The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

The astonishing thing was that the flesh, the
muscles, the organs (the brain aside) given to a
human being should through the whole of a long life of
indolence have been blessed with health and a
superfluity of money. Nor had Honda wielded great
powers of creativity or imagination. Only cool analysis
and solid judgment had been his. He had made
money enough through them. He felt no pangs of
conscience at the sweating stevedores he saw in
action or in pictures, but he did feel a nameless
irritation. The scenes and the objects and the
movements before him were not the reality of
something he had touched and taken profit from. They
were a barrier, an opaque wall forever laughing
derisively at both sides, daubed all over with smelly
paint, between him and some unseen unreality and
the unseen people taking profit from it. And the
figures so vivid on the wall were themselves in the
tightest bondage, controlled by someone else. Honda
had never wanted to be thus in opaque bondage, but
he had no doubt that they were the ones who had their
anchors like ships, deep in life and being. Society
paid recompense only for sacrifice. Intelligence was
paid in measure proportionate to the sacrifice of life
and being.
But there was no point in worrying at this late date.