You hear Inami before you see it. Along the stone-paved street running up to the gate of Zuisenji, the carving workshops stand open to the road, and the sound of chisels shaping ranma panels and lion heads carries out past the doorways into the ordinary air of the street. The doors are not open for you; they are open because the light is better that way, and there is something bracing about work that has not arranged itself to be watched. This is a temple town, so the street is oriented toward the gate rather than toward commerce — a road built for arriving rather than for shopping, and now lined along its whole length with people cutting wood. Stand still for a while and the sound resolves into several hands working at different speeds, none of them keeping time with any of the others. It is the most domestic noise imaginable, and it goes on all afternoon without anybody appearing to tire of it.

The smell is cut wood and, faintly, the glue and oil that go with it. It is not a convenient place. Getting to Takaoka means the Johana line and then a bus, and the daily errands still want a car, and the winters here are not gentle to anyone who has not planned for them.

Still, people keep arriving to turn empty houses into workshops, which tells you more about the town than any figure could, and the newer doors are indistinguishable from the older ones within a season or two. Nothing here is arranged for an audience, which is precisely why it is worth the trouble of getting to. Inami is as wide as the sound of a chisel carries.