Somewhere Honda had become separated even from Iinuma. As the crowd surged by, it occurred to him that Kiyoaki himself, alive again, was caught in this same press of humanity. How wild a fancy this seemed here at midday beneath the early summer sun! He was dazzled by the excessive brightness of the mystery.
Just as sea and sky blurred together at the horizon, so, too, dream and reality could certainly become confused when viewed from a distance. But here, at least around Honda, everyone was clearly subject to the law and, in turn, guarded by the law. His role was that of a guardian of the order established by the operative law of this world. This operative law was like a heavy iron lid upon the pot in which the multifarious stew of the day-to-day world simmered.
Human beings eating, digesting, excreting, reproducing, loving and hating ... Honda reflected that these were the human beings under the court's jurisdiction. If worst came to worst they would appear before it as defendants.
They alone had reality. Human beings who sneezed, laughed, human beings who went about with absurdly dangling reproductive gear. If all human beings were like this, there was no basis whatsoever for Honda's fearful mystery. Even if a single reborn Kiyoaki might be hidden in their midst.
Yukio Mishima, Runaway Horses (55)
