Without any conscious effort, I had come to imagine myself as a quiet little bushy tree planted in front of Father Zenkai.

“Is it all right, Father,” I said, “to act according to the pattern that people expect of one?”

“It’s not always so easy. But if you start acting in a different way, people soon come to accept that as being normal for you. They’re very forgetful, you see.”

“Which personality is really lasting?” I asked. “The one that I envisage myself or the one that other people believe I have?”

“Both will soon come to an end. However much you may convince yourself that your personality is lasting, it is bound to cease sooner or later. While the train is running, the passengers stay still. But when the train stops, the passengers have to start walking from that point. Running comes to an end and resting also comes to an end. Death seems to be the ultimate rest, but there’s no telling how long even that continues.”

“Please see into me, Father,” I said finally. “I am not the sort of person you imagine. Please see into my heart.”

The priest put his sake cup to his mouth and looked at me intently. The silence weighed down on me like the great, black, rain-drenched roof of the temple. I shuddered. Then suddenly Father Zenkai spoke in a laughing voice that was extraordinarily clear: “There’s no need to see into you. One can see everything on your face.”

I felt that I had been completely understood down to the deepest recess of my being. For the first time in my life I had become utterly blank. Just like water soaking into this blankness, courage to commit the deed gushed up in me afresh.

- Yukio Mishima The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (1959)