Tells the story of Kase, a designer of traditional Japanese gardens, and Mizue, the wife of Kase's client. At first, Kase and Mizue each act according to their assigned roles, but Mizue, haunted by a devastating personal loss and attracted by the remarkable sexual energy of Kase's garden design, grows increasingly uneasy. Finally she and Kase begin an affair, and as Mizue wakens to a new sensuality, her carefully structured home life begins to crumble. Explores the psychology of human passion in an oblique language filled with references to Japanese garden art and aesthetic values. In the landscape of the garden we see base urges given physical form.