permitted, and they merely wanted him to tell them about the Shikinen Sengū, about the preparations, the trees, the work process — his eyes glittered gaily as he then began to speak, the words arose from him quickly, as one who lives in the impassioned shadow of great things, and who has stepped out of it just for a short time in order to speak of these things; but then would have to go back, go back to his passion, this aspect of him characterized the entire conversation: that he was burning now in a kind of truly great affair, and could not think of anything else, ever since he had been designated; only about this, the 71st Shikinen Sengū; and in the first place, he did everything possible to steer the conversation away from his own person, which they asked about first, because all the same, what could he say, he was a simple carpenter, a miya-daiku and that he remained so, he explained to the guests, only that the Jingū Shicho had honored him by naming him toryō, and as the toryō, he had now become a carpenter who bore a great, very great responsibility to the Jingū Shicho, to the Naikū and to the Gekū, but, most of all to Amaterasu Ōmikami; I am a simple person, stated this simple person, and he laughed at them and answered everything they asked very seriously, and gave them answers that cut straight to the heart of the matter, and if he felt that perhaps they were having a problem understanding something, or if he felt the topic immediately at hand to be of special importance, he repeated his sentences, even several times over, and at such times his brow darkened, now looking deeply into the eyes of the first, and now the second guest, and only when he was convinced that they understood what he was saying did he laugh again and wait for the next question, and the next, but after a while he digressed in order to speak of what he considered to be important, although they hadn’t asked him about it, because they had begun with why the Shikinen Sengū takes place every twenty years, to which he replied that well, because the Jingū has to be rejuvenated, and according to the elders the time for that comes exactly every twenty years, for the Jingū goes forward in time with man, and the gods too do not age, thus in the eternally youthful Jingū, there is a place for the eternally youthful gods, this is what he could say altogether as to the reason, he smiled at them, and well, how does someone become a toryō: it doesn’t matter what you say, it doesn’t matter how beautifully you speak, the only thing that matters is how you work, and of course age and practical experience play a role, not just professional, but human practical experience as well, and so it goes on from there — he gestured with his hand to show how it went on from there — but the essential thing, he raised his index finger, and looked at them very seriously with his enormous dark brown eyes, the essential thing is what is in your heart, the god looks and sees, and knows everything exactly, the god, he glanced at them with an impish look, and the Jingū Shicho too: after the latter remark those present, with the chuckling leadership of Iida-san, replied with complicit understanding laughter, and as for how someone becomes a good miya-daiku, that too, said the toryō, is very easy to understand, because here, in their native Japan, but especially here in the Jingū, the custom is such that the master does not teach, but that the disciple observes the master, and that is how he was with his master as well, he observed how his master, his oyakata, went about his work, he intensely scrutinized every movement, he watched what he was doing and how he was doing it and he imitated him, we call this, he explained, the “me de manabu” way, if someone is teaching, then it will certainly never be possible to learn anything from that person, this is what it’s like, he nodded in affirmation and his audience nodded, too, as from this point, all three had been transformed into keen auditors, the personality, the directness, the friendly nature of the toryō, his frankness and openness, had quickly swept them off their feet, even Iida-san, who at the beginning, striving to ensure that the authority of the Jingū Shicho would not remain latent for a single moment in this situation, he himself, his countenance serious, impeded the toryō with questions, dabbing away in the strain of his great task at his fat head, from his skull to his neck; but then even he forgot all this and, like the other two, really listened to the toryō’s words enthusiastically, as when, for example, he began to speak of that process of drawing, namely that it is here that everything begins and is determined, that is the essence of the entire activity of the toryō, namely that only he knows how to draw, and he only came to know this after having studied the drawing plans in the Shicho during half of a lifetime, of these, that is to say the drawing plans, there were altogether three kinds, the really old ones, the old ones, and the newer ones — for example the “kirikumu zushi,” to follow this and draw it onto the wood is a frequent solution, a person, he demonstrated something with wide gestures in the air, looks at the old drawing plans and he stores them away in his head, that’s what he did as well, as for books themselves, of which there were an innumerable quantity in the Shicho — he made a droll, wry face — well, books never help, because books are