The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

knows what you know can never be beautiful again. If
at your age you still wanted to be beautiful, then you
should have put your hands over your ears.
“There are invisible signs of leprosy on the face of
the one who knows. If leprosy of the nerves and
leprosy of the joints are visible leprosy—then call it
transparent leprosy. Immediately at the end of
knowledge comes leprosy. The minute I set foot in
India I was a spiritual leper. I had been for decades, of
course, without knowing it.
“Now you know too. You can put on all your layers of
makeup, but someone else who knows will see
through to the skin. I will tell you what he will see. A
skin that is too transparent; a spirit standing dead still;
flesh that disgusts by its fleshiness, deprived of all
fleshly beauty; a voice that is hoarse; a body stripped
of hair, all the hair fallen like leaves. We will soon be
seeing all the symptoms in you. The five signs of the
decay of the one who sees.
“Even if you don’t avoid people, you’ll find, slowly,
that you are being avoided. Unknown to themselves,
those who know give off an unpleasant warning odor.
“Fleshly beauty, spiritual beauty, everything that
pertains to beauty, is born from ignorance and
darkness and from them alone. It is not allowed to
know and still to be beautiful. If the ignorance and