A period piece about the love of a wealthy blind woman, a teacher of koto and shamisen, and her devoted manservant. Based on a novella by Tanizaki Junichiro.

​Reiko, a young woman with a physical disability, begins a clandestine affair with the married architect Katsuragi, but also becomes dangerously obsessed with his unfaithful wife, Akiko.

At the close of the war in Japan, a widowed mother makes every possible sacrifice to bring up her ungrateful son and daughter who are unimpressed with their poor standard of living at home. They gradually reject her in search of the material comforts that working as a maid cannot provide. The mother's despair becomes interminable.

Setsuko is in an unhappy marriage to Mimura, an unemployed, alcoholic engineer. She had always been in love with Hiroshi but both failed to propose when Hiroshi left for France a few years ago. But now he's back and Mariko tries to reunite them, although she too is secretly in love with Hiroshi.