it to public notice, so that evidently the previously inconceivable could take place, that non-Japanese, but so-called scholarly researchers with strong ties to Japan and to Shintō — as for example, the recently deceased Felicia Gressitt Bock, or Ms. Rosemarie Bernard, the anthropologist from Harvard University — received permission from the Jingū Shicho to observe certain ceremonies at the 70th Shikinen Sengū, moreover recognizing, for example, the clarity of the attentive research of the latter scholar, as well as her proven sensitivity in the treatment of the matter, further permissions were granted to her, in fact she was employed as a consultant at the Jingū Shicho Public Relations Division for one year, so that, apart from the work she was given, she might further deepen her research relating to the Shikinen Sengū, which afterward was confirmed by the invitation to Harvard, at the initiative of Professor Bernard, of one of the most highly regarded personages of the Jingū administration, Kohori-san, who had not worked as director of the Department of Public Relations for a very long time now, and his participation in a symposium there, well it was precisely upon this that the western friend’s plan depended, that they should try, relying upon Rosemarie Bernard’s indirect support, to acquire permission to attend the ceremony, to follow the course of the rebuilding, in which he was even successful in winning the cautious. . hmm. . support of his Japanese friend, and this plan, it seemed just now, had proven a disaster, as they looked at Western friend Kohori Kunio’s back as he walked away after their introductory conversation, then disappeared into the main entrance of the Jingū Shicho building, a disaster that made both of them equally bitter, for they sensed that there could be no doubt whatsoever as to the clarity of his message, they hadn’t even begun to introduce themselves, the appraisal of whether they were qualified for the Jingū Shicho’s attention could not even begin before it was immediately thrown back in their faces: they were not qualified, the world of this affair, so far beyond them, just beat them down, this world was so unapproachable and so opaque, and would manifestly remain so, they were embittered and were beaten down, if each for different reasons, and with different consequences as well, for while one of them, the European half — wounded to the bone in this matter that would contain great surprises even later on — was repeating over and over again to himself, on the train headed back, how in the world is this possible, and why, for god’s sake, what sort of mistake had they made, and what a rude, arrogant, offensive character this Kohori is, they had really crashed hard against how sacred it was. . while what kept running through the head of the other, the Japanese side of this purportedly friendly relationship, was that they deserved it, he had felt it from the beginning, no good was going to come of this, what had happened was completely natural, they should in fact have counted on it, at least he, Kawamoto, should have counted on it, knowing well that you could not, just like that, as they had done — as his friend, with his European mentality, considered to be perfectly natural — you could not just send for a high-ranking official from the Jingū Shicho, Japan is Japan, and the Jingū Shicho is particularly so, and he, especially he, should not have pledged support to his Western friend, should not have accepted the general first-person plural and allowed himself to be swept up in the enthusiasm of the other when the great plan was beginning — first in their letters and then in person following the arrival of his friend — to take shape, but he should have dissuaded him in the most decisive manner possible from his insane idea, and should have explained somehow that this is not possible, this is completely out of the question; he should have stated clearly that to approach a person of such high status demands extraordinary discretion, it is simply not possible for us to go to him just like that, for us to have him called down by the porter just like that, no, Kawamoto-san shook his head, how could he even have mixed himself up in this insanity, why hadn’t he warned his friend that proposals such as this are doomed to failure, later on in eight years they could go at the end of the Shikinen Sengū to the consecration of the shrine — that is possible, that is open to the public, well of course this is what he should have soberly recommended, Kawamoto was now thinking, his friend would have understood sooner or later and he wouldn’t have got himself swept up into such a horrible mess, because what were they going to say later at home if they found out that they had gone to Ise, the Japanese side worried as they rushed homeward on the JR long-distance route, although this, the worry over this question, at least proved to be unnecessary, as later at home, in the Noh-textile workshop, luckily no one asked them anything, they were not plied with questions like: so how did it go, what happened; because those at home, the members of the Kawamoto family — the mother, the eldest son, and the two younger sisters — did not in any event really occupy themselves with the daily affairs of the other son in the family, rather unlucky, weak-willed, heaping one failure on another and thus still living at home, for they saw on their faces as they returned home that it had not gone well, that it had come to nothing, that it had been a fiasco, so why start asking questions of such a compendium of misfortune as Akio, so no one breathed a word about it, they didn’t even speak, they just ate their dinner in silence, and went to sleep, and although the next day it appeared that this unfortunate initiative with Kohori-san had made their position impossible, they still wrote, that is to say, the Western friend dictated, Kawamoto-san translated, refining every phrase to the uppermost limit, into Japanese, and thus, because the other insisted upon it, though he, Kawamoto, said to himself that now the disgrace would be fully complete, that day they sent the application to the Jingū Shicho by post, then they just sat at home in Kyōto, that is in the Noh-textile workshop of Kawamoto Akio’s family, they listened to the sound, clacking as it had for centuries, of the looms, and they sat there very dejectedly, and didn’t do anything; the guest was now no longer interested in the Kinkaku-ji, nor the Ginkaku-ji,