„The Key“ 

“This year I intend to begin writing freely about a topic which, in the past, I have hesitated to mention even here. I have always avoided commenting on my sexual relations with Ikuko, for fear that she might surreptitiously read my diary and be offended”. So begins “The Key” – the story of a dying marriage, told in the form of parallel diaries. After nearly thirty years of marriage, a middle-aged professor is still deeply in love with his younger but sexually repressed and dissatisfied wife. He begins to write a candid diary, half in the hope that she will read it, understand both his love for her and his sexual frustrations, and try to put things right between them. Ikuko keeps a diary of her own, too. During the day, they record their adventures of the previous night. The two protagonists start to use their diaries as a means of communication by tacitly agreeing to read each other's diaries while outwardly pretending that they do not. It becomes unclear whether each spouse's confessions might not be intended for the other's eyes.
“The Key” was adapted into screen by Kon Ichikawa in 1959, and later by Tinto Brass.

Translated by Milda Dykė.