The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

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and closer, spread color on hard, thin lines. The clarity was terrible. “They’re in love,” said Taeko once more. A bright rainbow arched over the sea, like an outcropping of the sunlight in Honda’s heart at the idiocy of it all.
24 EXCERPTS from Tōru Honda’s diary. I cannot excuse the several mistakes I am making in the matter of Momoko. That is because one must proceed from clarity, and the smallest element of miscalculation produces fantasy, and fantasy produces beauty. I have never been a sufficiently ardent devotee of beauty to believe that beauty produces fantasy and fantasy miscalculation. When I was still new at the signal station, I sometimes misidentified a ship. Especially at night, when it is difficult to calculate the distance between mast lights, I would sometimes take a puny little fishing boat for an international freighter, and send out a signal asking it to identify itself. Unaccustomed to such formal treatment, the fishing boat would sometimes flash back the name of a movie star. It was not however a thing of great beauty. Momoko’s beauty of course meets all the objective standards. Her love is necessary for me, and I must give her the blade with which to cut herself. A paper knife will not suffice.
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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
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15 TŌRU WAS off duty the next day.
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16 SURPRISED to learn that Tōru’
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take the risks. In the decade since
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end of economic growth or with a Co
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een a still-young Honda who had nam
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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 204 and 205: 22 SUPPOSE YOU keep company with he
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 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
Page 254 and 255: “Make me a girl who does not love
Page 256 and 257: moment’s dalliance is a matter of
Page 258 and 259: 25 TŌRU BEGAN preparatory school a
Page 260 and 261: the position best for the Hondas, f
Page 262 and 263: All he had to do was enjoy the move
Page 264 and 265: 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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The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

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