The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

heavy.
“How perfectly dreadful. The numbers were wrong. I
didn’t mean for you to see this one. Whatever will I
do?”
“Is it such a secret that you were once a baby?”
“Aren’t you cool. Like a doctor.”
Calm again herself, Momoko replaced the album.
Tōru was sure, from his misstep, that in the next
album he would see Momoko at seventeen.
But the next album was most ordinary, pictures from
a recent trip. Each picture showed how popular
Momoko was. It was a record of tedious happiness.
Far more than to pictures of a recent trip to Hawaii,
Tōru was drawn to Momoko in the garden beside a
bonfire, one evening the previous fall. The bonfire was
a rich, sensuous vermilion. Crouched beside it,
Momoko had the grandeur of a witch.
“Are you fond of fires?” he asked.
He caught hesitation in her eyes. He had a strange
confidence that she had been menstruating as she
sat looking into the fire. And now?
How pure abstract malice would have been if it had
been free from sexual attraction! He saw that this new
challenge would not be as easy as dismissing his
tutor had been. But he had confidence in his
coldness, however much he might be loved. It lay in