A widow falls in love with a ship's officer; her thirteen-year-old son and his gang of nihilistic friends pass judgment on the adult world's compromises. Mishima published this in 1963, and it is his most condensed and perhaps most disturbing novel. The sea represents purity; domesticity represents betrayal; the boys' logic leads to an ending that Mishima presents without flinching. The novel is beautiful and cold, like the knife the boys have sharpened.