pened, and the tree fell exactly where it had to, that is five meters below the peak of the other one on the ground, so there lay the chosen hinoki trees, and then Kuniaki Kuni stepped closer to one of them, and then before the trunk of the other felled tree, and, if it was possible, the silence only grew deeper than it had been before; Kuniaki Kuni raised the broad piece of paper with handwriting upon it to the height of his head, and there was even deeper silence, and no one moved, the sister of the Emperor — the saishu of the Ise shrine — bowed her head, and at this point so did all of the privileged invited guests, and as they bowed their heads so did the journalists in the clearing facing the stage, Kawamoto was only able to whisper to his friend: “norito” in exhortation, and he followed the others, and the Western friend did the same, but he did not know of course what had happened and what was happening, of course he didn’t know why, he stood with his head bowed, and he didn’t know, just as he would never know what he might have heard if he had understood, but well how could he have understood, for what was audible from the mouth of the priest was, apart from him, not understood by many even among the Japanese, because these words, spoken for the first time at least one thousand five hundred years ago and since then with no variations whatsoever were takaamahara ni kami tsumari masu, kamurogi kamuromi no mikoto wo mochite, sumemioya kamu izanagi no mikoto, tsukushi no himuka no tachihana no odo no, ahagi hara ni misogi harai tamau toki ni, narimaseru haraidono ookami tachi, moromoro no magagoto tsumi kegare wo, harai tamae kiyome tamae to mousu koto no yoshi wo, tamatsu kami kunitsu kami yaoyorozu no kamitachi tomomi, ameno huchikoma no mimi furitatete kikoshimese to, kashikomi kashikomi mo maosu, and so on, they listened, hardly able to hear anything at all, as if the dai-gūji were reciting nearly mutely, then he folded up the piece of paper, stepped back, prayed before the one felled tree, then knelt, prostrated, then everyone raised their heads, the priests repeated the norito in front of the other felled hinoki as well, then the priests departed from the stage in order, and they could still be seen as they proceeded in front of the water trough, finally they vanished at the first bend in the path, but then the Emperor’s relation stood up and she herself left the stage with her entourage, followed by the invitees, and this was the sign, because not only did the others remain there, but everyone pressed forward toward the stage to try to get as close as possible to the woodcutters, who now came forward to shake the hands extended to them, and they were happy, all of them were smiling, and they were touched, and the joy did not want to leave them, they gave everyone some of the wood shavings from the sacred trees, the two friends also went over to them, shook hands with one of the woodcutters, and received a handful of wood shavings pressed into their palms, and it was just then that they noticed, only then did they perceive what an astonishingly powerful fragrance was everywhere, the particular fragrance of the two felled hinoki trees practically burst onto the section of the forest like a cloud, it drew them in, what an extraordinarily sweet wondrous fragrance, rhapsodized the Western friend, it is, nodded Kawamoto-san, because he was happy that his friend was not just experiencing disappointment again, and they would not return home beaten down, although that really happened too; they drove back to Kiso-Fukushima in a decidedly liberated mood, the enthusiasm of the Western friend — at least for a while — somewhat rubbing off on Kawamoto-san, although he was mostly grateful to fate that no larger misfortunes had taken place, they had not gotten mixed up in any sort of unpleasantness, which however could still be counted upon, as it was only afternoon; they were for the most part discussing the norito, gliding along in the traffic on the Meishin Expressway, the norito, the Shintō prayer uttered by the faithful in complete silence, the recitation upon which the benevolence and receptiveness of the Kami addressed in the prayer is wholly dependent — if, that is, it is uttered faultlessly in every instance where it is recited — that was all he, Kawamoto, knew, he said, apologizing while still in the car, because the norito is the most sacred of prayers of the Japanese, he explained further, when he saw on his friend’s face that he would like to know more, or, as he expressed it, to know as much as could possibly be known, and although Kawamoto-san enlarged upon it for a while inasmuch as he could recall from his school assignments: the norito is connected with the belief that the uttered word has power, but only the word uttered correctly, faultlessly, beautifully has the power to bring good; every time the opposite occurs, the word will instead signify something bad for the community, that is all that Kawamoto-san said: then in a strange confusion, a dispirited mood suddenly weighing down upon him, he became silent, and he did not wish to speak of this or of anything else, time imperceptibly slipped by, and they were already in Kyōto, there was much traffic, but still they made their way, Kawamoto however could see that due to their early arrival his friend really didn’t feel like going home, and so he proposed showing him some of the more unknown inner districts of the city, but then they sat down instead in a ryokan, and they had a fine meal, finally they sat on the terrace of one of the bars on the Kamo River, they watched the river, the couples strolling across the bridges, and Kawamoto Akio listened in ever-growing agony, as his friend had already been speaking for a while about how he would like to continue his research, how he wished to return one more time to Ise, because he would like to talk with the carpenters from Naikū, he would like, namely, to know more, to know everything about how the team of carpenters prepares for each Shikinen Sengū, how do the felled hinoki cypresses arrive there, how does the operation proceed, how do they prepare the hinoki, and how are the dazzlingly simple, pure buildings of the shrine constructed, namely, he explained, he felt that perhaps here, on this path, he must take one more step, because it was obvious that the ceremonies of the Shintō faith were completely uninteresting and had ended up in a woeful state, still though, it could be that the Shintō was still in there somewhere, concealed within the invisible world of the everyday, because surely if this Shintō was still to be found in an ancient movement, as they had experienced today, an ancient movement which had been preserved for centuries, there could be other surprises here too, oh no, thought Kawamoto-san, surprises, most likely there will be some, he nodded on the terrace of the bar on the bank of the Kamo River, and deep in thought he gazed at the people strolling from Shijō, flowing into the Gion, all the while convinced that no, this was enough already, they had been able to see the Misoma-Hajime-sai, they had received permission for that, but the Jingū Shicho would not give them any kind of permission for anything else, yet still to speak with the miya-daikus, yet still, to find out about the toryō, the miya-daikus, and through them the entire construction-leadership of the Shikinen Sengū, my god, how could he explain, brooded Kawamoto, that all of this is not possible already, it was not possible to put the Jingū Shicho in an awkward position with yet another request, even the first one already had gone beyond the limit of the desired norms here, but the Jingū Shicho had been magnanimous, it had given them permission to observe the Misoma-Hajime-sai; anything beyond this, however, beyond expressing their gratitude in a letter to the Jingū Shicho office, to which — Kawamoto tried to get his friend to understand what the correct procedure would be here, they could even add a gift, for example — well, anything else beyond this was unimaginable, but his companion, as if it were just a topic of debate, immediately rejected the thought that he, at this point — as he expressed it — should give up, come on already, don’t be afraid, you can smear all the discourteous things on me later, he said and laughed, but Kawamoto did not really feel like laughing at this, as his guest was already saying that tomorrow they would try to contact Miwa-san by telephone, and they would get to the carpenter’s workshop at Naikū, the location of which, thanks to the previously well-studied map of the shrine, they were familiar with, we’ll get in, the guest looked at Kawamoto encouragingly: but not only was it impossible to encourage him, from his constrained smile, and how he suddenly changed the topic to something else, it became clear that even the plan of this latest “action,” as his friend put it, oppressed him, and in general he was beginning to be worn down by his Western friend’s — of course, from his friend’s perspective, entirely natural — audacity, he knew he would never be able to explain to him that