The Decay of the Angel - Yukio Mishima

sombrero. The crowd clapped. Keiko calmly wrote
down her address for the cameraman. Several young
persons, having decided that she was a famous
actress from an earlier day, came up for her
autograph.
Honda was exhausted by the time they reached
the pine.
It was a giant pine on the point of death, spreading
its arms in several directions like an octopus. Rents in
the trunk had been filled with cement. People
disported themselves around a tree that lacked even
a proper supply of needles.
“Do you suppose the angel was in a swimming
suit?”
“Is it a he-pine? Is that why the woman picked it?”
“She couldn’t reach the top.”
“Not much of a pine, when you get a good look at
it.”
“But isn’t it nice they’ve managed to keep it alive.
Just feel the sea wind.”
And indeed the pine leaned more aggressively to
sea than a sea-trained pine should have, and the sea
scars on its trunk were numberless as on a beached
hulk. Toward the sea from the marble enclosure a pair
of binoculars stood perched on a fresh vermilion