Shimamura travels by train toward a snow country onsen, leaving his wife and children behind in Tokyo.

On the train, Shimamura becomes transfixed by a young woman's voice and her reflection floating in the window.

Shimamura arrives at the inn and discovers that Komako has become a full-fledged professional geisha.

All local geishas are occupied at a party, so the amateur Komako is called in to keep Shimamura company as a last resort.

Shimamura asks Komako to summon a different geisha for him, visibly insulting her.

Shimamura finds Komako waiting on the mountainside with his tobacco, and the two begin a love affair.

Komako drunkenly stumbles into Shimamura's room, clings to him, and accuses him of secretly laughing at her.

A local masseuse tells Shimamura the rumor that Komako became a geisha to pay for Yukio's medical bills.

Yoko arrives at the station to tell Komako that Yukio is dying and she must return home immediately.

Komako refuses to leave the station to see Yukio, insisting on staying until Shimamura's train departs.

During a third visit, Shimamura learns from Komako that both Yukio and his mother have died.

Komako reveals she has signed a four-year contract with a local family, trapping her in the onsen town.

Shimamura calls Komako a 'good woman' instead of a 'good girl,' and a bitter quarrel erupts between them.

A nearby warehouse bursts into flames during a community movie screening, and the townspeople rush toward it.

Yoko falls from a second-story window of the burning warehouse, and Komako screams and rushes to hold her body.

Shimamura, a wealthy Tokyo dilettante, travels to a remote onsen to pursue Komako, a young woman who has become a professional geisha since his last visit. During a flashback to their first meeting, Komako is called in as a last resort to keep him company, and the two begin an affair that neither can sustain. Their relationship deepens over a second visit, but unresolvable tensions are exposed when Yoko arrives at the station to announce that a dying man needs Komako, and Komako refuses to go. Shimamura returns a third time to find circumstances dramatically changed — Yukio and his mother are dead, and Komako is now locked into a long-term contract binding her to the town. The relationship finally fractures when Shimamura calls Komako a 'good woman,' and the novel ends violently at a warehouse fire where Yoko falls from a burning building and Komako rushes to hold her body.

The headline events of Shimamura's three visits to snow country.

Yoko speaks warmly to a stationmaster on the train about her younger brother who works for the railway.

Shimamura speculates that Yoko and her ailing travel companion cannot possibly be a married couple.

Shimamura is surprised to see Yoko and her ill companion disembark at the same stop he does.

Shimamura offers Komako his index finger and says it remembered her best of all while he was away.

Shimamura finds the second geisha repulsive and flees the inn, running up the mountain outside to escape.

Shimamura wakes to the sound of Komako quietly tying her obi and leaving his room before dawn.

Shimamura approaches Komako while she socializes with fellow geishas in the street, embarrassing her in front of her colleagues.

Komako angrily denies the engagement rumor to Shimamura and tells him Yukio will be dead before long.

Shimamura sits with Komako and listens fondly as she plays the samisen for him.

Yoko begs Shimamura to grant Komako permission to leave the station and go to Yukio's deathbed.

On the train home, a man Shimamura assumed was traveling with a woman abruptly departs alone, making him want to weep.

Shimamura arrives for his third visit and notices an elderly Russian woman peddling goods near the inn.

Komako tells Shimamura about the senior geisha Kikuyu, who is forced to retire in disgrace after a failed romance with a man.

Yoko returns to Shimamura's room after the party with a note from Komako and asks him to take her to Tokyo.

During a day trip, Shimamura makes a tactless remark to a noodle shopkeeper suggesting Buddhist nuns ought to make chijimi linen.

From Shimamura's first observations of Yoko on the train to the quiet encounters that expose each character's inner world, these secondary events fill out the full emotional texture of Snow Country. Shimamura's selfish fixation on Yoko surfaces in his gossip with the masseuse, his manipulation of Komako to gain access to Yukio's home, and his passive role at the train station when Yukio lies dying. Komako's alternating vulnerability and anger appear in moments like her fury at the engagement rumor, her tenderness with the innkeeper's daughter, and her sorrow over the retiring geisha Kikuyu. The ominous scene on the train home — where a stranger departs a woman alone — and Kikuyu's shameful departure both quietly foreshadow the affair's inevitable collapse. Together, these moments build the social and emotional fabric that makes the novel's tragedy feel not sudden but long prepared.

The supporting moments that reveal character and deepen the story's tensions.

Yoko tends to the ailing Yukio on the train while Shimamura watches from the seat ahead and wonders about them.

Shimamura reassures Komako at their reunion that he could not have been laughing at her during their last meeting.

Komako reveals she has kept a diary that carefully records the days since Shimamura's last departure.

Komako reluctantly invites Shimamura inside Yukio's home, where he hopes to catch a glimpse of Yoko.

Yoko glances at Shimamura as she passes through the hallway of Yukio's house, and he is immediately transfixed.

Shimamura visits the local masseuse and eagerly eggs her on for gossip about Komako and Yukio.

Shimamura watches Komako tenderly dote on the innkeeper's young daughter Kimi, seeing an unfamiliar softness in her.

Shimamura urges Komako to go to Yukio's deathbed, but she refuses to leave before his train departs.

Shimamura notices moths clustered near lanterns at the inn, reminding him of his wife's parting warning before he left Tokyo.

Shimamura and Komako visit the cemetery and find Yoko already standing near a Jizo statue at Yukio's grave.

A tense exchange erupts between Yoko and Komako at the cemetery, and both women abruptly make excuses to leave.

Komako challenges Shimamura to seduce Yoko before returning to the party, revealing how closely she has watched his fixation.

Shimamura finds no chijimi artisans working during his day trip and privately concludes he must end his relationship with Komako.

Komako flags down Shimamura's returning taxi and tells him she had waved goodbye that morning but he never looked back.

Shimamura watches Yoko's fallen body from a distance and then turns his gaze upward to the Milky Way, emotionally unmoved.

The turning points of Snow Country trace the quiet erosion of Shimamura and Komako's relationship, beginning with subtle revelations and building toward a violent collapse. Shimamura's return to the onsen sets off a series of discoveries — Komako's secret diary, his calculated visits to get closer to Yoko, and his growing unease as the affair deepens beyond his intentions. Small moments expose the imbalance at the heart of the romance: Shimamura watches Komako with cool detachment while she gives herself completely, and he schemes to arrange encounters with Yoko under the guise of concern for Komako. The cemetery visit, Yoko's strange confession about Tokyo, and Komako's drunken challenge all signal that the triangle cannot hold. When Shimamura privately admits he must leave Komako and then watches Yoko fall from the warehouse window without grief — turning instead to the Milky Way — the novel's bleak thesis about romance as a one-sided fantasy is confirmed.

The key discoveries and emotional shifts that drive the story toward its tragic end.