The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima Page A

Mother interpreted the look of liberation that appeared on my face, but she bent close to me and said: “You sec, dear. You don't have a temple of your own any longer. The only thing for you now is to become the superior of the Golden Temple here. You must see that the Father really gets to like you, so that you can take his place when the time comes for him to leave. You understand, dear? That's all your mother will be living for now.”
    I was astounded by this development and tried to stare back at Mother. But I was too alarmed to look at her properly.
    The little back room was already dark. My "fond mother” had put her mouth directly against my car when she was speaking to me and now the smell of her perspiration hovered before my nostrils. I recalled that Mother had been laughing then. Distant memories of being nursed, memories of a swarthy breast-the images raced unpleasantly round my brain. In the flames of the lowly field fires there existed some sort of physical force and it was this that seemed to frighten me. As Mother's frizzy locks touched my check, I noticed a dragonfly resting its wings on the moss-grown stone basin in the dusky courtyard. The evening sky was reflected on the surface of the small, round patch of water in the basin. There was not a sound to be heard and at this moment the Rokuonji seemed to be a deserted temple.
    Finally I was able to look directly into Mother's face. A smile played in the corner of her glossy lips and I could see her shining gold teeth.
    â€œYes,” I answered stuttering violently, "but for all I know, m be called up and killed in battle."
    â€œYou fool!” she said. "If they start taking stutterers like you into the Army, Japan is really finished!”
    I sat there tensely, filled with hatred for my mother. But the words that I stuttered out were a mere evasion. "The Golden Temple may be burned down in an air raid," I said.
    "The way things are going," said Mother, "there's not the faintest chance of an air raid on Kyoto. The Americans are leaving it alone.”
    I did not reply. The darkening courtyard had become the color of the sea bed. The stones sank in the gloom, and from their form one might have thought they had been struggling fiercely with each other. Mother stood up, disregarding my silence, and stared unceremoniously at the wooden door of my little room.
    "Isn't it time for the evening meal yet?” she said.
    When I looked back on it later, I realized that this visit of Mother's had a considerable influence on my thinking. It was on this occasion that I understood that Mother lived in an utterly different world from mine and it was also on this occasion that for the first time her manner of thinking began to affect me.
    Mother was by nature the sort of person who would have no interest in the beauty of the Golden Temple; instead, she possessed a realistic sense that was foreign to me. She had said that there was no fear of an air raid on Kyoto and, despite all my dreams, this was probably true. Ana it there was no chance that the Golden Temple would be attacked, then for the time being I had lost my purpose in living and the world in which I dwelt must fall to pieces.
    On the other hand, the ambition that Mother had pronounced so unexpectedly had captivated me, much as I loathed it. Father had never said a word about this matter, but perhaps he had entertained the same ambition as Mother when he had sent me to this temple. Father Dosen was a bachelor. Assuming that he himself had attained his present position on the recommendation of some predecessor who had pinned his expectations on him, there was no reason that I too, so long as I exerted myself properly, could not eventually succeed Father Dosen as Superior of the Rokuonji. If that were to happen, the Golden Temple would be mine!
    My thoughts became confused. When my second ambition became burdensome, I returned to my first dream (that the Golden Temple was going to be bombed), and