The narrator of the story is a nineteen-year-old student traveling alone through the Izu Peninsula. When he is climbing toward Amagi Pass, he meets a troupe of itinerant performers and gets attracted to the young dancer who plays the drum. He wonders if she will spend the night in his room, but when he happens to see her run out naked into the sun at the outdoor public bath, he realizes that she is a mere child -- too young for lovemaking. Feeling as though a layer of dust has been cleared from his head, he happily accompanies the troupe to Shimoda, where he says good-by to the little dancer and takes a ship to go back to Tokyo. Aboard the ship, he silently weeps, but quite unashamed of his tears. Full of romanticism, this is perhaps Nobel laureate Kawabata’s most popular novella.