The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

Replete with the pride of the farewell, crowned with
the white mountain snows.
“It would not have become me to raise my hand in
farewell to those who were below, where time still ran
on. Had I raised my hand in sudden farewell at a
street crossing, I would only have stopped a cab.
“Perhaps, unable to stop time, I had to be content
with stopping a succession of cabs. For the purpose,
and that only, with firm resolve, of being taken to yet
another place where time does not stop. Without the
poetry and the bliss.
“Without the poetry, without the bliss! That is the
important thing. And I know that only in them lies
hidden the reason for life.
“Even if time is stopped there is rebirth. That I know
too.
“And I must deny Tōru the terrible poetry and bliss.
That must be my policy.”
Honda was by now quite awake. With dull pains
here and there and with mucus in his throat to tell him
that a new day had begun, he became captive of the
need to bring together again things that had fallen
apart while he slept. As if opening an old folding chair,
he brought himself out of bed. The room was light. It
was his practice to give notice of his having
awakened through the interphone, but today he