The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

money on themselves. Taken with persistent diarrhea
on a trip to Osaka and wanting to avoid the
embarrassment of countless trips to the lavatory on
the way back, they had chartered a plane, and on their
return to Tokyo been taken to a hospital where they
were known.
The old woman, her hair dyed brown, was wearing
a turquoise pullover and a spangled cardigan, and her
pearl necklace was too heavy. She was bent, but the
fingers that took up the compact and lipstick were still
powerful, so powerful that the wrinkled lower lip was
pulled to one side. She was a fierce battler at the
canasta table.
Her favorite subject was death. Her last canasta
party, she was sure. By the next one she would be
dead. She would await protests when she had made
her declaration.
The intricate design of the cards scattered over
Italian parquetry quite dazzled the eye; and on her
powerful finger an amber-colored cat’s eye bobbed
over the lacquer faces like a fisherman’s float.
Crimson fingertips on splotched hands like the belly of
a shark that had been stranded for some days on a
beach rapped nervously at the table.
With a graceful fanning of cards, Keiko expertly
shuffled the two decks. The decks were left face down