Ebihara is a budding novelist entangled in a complicated web of relationships with three women from three different generations: Kazue, a coquettish teenage war orphan who tries to offer herself for money but is instead taken in by Ebihara, Koyabu, a middle-aged woman who has spent much of her life as the kept woman of a wealthy man, and Teruko, the modest daughter of Ebihara's former teacher who comes to rely on him after the death of her father.

A journalist decides to do his own investigation after a series of strange murders are committed during a local election campaign.

夏子は人々が情熱を見失っている現代に愛想をつかし、函館の修道院へはいるために渡道した。彼女の母、祖母、伯母の三人は夏子の身を案じてあとを追って来た。青函連絡船のなかで、夏子は一人の青年と知り合った。彼は自分の恋人秋子を喰い殺した気狂熊を見つけて仇を打つ決心だった。夏子はそうした彼の情熱にひかれて、修道院入りをやめて毅の熊狩りに同道することになった。二人が訪ねた秋子の実家大牛田十造の家には不二子という秋子の妹がいて、毅が夏子を同道したことに大いに不満そうだった。やがて支笏湖畔に気狂熊が現われたという報に、毅、夏子、不二子、夏子の母、祖母、伯母までもが一緒になって出かけて行った。そして毅は見事に熊を仕とめて一躍熊狩りの英雄にまつりあげられた。そうして得意の毅から結婚を申込まれたが、夏子は急に彼に対する興味を失って、再び修道院へはいろうと決心した。しかし不二子は、毅が講演会に出たり、ポスターのモデルになったりするのは、秋子の墓を建てる金を得るためだったことを明かし、夏子の女らしい思やりのない我ままをののしった。夏子は不二子をのがれて外へとび出した出合いがしらに毅にぶつかった。瞬間みつめ合った毅の瞳にはかつて夏子の心をゆりうごかした深い情熱の光があった。夏子はそのまま毅の胸にとび込んで行くのだった。数日後函館から連絡船で去る毅、夏子たちの幸福そうな姿を見送る不二子の頬は涙でぬれていた。

Having completed the first year at his new medical practice, a doctor plans to relax on his day off. However, it is not to be: on this hectic day a man just back from the war front visits the doctor with a medical emergency, followed by a woman who claims to have been molested. Then a yakuza arrives to ask the doctor to cut his finger off...

原作：三島由紀夫

Kokubu, captain of his university's kendo team, is a mystery to those who know him: An ascetic dedicated to a point of obsession with the simplicity and beauty of the sword arts. Kagawa, a promising but arrogant kendo student, is attracted to Kokubu's devout leadership but kept at a distance by his standoffish nature. With the national championships fast approaching, the pair clash as Kokubu drives his students with increasingly rigorous training and Kagawa tests Kokubu's grip on the class.

An ingratiating bride develops warm ties to her father-in-law while her cold husband blithely slights her for another woman.