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The protagonist Segawa Umatsu is an elementary school teacher with a Burakumin background. In order not to be abandoned by society, he concealed his origin. Uchimatsu has progressive ideas, hates evil forces, sympathizes with the weak, and worships Inoko Rentaro, a thinker who was also a tribesman. He was inspired by Rentaro's writings and wanted to challenge society and bravely reveal his identity, but he was afraid of this ruthless society. As a result, I feel conflicted and full of annoyance and distress. His progressive tendencies and popularity among students aroused the suspicion and hatred of the principal, who attempted to squeeze Chou Song out using insidious means. After Rentaro was killed by a political enemy, Usomatsu made up his mind to reveal his origins and asked the students to forgive him for concealing his behavior. Although he broke the rules, he was not accepted by the society at that time. With the encouragement and comfort of his lover Shiho, Usomatsu is determined to start a new life in North America...

This book tells the story of the protagonist, Shikichi Kishimoto, who was troubled by his love affair with his niece Setsuko (known as the "rebirth" incident in history), and tried to get rid of the predicament and purify his soul to gain a new life. Judging from the author's own situation, the protagonist is the author's own portrayal. This work writes about what happened in the seven years from the first year of Taisho, when he was forty-one years old, to the seventh year of Taisho, so it has a strong feature of self-confession. This is a work that exposes the incest incident that the writer personally experienced. It was published in a chaotic period before the incident was over. The publication of the novel promoted the development of the incident and achieved its final resolution. From the perspective of the novel's panoramic depiction of life and the completely reversible relationship between its plot and reality, it can be said that it presents the private nature of naturalism to readers in the most thorough form.