The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

An endlessly blue sky arched over village and plain.
Clouds trailed tatters of white satin like mirages from
the misted hills beyond. The upper lines cut into the
sky with a clear, statue-like beauty.
Honda squatted down, overcome by heat and
fatigue. He felt as if the malign light from the sharp
blades of summer grass were stabbing at his eyes.
He felt that decay had been smelled out by a fly that
brushed past his nose.
With his eyes he reprimanded the driver, who had
climbed from the car, and, worried, was coming
toward him.
He was beginning to doubt that in fact he could
reach the mountain gate. His back and his stomach
were aching. He waved off the driver and went inside
the gate, determined to be healthy for as long as the
man was watching. Gasping for breath, helped by the
curves, he made his way up the uneven gravel road,
catching through the corner of his left eye the bright
yellow of moss, like a sickness, on the trunk of a
persimmon tree, and, on his right, the lavender heads
of bellflowers from which most of the petals had fallen.
The shadows that blocked off the road ahead had a
sort of mystic quiet. The uneven road, which would be
a river bottom in a rain, shone where the sun struck it
like mineral outcroppings, and whispered with the