The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

photo by Futaba

Father had never told me that the real Golden Temple was shining in gold, or anything of the sort; yet, according to Father, there was nothing on this earth so beautiful as the Golden Temple. Moreover, the very characters with which the name of the temple was written, and the very sound of the word imparted some fabulous quality to the Gold Temple that was engraved on my very heart.




--Kinkakuji, Yukio Mishima (The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, tr. Ivan Morris