The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

enches. Honda could see from the angle of the
heads that they were looking at the sunset. A lump of
black came out from under the bench. Honda could
not make out whether it was a cat or a dog. Momoko
stood up in surprise. Tōru, standing up beside her,
took her in his arms.
“Well, now.” The voices of her parents, watching
through the window, floated up gently as dandelion
floss.
Honda was not watching. The cognizant one was
not watching through his peephole. There at the bright
window, he was half enacting in his heart the
movements his awareness had ordered, directing
them with the strength of all his faculties.
“You are young, and you must give evidence of a far
stupider vitality. Shall I put thunder into you? A sudden
flash of lightning? Shall we have some queer sort of
electric phenomenon: perhaps send flames darting
from Momoko’s hair?”
A tree stretched its branches spider-like toward the
sea. They started to climb it. Honda could feel the
tension in the pair beside him.
“I shouldn’t have let her wear pants.” Taeko seemed
on the edge of tears. “The little hussy.”
They entwined their legs around the branches and
swung up and down. Leaves scattered toward the