The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

white of the plastic houses, like a coat of frost,
seemed to resist.
A pounding of light engines came through the
window. The fishing fleet had put out from Yaizu to the
right, making for the sardine banks off Okitsu. Green
and red lights amidships, perhaps twenty of them,
moved past, fighting for the lead. The quivering of the
lights upon the sea gave visual manifestation to a
primitive beating of hot-bulb engines.
The night sea was for a time like a village festival. It
was like a roiling mass of festival-goers, each with a
lantern in hand, pushing noisily for a dark shrine. Tōru
knew that the boats would be talking to one another.
Rushing, fighting for the threshold of the sea,
dreaming of a huge take, vital and aggressive, fishscented
muscles shining, they would be talking to one
another through speakers, out there on the sea.
In the quiet after the stir, the automobiles on the
prefectural highway kept up a steady drone. Tōru
heard a knocking on the door. It would be Kinué
again.
He went down and opened the door.
Kinué, in a pink cardigan, stood in the light. She
had a large white gardenia in her hair.
“Come in,” said Tōru, with manly vigor.
Giving him a smile of delicate reluctance such as a