After the closure of a coal mine leaves her husband unemployed, Fumiko travels from Kyushu to Kyoto with her daughter Kimiko, and they become hostesses at a cabaret.

After an elderly man is discharged from a hospital following a misunderstood, life-affirming impulse toward a fellow patient, he finds himself caught between his wife’s empathy and his children’s judgmental scorn. As his health wavers, he and his wife attempt to reclaim their intimacy and vitality during a seaside getaway, even as their son becomes entangled with the same young woman from the clinic.

Provincial 14th century governor Moronao, attracted to the wife of a court magistrate, tries to seduce her and when she rejects his advances plots to send her husband into battle.