White Nights Page #12

"White Nights," a novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky, is a poignant exploration of dreams, love, and loneliness set against the backdrop of St. Petersburg's enchanting white nights. The story follows an unnamed narrator, a lonely and introverted young man, who encounters a mysterious woman named Nastenka. Over the course of four nights, they share their dreams, hopes, and vulnerabilities, forming an intense emotional connection. As their relationship unfolds, the narrator grapples with his feelings of unrequited love and the bittersweet nature of human connection. Through this intimate narrative, Dostoevsky delves into themes of isolation, longing, and the complexity of romantic relationships.

• Novel

								

every word I said. I began talking, but relapsed into silence.

"Do you know why I am so glad," she said, "so glad to look at you?--why
I like you so much to-day?"

"Well?" I asked, and my heart began throbbing.

"I like you because you have not fallen in love with me. You know that
some men in your place would have been pestering and worrying me, would
have been sighing and miserable, while you are so nice!"

Then she wrung my hand so hard that I almost cried out. She laughed.

"Goodness, what a friend you are!" she began gravely a minute later.
"God sent you to me. What would have happened to me if you had not been
with me now? How disinterested you are! How truly you care for me! When
I am married we will be great friends, more than brother and sister; I
shall care almost as I do for him...."

I felt horribly sad at that moment, yet something like laughter was
stirring in my soul.

"You are very much upset," I said; "you are frightened; you think he
won't come."

"Oh dear!" she answered; "if I were less happy, I believe I should cry
at your lack of faith, at your reproaches. However, you have made me
think and have given me a lot to think about; but I shall think later,
and now I will own that you are right. Yes, I am somehow not myself; I
am all suspense, and feel everything as it were too lightly. But hush!
that's enough about feelings...."

At that moment we heard footsteps, and in the darkness we saw a figure
coming towards us. We both started; she almost cried out; I dropped her
hand and made a movement as though to walk away. But we were mistaken,
it was not he.

"What are you afraid of? Why did you let go of my hand?" she said,
giving it to me again. "Come, what is it? We will meet him together; I
want him to see how fond we are of each other."

"How fond we are of each other!" I cried. ("Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka," I
thought, "how much you have told me in that saying! Such fondness at
certain moments makes the heart cold and the soul heavy. Your hand is
cold, mine burns like fire. How blind you are, Nastenka!... Oh, how
unbearable a happy person is sometimes! But I could not be angry with
you!")

At last my heart was too full.

"Listen, Nastenka!" I cried. "Do you know how it has been with me all
day."

"Why, how, how? Tell me quickly! Why have you said nothing all this
time?"

"To begin with, Nastenka, when I had carried out all your commissions,
given the letter, gone to see your good friends, then ... then I went
home and went to bed."

"Is that all?" she interrupted, laughing.

"Yes, almost all," I answered restraining myself, for foolish tears were
already starting into my eyes. "I woke an hour before our appointment,
and yet, as it were, I had not been asleep. I don't know what happened
to me. I came to tell you all about it, feeling as though time were
standing still, feeling as though one sensation, one feeling must remain
with me from that time for ever; feeling as though one minute must go on
for all eternity, and as though all life had come to a standstill for
me.... When I woke up it seemed as though some musical motive long
familiar, heard somewhere in the past, forgotten and voluptuously sweet,
had come back to me now. It seemed to me that it had been clamouring at
my heart all my life, and only now...."

"Oh my goodness, my goodness," Nastenka interrupted, "what does all that
mean? I don't understand a word."

"Ah, Nastenka, I wanted somehow to convey to you that strange
impression...." I began in a plaintive voice, in which there still lay
hid a hope, though a very faint one.

"Leave off. Hush!" she said, and in one instant the sly puss had
guessed.

Suddenly she became extraordinarily talkative, gay, mischievous; she
took my arm, laughed, wanted me to laugh too, and every confused word I
uttered evoked from her prolonged ringing laughter.... I began to feel
angry, she had suddenly begun flirting.

"Do you know," she began, "I feel a little vexed that you are not in
love with me? There's no understanding human nature! But all the same,
Mr. Unapproachable, you cannot blame me for being so simple; I tell you
everything, everything, whatever foolish thought comes into my head."

"Listen! That's eleven, I believe," I said as the slow chime of a bell
rang out from a distant tower. She suddenly stopped, left off laughing
and began to count.

"Yes, it's eleven," she said at last in a timid, uncertain voice.

I regretted at once that I had frightened her, making her count the
strokes, and I cursed myself for my spiteful impulse; I felt sorry for
her, and did not know how to atone for what I had done.

I began comforting her, seeking for reasons for his not coming,
advancing various arguments, proofs. No one could have been easier to
deceive than she was at that moment; and, indeed, any one at such a
moment listens gladly to any consolation, whatever it may be, and is
overjoyed if a shadow of excuse can be found.

"And indeed it's an absurd thing," I began, warming to my task and
admiring the extraordinary clearness of my argument, "why, he could not
have come; you have muddled and confused me, Nastenka, so that I too,
have lost count of the time.... Only think: he can scarcely have
received the letter; suppose he is not able to come, suppose he is going
to answer the letter, could not come before to-morrow. I will go for it
as soon as it's light to-morrow and let you know at once. Consider,
there are thousands of possibilities; perhaps he was not at home when
the letter came, and may not have read it even now! Anything may happen,
you know."

"Yes, yes!" said Nastenka. "I did not think of that. Of course anything
may happen?" she went on in a tone that offered no opposition, though
some other far-away thought could be heard like a vexatious discord in
it. "I tell you what you must do," she said, "you go as early as
possible to-morrow morning, and if you get anything let me know at once.
You know where I live, don't you?"

And she began repeating her address to me.

Then she suddenly became so tender, so solicitous with me. She seemed to
listen attentively to what I told her; but when I asked her some
question she was silent, was confused, and turned her head away. I
looked into her eyes--yes, she was crying.

"How can you? How can you? Oh, what a baby you are! what
childishness!... Come, come!"

She tried to smile, to calm herself, but her chin was quivering and her
bosom was still heaving.

"I was thinking about you," she said after a minute's silence. "You are
so kind that I should be a stone if I did not feel it. Do you know what
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