The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

garden. The matting to protect the pines from the
winter cold was flecked with white. The stone lanterns
were capped with white brocade. His shoes
squeaking across the snow, he caught a distant
glimpse of his mother’s skirt at the knee-high window
of the breakfast room. He was at home.
“You must be hungry. Come on in, but brush the
snow off first.”
His mother pulled her kimono tight together. Taking
off his coat, Honda slipped into the kotatsu. As if she
were trying to remember something, his mother blew
on the embers. She brushed a wisp of hair up away
from the ashes.
“Wait just a minute,” she said between breaths. “I
have something good for you.”
Placing a small pan on the embers, she rubbed it
with greased paper. She poured neat circles of batter
on the hot grease.
It was the taste of those hotcakes that Honda so
often remembered in dreams: the taste of honey and
melted butter that snowy afternoon. He could
remember nothing more delicious.
But why should that one detail have become the
germ of a memory he was to carry through life? There
could be no doubt that this unwonted fit of gentleness
on the part of his severe mother had added to the