The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

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22 SUPPOSE YOU keep company with her for a while. If you don’t like her you just have to say so. There is no commitment.” Tōru went to dinner one night when summer vacation had begun. After dinner, upon a suggestion from her mother that it might be nice to show him her room, Momoko Hamanaka led him upstairs. It was a large Western room, girlish from corner to corner, Tōru’s first experience of the utterly girlish. It was luxuriantly pink. There was girlishness in every detail of the wallpaper, the dolls, the accessories. They quite breathed a beguiling young charm. Tōru took a seat in an armchair. The thick multicolored cushion made sitting difficult. Momoko had a mature look, and yet there could be no doubt that all these details were of her own choosing. The cool pallor, somewhat blanched, was in keeping with old-fashioned features not too deeply carved. The solitary earnestness made her the only object at odds with the beguiling charm. Her beauty was too formally perfect; and as in the formal perfection of a paper crane it had in it something
ominous. Her mother brought tea and withdrew. The two had met several times before, but for the first time they were alone. That fact did not produce new tensions. Momoko was safe in the knowledge of having obeyed instructions. He must awaken her to danger, thought Tōru. He had been put off by all the solemn attentions during dinner. But his annoyance was about to leave. A match was being made. Delicate love was being picked up in pincers, tinted. The bonbon had already been put in the oven. To Tōru it made no difference whether he had gone in of his own accord or been put in. He had no reason to be dissatisfied with himself. The first thing Momoko did when they were alone was to choose an album from four or five numbered ones and offer it to Tōru. Thus he was made aware of her essential mediocrity. He opened it on his knees, and he saw an infant in a bib, its legs spread wide. Pants all swollen with diapers, like a Flemish knight’s. The dark pink of a mouth not yet filled out with teeth. Tōru asked who the infant might be. Momoko’s consternation was rather wondrous. She glanced at the album and put a hand over the picture and snatched the album from him. Clutching it to her breast, she turned to the wall. Her breathing was
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Table of Contents Cover Copyright A
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This eBook is copyright material an
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Isle of Houghton, Corner of Boundar
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BY YUKIO MISHIMA THE SEA OF FERTILI
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and then blue distance once more. T
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Very strange. The whole vast space
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maru, due to make port at four. He
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ut now his eye caught, the rustic p
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Receiving and dispatching of ships
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and a cot completed the furnishings
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“Hello. This is Teikoku Signal. Y
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the eye that had nothing to create,
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This orphan, one of the elect, diff
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Tōru shoved the stubby pencil he h
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great beauty might permit herself,
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downtown any more. Every man I pass
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eautiful woman that keeps hell at a
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Kinué came upon a basic but elusiv
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direction, and the stern and prow l
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second mate, on watch. Tōru could
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4 AT ABOUT the same time Honda, at
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heavenly stream of sanctification.
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a man swimming in from the ocean mi
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lungs. Three thirty, and there was
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the vanished rose, clouds scattered
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ustle in the new houses beyond the
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7 HONDA and Keiko Hisamatsu were pe
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would have been her uncle, anyhow i
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their liking. There were no tourist
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humanity. His unhappiness she made
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“That’s it. I was between life
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after each player had received elev
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The lump of mucus, like bêche-de-m
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enjoyment. There was a strange sadn
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It was a chore even to reach for th
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“You tell me to have it repaired,
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“The sin is ours, Kiyo’s and mi
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impossibility, gambled his own life
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as Keiko’s gentleman friend. He w
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8 AT THE OPENING of Robe of Feather
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forth music so beautiful that no mu
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Within the pavilion are angels in p
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had in the cab that had brought him
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them were quite devoid of sanctity.
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Serpent-twined legs spread wide, ha
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sombrero. The crowd clapped. Keiko
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her. On their return they looked in
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10 WAS THERE nothing more to see, w
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the light was behind it to send dow
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might have a look around for our ed
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trance-like mating of the sea and t
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a somewhat worn silver coin; and th
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world to destruction while seeking
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desk. Now he stood up and moved to
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“Very useful work. Keep at it.”
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Asia Line, three yellow crowns on a
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Perhaps there was nothing of the ac
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cigarette. Cigarette in hand, she w
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knows what you know can never be be
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Scotch. Honda had kept one thing fr
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Viennese psychoanalysis; but he cou
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Kinué stopped by in the morning, a
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ystander and now all of a sudden he
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for the sake of a beautiful woman.
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the Denmark-maru, and the Kōyō-ma
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green changed, rose and swelled int
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surface. Five o’clock. The white
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oom. He followed the great hull of
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The ship’s agent answered. “Hel
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embers of two cigarettes were brush
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“The Daichū is coming into three
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There was no concept for which he h
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in which industrious young men were
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investigations.” Tōru frowned. H
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conclusion to cynicism. Tōru had o
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and so long as it was to the Tōru
Page 154 and 155: 15 TŌRU WAS off duty the next day.
Page 156 and 157: 16 SURPRISED to learn that Tōru’
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Page 160 and 161: end of economic growth or with a Co
Page 162 and 163: een a still-young Honda who had nam
Page 164 and 165: human volition sought to make histo
Page 166 and 167: preferred not to. Instead he took a
Page 168 and 169: He is of course single. Ideological
Page 170 and 171: 17 HONDA CHOSE a day late in Octobe
Page 172 and 173: “I don’t feel any great need fo
Page 174 and 175: no virtues more highly prized in Ja
Page 176 and 177: 18 THE THREE TUTORS were all highly
Page 178 and 179: happiness for him; but he did not f
Page 180 and 181: “I had no idea there was such a p
Page 182 and 183: the half circle of coffee dregs. Th
Page 184 and 185: the body floating there. We all kno
Page 186 and 187: clouds drifted by. The wind carried
Page 188 and 189: decorated with a cheap flower desig
Page 190 and 191: grapefruit. A carefully scrutinized
Page 192 and 193: felt like a liberated child spittin
Page 194 and 195: Sometimes he almost thought, after
Page 196 and 197: heart. Tōru came almost to have ho
Page 198 and 199: policies calculated to give Tōru a
Page 200 and 201: For two or three weeks the seventy-
Page 202 and 203: guard examining a pass. His questio
Page 206 and 207: heavy. “How perfectly dreadful. T
Page 208 and 209: 23 RELUCTANT TO LEAVE Tōru by hims
Page 210 and 211: him. Why had the two of them come i
Page 212 and 213: “A far more inappropriate simile,
Page 214 and 215: enches. Honda could see from the an
Page 216 and 217: and closer, spread color on hard, t
Page 218 and 219: I know well enough that the more fi
Page 220 and 221: The little present Momoko gave me i
Page 222 and 223: and I grow weary of pressing the co
Page 224 and 225: world. I was too busy receiving oth
Page 226 and 227: was aware of the situation. Had any
Page 228 and 229: have looked for a reason. I have fo
Page 230 and 231: former nurse. Momoko looked aside i
Page 232 and 233: till four. I urged Momoko inside. T
Page 234 and 235: There were autumn cicadas in the ev
Page 236 and 237: I saw how complicated their movemen
Page 238 and 239: imagine rather older women, but suc
Page 240 and 241: attract a certain sort of woman wit
Page 242 and 243: is something that the winter sky ha
Page 244 and 245: She had given me a little silver ch
Page 246 and 247: I cannot be sure whether Momoko rea
Page 248 and 249: Western staircase. Only from it do
Page 250 and 251: or going out to look, but an overpo
Page 252 and 253: from outside. If only I could raise
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“Make me a girl who does not love
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moment’s dalliance is a matter of
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25 TŌRU BEGAN preparatory school a
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the position best for the Hondas, f
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All he had to do was enjoy the move
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moved the unresting bustle of the h
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“But you were very sweet while it
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26 THE VERY QUESTION was indignant
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Shimizu and installed her in the ga
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The cold water would liven his puls
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man’s still alive.” That was hi
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nature of things. He had taught the
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stupid crowds, cut through the mass
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none. The garden had been made over
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Time went past along the indefinabl
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had made it possible for Honda to e
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were even now engaged in close comb
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the left loomed the round wall of t
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shirts scattered through the groves
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Although the little man showed no d
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scream. The man sprang up and looke
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Before the woman confronted him, Ho
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concepts he had acquired in India?
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27 LATE IN NOVEMBER a splendid engr
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immorality, retreated trembling beh
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“Turn around. Oh, it’s very nic
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Georgette stole, draped down over t
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“Just sit down there quietly, if
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he had taken a liking? What did you
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will die at twenty?” “I think p
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unable to remember the exact day. M
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would call a simulator. I doubt mys
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have seen and think you have seen i
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28 REMARKABLY, Tōru came to Honda
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and now it was the blind Tōru who
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of water hit his shining flesh like
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elements, to dissolve into the corp
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the entrails than from reason, a lo
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“Day after tomorrow at three? I d
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dinner. The middle-aged housekeeper
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him from air-conditioning. It was a
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his ears. No doubt other people, sa
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And there was no smell of flowers.
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Honda had noticed numbers of Kyoto
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green platform was like a doll stan
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30 THEY COULD perfectly well drive
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coolness of its shadows. There was
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among leaves like young swallows’
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slumber. They made him think of Tha
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A steward probably in his sixties,
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If, after so much, the Abbess were
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ightness and darkness. For Honda it
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girlish curiosity in her eyes, and
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Honda was groping through a fog. Hi
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Footnote ∗ Translator’s note: t
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Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Ch
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