In old Edo, the young clerk Shinsuke elopes with Tsuya, his master’s daughter, and is drawn into a criminal underworld that tears them apart. Searching for her, he learns from a friend that a geisha calling herself Somekichi may be the girl he lost, and the story turns toward obsession, violence and ruin.
An early novella by one of Japan’s greatest modern writers, in a 1927 English translation. Download the free EPUB.