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“As he saw it, there was only one choice–to be strong and upright, or to commit suicide. When a fellow from his own class killed himself, Jiro had approved of the act itself, yet had felt it a pity that it wasn’t the strong man’s suicide he had always envisaged, but that of someone frail in both mind and body.”
- Yukio Mishima, “Sword” Acts of Worship
“Thrusting his face close to the dark, cracked, misted wall mirror, the lieutenant shaved himself with great care. This would be his death face. There must be no unsightly blemishes. The clean-shaven face gleamed once more with youthful luster, seeming to brighten the darkness of the mirror. There was a certain elegance, he even felt, in the association of death with this radiantly healthy face.
Just as it looked now, this would become his death face! Already, in fact, it had half departed from the lieutenant’s personal possession and had become the bust above a dead soldier’s memorial. As an experiment he closed his eyes tight. Everything was wrapped in blackness, and he was no longer a living, seeing creature.”
- Yukio Mishima, Patriotism
“All around, vastly and untidily, stretched the country for which he grieved. He was to give his life for it. But would that great country, with which he was prepared to remonstrate to the extent of destroying himself, take the slightest heed of his death? He did not know; and it did not matter. His was a battlefield without glory, a battlefield where none could display deeds of valor: it was the front line of the spirit.”
- Yukio Mishima, Patriotism
“The lieutenant, not without a touch of egocentricity, rejoiced that he would never see this beauty crumble in death.”
- Yukio Mishima, Patriotism
Note: The beauty in context is his young wife.
