A Page of Madness

Amid a torrential rainstorm late one night, a patient at a psychiatric hospital dances wildly as if she is possessed. The elderly custodian stares at a mentally ill woman held inside a cell, who is revealed to be his wife, but she does not recognize him due to her condition. Formerly a sailor, he frequently left his wife and daughter alone to go on long voyages at sea, causing his wife to become mentally unstable. She became a patient at the hospital after an attempt to kill herself and their child. The old man feels remorseful and works at the hospital to watch over his wife, unknown to everyone else at the clinic. The next morning, the couple's daughter visits the hospital to report her upcoming marriage but is shocked and angry when she learns that her father works at the hospital. Her daughter heads to her hospital room, but she is disappointed in her unresponsive mother and leaves the hospital, unable to forgive her father for driving her mother crazy. A morning examination is held at the hospital, and the janitor asks the doctor who is examining his wife about her condition, but he does not respond. The janitor later reunites with her daughter, asking her for forgiveness, and asks about her engagement. The wife, who was allowed to take a morning walk, quietly looked at the sky as she walked on the lawn, and the servant and her daughter watched from a distance. The brief moment of peace is interrupted when an inmate attempts to attack the daughter, causing her to flee from the hospital. Sometime later, one of the patients begins dancing, exciting the others, who begin to cheer her on. In the ensuing commotion, one of the patients accidentally hits the janitor's wife and a fight breaks out. The hospital staff soon manage to stop the brawl, with the head doctor reprimanding the janitor for his actions. These events cause the janitor to experience a number of fantasies, as he slowly loses control of the border between dreams and reality. He first has a daydream about winning a chest of drawers in a lottery that he could give to his daughter as part of her dowry. When his daughter comes to tell him that her marriage is in trouble, he thinks about taking his wife away from the asylum to hide her existence. He also fantasizes about killing the head doctor, but the vision gets out of hand as a bearded inmate is seen marrying his daughter. The janitor finally dreams of distributing noh masks to the inmates, providing them with happy faces while he dons an okina (old man) mask. Later, the janitor is shown once again mopping the floors of the asylum, no longer able to visit his wife's ward because he lost the keys (picked up by the doctor). He sees the bearded inmate pass by, who bows to him for the first time, as if bowing to his father-in-law.