"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.