The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

even a comfort to think, from the light repose the
struggle up the hill had brought him, that Kiyoaki,
struggling against illness up that same road, had
been given wings to soar with by the denial that
awaited him.
The shrilling of cicadas remained in his ears, but
here in the dusk it was cool, like the dying echo of a
bell. The old man talked on, making no further
reference to the letter. Honda could not bring himself
to ask whether he would see the Abbess.
He began to fear that the empty passage of the
moments was a circumspect way of informing him
that the Abbess would not receive him. Perhaps the
old steward had seen the article in the weekly
magazine. Perhaps he had advised her to plead an
indisposition.
Honda did not feel timid about seeing her, guiltridden
though he was. Without the crime and the guilt
and the mortality he would not have had the courage
for that climb. He now saw that the scandal had given
him his first dark prompting. Tōru’s attempted suicide,
his blindness, Honda’s illness, Kinué’s pregnancy,
had all pointed to the same spot. It was true: they had
frozen into a cluster and forced him up that burning
road. Without them he could only have looked up at
the radiance of the Gesshuuji upon a distant summit.