[1][2][3] The story follows the life of a wealthy, young Japanese writer in the early 1900s, who seeks to escape his unhappiness through marriage.

Rebounding from a rejected marriage proposal, he sleeps late, wanders around the city, and goes drinking with his friends in the evenings.

Kensaku goes there hoping to do some serious writing, but instead becomes lonely and finds himself proposing to Oei, about twenty years his senior, asking his elder brother Nobuyuki to act as their intermediary.

In their correspondence, Nobuyuki tells him a dark secret: Kensaku was conceived as the result of a brief, perhaps involuntary, affair between their mother and their paternal grandfather, with whom she was living while their father was studying in Germany.

Kensaku acts out on his repressed anger against Naoko in increasingly violent ways, until he finally pushes her from a moving train when he loses his temper after she insists on boarding after he tells her it is not safe to do so.

Kensaku decides to go on a pilgrimage to a remote Buddhist temple on Mount Daisen, after realizing his temper has caused an estrangement between him and his wife.

He finds peace during his time on the mountain, taking long walks and observing nature, despite the decidedly secular routine of the "temple".

He decides to join a night hike up the mountain, but suffering from food poisoning, he drops out and the other hikers continue.

The novel ends unresolved - Naoko realizes that she would not be terribly sad if Kensaku dies, but on the other hand she feels she is bound to him forever.

A Dark Night's Passing was published in serialised form in the left-leaning general interest magazine Kaizō, starting in 1921.