愛の渇き (ai no kawaki), Mishima's third novel tells the story of Etsuko, a young widow, who is living in the house of her father-in-law, Yakichi. Yakichi develops a fondness for Etsuko, since his own wife had died. Etsuko feels virtual repugnance to the old man, but in equal measure indifferently submits to his advances. It is during the time that Etsuko has moved in to share a room with Yakichi that she develops a fondness and later deep love for the young gardener and servant, Saburo. His obliviousness to her feeling causes her much heartache. The socks that Etsuko buys at the offset of the story are a present for the object of her desire; when he fails to be seen wearing the socks, she falls deeper into despair that her feelings will always go unanswered. The discovery that Miho, the maid, is pregnant, presumably by Saburo, all but shatters her dreams, and fires up the ovens of her jealousy.
The novel has the unmistakable fingerprint of Mishima on it. Sinister images and flashbacks such as the gruesome death of her husband to typhoid at the hospital for infectious diseases and Etsuko's lucid thoughts of selling germ-laden blood to healthy people making them sick so as to provide
raison d'etre for the hospital. Etsuko's dark ruminations provides the story with a keen sense of approaching calamity.
Thirst For Blood with sado-mashochistic, erotic and violent passion, ultimately sheds more light on the psyche of Mishima himself. It contains elements that can be found in other novels and thus provides part of the picture that Mishima arguably created of himself for himself.
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