Spring Snow

by Yukio Mishima

Yet Kiyoaki remained convinced that at the bottom of this world, which was like a leather bag filled with water, there was a little hole, and it seemed to him that he could hear time leaking from it, drop by drop.

“Shouldn’t we go home?” she said, her voice altogether too composed. “There she goes,” he thought, “leading me by the nose again.” But even as he grumbled to himself, he knew that he was letting pass by the moment when he had the chance to change things. He could say: “No, let’s not go back.” But to do that was to reach out and pick up the dice. And his unskilled hand would have frozen at the very touch of them. He was not ready.