The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

tedium itself.
The old had politics forced upon them. Even though
he ached in all his joints, a man of seventy-eight could
hide his want of interest only under a show of wit and
good humor. A want of interest was important all the
same. It was the only way to win out over the idiocy of
the world. The unconcern of a beach receiving each
day the waves and the driftwood.
Honda had thought that, purse-lipped and
surrounded by lackeys, he had yet a little life in him, a
little sharpness with which to hinder the purse-lipped
days and the lackeys; but it had deserted him. All he
really had was an overwhelming sense of folly, and of
a vulgarity that melted into a monotone. How myriad
were the manifestations of the vulgar. The vulgarity of
elegance, the vulgarity of ivory, the vulgarity of
holiness, the vulgarity of the craze, erudite vulgarity,
the vulgarity of the academic pretender, coquettish
vulgarity, the vulgarity of the Persian cat, the vulgarity
of monarchs and beggars, of lunatics, of butterflies, of
blister beetles. Reincarnation was retribution for
vulgarity. And the chief and indeed the only source of
it all was the wish for life. Honda himself was without
doubt a part of it. What distinguished him was his
uncommonly keen sense of smell.
He glanced sideways at the aging couple before