This is Kawabata's last novel-and it is one of his finest works, a masterpiece of complexity and nuance rivaling Snow Country, Thousand Cranes, and The Sound of the Mountain, the novels that made him famous in the West and brought him the Nobel Prize. At once lyrical and terrifying, it is a tale of passion told with the most unsettling dispassion. \par This is a personal attempt to translate this novel into Chinese.