The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

man’s still alive.” That was his good morning.
Still smiling, Honda skirted a dangerous
steppingstone. He did not know what would come
flying down upon him if he were so incautious as to
say more. He had only to endure this moment of
humiliation. Tōru would be out of the house at least
until evening.
“Old people smell bad. Go away.” Honda’s offense
had been to come too near.
Honda’s cheek twitched with anger, but he had no
recourse. If Tōru had shouted at him, he could and
would have shouted back. But Tōru had spoken softly
and coolly, gazing at Honda with his clean, beautiful
eyes, a smile on his pale face.
Tōru’s dislike seemed to have grown through the
four years they had been together. He disliked
everything, the ugly, impotent flesh, the useless
chatter that covered the impotence, the tiresome
repetitiveness, five and six times over, the
automatism that became fretful at the repetitiveness
itself, the self-importance and the cowardice, the
miserliness and the self-indulgence, the pusillanimity
in the constant fear of death, the complete
permissiveness, the wrinkled hands, the gait like a
measuring worm, the mixture of arrogance and
obsequiousness on the face. And Japan was teeming