An elderly man, consumed by sexual obsessions, is inflamed with passion for his daughter-in-law, a former music hall dancer who is rather flexible on matters of sexual morality. She, with great skill, exploits his passion and extracts money from him, offering only some rudimentary sexual services and gradually driving him to madness. The themes of youth and old age, love and death, the old and the new compose a masterpiece, the last work written by the great Japanese author.