The son of a missionary stationed in Japan in the early 1900s watches his father’s American colleague with admiration as he grows up.

An American man falls in love with a polish woman in Poland. However, the beginning of World War II causes tensions in the relationship.

The daughter of draft-defying anarchists in the post-World War II era marries a man whose father died in the war. As their differing pasts lead to resentment in the present, she engages in deception and affairs as a means of finding freedom from his presence.

An elderly storeowner's quiet life is interrupted by a visit from a poor young man looking to sell a valuable item, which he claims has the power to bring happiness in desperate times.