Thirst for Love is the story of a young widow, Etsuko Sugimoto, who becomes the mistress of her father-inlaw, Yakichi Sugimoto. While living at his estate, Etsuko becomes infatuated with a young farmhand, Saburo, whom she kills when he tries to make the advances to her she seemed to be inviting. The work is complicated by a long flashback to the last illness of her husband, with typhoid fever from drinking polluted water, and her tireless efforts to keep Ryosuke Sugimoto alive so that he could continue to suffer the unassuageable thirsts of that ailment. That was her revenge for the torments his infidelities had caused her in the earlier years of their marriage. She, like the hero of Confessions of a Mask (1949), is a person twisted by her past who glimpses for a time, under the influence of sexual desire, something that seems like a way out...