The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

under a delicate tortoiseshell bed of ashes, trembling
like a heap of white feathers. The firm bind of logs
would collapse at its foundations. Then, maintaining a
precarious balance, it would burn up like a great rock
in the air.
Everything was flowing, in motion. The quiet chain
of smoke, so stable, was forever breaking up. The
collapse of a log that had finished its work brought a
sort of repose.
“Very interesting,” said Tōru, rather tartly, when he
had heard the story to the end. “But where’s the
proof?”
“Proof?” Keiko hesitated. “Is there proof for the
truth?”
“When you say ‘truth’ it sounds false.”
“If you demand proof, I should imagine Mr. Honda
has preserved Kiyoaki Matsugae’s diary all these
years. You might ask to see it. He wrote only of
dreams, and Mr. Honda says all of them have come
true. But maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe nothing I’ve
said has anything to do with you. You were born on
March twentieth and Ying Chan died in the spring, and
you have those three marks, and so it would seem
that you are her reincarnation. But we have not been
able to find out exactly when she died. Her twin sister
said only that it was in the spring, but she seems