The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

29
HAVING LEARNED that the road to Nara was
now excellent, Honda took a room in Kyoto. He
stayed at the Miyako Hotel and hired a car for noon
on the twenty-second. The clouds were out of keeping
with the heat. Showers seemed likely up in the hills.
So he was here, thought Honda, content.
Sensations came as through screens to his weary
body and heart, beneath old-fashioned unbleached
linen. He had brought a blanket as defense against
the air-conditioning. The shrilling of the cicadas in the
Keagé district near the hotel sank through the
windows.
He made a firm resolution as the car started off.
“Today I am not going to see skeletons beneath flesh.
They are only a concept. I will see and remember
things as they are. It will be my last pleasure, my last
effort. My last good look. I must look. I must take in
everything, with an unoccupied heart.”
The car passed the Sambōin Temple at Daigo.
From the bridge at the Kajuuji Temple it turned onto
the National Nara Highway, and from Nara Park the
Tenri Highway. In an hour it was at Obitoké.