Kakuichi Sonoko leads a routine and unfulfilling existence with her husband Kotaro, a young lawyer from Osaka. To alleviate the tedium, she decides to attend a traditional painting course at an all-girls school, where she meets Mitsuko, a beautiful and seductive fine arts student with whom she begins a passionate love affair. Very soon, Mrs. Kakuichi becomes the victim of the machinations of Mitsuko and her boyfriend Watanuki, an obsessive and insidious individual capable of anything to marry his young beloved. From that moment on, the four characters are caught in a whirlwind of deceit and intrigue that will have disastrous consequences. Master Tanizaki once again surprises us in what is probably his most accomplished work of fiction.