The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

have seen and think you have seen it all; but it is no
more than the little circle in a thirty-power telescope.
You would have been happier, I suppose, if we had let
you go on thinking that was the whole world.”
“It was you who dragged me out of it.”
“And what made you come so happily was the
thought that you were different.
“Kiyoaki Matsugae was caught by unpredictable
love, Isao Iinuma by destiny, Ying Chan by the flesh.
And you? By a baseless sense of being different,
perhaps?
“If destiny is something that takes hold of a person
from outside and drags him after, then the other three
had destiny. And has anything caught you? Only we,
Mr. Honda and I.” Letting the green and gold peacock
on her bosom take the fire as it would, Keiko laughed.
“We are two bored, cold, cynical old people. Can your
pride really permit you to call us destiny? A nasty old
man and woman? An old voyeur and an old lesbian?
“You may think you have taken stock of the world.
The ones who come summoning a boy like you are
the ones who have taken stock of the world. The one
who drags out the conceited purveyor of awareness is
the veteran practitioner of the same trade. No one
else would have come knocking on your door, you
may be sure. You would have gone through life without