Heibei, the son of a wealthy landowner, returns home from the war in 1937 wounded in the leg and permanently disabled. He lusts after and thinks he loves Sadako, the daughter of a tenant farmer on his family's property. Sadako is in love with and engaged to Takashi, another soldier who is still off in the war. Heibei has his father blackmail Sadako's family into an arranged marriage between himself and Sadako, and when she refuses, he rapes her. With nowhere now to go, Sadako marries Heibei, but for the next 24 years, the roots of the loveless marriage poison everyone involved.