A few days later he went to Viscount Kikuchi's office. A young fellow
occupied the seat at the head of the stairway. "You are new here,
aren't you?" Kent ventured. Yes, he had come here only yesterday. Kent
tried a few more discreet questions, but the lad was uncommunicative.
Still his manner indicated clearly enough that he regarded himself as
a permanency. Kent was glad to learn that the Viscount was absent; he
would have hated to face those piercing old eyes. It was impossible to
tell just how much he might know.
For days he kept up the search, made occasion to linger about
Kanda-bashi, visited the places where they had been together. He even
had Ishii make inquiries, but beyond ascertaining that she had left her
lodgings at Kanda, he could learn nothing. Again he went for council to
Karsten. He laughed a little.
"By the gods, but you are the damndest man for losing ladies, for
futile amours. However," he added more seriously, "it's probably as
well that things have turned out as they have. The fact is that you
have not the light, care-free touch to make a successful philanderer.
You're a 'one woman' man. You take your affairs of the heart seriously,
and for that reason it's the more essential that you make no mistake.
As I say, you're a born monogamist. It's an enviable condition; you'll
be happy, serene, content with just one woman, provided you find the
right one. These affairs you have had recently count for nothing.
You've been lonesome, in a susceptible mood. Let it pass. Some day
you'll run into the right one and your problem will be solved for good.
And, one thing more, you're not the sort of a fellow who is cut out for
a Japanese woman. Run along, go to the dances, play with Kimiko-san and
the rest, but don't get involved, for their sake, for they take such
matters seriously and you have no right to cause them heartache; and
for your own sake as well, for you, too, take such matters seriously.
Go to work and forget serious thoughts about women, Sadako-san and the
rest. Heavens knows, there ought to be enough going on in Japan just
now to keep a newspaperman occupied."
It was true. The atmosphere had become hectic. The railroad strike
had alarmed capitalists and bureaucrats. The police were frantic,
and strike leaders and Socialists, any one thought to be harboring
the detested "dangerous thoughts," were being jailed right and left.
Strikes became frequent. Those who incited them were put away by the
police mercilessly. The method seemed successful, but soon the workers
resorted instead to what they called "sabotage," grasping fondly at the
foreign word, though the movement involved no violence, but consisted
entirely in organized effort to do as little as possible; "going slow"
was a more descriptive phrase for it. The men went to work as usual,
went through the motions of performing their tasks, remained at their
posts during the prescribed number of hours, but production fell to a
minimum. Machinery revolved as busily as usual, but raw material was
fed to it but sparingly; lathe tools moved around, back and forth, but
found no steel to shape, looms whirred hummingly but empty of fabric.
It was especially conspicuous in the case of the tramcar men, who would
run a car a block or so, stop for half an hour while making pretense of
searching for some break, then progress a block or two only to halt
again. Fights were staged in all the big cities between car crews and
irate passengers. The police were helpless; there was no way of making
men work quickly. The capitalists groaned; here were the economists
calling all the time for reduction of production cost in order that
Japanese goods might meet the competition of foreign wares, and yet
their output was becoming absurdly expensive. But the workers were in
high feather. Capital had closed so many factories and had discharged
so many workmen in order to keep the stock of goods in the domestic
market so low that prices would remain high--unable to grasp any theory
except that high prices meant high profits--and now it was compelled to
employ more workers in order to make up for the loss caused by the "go
slow" tactics.
Labor leaders, Socialists, Communists, Syndicalists, and all the
worshipers of half-understood 'isms found fine fishing in troubled
waters, certain of responsive audiences wherever they might find places
in which to shout their lurid, variegated doctrines. The police were
ubiquitous. By scores, even hundreds, they would attend meetings,
breaking them up and jailing leaders whenever occasion offered. The
Seiyukai party hired bands of _soshi_, professional ruffians, to raise
disturbances at these gatherings, and free fights and broken heads
became commonplace. Still, the various movements gathered force, came
together in common interest as streamlets flow together and form a
river. The many feeble unions joined hands, formed federations. Where
heretofore strikes had been mainly isolated, men in this shop or
factory striking solely in the interests of their own purely personal
concerns, demanding discharge of unpopular foremen, shorter hours,
higher pay, they now amalgamated and struck together, the entire body
of workers of one industry, striking in sympathy with other unions.
The dockyard workers went out because the employers would not pay a
full year's salary to discharged workmen; the seamen threatened to
follow suit unless the demand were granted, and the employers gave in.
Capital became frightened, tried to stave off the evil day by paying
ever greater allowances, hoping desperately to soothe the clamor by
doles of money; but the situation had gone beyond this. The day of the
old feudal relation between master and workman, the personal touch of
a feeling of common interest, had passed. As if born over-night, class
consciousness loomed forth, overshadowed the entire situation. Demands
for higher pay, shorter hours, became subordinated, fell into the
background; now the cry was for a share by the workmen in control of
industries, abolition of capitalism.
It became almost impossible to segregate fact from fiction. One could
not know what might have happened. It was impracticable to depend on
the reports of the press; one knew that the most important news was
not allowed to see the light of day. Kent tried to get what he could
from original sources. What was capital thinking of all this; what was
it doing about it? He sought bankers and industrial leaders. They all
professed that there was no cause for great worry, brought forth sheafs
of statistics compiled by various government offices and capital-labor
harmony societies, trying to console themselves with patently absurd
figures proving that there was no unemployment, that more men were
given work than lost employment, that all was serene. Ostrich-like they
buried their heads in the convenient mess of figures, insistent on not
seeing the truth.
"It's only a phase of the depression which we are passing through just
like other countries," they insisted. "Things are no worse here than
they were in America and Europe a few decades ago when your workmen
were in a similar condition. Remember, we have in a few years almost
caught up industrially with the countries which were several centuries
ahead of us. Give us a few years more and conditions here will be the
same. Anyway, the situation here is not as bad as in the United States
and England, for example. Our strikes are insignificant in comparison.
We have never had business held up for weeks and months by nation-wide
strikes. In New York and Chicago you have daylight bank robberies and
hold-ups. In Japan a man may walk safely anywhere with a roll of bank
notes in his hand, even in the poorest quarters. And the industrial
workers are too few in proportion to the total of population to count
for much; only they make lots of noise. The bulk of the people is
agricultural. There's nothing very much to worry about."
He pointed out that danger lay in the fact that the agricultural
population also had become infected with resentment against capital.
Thousands of unions of tenant farmers, who constitute half of the
agriculturists, had been formed and clamored against the exactions of
rapacious landlords. Some of them had made united demands for rent
reduction, had refused to till the soil when such were not granted,
and had proclaimed that if other tenants were brought in to cultivate
the land, these men would be ostracized; so the fields now lay idle.
What about the formation of the gigantic federation of farmers' unions
and its great convention in Kobe? What about the report that soldiers
who had served their term in the army in Siberia were sowing the seeds
of Bolshevism throughout the peasantry? Did not that show that the
farmers were likely to make common cause with the industrial workers?
But they remained stubbornly sanguine here also. This, too, was only
a phase. A general of the Siberian expedition had said that this
Bolshevism was only on the surface, like face powder, which would
speedily wash off. So that was that, so to speak. Presently there would
be a big rice crop; there were all indications of a bumper yield, and
then the farmers would be happy again, and quiet. Anyway, capital was
doing what it could. A horde of scholars and statisticians was studying
the situation, and obviously it would be unwise to move in the dark,
until these experts had reported. And the Government had appointed a
commission for studying the problem of universal suffrage, which would
report some day. It was a grave question whether the masses were ripe
for the vote. It would not do to be over-hasty.
The task of obtaining reliable data with respect to the other side of
the situation was equally baffling. A woman Socialist had sprung into
fame through her articles in various magazines advocating the cause of
the masses; partly, also, from the fact that her husband, a university
professor, had been placed in jail. Kent went to see her in her small
house crammed from floor to ceiling with books and pamphlets, the
inevitable Karl Marx tomes looming forth with glorious prominence.
She hailed him with joy, chanted a tirade of almost unbelievable
accusations; the capitalists were holding the workers--men, women, and
even children--in slavery. Many of them were kept far underground in
mines and were not allowed to see light of day for months; they tried
purposely to kill them by means of unwholesome food and unsanitary
quarters in order to prevent them from going back to the country
districts and spreading the cause of Socialism. It was easy to get
young men and girls to replace them, owing to the general unemployment.
But he wanted something more definite, data, figures. Certainly, he
should have them. She would send him such in a few days. She sent him
a vast bundle of papers, a mass of laboriously contrived compilations
of figures, going back into the early days of Japanese industrialism,
showing by minutely detailed statistics that one-half of the factory
work women died from consumption within two years of employment in
the great textile mills. It seemed almost incredible, and as he went
into the matter he found that figures had been given for periods
before the time when vital statistics of any kind had been kept by
the Government or any one else; still closer examination showed that
the tables did not check, were wildly contradictory in many cases.
Evidently the author had drawn her data, enthusiastically, from her
inner consciousness. He went back to her, told her that her information
must be more consistent, more reliable. She tore the bundle from his
hands. A few days later one of the vernacular papers published a lurid
account from her, mentioning him by name as a capitalist spy who had
been frustrated by the famous lady Socialist.
He called on Ikeda, the head of the federation of labor, a rotund,
pleasant-faced man with humorous eyes beaming from behind great
round spectacles. "Yes, it is getting worse all the time," said the
leader. "Of course, all this helps to bring the unions together,
but it is difficult to keep them in hand. We all want abolition of
capitalism, but while some of us want it accomplished peacefully, by
evolution, many of the workers, most of the smaller unions especially,
want nothing short of revolution. They are Sovietists, Communists,
Syndicalists, Anarchists, all kinds. They are getting more and more out
of hand."
"Would universal suffrage content them any?" asked Kent. "I should
think if you centered on the suffrage movement, gave them that to think
about, you might maintain control. Anyway, it seems to me that labor
must remain powerless as long as it is voiceless and has no control in
the government. I take it that you people will back up the universal
suffrage agitation at the next session of the Diet?"
The eyes behind the great lenses became serious. "No, we're going to
leave it alone. In fact, we dare not take it up. The workmen look upon
that as futile, a mere sop, a process that's altogether too slow to
suit them. We're afraid that if we took up suffrage as an organized
movement, the unions would get out of hand; it would set them thinking
of more revolutionary measures; they would insist on them and would
sweep aside us who are trying to lead them along a constructive line
of action. Anyway, the masses are hardly ripe for suffrage yet. They
must be educated first; that's what we are trying to do now, to educate
them."
So here, too, was temporizing. Labor leaders, like capitalist leaders,
were trying to play for time, to avoid facing the music, while the
steam in the kettle kept becoming denser and stronger, with ever more
insistent force striving against the walls of repression. But how
much was there really behind all this clamor of labor? He came to
wonder to what extent these complaints were justified. It was true,
what the capitalists said, that conditions in Japan were no worse, or
not much worse, than they had been in America and Europe not so many
decades ago. Of course, the unrest was due to the fact that workers and
farmers, heretofore satisfied with feudal conditions not knowing that
they could be otherwise, had suddenly been shown by the Socialists, the
soldiers coming back from Siberia, the radical press, that workmen
in other countries lived in what seemed to frugal Japanese eyes the
luxury of millionaires, and now they wanted similar privileges, yes,
rights. But capital was right in its contention that workers who
could individually bring forth only one-fifth the result produced by
the white workmen could be paid wages only in proportion to their
output capacity--otherwise Japanese production cost would rise to the
point where Japanese goods would be helpless in world competition and
industry must cease. The point seemed to be whether capital was holding
down labor to unduly harsh conditions.
He took to rambling about in the poorer quarters of Tokyo, but could
learn but little. The houses were frail, of thin boards and paper,
but so were those of the wealthier classes; it was the form of
construction adopted by a hardy people. Even if these buildings were
dirtier, dingier, the population showed no sign of abject poverty,
of misery. Children played merrily in the streets; men and women
moved about or sat chatting in the open stores. A Japanese might have
learned something, might have penetrated more intimately into their
lives, might have entered their dwellings, have drawn from them their
confidential thoughts, but as a foreigner he felt himself baffled
by an invisible veil of reserve. They were courteous, friendly, but
impenetrable. Only occasionally might he detect a hostile, wondering
glance--what might this foreigner be doing in such places--or he might
hear childish voices behind his back uplifted in song to the effect
that the foreigner's father was a cat. One night a couple of fellows
mellowed by sake wanted to take him to their bosom, tried to embrace
him, overcome by all-enfolding love of mankind generally, insisted on
his joining them in their festive circumambulations. It was annoying.
They were harder to deal with than if they had been unpleasant. He
was trying to hold them off, irritated at the laughing crowd that had
gathered, to escape, in some way. Suddenly the ranks of the onlookers
parted and a Japanese in foreign clothes strode through, a middle-aged
man, muscular, authoritative. "Here, you fellows, run along; can't
you see that this foreigner wishes to pass?" The men stood back
shamefacedly, murmured some apology. "All right, now run along." He
cleared a way through the crowd. "They mean well enough," he explained
to Kent, "but probably you had better let me go with you for a moment."
"Oh, I'm all right. Still, I want to thank you for your help." He began
to explain why he had come; it was only due this unknown rescuer, and
then the man had spoken in English, and evidently held some authority
that the people here recognized. Who might he be, anyway?
"So you come to see poverty," the man laughed. "Well, if you really
want to see it, the real thing, I think you may find no better man
to guide you. That's my specialty, you see." He went on to explain.
He was an official, it appeared, had charge of a government home for
unemployed, where men might sleep for fifteen sen a night and board
for forty sen a day. "But there are too few of these places," he
complained. "We can take care of less than one tenth of the thousands
who need it. There are no free sleeping places, no free food. The
Capital-Harmony Society has provided a few reading rooms, playgrounds
and all that; every now and then some rich man gives a small park; but
they all give a few hundred thousands where they ought to be giving in
millions. They can't see that if they don't give now, freely, these
people will come some day and take it from them by force. If you care
to come along, I'll show you how these people live."
He led Kent through a maze of narrow alleys, into the Fukagawa quarter,
through dark lanes illumined only by faint light from open doorways.
They must walk warily over rotten boards covering the slimy gutters
which served as sewers, to avoid the deepest of the universal mud.
Presently they came to a collection of buildings more squalid than the
rest,--long, barn-like houses of filthy, rotting wood.
"Here you are," said the guide. "These are the 'Nagaya Tunnels'; they
are famous for being the worst place in the city."
They entered. Through the length of the building ran a narrow passage,
faced on both sides by cubicles of three mats each, spaces of six
by nine feet, each housing a family, several adults and swarms of
children. In the passageway all cooking and washing was done. It was
cluttered with _hibachi_, firewood, cooking utensils, buckets for
water brought from a pump outside, heterogeneous implements. Women
were busy cooking, and acrid smoke ascended idly against the roof,
escaping through a large hole and numerous cracks and crevices. As
they passed down this corridor they could look into the minute rooms,
packed with goods, ragged _futon_, tattered clothing, poor belongings
of every kind, leaving only a scant space in the middle where humans
sat huddled together or lay asleep. Some of the rooms, particularly
those where a few men maintained slovenly bachelor housekeeping,
were ill-kept, with paper hanging in streamers from broken _shoji_
ribs, and goods scattered about haphazardly. Others formed striking
contrast with desperate attempts at cleanliness, where woman hands
had tried pathetically to create some kind of home atmosphere in the
box-like spaces allotted them in this turmoil of poverty. Kent caught
a glimpse of a family seated about a low Japanese table, father,
mother and a couple of children, sitting decorously, with the same
display of graceful manners as might be seen in the abodes of the rich,
daintily picking with their chopsticks fish and vegetables from cheap
earthenware. A tiny glass globe with a couple of goldfish was suspended
from the window frame. The little tableau was like a ray of light in
the mass of grime and poverty all about it, a pitiable insistence
on maintenance of the spirit of family life, of decency despite the
squalor hemming it in on all sides.
As they fumbled on, some of the inhabitants recognized the guide,
crowded up to him with tales of their troubles. These were men only;
the women eyed them curiously, dully, but remained apathetic. From
the shadows unkempt wretches emerged. An old fellow with only one eye
insisted on removing his bandage. He had lost his eye in an accident
while working for the municipal electric light works; but they had
given him nothing. Now, he had been trying to peddle small fish, but
they had stopped him because he had no license. Where could he get
money for a license? He had nothing to eat; others could find no
employment. They wanted assistance, money, jobs.
But, oddly, try as he might, Kent could not draw even from the
all-surrounding evidences of abject poverty an impression of suffering,
of heart-rending misery. It was revolting that here several hundreds
of humans were forced to find shelter in these miserable hovels,
collections of rotten wood worth probably less than a thousand yen as
kindling and fit for nothing else. But while presence of Americans or
Europeans in such quarters would have caused him indignation, intense
sympathy, here these people, inured to hardship by generation after
generation of Spartan frugality, possessed a happy faculty of making
the best of these wretched circumstances, of accepting them stoically.
Mingled with the complaints, the stories of distress, had been laughter
of children, the glimpse of the family at table, triumphantly wringing
content from even such mean material. He was annoyed that he should
feel like this, essentially unsympathetic, unable to register the
distress which the plight of these people should produce; but the fact
was that there seemed to be no anguish, no grinding, torturing grief.
He mentioned it to his companion. "It seems strange to me; here is
poverty, and squalor and even want, and yet most of these people do not
seem to be altogether unhappy; some even seem fairly well satisfied."
"Yes, that's true, but, as a matter of fact, you've come at the wrong
time. Yesterday was the first of the month, and those of them who had
jobs got their pay, and even those without jobs benefit from that.
Those who have money share with the rest. But you ought to have been
here last month, during the rains. I was down here trying to help,
and the water came up to my armpits, tide and rain water mixed. The
whole district was flooded, and the houses. In the single-story ones
like the Tunnels the water stood several feet over the floors and the
people had to construct makeshift shelves for themselves and their
belongings. There they sat for several days, wet, hungry, cold. I've
heard the cry of little children for food and their mothers trying to
hush them, explaining that the father could not work during the flood.
And that sort of thing is not unusual; it happens several times a
year, as often as half a dozen times, whenever there is a heavy rain.
This entire quarter is not fit for human habitation, but the factories
have been built here because the location is convenient and the land
comparatively cheap; and the workers must live near the factories.
The whole district should be filled, but these people have no voice
in the government. Only the rich can vote for city councilmen, and
the government funds are spent for the benefit of the rich, in wide
avenues in the fine residence districts, by hundreds of thousands for
celebrations--but there is no money for rescuing the poor from the
floods.
"And do you know that the odd thing is that it's these very same poor
people who are carrying the burden of maintaining the city. Tokyo
collects less than four million yen a year from land and house taxes,
and yet she is the sixth largest city in the world. The revenue is
collected by indirect taxation, by the huge profits of the car system,
by the imposts and stamp duties and licenses for every conceivable
thing. The proportion of business tax paid by the magnates is
infinitesimally small when compared with that wrung from the peddlers
and small shopkeepers. So you see, the poor wretches who must cling
to their walls like bats while the flood waters sweep over their
floors, are at the same time paying for the boulevards and improving
the property whose owners contribute almost nothing. Until a few years
ago they did not think of that; they didn't know that things could
be different. But now they're being taught, and they're beginning to
figure things out. This is the kind of a place that breeds 'dangerous
thoughts,' and, I tell you, when I am down here during flood time, I
come pretty close to having 'dangerous thoughts' myself."
A few days later Kent was telling of this experience to a group of
friends, Japanese and foreign, chance-met at the Imperial Hotel bar.
"It's damnable. Of course, in every country we have rich rolling in
luxury and poor ones groaning in misery, but in no place is the gulf
between the classes so great, and nowhere else are the plutocrats
so utterly unfeeling, so heartless; in no place are the poor ground
so hard to make such absurdly high profits, your sixty and seventy
per cent. dividends, your constant subsidies to giant companies and
industries, your tariffs for protection of profiteers. I tell you, when
I was mucking about down there in Fukagawa and heard of what it was
like during the rains, and what it will continue to be like, I felt
that I should like to meet these people, the Watanabes, the Inouyes,
the Yamanakas, the Oharas, the lady with the blood-dyed silken shift of
the song, you know, and I should like to kick the whole damned outfit,
yes, the lady, too, by the gods."
"Look out, Kent, you're getting 'dangerous thoughts.'" They laughed and
dismissed the subject, but one of them, Hata, leaned across the table
to Kent.
"You know, Kent-san, I don't think you'd want to kick them at all, if
you met them. In fact, you'd like them. I'll bet you a tiffin on it."
"All right, you're on," he replied thoughtlessly. The others had taken
up the question of the Chinese demand for the return of the Liaotung
peninsula, and he was interested.
A few days later Hata appeared at his office. "I have an invitation for
you, you and your friend, Mr. Karsten, to have luncheon with Baron and
Baroness Ohara, almost any day that would suit you. Would next Friday
do? You know," he had noted the surprise on Kent's face, "you said
you'd like to meet them."
Could ever such an absurd situation occur outside of Japan? How the
devil could he accept the hospitality of people whom he had said he
would like to kick, the Baroness at that? And still he was greatly
tempted to grasp this opportunity to see at first hand, in their
intimate home surroundings, these people, these heartless plutocrats
who ground down the poor that they might amass wealth in a measure far
greater than they could possibly use by even the most extravagant
luxury. He hesitated.
"Did you by any chance say anything to the Oharas about my desire to
kick them, Hata-san? Of course, you see that----"
"No, of course, not," he interrupted eagerly. "You know, I'm fairly
close to Baron Ohara, and I really wanted you to meet him and the
Baroness. They are charming people; you'll revise your opinion. I've
told them of your investigation of the conditions of the poor in Tokyo,
and they are much interested and really want you to tell them about it
all. Anyway, do you think it would be fair for you to see only one side
and then condemn the other? How about Friday?"
Kent accepted. What an odd proposition. Of course, Hata was right
enough; he must seek both sides before passing judgment; but what the
devil interest might Hata have in this? He did not know much about him,
a suave, frock-coated gentleman, highly intelligent, fluent in English
and French, ubiquitous in all places where Japanese and foreigners
intermingled. He was known to be more or less definitely connected with
the big interests--some even claimed that he was obscurely identified
with the Foreign Office--but he was clever, an excellent companion,
always ready to be of service in giving information or obtaining it
for the foreigners. They accepted him as a sort of unofficial liaison
officer maintained by the Japanese for the purpose of keeping them
informed as to what the foreigners thought; also, in some measure, to
elucidate the Japanese point of view. He was a bit of a mystery, but a
pleasant one.
On the appointed day Hata came to escort them in one of the Baron's
automobiles. "Here we are; this is the place," he pointed with almost
proprietary pride to a long brick wall rising well above the height
of a tall man's head, hiding from view whatever might be enclosed
within. "How do you like that gate?" Liveried commissionaires held
open the massive iron-grille work, flanked on each side by tower-like
buttresses. "The Baron had it brought from France; it's an exact copy
of that of some château somewhere there."
"Frankly, I'd rather have seen in its place one of those great wooden,
brass-studded gates of old Japan," said Karsten. "Wouldn't you, Kent?"
But Kent did not answer. He recalled a picture he had seen in the
Japanese papers, some months ago, of this very gate, closed, with
a score of women clamoring, gesticulating through its ornate bars,
workers who had vainly tried to bring their complaints direct to the
owner of the factories in which they were employed. Eventually they had
been hustled away by the police.
The automobile swept round a miniature mountain cleverly built up from
carefully placed rocks. Trees had been planted amongst them; vines
sprang from the interstices; skillful hands had laboriously contrived
to reproduce a picture of untouched, untrammeled nature, an atmosphere
of the free and restful mountainous country that made it difficult to
realize that the grimy tangles of the city were but a hundred yards
behind.
More liveried servants met them at the door of the mansion, a large
modern thing, but well planned, with the quiet air of great wealth
which disdainfully avoided garishness. The Baron met them in the hall,
a young man--Kent judged him to be about thirty-five--slim, seeming
tall with his trim athletic figure, almost like some young French
aristocrat as is a type which recent years has brought forth among
the wealthy classes of Japan. He was graceful, pleasantly placing
them at ease. Harvard, then Cambridge, had obliterated the stamp of
race; it did not enter one's thought; one felt exactly as if he might
have been a young Frenchman, Italian, Spaniard. He led them into an
immense living room, high-ceilinged, with French windows giving on
to an Italian garden which had been laid out behind the house. This
also was entirely modern, with the same atmosphere of wealth carefully
restrained by unfailing taste, excellently chosen furnishings, each
thing of value and elegance, but harmonious, with an air of comfort, of
a delightful living place. Possibly a hint of excess, over-crowding,
might be conveyed by the superabundance of paintings which covered
the walls everywhere. At first glance the display seemed too lavish,
garish even, but this soon wore away as one came to look more closely,
appreciating the beauty of each individual piece. Here was a gallery
of modern art with here and there an almost priceless thing by some
old master, and one sensed that this profusion was due, not merely to
a desire for display, but to a genuine affection for these pictures, a
real wish to have them ever before the eye.
Karsten became enthusiastic immediately, could not keep away from the
paintings. In a moment he and the Baron had become as if they were old
friends, passing from one thing to the other, appraising, commenting,
sharing enthusiasm. Even Kent became absorbed. A discreet clearing of
the throat from Hata recalled them. "Baroness Ohara."
In this atmosphere of modern Europe she seemed almost out of place as
she came up slowly, with tripping gait in her soft _zori_, absolutely
Japanese in her garb of soft, neutral-hued kimono silks and great obi
band; only the coiffure showed some concession to the modern, the hair,
free from the oil of conventional hairdressing, being arranged in its
natural softness into a wavy crown hiding part of the forehead and
protruding over the ears.
The Baron made the introductions and she bowed deeply, gravely,
extending her welcome to the guests in the polished refinement of
Japanese phrase.
"It's a good thing you speak Japanese," commented the Baron to Karsten
and Kent. "My wife speaks only Japanese. She has never been abroad."
So for a moment the commonplaces were exchanged in Japanese, but soon
he and Karsten were back at the pictures again. Two other guests,
Japanese, joined them. One of these spoke French as his only foreign
language. The conversation became polyglot, as they conversed in
English or French about the pictures, or in Japanese with the Baroness.
Kent was asked to take her in to luncheon.
At table, also, everything was in European style. It was with
difficulty that Kent could compel himself to realize that here he was
really in Japan; he could succeed only by glancing at the pretty,
dainty figure at his side, listening to her soft, melodious Japanese.
At the beginning the talk concerned itself about the poor quarters.
Kent tried to describe what he had seen. They were all interested,
receptive; but somehow he felt that he was not speaking well, that he
was failing entirely to convey the picture, the sensations which he had
felt; he could not drive himself into the vein in these surroundings.
He tried to conjure before his mind the miserable realities of the
"Tunnels," to revive the sense of indignation caused by contrast of
the misery there and the luxury here, at the unfeelingness of these
plutocrats whose most trifling bit of ornament was worth many times the
value of the Tunnel shacks and all they contained. But he could not
make himself despise these people, or hate them. He caught a glance
from Hata. Was he thinking of his expressed wish to kick them, this
graceful, petite incarnation of charm who was sitting right next to
him, eyes wide with interest as if he were telling of matters of a
distant country, things which were far from her, which had not the
least direct concern with her. The thought confused him. He felt with
irritation that his talk was unconvincing, featureless, lame. He was
glad when the interest of Karsten in the pictures brought the main
drift of the conversation to that subject. The talk became general,
the Baron and Karsten leading. When they left the table, they returned
to examination of the pictures, followed them down along the walls,
Karsten and the Japanese, into the hallway beyond. Presently Kent found
himself alone with the Baroness.
"Tell me some more about these poor people," she asked. "You know, they
came here once, a lot of poor women, and wanted to talk to my husband.
But he was not here. I crept outside and hid in the shrubbery so I
could watch them. They were standing there by the gate and stretching
their arms in through the iron grilles. I felt so sorry for them. I
wanted to go and talk to them, to have them come in here and talk to
me; but I was afraid. I know nothing about business. They might not
have liked it, the men in charge of the business. I was afraid of them,
these grave, old men who are in charge of the factories and the mines
and all that. I was more afraid of them than of my husband. He knows so
little of the business, too, you know."
So this was the lady whose silken shift was dyed crimson with blood
from working girls' fingers. He wondered if she knew the song; probably
not; she lived as if she were thousands of miles removed from the grim
sordidness whence was evolved almost miraculously all this wealth of
beauty and art. But as he began to tell her about it, it seemed so
futile, so incongruous, like trying to contaminate the frail fairness
of a hothouse orchid with thought of the grimy coal mines which
furnished fuel for the heat which gave it life. He could understand how
it was possible for these people, the plutocrats, to be innocent of
realization of the meanness of the sources of their wealth. Again he
wanted to get away from the subject.
"This is a wonderful garden," he stepped up to a window. "I admire the
artistry with which it has been fashioned. Here you can see but a bit
of Italy. You would never know that Tokyo is right beyond."
"I'm so glad you like it. That is my great interest, the gardens,"
she was quite radiant. "And beyond that, below the terrace, we have a
typical Japanese garden, just like real, old Japan. You must see it
some time. I'm often quite lonesome, you know. Some day, when you are
not too busy, you must come and have tea with me, and I will show you
all the gardens."
She went on, telling of the plans for an artificial waterfall, run by
an invisible electric pump, which she was having constructed; about the
chrysanthemums which she was nurturing carefully for exhibition at the
great November show at Hibiya. He enjoyed her, just like that, with
her natural, ingenuous concern with beauty of flowers, the congruous
interest of a gentlewoman of Japan. And as she went on, with bright
eyes and soft voice, and the picture flashed into his mind of the
women, hard-voiced, stridently storming at the gate, the conviction
came to him that should this occur while he was here, were they to
come this moment, he would do what he could to keep this dainty, pure,
flower-like little woman away, removed from the grim realities which
must not be suffered to enter disturbingly into the serenity of her
existence.
"Well, you didn't kick the Baroness while we weren't looking, did you?"
chaffed Karsten, as they were on their way home.
"Oh, shut up, Karsten," it irritated gratingly. "I know well enough
when I've made a fool of myself. You needn't rub it in." They went on
a while in silence. "Still, you know, Karsten, I can't help feeling
that I might have made better use of my opportunity to do something
for those poor devils out in Fukagawa. I feel sure that had I been
able to be more convincing, to make them feel as I felt when I was
there, as I feel now, as a matter of fact, I might have contrived to do
something to help. These people, the Oharas, are decent enough, kind
enough, would surely give gladly from their wealth. Here they spend
on a picture more than a hundred of what those poor devils earn in a
year. It isn't right. Of course, it's because they don't know; but they
_should_ know, at least Ohara should. It's an obligation of wealth;
only he doesn't think of it."
"But he does, in a fashion, at least," Karsten interrupted him. "He
was talking to me about it, out there in the hall. He wants to do
something; he would like to give, but he doesn't know how to go about
it. He tells me that he has spoken to his directors, but they tell
him that he must not interfere with business, that his ill-advised
attempts would do more harm than good, and the constant attempts at
blackmail to which he is exposed, like the rest of the millionaires,
do not particularly encourage him to inject himself into the whirl
of business. And, you know, if I were in his place, I think I should
do exactly as he does, spend my time collecting pictures, building
gardens, adding to the beauty of the city, with shooting and golf as
side issues. I should be content, as he is, to leave my business in
the hands of those who have far better qualifications to conduct it,
technical training and all that. Anyway, Ohara has the satisfaction
of knowing that his concerns are leading the way for improvement. You
know, some of them are spoken of as 'model' factories."
Kent did not answer, only shrugged his shoulders. Yes, "model
factories"!