The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea

by Yukio Mishima

If I were an amoeba, he thought, with an infinitesimal body, I could defeat ugliness. A man isn’t tiny or giant enough to defeat anything.

Possibly a man who hates the land should dwell on shore forever. Alienation and the long voyages at sea will compel him once again to dream of it, torment him with the absurdity of longing for something that he loathes.

SINCE DARK ANTIQUITY the words have been spoken by women of every caste to sailors in every port; words of docile acceptance of the horizon’s authority, of reckless homage to that mysterious azure boundary; words never failing to bestow on even the haughtiest woman the sadness, the hollow hopes, and the freedom of the whore: “You’ll be leaving in the morning, won’t you? . .

And the Quartermaster’s log, a daily record of weather, wind velocity, atmospheric pressure, temperature, relative humidity, speed, distance logged, and revolutions per minute, a diary accurately recording the sea’s caprice in compensation for man’s inability to chart his own moods.

Outside, only a slender wire fence away, small neon lights were twinkling like goldfish; every few minutes the headlights of a passing car mowed down the shadows of their forest. The glow of a red neon sign flashing across the street carried to Fusako’s palm-shadowed face, brought a delicate blush to her white cheeks and blackened her red lips.

For Ryuji the kiss was death, the very death in love he always dreamed of.

The parting, like the white fruit of an apple discoloring instantly around the bite, had begun three days before when they had met aboard the Rakuyo.

Father, can you give me one single reason why you go on living? Wouldn’t it be better just to fade away as quickly as possible?

Noboru was vexed at his immunity from the germs that infected the others, but at the same time he trembled at the fragility of his chance good fortune. Some providence he couldn’t name had exempted him from evil. His purity was as brittle as a new moon. His innocence had sent an intricate net of feelers snaking toward the world, but when would they be snapped? When would the world lose its vastness and lace him in a strait jacket? That day, he knew, was not far away, and even now he could feel a lunatic courage welling within him. .

Still immersed in his dream, he drank down the tepid tea. It tasted bitter. Glory, as anyone knows, is bitter stuff.