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Authors: Yukio Mishima
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and, as I think back on it, I feel that this was the last absolute holiday in my life. I can still vividly hear the cry of the cicada.
The Golden Temple, which I now saw again after a period of several months, rested peacefully in the light of the late summer clays. Having just entered the priesthood, I had a freshly shaven head. I felt that the air fitted tightly on my head; I had a strangely dangerous feeling that the thoughts which existed within my head were kept in contact with the phenomena of the outer world by a single membrane of their sensitive, fragile skin. When I looked up at the Golden Temple with this new head of mine, I felt that the building was penetrating me, not only through my eyes, but through my head also. Just as when my head responded to the sun by becoming hot and to the evening breeze by suddenly becoming cool.
"Finally I have come to live beside you, Golden Temple!â I whispered in my heart, and for a while I stopped sweeping the leaves. âIt doesn't have to be at once, but please make friends with me sometime and reveal your secret to me. I feel that your beauty is something that I am very close to seeing and yet; cannot see. Please let me see the real Golden Temple more clearly than I see the image of you in my mind. And furthermore, if you are indeed so beautiful that nothing in this world can compare with you, please tell me why you are so beautiful, why it is necessary for you to be beautiful"
That summer the Golden Temple seemed to use the bad war news that reached us day after day as a sort of foil against which it shone more vividly than ever. In June the Americans had landed in Saipan and the Allies were charging through the fields of Normandy. The number of visitors decreased drastically and the Golden Temple seemed to be enjoying this loneliness, this silence.
It was quite natural that wars and unrest, piles of corpses and copious blood, should enrich the beauty of the Golden Temple. For this temple had been constructed by unrest, it had been built by numerous dark-hearted owners who had one general in their midst. The uncoordinated design of its three stories, in which the art historian could only see a blend of styles, had surely been evolved naturally from the seareh for a style that would crystallize all the surrounding unrest. If instead it had been built in one fixed style, the Golden Temple would have been unable to embrace the unrest and would certainly have collapsed long since.
All the same, it seemed most strange to me, as time after time I stood gazing up at the Golden Temple with my hand resting on the broom, that this building should really be existing before me. The Golden Temple that I had seen when I had spent just one night here during that past visit with Father had not given me this feeling. Now I found it hard to believe that the Golden Temple would always be here before my eyes while the long years passed.
When I had thought about it during my Maizuru days, it had seemed to me that the Temple stood permanently in one corner of Kyoto; but now that I had come to live here, it only appeared before my eyes when I was actually looking at it, and when I was asleep in the main hall, it ceased to exist. Accordingly I used to go several times a day to take a look at the Golden Temple, much to the amusement of my fellow acolytes. I was always overcome by amazement at the fact that the temple was actually there, and when I returned to the hall after a good look at the building, I felt that if I were suddenly to turn round and look again, its form would vahish exactly like that of Eurydice.
When I had finished sweeping round the Golden Temple, I went to the hill in the back to avoid the morning sun which was gradually becoming hot, and climbed the path towards the Yukatei. It was still before opening-time and there was not a soul to be seen. A formation of fighter planes, probably from the Maizuru air-force squadron, passed overhead, flying fairly low over the
The Golden Temple, which I now saw again after a period of several months, rested peacefully in the light of the late summer clays. Having just entered the priesthood, I had a freshly shaven head. I felt that the air fitted tightly on my head; I had a strangely dangerous feeling that the thoughts which existed within my head were kept in contact with the phenomena of the outer world by a single membrane of their sensitive, fragile skin. When I looked up at the Golden Temple with this new head of mine, I felt that the building was penetrating me, not only through my eyes, but through my head also. Just as when my head responded to the sun by becoming hot and to the evening breeze by suddenly becoming cool.
"Finally I have come to live beside you, Golden Temple!â I whispered in my heart, and for a while I stopped sweeping the leaves. âIt doesn't have to be at once, but please make friends with me sometime and reveal your secret to me. I feel that your beauty is something that I am very close to seeing and yet; cannot see. Please let me see the real Golden Temple more clearly than I see the image of you in my mind. And furthermore, if you are indeed so beautiful that nothing in this world can compare with you, please tell me why you are so beautiful, why it is necessary for you to be beautiful"
That summer the Golden Temple seemed to use the bad war news that reached us day after day as a sort of foil against which it shone more vividly than ever. In June the Americans had landed in Saipan and the Allies were charging through the fields of Normandy. The number of visitors decreased drastically and the Golden Temple seemed to be enjoying this loneliness, this silence.
It was quite natural that wars and unrest, piles of corpses and copious blood, should enrich the beauty of the Golden Temple. For this temple had been constructed by unrest, it had been built by numerous dark-hearted owners who had one general in their midst. The uncoordinated design of its three stories, in which the art historian could only see a blend of styles, had surely been evolved naturally from the seareh for a style that would crystallize all the surrounding unrest. If instead it had been built in one fixed style, the Golden Temple would have been unable to embrace the unrest and would certainly have collapsed long since.
All the same, it seemed most strange to me, as time after time I stood gazing up at the Golden Temple with my hand resting on the broom, that this building should really be existing before me. The Golden Temple that I had seen when I had spent just one night here during that past visit with Father had not given me this feeling. Now I found it hard to believe that the Golden Temple would always be here before my eyes while the long years passed.
When I had thought about it during my Maizuru days, it had seemed to me that the Temple stood permanently in one corner of Kyoto; but now that I had come to live here, it only appeared before my eyes when I was actually looking at it, and when I was asleep in the main hall, it ceased to exist. Accordingly I used to go several times a day to take a look at the Golden Temple, much to the amusement of my fellow acolytes. I was always overcome by amazement at the fact that the temple was actually there, and when I returned to the hall after a good look at the building, I felt that if I were suddenly to turn round and look again, its form would vahish exactly like that of Eurydice.
When I had finished sweeping round the Golden Temple, I went to the hill in the back to avoid the morning sun which was gradually becoming hot, and climbed the path towards the Yukatei. It was still before opening-time and there was not a soul to be seen. A formation of fighter planes, probably from the Maizuru air-force squadron, passed overhead, flying fairly low over the
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