The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

the summer rains having just lifted. There was a shot
of a swimming pool. In the unpleasantly artificial blue
of the water, young people were splashing and
jumping and swimming.
The faint, fleeting scent of beautiful flesh!
To deny the flesh, to see them as skeletons
disporting themselves by a pool in the summer sun,
was ordinary, dull. Anyone could do it. Anyone could
deny life, see through to the bones beneath the
youthful surface. The most mediocre of persons could
do it.
What revenge could there be in that? Honda would
end his life without having known the feelings of the
owner of beautiful flesh. If for a single month he could
live in it! He should have had a try. What must it be
like, to wear such a beautiful covering? To see people
fall down before it. When admiration passed the
gentle and docile and became lunatic worship, it
would become torment for the possessor. In the
delirium and the torment were true holiness. What
Honda had missed had been the dark, narrow path
through the flesh to holiness. To travel it was of course
the privilege of few.
Tomorrow he would have a thorough examination.
He did not know what the results would be. He should
at least be clean. He had the bath drawn before