Keiko becomes pregnant but when Kazuo won't marry her she angrily says that she will have it aborted to continue her acting career and storms out.

Despite the fact that his next manuscript is due the next day, Kazuo drowns his sorrows in alcohol and gets into a series of fistfights, waking up with his writing hand bandaged in the apartment of a helpful girl who calls herself Yoko.

Without Keiko to help him, Kazuo asks Yoriko to type what he dictates in order to finish his manuscript by the pending deadline.

Kazuo leaves Tokyo with cracked ribs and sails aimlessly across Japan while writing a serial about his journey.

On the boat he encounters Yoko and accompanies her to her home on Nozaki Island, where he learns that her real name is Tokuko and that she was impregnated by her stepfather and had a stillborn child.

They wander for three months living from fishing until Christmas, when she tells him that she is leaving him to accept a marriage proposal from a rich man from Singapore.

Kazuo rushes to the hospital, where the doctor explains that Jiro dove headfirst into a wall imitating swimmers on television.

Keiko sends Kazuo's possessions from their apartment back to his family home but keeps an old pair of shoes as a pretext to ask him to visit one last time.