The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

certain heaviness in the region of his stomach, but he
did not, as the old Honda might have been expected
to, rush off to a doctor. He diagnosed the trouble as
indigestion. He continued to have little appetite after
the New Year came. It was not like him to pass it off
as only a result of the troubles, nor was it like him to
take emaciation as a result of mental anguish.
But it had come to seem that there was no
distinguishing between pain of the spirit and pain of
the flesh. What was the difference between
humiliation and a swollen prostate? Between the
pangs of sorrow and pneumonia? Senility was a
proper ailment of both the spirit and the flesh, and the
fact that senility was an incurable disease meant that
existence was an incurable disease. It was a disease
unrelated to existentialist theories, the flesh itself
being the disease, latent death.
If the cause of decay was illness, then the
fundamental cause of that, the flesh, was illness too.
The essence of the flesh was decay. It had its spot in
time to give evidence of destruction and decay.
Why did people first become aware of that fact only
as old age came on? Why, when it buzzed faintly past
the ear in the brief noontide of the flesh, did they note
it only to forget it? Why did the healthy young athlete,
in the shower after his exertions, watching the drops