The tale of a feudal swordsman who cynically takes no responsibility for anything, relegating it to others, and then taking the credit.

Uta’s mother died when she was six years old; her father she never met. She was forced to adopt a traveller’s life when her grandmother died, and now she is a dancer and part of a family of actors who travel from town to town, setting up street performances. A way of escape from this marginal existence arises when she gets the chance to move to tea merchant Hiramatsu’s place, where she is asked to teach his daughter to dance.

When Koichi Hamanaka returns after his mysterious disappearance years earlier, journalist Asakura who befriended Hamanaka's wife during his absence, tries to piece together the reasons for his departure.

A retired actress whose husband has recently died visits her summer home. There she has encounters with old friends and acquaintances who bring various stories and news of death and the past