 As the novel opens, they languish in ennui because they have no children and Sosuke has to focus on his career.Over the course of the novel it is revealed that Oyone was the wife of a former friend, and that Oyone and Sosuke suffered exclusion from society due to their ill-advised marriage.Oyone's ill health and a visit from Sosuke's younger brother provoke a familial crisis which becomes the central story.