The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

could hear the insects in the clump of agaves. As if it
had been yesterday, he remembered the ferocity of
the mosquitoes in the thickets and the sound of
slapping against naked skin.
He dismissed the car at the parking lot by the art
gallery. The driver glanced at him from under a narrow
forehead. It was the sort of glance that can sometimes
work collapse. You may go, Honda said again, more
strongly. Pushing his stick out on the sidewalk ahead
of him, he climbed from the car.
The parking lot was closed at night. A sign said that
access was forbidden. A barricade blocked off the
entrance. There was no light in the attendant’s shelter,
and no sign of life.
Looking after the car, Honda walked down the
sidewalk past the agaves. They flung out harsh
leaves, a pale green in the darkness, quiet, like a
clump of malice. There were few passers-by, only a
man and woman on the sidewalk opposite.
Having come as far as the façade of the art gallery,
Honda stopped and looked at the great empty
scheme in which he found himself. The dome and the
two wings rose powerfully into the moonless night.
The rectangular pond and the white gravel of the
terrace, long streaks of light from the lamps cutting off
the dim white of the gravel like the line of the tide. To