“I have been showing the money to your dead father,” the old woman said in a broken voice.
On March 16th Seato heard that the comrades met at Rinkichi’s and the trade union had been arrested. Seato went home immediately, collected all his books and papers and took them over to some neighbours. Nothing happened that day. Seato wanted to go to the trade union but the others dissuaded him. The place was occupied just now by a number of detectives and it would be dangerous to show up there. Several comrades had dropped into the union and they were arrested immediately.
Seato was glad he had not gone there. The same evening, however, he was arrested at his house.
As soon as it grew dark Okee left Kudo’s wife and made her way home along the crowded main street. Sleighs, motor-cars and buses raced past. A young couple were standing gazing in a brightly-lighted shop window.
They stood close together, whispering. Women in warm coats and men in thick camel-hair jackets went by. Workers and young lads with big empty bowls, children arm-in-arm, strolled past. Okee’s sorrow grew and grew. Hundreds of people were sacrificing their lives—and for what? For the workers. Was it right, was it just—that nobody thought anything about it, that people went by laughing and chattering as if nothing had happened? Okee could not understand it. Here in the street there did not seem to be any signs of trouble. Maybe the passers-by did not know anything about
