Shimamura, a wealthy dilettante, takes a train to snow country in the Japanese countryside, leaving his wife and children behind in Tokyo. On the train, he observes an attractive woman named Yoko speaking with the stationmaster about her brother, who has begun working for the railway. As the train travels toward the next stop, Yoko returns to her travel partner, a man who appears to be ill, in a seat behind Shimamura. Shimamura becomes transfixed by Yoko’s voice and her reflection in the window that he gazes out of. He is mesmerized by the way her eye appears to float amid the mountains outside. He thinks of this surreal interplay of images as a “strange mirror.”

Upon arriving at his destination, an onsen town, Shimamura is surprised to see that Yoko and her companion are getting off at the same stop. He heads toward an inn, where he hopes to find Komako, an amateur geisha with whom he began a romantic relationship during his previous visit to snow country. Inside, the innkeeper informs him that the man he saw on the train with Yoko is Yukio, the son of the local music teacher, whose home Komako lives in.