_Tame wo omoute_ _Hara tate sosete_ _Muri ni kayeshita_ _Atode naku._
Thinking only of his good, I made him angry, sent him back Against our mutual wish, And then I wept.
Made him angry? What? The thought flashed on him, monstrously appalling. He called Ishii. Had the people opposite moved? Yes, they had left early that morning. Should he find out where? After a while he came back. Yes, O-Toshi-san had gone away, no one would tell him where.
So the adventure had ended, suddenly, as it had begun. Why? What had been her reason? Probably he would never know. The mysterious Orient, yes, like an Arabian Nights tale, where the fairy vanished into vapor at the profaning touch of importunate hands.
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.