The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

Time went past along the indefinable line between
waking and sleeping, like a nap at the ultimate end of
anger and sadness. Even the pain in his hips would
have been a distraction, but today there was none. He
was only exhausted.
An unfathomable disaster seemed to be coming
down on him, only made worse by the fact that it had
precise, delicate gradations, and, like a subtly
compounded potion, was having the predicted effect.
Honda’s old age should have been free of vanity,
ambition, honor, prestige, reason, and above all
emotion. But it wanted cheer. Although he should
have forgotten all feeling long ago, black irritation and
anger continued to smolder like a bed of embers.
Stirred, they sent off a reeking smoke.
There was autumn in the sunlight on the paper
doors, but isolation contained no signs of movement,
of change into something else, like the change of the
seasons. All was stagnation. He could see them
clearly in himself, anger and sadness that should not
have been there, like puddles after a rain. The feeling
born this morning was like a bed of leaves ten years
old, and new each instant. All the unpleasant
memories poured in upon him, but he could not, like a
youth, say that his life was unhappy.
When the light at the window told him that evening