The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

of water hit his shining flesh like hail, not see that the
high tide of life itself was the cruelest of ills, a dark,
amber-colored lump?
For Honda now, life was senescence, senescence
was life. It was wrong that these two synonyms should
forever be libeling each other. Only now, eighty-one
years after he fell into this world, did Honda know the
perverse essential at the heart of every pleasure.
Appearing now on this side and now on the other of
human will, it sent up an opaque mist, the defense of
the will against the cruel and terrible proposition that
life and senescence are synonymous. History knew
the truth. History was the most inhuman product of
humanity. It scooped up the whole of human will and,
like the goddess Kali in Calcutta, dripped blood from
its mouth as it bit and crunched.
We are fodder to stuff some craw. In his shallow
way, Imanishi, who died in the fire, had been aware of
it. For the gods, for destiny, for history, the only human
endeavor imitating the two, it was wise to leave man
unaware of the fact until he had grown old.
What fodder Honda had been! What unnutritious,
tasteless, dusty fodder! Instinctively refusing to
become palatable, he now at the end of it all wanted
to stab the mouth of his devourer with the tasteless
bones of his awareness; but he was certain to fail.