The story is divided into a prologue and four chapters: ;Prologue The first person narrator cites from
Paul Valéry's poem
Le Cimetière marin ("The wind has risen; we must try to live") when a strong wind occurs, while Setsuko, a woman he has just met this summer and who resides at the same hotel, is working on a painting. Setsuko announces that her father will soon arrive at the hotel, which will put an end to their walks. After Setsuko's and her father's departure, he returns to his work as a writer which he had abandoned during the time he had spent with her. Autumn has set in, and the protagonist muses how this encounter has changed him. ;Spring Two years later, the protagonist visits Setsuko, to whom he has become engaged in the meantime, and her father in their suburb home. Her studio has been turned into a sickroom, as Setsuko has fallen ill with tuberculosis. The father has contemplated the idea of sending her to a sanitarium, and is glad when his future son-in-law offers to accompany his daughter. Setsuko, who had felt weak lately, tells her fiancé that thanks to him her will to live has returned. Her words remind him of the line from Valéry's poem. Later, the sanitarium's director, who happens to be an acquaintance of the narrator, examines Setsuko and declares that a stay of one to two years will most likely cure her. Yet in a conversation between the director and the protagonist, it is implied that her condition is far more serious. At the end of the chapter, he and Setsuko take off for the sanitarium. ;The Wind Has Risen The narrator and Setsuko have taken their room in the sanitarium, where he learns from the director that she is the second worst case in the hospital. Despite her serious condition, he and Setsuko spend a time of mutual happiness. The most severe case, who resides in a room with the number 17, later dies, and another patient commits suicide. After a visit from Setsuko's father, who can't see any progress in her health, her condition deteriorates, but she later recovers. Encouraged by Setsuko, the protagonist announces to write a novel and make her the main character. Despite their affection, the two have an argument which reveals their tensions. ;Winter Still working on his novel, for which he has no ending, as he even admits in Setsuko's presence, the narrator takes long walks through the landscape. Setsuko's condition worsens, and she is assigned a practical nurse who looks after her, while he moves into a room next door. One evening, Setsuko imagines seeing her father's face in the shadows of the mountains. ;In the Valley of the Shadow of Death One year later, the protagonist, who now refers to himself as a "widower", moves into a hut outside of the village where he and Setsuko first met three years ago. He recalls Setsuko's last moments one year ago and sometimes feels like she were with him in the hut. He has conversations with a foreign Christian priest, whose service he attends although he does not consider himself a believer, and reads in
Rainer Maria Rilke's
Requiem. Late one night, he looks down into the valley, listening to the wind and the rustling sound of leaves, realising that, despite his loss and deliberate isolation, he has found a kind of happiness. ==Background==