Karsten could give him no help. "Better make up your mind that you
have lost her. She has evidently been taken away to some other
geisha quarter, Yotsuya, Ushigomo, Akasaka, probably Akasaka. They
must have smelt a rat, the geisha master, or the guild. They don't
want you to find her, and the police commissioner's being mixed
up in it complicates the affair, makes it harder. Anyway, you are
the gainer, you have had the experience. Now you know these girls'
insidious--charm. The word is threadbare, but it is the only one that
describes it. And then you have the memory.
"So make up your mind that she is gone. Presently there will be others;
and you will add to your collection of memories." He smiled. "I don't
know if it has ever struck you that as we plod along in life, with a
few bright spots, vivid pleasures, illuminating the general dullness of
existence, the only treasures really worth while that we gather are the
memories thereof. You know, as I grow older, I find that they become
valuable; they gain with age like wine. One picks them up and reviews
them, as one might old pressed flowers, faded ribbons, the stupid
material mementos. But the ones really worth while are those which
one has stored in one's mind; they don't fade, they never lose their
fragrance. And, do you know, I find that the ones which I treasure,
the ones that come back pleasurably into my thoughts again and again,
are not the recollections of such few good things, or wise things as I
have done--they seem drab, without color, or tone, or life. No, it's
the memories of the foolish things that I have done, madcap adventures,
turbulent love affairs,--these are the things that I find pleasure in
recalling. You have noticed those old fellows whose active life is
behind them, who sit in the sunshine and smoke, and think, and dream.
The daydreams of youth are all in future; but the old men have no
future. Their dreams are of the past. And it has occurred to me that I
know what they are dreaming of, as they sit there so quietly and smile
over their pipes, and it is not the clever things that they did, the
big deals they pulled off; no, it is the foolish pranks of youth, the
fiery, passionate adventures of young manhood,--these are the thoughts
which bring back youth to them, because they are characteristic of it,
as those others are not--these are what enable them to become young
again in their dreams, as they drowse, recalling this affair and that;
this tryst by a pool under a hot summer moon; this girl; that fight,
one after one, as one would tell off beads on a rosary.
"Even in my most frivolous days I used to have that idea, that however
foolish it all might seem, I was at least gaining memories for my old
age. Life becomes like diving after pearls in the opal, translucent
depths of the sea, which are strung one after the other; all may have a
general resemblance, color, luster, contour, but essentially each is a
little different from the others; each has its individual history. At
least, I have made that provision against my old age; I have a number
of memories to recall, to tell off on my rosary of experiences. Can
you think of anything so horrible as barren old age, the utter poverty
of the old man who has none of the recollections which may bring back
youth to him?" He laughed a little at his own earnestness. "'Tis a pet
theory of mine. You may think it a mad fancy, but possibly you may see
something in it, and if you do, well--go forth and collect your pearls
while yet you may."
A bizarre idea; just like Karsten. But it carried no great appeal to
Kent. He had no heart to seek love deliberately, even lighter love must
come unsought. He would have enjoyed the company of some of the girls
whom he knew, but the Suzukis had gone to their villa in Oiso for the
summer, and he had not seen Kimiko-san since that night in the tea
house. She had joined a traveling theatrical company and was touring
the "colonies," Korea, Manchuria, Formosa.
He formed the habit of taking long walks in the evening, enjoying such
scant relief as one might obtain after the sweltering heat of the day.
These rambles took him all over the city and he found vague interest
in book stores, curio shops, odd little drinking places; in talking
with chance-met Japanese, clerks, barmaids, students, feeling that in
an indefinite, tentative way he might get a glimpse of the seething,
vaguely stirring thoughts of this multitude, gropingly, eagerly seeking
the ideas of the new, great world all around them, the uncertainly
fumbling mass mind in flux of transition.
He had dropped into one of the myriad small beer "halls," with their
pathetic attempts at modernity, which were springing up all over Tokyo.
They were generally much of a pattern, a few tables and chairs, foreign
style, cheap, slatternly maids making their attempt at new fashion by
means of dirty aprons tied over cotton kimonos. It was in Kanda, the
student quarter. Gangling youths, many of them bespectacled, in kimono
or university uniform, but nearly all with the brass-emblemed cap,
came and went, drank their beer, munched the food prepared in what was
supposed to be foreign fashion, joked with the waitresses. He noticed
that many went upstairs. Idly curious, he thought he would go up there,
but a waitress stopped him. He remonstrated; the others could go. No,
she was indefinite in her explanation, but determined. Well, no matter.
He dismissed it from his mind.
Suddenly some one stood before him, bowing deeply. It was Ishii, his
clerk.
"Good evening, Mr. Kent." He was evidently pleased to show the others
that he knew this foreign gentleman. Kent invited him to sit down. As
they chatted over their beer, he told him of his rebuff. What was the
reason?
"Well, you see, it is, in a way, a sort of a private place, kind of a
club." He was oddly evasive, ill at ease. "Just wait a moment, please."
He scrambled upstairs and disappeared. Presently he returned. "You can
come, if you like. They are my friends upstairs there. We meet here
sometimes. You know," he lowered his voice, "it's politics."
So that was it. Immediately Kent was eager to go. These were the
hotbeds of the new thought, the "dangerous thoughts," as the police
called them, half-baked Socialism, Communism, Sovietism, fortuitously
mixed with Cubist art, literature after the fashion of Dostoievsky,
crude passion for mass sculpture à la Rodin, anything that was thought
to be ultra-modern or outré, beyond the minds of the _hoi polloi_,
_haikara_, the latest in modern culture. It was an opportunity to learn
for himself what they really thought, these youths, how much of it was
real, and how much only pose; to see how deeply it all went, whether
it was merely the usual ebullience of youth, such as one might see in
the European universities, even in America, which usually spent itself
quite safely with passage into maturer years, or whether this was
really more definite, more likely to have direct, positive influence on
the life of the nation, the development of the government of Japan.
They were extremely courteous, quite friendly, though a little
self-conscious, ill at ease, evidently diffident as to whether they
had been wise in admitting this stranger. He was invited to sit at the
table with two men older than the others; he was told that they were
professors. Scattered at other tables were some ten or twelve students,
much of a type, the ungainly age of adolescence. It was awkward in the
beginning. He had the uncomfortable feeling that they were taking his
measure, deciding whether he was quite safe. He would like to reassure
them; still, it was probably better to let the situation develop
spontaneously, to let them take the initiative. He drank with the two
professors; he judged them to be about thirty-five or forty, thin,
nervous men with the pale, somewhat ascetic faces of enthusiasts. They
opened with the questions usual in Japan; what was his nationality, how
long had he been in Japan?
"What are you politically?"
After that came a long conglomeration of political questions, first
tentative hints, designed to draw out his ideas, to determine his
stand, but soon they launched into their pet topic, the miseries of the
present situation in Japan.
"But surely you must see that, even if there are things to correct
in other countries, in no place are conditions so terrible as they
are in Japan." The elder professor had risen, swept out his hand,
addressing not only Kent but the whole assembly, the students who
sat gazing at him raptly. "There are only a few hundred thousands in
the privileged class. They are the ones who are gaining everything.
They took advantage of the fact that the people, the sixty millions,
are still thinking as they did in the days of the Tokugawa, looking
to their masters for orders, taking dumbly whatever they might deign
to fling to them. They have been exploiting the people, and they and
the militarists want to exploit the other people, too, in Siberia
and China. You foreigners are always talking about the militarist
rule of Japan; but you don't see that even the militarists are not
all-powerful now. The real governing power of Japan is the little
multi-millionaire class, the Watanabes, the Fukusakis, the Oharas, the
Inouyes, the Yamanakas, the Katos, only about half a dozen enormously
wealthy houses, with their mines, and their steamship companies, their
tremendous business houses, their banks, who buy Diet members and
cabinet ministers, who determine the Government's policy, who keep
prices high by insisting on import tariffs, who wallow in concessions.
Even the militarists bow to them. The plutocrats wanted Siberia, so
we spent hundreds of millions of yen on the Siberia expedition and
our young men were killed by the thousands that the plutocrats might
get fisheries, and mines and oil wells. Japan to-day is a plutocratic
oligarchy, with the militarists as a handy and subservient tool, with
the police throwing into jail any one who tries to wake up the people
to assert their rights. Just look about you. See, right here in Tokyo,
the poor are huddled by thousands in hovels in Fukagawa and Honjo,
where the river washes out their houses every year, and still they must
pay heavy taxes on their miserable mud flats, while the rich with their
parks, stretching over vast spaces in the best and highest parts of the
city, pay taxes only on a valuation as forest lands or fields. These
are the ones who want the people to remain as they were a hundred years
ago, feudal slaves, in order that the rich may grow richer. That's
why the police keep watch over us and the government officials hire
_soshi_, professional ruffians, to break up our meetings. That's why
it is a crime to 'harbor dangerous thoughts.' Property is the curse of
all modern countries. When private property became known the class
struggle began the world over; and nowhere is property as privileged as
it is in Japan. Labor should be the measure of value, undifferentiated
human labor, where all workers should be paid alike, no matter what
might be the manner of their work. Here capital exploits labor, as
capital always does, and only by abolition of capitalism can we abolish
such exploitation."
The professor flung back a long wisp of wet hair, paused to refresh
himself from his beer glass. The students were all nodding approval.
Evidently this was familiar doctrine to which they heartily subscribed.
Kent remembered the numberless volumes of Karl Marx which might be
seen in every second-hand book stall in the student quarter, along
Jimbo-cho. They swallowed it all, the Marxian dogmas, cramming them
down hastily in their hungry voracity for new thought, ever more.
Ishii-san insisted on seeing Kent part of the way home, after another
long harangue on capitalism, evidently a popular topic. As they left
the place, a shadow detached itself from the general blackness of the
buildings opposite and followed at a little distance. "A detective,"
whispered Ishii, excitedly. "He is following us. Oh, Mr. Kent, I wish I
might be arrested."
When they parted, Kent was relieved to see that the shadow followed
Ishii. He had no desire to become a victim to the burdensome attentions
of the police. Probably he had been foolish to venture into this queer
gathering. Still, it had been interesting, had given him another
glimpse into the intimate life of Japan, far more vitally important
than the phase which had heretofore intrigued him.
"What do you make of it?" he asked Kittrick a few days later. "It is up
to us to know all this that's going on all about us. It's widespread.
It's important. It has a vital bearing on the future of Japan, and
still it's so intangible, so oddly impossible to get at. Is it just an
intermittent phase, or is it a growing movement that will slowly but
surely result in fruit of some kind,--revolution or what?"
"Of course, I've been wanting to follow it, just as you have," said
Kittrick. "But what can one do? If you try to learn from the agitators,
no matter how innocent may be your intentions, the police will soon
make it impossible for you. One may get a little by following the
Japanese papers, watching the straws that show which way the wind
blows. Here you see a big appropriation for special officers to watch
over 'dangerous thoughts'; here's an item about a special force to
guard the persons of cabinet ministers.
"The point is that Japan is discarding her old beliefs, political,
social, ethical, religious, the whole business, and she is in
a breathless hurry to grab at anything, any kind of belief, or
philosophy, or political creed that comes handy. Of course it's a
mix-up. The political unrest may be dangerous in so far as it leads
excited fanatics to take too literally what they read or hear, so they
prize a knife or a bomb and sally forth to become heroes or martyrs,
but there is no great amount of sound sense or definite program in it.
"When the people stand up and shout for this thing or the other,
you'll find that the real underlying cause is entirely economic. A
few years ago Japan's industrial system was patriarchal. The boss had
a little shop with half a dozen or a dozen workmen. He fed them, and
clothed them and looked after them, _paterfamilias_ fashion, did their
thinking for them, and they were quite satisfied. That was all they
knew. Now has come the big factory system, where thousands work in
great plants and never see the owner. The personal relation has been
lost. Then they've heard that workmen in other countries have better
conditions. During the war, when workers must be had at any price to
fill the orders from abroad that swamped the factories, they learned to
strike for high pay--and got it. They've learned a lot of other things,
'sabotage,' 'go slow,' unionism, that labor may have a voice in factory
control, all that sort of thing. They see the rich grow richer, and are
learning that they ought to have a share of those profits. Most of them
think that Russia is a little paradise for the workmen. It's not the
political side that interests them, it's better conditions. They have
learned to look upon capitalism collectively and on labor collectively.
Their unions are becoming more and more consolidated. The next thing
you'll see nation-wide strikes.
"And in the meantime the economic situation grows worse every day.
Japan has lost her foreign markets, so she closes factories. The
capitalists insist on dividends, so, as they can't make money abroad,
they insist on keeping prices high on home products by keeping
production just a bit lower than the demand. That means closing more
factories, discharging more workmen, unemployment. If they kick too
much, they give them discharge allowances, six months' pay, a year's
pay, anything to avoid a row--and, of course, the consumer pays for
it, and prices go higher, while the workmen retire to the country
villages they came from and blow their allowances and then live on
their relatives. The family system of helping relatives is saving the
situation to-day. That's why you don't hear much trouble yet from
unemployment, but as the number increases of idlers whom each worker
must support, the condition grows worse. The end must come some day."