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 a rat, the geisha master, or the . They don't want you to find her, and the police commissioner's being mixed up in it 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 along in life, with a few bright spots, vivid pleasures, 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 . But the ones really worth while are those which one has stored in one's mind; they don't fade, they never lose their . 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,[Pg 125] 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 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 of youth, the , 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 by a pool under a hot summer moon; this girl; that fight, one after one, as one would tell off on a rosary.
"Even in my most 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, depths of the sea, which are strung one after the other; all may have a general resemblance, color, , contour, but 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 [Pg 126]something in it, and if you do, well—go 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 , even 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 in Oiso for the summer, and he had not seen Kimiko-san since that night in the tea house. She had joined a traveling company and was touring the "colonies," Korea, Manchuria, Formosa.
He formed the habit of taking long walks in the evening, enjoying such relief as one might obtain after the sweltering heat of the day. These 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 , stirring thoughts of this multitude, gropingly, eagerly seeking the ideas of the new, great world all around them, the uncertainly mass mind in of transition.
He had dropped into one of the 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 tied over cotton kimonos. It was in Kanda, the student quarter. youths, many of them bespectacled, in kimono or university uniform, but nearly all with the brass-emblemed cap, came and went, drank their beer, 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[Pg 127] him. He ; the others could go. No, she was indefinite in her explanation, but . 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 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 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 , quite friendly,[Pg 128] 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. at other tables were some ten or twelve students, much of a type, the ungainly age of . 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 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 faces of . 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 ............