[2] Nigorie centers around Oriki, the most popular courtesan at the Kikunoi, a brothel in the red light district of an unspecified town, and a group of people connected to her, during the summer Obon festival.
Now that Genshichi has been reduced to the hard labor of a construction worker, forced to move with his wife Ohatsu and his young son Takichi into a smaller flat in a run-down section of town, Oriki rejects seeing him despite his pleas.
The passersby speculate about her fate; while one assumes a shinjū (double love suicide), another one reasons that the wounds on Oriki's body make a murder after her attempted escape more plausible.
Nigorie was written by Higuchi in June–July 1895 and originally delivered to Ōhashi Otowa, the editor of Bungei kurabu magazine, with the final chapter missing.
[3] Yoshie Wada, editor of Higuchi's diaries, suggested that the character of Tononusuke was based on novelist Tōsui Nakarai, her mentor and rumoured lover.