The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

might have a look around for our edification.”
“Please. Come on in.”
The boy bowed quickly from the hips and laid out
slippers for them.
It was cloudy, but the naked outdoors seemed to be
sweeping them suddenly from a dark attic to an open
moor. Some fifty yards to the south were Komagoé
Beach and the dirty sea. Honda and Keiko knew well
enough that old age and affluence dispel reticence.
Soon they were seated as if at their own veranda on
the chairs pushed toward them. Yet the words that
followed the boy back to his desk were very
ceremonious.
“Go ahead with your work, please, quite as if we
weren’t here. Would you mind, I wonder, if we were to
take a look through the telescope?”
“Please. I don’t need it at the moment.” The boy
threw the flower into the wastebasket. After a noisy
washing of hands the fair profile was bowed over the
notebook on the desk as if nothing had happened; but
Honda could see curiosity swelling the cheek like a
plum.
He invited Keiko to have a look through the
telescope and then had a look himself. There were no
ships, only a heaping of waves, like a culture of blackgreen
bacteria squirming purposefully under a