White Nights is an early, sentimental novel by F.M.Dostoevsky, created in 1848.

It is dedicated to the poet A. N. Pleshcheev, a friend of the young writer.

Plot

There are six chapters in total, most of which are descriptions of "nights". So, the Dreamer meets the girl Nastenka when it was one of the white nights in St. Petersburg. The hero falls in love with her, and she, apparently, reciprocates, because she sees in him a kindred spirit.

As a brother, she tells him a story. Throughout her childhood and early adolescence, she lived with her grandmother, a blind old woman, to whom she came after her parents died.

The grandmother was a strange woman and never wanted to let the girl go; for this she even pinned Nastenka behind her dress with a pin to her dress. Naturally, such a life was dull and joyless for a young girl.

And so she would have lived, perhaps, all her life, but suddenly a guest comes to them. The girl fell in love with him and wanted to leave with him. The young man did not mind, but he was very poor and therefore could not accept her. He promised to return in a year and take Nastenka away.

And now a year has passed. It is known that this man came to St. Petersburg, lives here, but he does not follow Nastenka and does not even answer the letters she writes to him. And if so, then he probably forgot her or fell in love with another.

Then Nastenka decided to finally open up to the Dreamer, because she noticed how much he loved her. But suddenly something unexpected happened: that guest showed up. The old feelings leaped up in the girl, she leaves the Dreamer for her long-awaited groom.

The dreamer, however, forgives and understands her and continues to love, no matter what. At the same time, he is lonely again and feels abandoned. In the end, Nastenka was the brightest event in his life and the closest friend, and he served as just a support for her in a difficult situation.

Dreamer Image

It is noteworthy that the main character is not named by name, as if he does not have one. The Dreamer himself understands his shyness and, in a conversation with Nastenka, explains to her that he seems to be not even a human being, but a kind of "creature of the neuter genus." Realizing that in the real world he is practically not needed by anyone, he closes himself off from this reality within his four walls and begins to dream in order to somehow disperse the melancholy.

He sees Nastenka as the one who can give him back a sense of reality, he becomes very attached to her; however, she also leaves him when she meets her fiancé. It can be seen that these figures are in many ways opposite:

Nastenka in childhood was deprived of real life and now with all her heart longs for it; and the Dreamer is an absolutely free person, but he locks himself up from the world around him.

She is a strong girl, able to wait for her lover as long as necessary, and the Dreamer is a weak and weak-willed person.

The uncertainty of the hero is Dostoevsky's conscious idea. However, the first critics of the story, in particular, Druzhinin, did not understand this and attributed this uncertainty to the shortcomings of the story. Nevertheless, on the whole, the story was received favorably. The almost complete absence of the "morbid naturalism" characteristic of the mature Dostoevsky was noted. The story was also appreciated for the brevity and accuracy of the language, which was also uncharacteristic for Dostoevsky.

"White Nights": a summary of the story of Dostoevsky

The hero of "White Nights", on whose behalf the story is being told, is a young man, a petty official, whose annual salary of only one thousand two hundred rubles is not enough to allow himself to get married. Such a poor serviceman, who has neither property nor connections in St. Petersburg, is a typical intellectual for Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky himself led the life of a petty employee for some time - when he worked as a draftsman in the St. Petersburg engineering team. During his life, Fyodor Mikhailovich wrote about thirty works of fiction, in a third of them the official was brought out as the main character - probably because he was the type best known to the writer.

Dostoevsky's “poor officials” are people of low status, their work is uninteresting and boring. None of them love her, they are waiting for the end of the working day, like schoolchildren. At the same time, these poor officials - like Dostoevsky himself and his friends - are not devoid of a poetic feeling in their souls, they are in the grip of beautiful and unrealizable dreams, and they need understanding friends to whom they could pour out their souls. Starting with the petty official Makar Devushkin, the hero of Dostoevsky's first work Poor People, who dreams of becoming a poet, this paradigm does not change. The hero of "White Nights" is also a "dreamer", he hates the service - he sleeps and sees how to escape from it. After the service, he wanders until late in complete solitude and without any apparent purpose in summer St. Petersburg, over which there are white nights - he dreams of finding a friend who would listen to his cherished thoughts. At the same time, houses come to life, from those with whom he is on friendly terms, the hero hears: “Hello; how is your health? and I, thank God, am healthy, and a second floor will be added to me in the month of May ”; “How is your health? and I have to be repaired tomorrow, "etc. These are the" conversations "a young man has in the depths of his soul.

In this type of lonely dreamer wandering around the city, the then readers - young Russian intellectuals - recognized themselves, and he aroused their sympathy.

And then one evening this young man, hungry for a conversation with a "friend", suddenly accidentally meets Nastenka on the bank of the canal - a seventeen-year-old girl, pure and beautiful, who also needs a "friend".

In the same place and at the same hour in the evening, they meet on the next day and the next. A young dreamer, who has never before met a person who would have listened to him, enthusiastically and tirelessly tells about his dreams, thoughts and feelings. Nastenka, as if dissolving in this monologue, forgetting about everything in the world, sympathetically listens to his confessions.

In the end, she herself begins to talk about herself. She lives with her blind grandmother. Some time ago, a young tenant rented a room in their house, who promised to marry her. However, on some business he had to leave for Moscow for a year. He promised to contact her immediately upon his return. And now a year has passed, she knows for sure that he is in St. Petersburg, but he does not appear in her house and does not even let her know about himself.

The dreamer, although he is passionately in love with Nastenka, like the elder brother of his younger sister, agrees to deliver Nastenka's letter to her beloved. However, there is still no answer from him. And then on the fourth evening Nastenka, seemingly breaking up with him, invites the Dreamer to settle in their house as a new tenant. There are no boundaries to the happiness of the Dreamer. But at this very minute, next to them, like a black shadow, this very young man passes. And then Nastenka immediately rushes into his arms.
At the very end of the story, the Dreamer, being in his room and being in the darkest mood, receives a message from Nastya, in which she calls the Dreamer her friend and brother. The dreamer promises to pray for her happiness and recalls the happy moments spent next to her. "Oh my God! A whole minute of bliss! But is this not enough even for the whole human life? " He exclaims.

"White Nights": an analysis of the story of Dostoevsky

"White Nights" is a narrative full of lofty lyrics, which I would like to call the urban version of "Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka." It is also a walk around St. Petersburg, it is also a "declaration of love" characteristic of the young Dostoevsky.

In "White Nights" there is no smack of everyday life; although this is a love story, there is no doubt or jealousy. It’s like a guide to what warm and pure love and disinterested friendship should be. If you look at the dirty love emotions described in The Brothers Karamazov, you will ask yourself: is it one person who owns the authorship of these two works?

The love presented in White Nights is the very ideal love that young Dostoevsky and his contemporaries - poor educated youth - dreamed of. For the sake of your beloved woman, you are ready to be an errand boy, you are ready to sacrifice yourself and pray for her happiness from afar - this is such love, as if copied from novels for girls, and presented as the ideal of love. The Soviet literary critic Komarovich, answering the question why Dostoevsky bowed before such a corny ideal, analyzes the ideological background of that time.

In the 40s of the XIX century. Russian intelligent youth, including Dostoevsky himself, was carried away by the French utopians, whose core beliefs were to become wonderful donors, ready to give up themselves for the sake of love for other people; they believed that self-sacrifice is the highest manifestation of love. These ideas sunk deeply into the soul of Dostoevsky, and they determined the type of love characteristic of him, to which he remained faithful from his youth to the end of his life (see: V. L. Komarovich. "Youth of Dostoevsky").

After the Siberian exile, Fyodor Mikhailovich wrote "The Humiliated and Insulted." In this work, he brought out the writer, who, undoubtedly, is his self-portrait. And here, too, Dostoevsky gave the writer the role of a donor, who makes every effort to establish a relationship between the woman he himself loves and another man, i.e. his rival. Because he sacrifices himself, the writer experiences a special secret sweetness. It turns out that self-sacrifice is proof of the purity of love feelings.

In Siberia, Dostoevsky fell in love with Maria Isaeva, who was married. Subsequently, they were married, but for some time their relationship developed within the specified love paradigm. Fyodor Mikhailovich quite seriously refused her in favor of the young teacher Nikolai Vergunov, who courted her.

In "Winter Notes on Summer Impressions" Dostoevsky writes somewhat boringly about the psychological aspects of love and emphasizes that sacrifice not forced by anyone is the highest manifestation of love, that not the slightest manifestation of selfishness should be allowed.

It is amazing that, despite the terrible ten-year exile and two marriages, Fyodor Mikhailovich still remained faithful to his youthful ideal of sacrificial love. The reason for this constancy is, in all likelihood, the fact that Dostoevsky's soul loved suffering, which presupposes admiration for sacrificial love. As it is clear from "Weak Heart", he bowed before the ideal of beautiful love-friendship, but was afraid of its implementation, he suffered from a kind of "phobia" in relation to the realization of dreams. When the Dreamer is on the threshold of his happiness, a black shadow appears, and Nastenka leaves him. What is this if not a fear of realization? Dostoevsky wanted happiness, but he did not want it to come true.

Dostoevsky was not a practical person who has a definite goal, and under the influence of experience and circumstances, he remakes himself anew. No, he has a certain dream or idea from the very beginning, he sees the world only through the prism of his dream, and this obsession attracts him.

The dreamer from "White Nights" bows before the wonderful friendship-love, and he finds a friend in the person of Nastenka. But this same admiration makes him sacrifice himself, and he remains alone. He is a prisoner of his ideas of friendship and love, and he cannot get out of this trap.

Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

"White Nights"

A young man of twenty-six years old - a petty official who had lived for eight years in St. Petersburg in the 1840s, in one of the tenement houses along the Catherine Canal, in a room with cobwebs and smoky walls. After the service, his favorite pastime is walking around the city. He notices passers-by and at home, some of them become his "friends". However, he has almost no acquaintances among people. He is poor and alone. With sadness, he watches how the residents of St. Petersburg are going to their dacha. He has nowhere to go. Going out of town, he enjoys the northern spring nature, which looks like a "stunted and sickly" girl who for a moment becomes "wonderfully beautiful."

Returning home at ten in the evening, the hero sees a female figure at the canal grill and hears a sobbing. Sympathy prompts him to make acquaintance, but the girl fearfully runs away. A drunk is trying to stick to her, and only the "knotted stick", which is in the hero's hand, saves a pretty stranger. They talk to each other. The young man admits that before he knew only the "housewives", he never spoke to the "women" and therefore is very timid. This calms down the fellow traveler. She listens attentively to the story about the "romances" that the guide created in dreams, about falling in love with ideal invented images, about the hope of someday meeting in reality a girl worthy of love. But now she is almost at home and wants to say goodbye. The dreamer begs for a new meeting. The girl “needs to be here for herself,” and she is not against the presence of a new acquaintance tomorrow at the same hour at the same place. Her condition is "friendship", "but you can't fall in love." Like the Dreamer, she needs someone to trust, from whom to ask for advice.

In the second meeting, they decide to listen to each other's "stories". The hero starts. It turns out that he is a "type": in the "strange corners of St. Petersburg" there live similar "creatures of the middle genus" - "dreamers" - whose "life is a mixture of something purely fantastic, hotly ideal and at the same time dull prosaic and ordinary ". They are frightened by the society of living people, as they spend long hours among "magic ghosts", in "ecstatic dreams", in imaginary "adventures". “You say you’re reading a book,” Nastenka guesses at the source of the plots and images of the interlocutor: the works of Hoffmann, Merimee, V. Scott, Pushkin. After delightful, "voluptuous" dreams, it hurts to wake up in "loneliness", in your "musty, unnecessary life." The girl takes pity on her friend, and he himself understands that "such a life is a crime and a sin." After the "fantastic nights", they already "find moments of sobering up, which are terrible." "Dreams survive," the soul wants "real life." Nastenka promises the Dreamer that now they will be together. And here is her confession. She is an orphan. Lives with an old blind grandmother in a small house of her own. Until the age of fifteen she studied with a teacher, and for the last two years she has been sitting, "pinned" with a pin to the dress of her grandmother, who otherwise cannot keep track of her. A year ago they had a tenant, a young man of "pleasant appearance." He gave his young mistress books by W. Scott, Pushkin and other authors. I invited them and their grandmother to the theater. Especially memorable was the opera The Barber of Seville. When he announced that he was leaving, the poor recluse decided on a desperate act: she packed her things in a bundle, came into the room to the tenant, sat down and “cried in three streams”. Fortunately, he understood everything, and most importantly, he managed to fall in love with Nastenka before. But he was poor and without a "decent place", and therefore could not immediately marry. They agreed that exactly a year later, after returning from Moscow, where he hoped to "arrange his own affairs," the young man would wait for his bride on a bench near the canal at ten o'clock in the evening. A year has passed. For three days he has been in St. Petersburg. He is not in the appointed place ... Now the hero knows the reason for the girl's tears on the evening of their acquaintance. Trying to help, he volunteers to give her a letter for the groom, which he does the next day.

Due to the rain, the third meeting of the heroes takes place only one night later. Nastenka is afraid that the groom will not come again, and cannot hide her excitement from her friend. She feverishly dreams of the future. The hero is sad because he himself loves the girl. And yet the Dreamer has enough dedication to comfort and reassure the discouraged Nastenka. Touched, the girl compares the groom to a new friend: "Why is he not you? .. He is worse than you, although I love him more than you." And he continues to dream: “Why are we all not like brothers and brothers? Why does the best person always seem to hide something from the other and keep silent from him? Everyone looks as if he is harsher than he really is ... "Gratefully accepting the Dreamer's sacrifice, Nastenka also takes care of him:" you are recovering "," you will love ... "" God bless you with her! " In addition, now with the hero forever and her friendship.

And finally the fourth night. The girl finally felt abandoned "inhuman" and "cruel". The dreamer again offers help: go to the offender and make him "respect" Nastenka's feelings. However, pride awakens in her: she no longer loves the deceiver and will try to forget him. The “barbaric” act of the tenant sets off the moral beauty of the friend sitting next to him: “Would you not have done that? would you not have thrown the one who would have come to you into the eyes of the shameless mockery of her weak, stupid heart? " The dreamer no longer has the right to hide the truth already guessed by the girl: "I love you, Nastenka!" He does not want to "torment" her with his "egoism" in a bitter moment, but what if his love turns out to be necessary? And indeed, the answer is: “I don’t love him, because I can only love what is generous, what understands me, what is noble ...” If the Dreamer waits until the old feelings completely subside, then the gratitude and love of the girl will go to him alone ... Young people happily dream of a joint future. At the moment of their parting, the groom suddenly appears. With a cry, trembling, Nastenka breaks free from the hero's hands and rushes to meet him. The seemingly fulfilling hope for happiness, for a real life, is leaving the Dreamer. He silently looks after the lovers.

The next morning, the hero receives a letter from a happy girl asking for forgiveness for the involuntary deception and with gratitude for his love, which “cured” her “killed heart”. She's getting married the other day. But her feelings are contradictory: “Oh God! if I could love you both at the same time! " And yet the Dreamer must remain "forever friend, brother ...". Again he is alone in a suddenly "aged" room. But fifteen years later, he fondly recalls his short-lived love: “May you be blessed for the minute of bliss and happiness that you gave to another, lonely, grateful heart! A whole minute of bliss! But is this not enough even for the whole human life? .. "

The dreamer, a minor official, twenty-six years old, has been living in St. Petersburg for 8 years. He loves to walk around the city, noticing houses and passers-by, following the life of a big city. Among people he has no acquaintances, The dreamer is poor and lonely. One evening he returns home and notices a crying girl. Sympathy prompts him to get to know the girl, the Dreamer convinces her that he has never talked with women before and that is why he is so timid. He escorts the stranger to her house and asks for a new meeting, she agrees to meet with him at the same time, in the same place.

On the second evening, young people share their life stories with each other. The dreamer says that he lives in a colorful but fictional world of the works of Hoffmann and Pushkin and it is sometimes very difficult for him to realize that in reality he is alone and unhappy. The girl, Nastenka, tells him that she has been living with a blind grandmother for a long time, who does not let her leave her for a long time. Once a guest settled in Nastya's house, he read her books, communicated well with her and the girl fell in love. When it was time for him to move out, she told the guest about her feelings. He reciprocated, however, having neither savings nor housing, he promised to return for Nastenka in a year, when he would settle his affairs. And now a year has passed, Nastya knows that he has returned to Petersburg, but she never comes to meet her. The dreamer tries to calm the girl down, he invites her to take the letter to her fiance, which he does the next day.

On the third evening, Nastya and Dreamer meet again, the girl is afraid that her lover will never return. The dreamer is sad, because he has already fallen in love with Nastenka with all his heart, but she perceives him only as a friend. The girl laments that her new friend is better than the groom, but she does not love him.

On the fourth night, Nastya feels completely forgotten by her fiancé. The dreamer tries to calm her down, offers to force the groom to respect the girl's feelings. But she is adamant, the pride that awakens in her does not allow her to love the deceiver anymore, Nastenka sees the moral beauty of her new friend. The dreamer is no longer able to hide his feelings, he confesses his love to the girl, Nastya wants to forget herself in his arms. Young people dream of a new, bright future. But at the moment of parting, Nastya's fiancé appears, the girl breaks free from the embrace of the Dreamer and runs towards her lover. Unhappy young man, look after the lovers.

... Or was it created in order
To be at least a moment
In the neighborhood of your heart? ..
Yves. Turgenev

First night

It was a wonderful night, the kind of night that can only be when we are young, dear reader. The sky was such a starry sky, such a bright sky that, looking at it, one involuntarily had to ask oneself: can different angry and capricious people really live under such a sky? This is also a young question, dear reader, very young, but God send it to you more often to your soul! .. Speaking about capricious and various angry gentlemen, I could not help recalling my well-behaved behavior all that day. From the very morning I was tormented by some amazing melancholy. It suddenly seemed to me that everyone was leaving me, lonely, and that everyone was leaving me. It, of course, everyone has the right to ask: who are all these? because for eight years now I have been living in St. Petersburg and have not been able to make almost a single acquaintance. But why do I need dating? I already know the whole of Petersburg; that is why it seemed to me that everyone was leaving me when the whole of Petersburg rose and suddenly left for the dacha. I began to feel scared to be alone, and for three whole days I wandered around the city in deep anguish, decisively not understanding what was happening to me. Whether I go to the Nevsky, whether I go to the garden, whether I wander along the embankment - not a single person from those whom I am used to meeting in the same place at a certain hour, for a whole year. They, of course, do not know me, but I know them. I know them briefly; I have almost studied their faces - and admire them when they are cheerful, and depressed when they are fogged up. I almost made friends with one old man whom I meet every single day, at a certain hour, on the Fontanka. The physiognomy is so important, thoughtful; everything whispers under his breath and waves his left hand, and in his right he has a long gnarled cane with a gold knob. Even he noticed me and takes a spiritual part in me. If I happen not to be at the same place of the Fontanka at a certain hour, I am sure that a blues will attack him. This is why we sometimes almost bow to each other, especially when both are in good spirits. The other day, when we did not see each other for two whole days and on the third day we met, we were already and grabbed our hats, but fortunately, we came to our senses in time, dropped our hands and with sympathy walked beside each other. I also know houses at home. When I walk, everyone seems to run ahead of me into the street, look at me through all the windows and almost say: “Hello; how is your health? and I, thank God, am healthy, and they will add a floor to me in the month of May. " Or: “How is your health? and me to fix it tomorrow. " Or: “I almost burned out and, moreover, I was frightened,” etc. Of these, I have favorites, I have short friends; one of them intends to be treated this summer by an architect. On purpose I will go every day so that they do not heal somehow, God forbid! .. But I will never forget the story with one very pretty light pink house. It was such a nice little stone house, it looked at me so affably, looked so proudly at its clumsy neighbors that my heart rejoiced when I happened to pass by. Suddenly, last week I was walking down the street, and when I looked at my friend, I heard a plaintive cry: "And they paint me yellow!" Villains! barbarians! they did not spare anything: no columns, no cornices, and my friend turned yellow like a canary. I almost spilled bile on this occasion, and I still could not see my poor man, disfigured, who was painted in the color of the empire of the heavens.

So, you understand, reader, how I know the whole of Petersburg.

F. M. Dostoevsky. White Nights. Audiobook

I have already said that for three whole days I was tormented by anxiety, until I guessed the reason for it. And on the street I felt bad (that is not, this is not, where did such and such go?) - and at home I was not myself. For two evenings I was trying: what is missing in my corner? why was it so embarrassing to stay in it? - and with bewilderment I examined my green, smoky walls, the ceiling hung with cobwebs, which Matryona raised with great success, reviewed all my furniture, examined every chair, wondering if this was the trouble? (because if I have at least one chair not the way it stood yesterday, then I am not myself) I looked at the window, and it was all in vain ... it was not at all easier! I even thought of summoning Matryona and immediately gave her a fatherly reprimand for her cobwebs and, in general, for being sloppy; but she just looked at me in surprise and walked away without answering a word, so that the cobweb still hangs safely in place. Finally, only this morning I figured out what was the matter. Eh! but they are running away from me to the dacha! Forgive me for the trivial word, but I was not up to the lofty style ... because after all, everything that was in St. Petersburg, either moved, or moved to the dacha; because every respectable gentleman of solid appearance, who hired a cab, immediately turned into a respectable father of the family in front of my eyes, who, after routine duties, went light to the depths of his family, to the country house; because every passer-by now had a very special look, which almost said to everyone we met: "We, gentlemen, are here only in this way, in passing, but in two hours we will leave for the dacha." Whether the window opened, on which at first the thin fingers, white as sugar, drummed, and the head of a pretty girl who called a peddler with pots of flowers protruded, - I immediately, immediately it seemed that these flowers were bought only in this way, that is, not at all for in order to enjoy spring and flowers in a stuffy city apartment, and that very soon everyone will move to the country house and take the flowers with them. Moreover, I have already made such progress in my new, special kind of discoveries that I could already unmistakably, in one look, designate which dacha lives in. The inhabitants of the Kamenny and Aptekarsky Islands or the Peterhof road were distinguished by their studied elegance of receptions, smart summer costumes and fine carriages in which they arrived in the city. Inhabitants of Pargolov and where far away, at first glance "inspired" with their prudence and solidity; the visitor to Krestovsky Island was distinguished by an imperturbably cheerful look. Did I manage to meet a long procession of draft cabs, lazily walking with reins in their hands beside the wagons, loaded with whole mountains of all kinds of furniture, tables, chairs, Turkish and non-Turkish sofas and other household belongings, on which, in addition to all this, I often sat at the very top the cart, the puny cook, guarding the lordly goods like the apple of her eye; whether I looked at the boats heavily laden with household utensils, gliding along the Neva or Fontanka, to the Black River or the islands - the carts and boats increased tenfold, lost in my eyes; everything seemed to get up and go, everything moved in whole caravans to the dacha; it seemed that all of Petersburg was threatening to turn into a desert, so that at last I felt ashamed, insulted and sad; I have absolutely nowhere to go, and there was no point in going to the dacha. I was ready to leave with every wagon, to leave with every gentleman of respectable appearance who hired a cab; but no one, absolutely no one invited me; as if they had forgotten me, as if I was really a stranger to them!

Illustration for the novel "White Nights" by F. M. Dostoevsky

I walked a lot and for a long time, so that I had already completely managed, as was my habit, to forget where I was, when I suddenly found myself at the outpost. In an instant I felt cheerful, and I stepped over the barrier, walked between the sown fields and meadows, did not hear fatigue, but felt only with my whole staff that some kind of burden was falling from my soul. All the passers-by looked at me so affably that they almost bowed resolutely; everyone was so happy about something, every one smoked cigars. And I was glad, as it had never happened to me. It was as if I suddenly found myself in Italy - nature struck me so strongly, a half-sick city dweller who almost suffocated in the city walls.

There is something inexplicably touching in our St. Petersburg nature, when, with the onset of spring, she will suddenly show all her might, all the powers bestowed on her by heaven, downy, discharged, filled with flowers ... Somehow she involuntarily reminds me of that stunted and a sickness that you sometimes look at with regret, sometimes with a kind of compassionate love, sometimes you just don't notice it, but which suddenly, for a moment, somehow accidentally becomes inexplicable, wonderfully beautiful, and you, amazed, intoxicated, You involuntarily ask yourself: what power made these sad, pensive eyes shine with such fire? what caused the blood on those pale, thin cheeks? what has poured passion on these delicate features? why is this chest so heaving? what so suddenly caused strength, life and beauty on the face of the poor girl, made him shine with such a smile, revive with such a sparkling, sparkling laugh? You look around, you are looking for someone, you guess ... But a moment passes, and maybe the next day you will meet again the same pensive and absent-minded look, as before, the same pale face, the same resignation and timidity in movements and even repentance, even traces of some kind of deadening melancholy and annoyance for a moment's passion ... And it's a pity that instant beauty faded so quickly, so irrevocably that it flashed before you so deceptively and in vain - it's a pity that you can't even love her there was time ...

And yet my night was better than the day! This is how it was.

I came back to the city very late, and it was already ten o'clock when I began to approach the apartment. My road went along the embankment of the canal, on which at this hour you will not meet a living soul. True, I live in the farthest part of the city. I walked and sang, because when I am happy, I will certainly purr something to myself, like any happy person who has neither friends nor good acquaintances and who, in a joyful moment, has no one to share his joy with. Suddenly the most unexpected adventure happened to me.

On the sidelines, leaning against the railing of the canal, stood a woman; leaning her elbows on the grating, she, apparently, was looking very attentively at the murky water of the canal. She was dressed in a cute yellow hat and a flirty black mantilla. “This is a girl, and certainly a brunette,” I thought. She didn’t seem to hear my steps, didn’t even move when I passed by, holding my breath and with a beating heart. "Weird! - I thought, - surely she was thinking about something very much, ”and suddenly I stopped rooted to the spot. I heard a dull sob. Yes! I was not deceived: the girl was crying, and a minute later there was another sobbing. Oh my God! My heart sank. And no matter how timid I am with women, but it was such a moment! .. I turned back, stepped towards her and would certainly have said: "Madam!" - if only he did not know that this exclamation had already been pronounced a thousand times in all Russian high society novels. This alone stopped me. But while I was looking for a word, the girl woke up, looked around, caught herself, looked down and slid past me along the embankment. I immediately followed her, but she guessed, left the embankment, crossed the street and walked along the sidewalk. I did not dare to cross the street. My heart fluttered like a caught bird. Suddenly one case came to my aid.

On the other side of the sidewalk, not far from my stranger, a gentleman in a tailcoat, of respectable age, but one cannot say that he walked with a solid gait, suddenly appeared. He walked, staggering and carefully leaning against the wall. The girl walked like an arrow, hurriedly and timidly, as all girls generally walk who do not want anyone to volunteer to accompany them home at night, and, of course, the rocking gentleman would never have caught up with her if my fate had not advised look for artificial means. Suddenly, without saying a word to anyone, my master takes off and flies as fast as he can, runs, catching up with my stranger. She walked like the wind, but the swaying gentleman overtook, overtook, the girl screamed - and ... I bless fate for an excellent gnarled stick, which happened this time in my right hand. I instantly found myself on the other side of the sidewalk, instantly the uninvited gentleman understood what was the matter, took into account the irresistible reason, fell silent, fell behind and only when we were already very far, protested against me in rather energetic terms. But his words barely reached us.

“Give me your hand,” I said to my stranger, “and he won't dare to pester us anymore.

She silently gave me her hand, which was still trembling with excitement and fright. O uninvited master! how I blessed you this minute! I glanced at her briefly: she was sweet and brunette - I guessed right; tears of recent fright or former grief still glistened on her black eyelashes — I don’t know. But a smile was already sparkling on his lips. She, too, glanced at me furtively, blushed slightly and looked down.

- You see, why did you drive me away then? If I were here, nothing would have happened ...

- But I did not know you: I thought that you too ...

- Do you know me now?

- A little. For example, why are you trembling?

- Oh, you guessed right the first time! - I answered in delight that my girlfriend is clever: it never interferes with beauty. “Yes, you guessed at first glance who you were dealing with. Precisely, I am timid with women, I am in agitation, I do not argue, no less than you were a minute ago when this gentleman frightened you ... I am in some kind of fright now. It’s like a dream, and even in a dream I didn’t guess that someday I would talk to at least some woman.

- How? isn't it already?

“Yes, if my hand is trembling, it’s because never before has it been wrapped around such a pretty little hand like yours. I am completely out of the habit of women; that is, I never got used to them; I'm alone ... I don't even know how to talk to them. And now I don’t know - didn’t I tell you something stupid? Tell me straight; I warn you, I am not touchy ...

- No, nothing, nothing; against. And if you already demand that I be frank, then I can tell you that women like such shyness; and if you want to know more, then I also like it, and I will not drive you away from me to my home.

- You will do to me, - I began, breathless with delight, - that I will immediately cease to be timid and then - forgive all my means! ..

- Facilities? what means, to what? that's really bad.

- I'm sorry, I won't, I lost my tongue; but how do you want there to be no desire at such a moment ...

- Like it, or what?

- Well, yes; yes be, for God's sake, be kind. Judge who I am! After all, now I am twenty-six years old, and I have never seen anyone. Well, how can I speak well, dexterously and by the way? It will be more profitable for you when everything is open, outward ... I do not know how to remain silent when my heart speaks. Well, it doesn't matter ... Believe me, not a single woman, never, never! No dating! and I only dream every day that at last someday I will meet someone. Oh, if you only knew how many times I was in love in this way! ..

- But how, in whom? ..

- Yes, in no one, in the ideal, in the one that dreamed in a dream. I create whole novels in my dreams. Oh, you don't know me! True, it is impossible without that, I have met two or three women, but what kind of women are they? these are all such mistresses that ... But I will make you laugh, I will tell you that several times I thought to speak, so easily, with some aristocrat on the street, of course, when she is alone; to speak, of course, timidly, respectfully, passionately; to say that I am perishing alone, so that she does not drive me away, that there is no way to recognize at least some woman; to convince her that even in the duties of a woman, she cannot reject the timid entreaty of such an unfortunate man like me. That, finally, and all I demand is only to say two fraternal words to me with sympathy, not to drive me away from the first step, to take my word for it, to listen to what I am going to say, to laugh me, if you like, to reassure me, to say two words to me, only two words, then even though we never meet with her! .. But you laugh ... However, that's why I'm talking ...

- Do not be annoyed; I laugh at the fact that you are your own enemy, and if you tried, then you succeeded, perhaps, even if it was on the street; the simpler, the better ... Not a single kind woman, unless she is stupid or especially angry at something at that moment, would dare to send you away without these two words, which you so timidly beg ... But what am I! would of course take you for a madman. I was judging by myself. I myself know a lot about how people in the world live!

“Oh, thank you,” I shouted, “you don’t know what you’ve done for me now!”

- Good good! But tell me why you found out that I am the kind of woman with whom ... well, whom you considered worthy ... attention and friendship ... in a word, not a mistress, as you call it. Why did you decide to approach me?

- Why? why? But you were alone, that gentleman was too brave, now it’s night: you must admit that this is a duty ...

- No, no, even before, there, on the other side. After all, you wanted to come up to me?

- Over there, on the other side? But I really don't know how to answer: I'm afraid ... You know, I was happy today; I walked, sang; I was out of town; I have never had such happy moments before. You ... maybe it seemed to me ... Well, forgive me if I remind you: it seemed to me that you were crying, and I ... I could not hear it ... my heart was shy ... Oh my God! Well, couldn’t I yearn for you? Was it really a sin to feel brotherly compassion for you? .. Excuse me, I said compassion ... Well, yes, in a word, could I really offend you that I involuntarily took it into my head to approach you? ..

- Leave, that's enough, don't say ... - said the girl, looking down and squeezing my hand. - I myself am to blame for talking about it; but I am glad that I was not mistaken in you ... but now I am already at home; I need to come here to the alley; there are two steps ... goodbye, thank you ...

- So really, really, will we never see each other again? .. Will it really remain so?

“You see,” the girl said, laughing, “at first you wanted only two words, but now ... But, however, I won't tell you anything ... Maybe we'll meet ...

“I'll come here tomorrow,” I said. - Oh, forgive me, I already demand ...

- Yes, you are impatient ... you almost demand ...

- Listen, listen! - I interrupted her. - Forgive me if I tell you something like that again ... But here's what: I can't help coming here tomorrow. I'm a dreamer; I have so little real life that I count such minutes as this, as now, so rarely that I cannot help repeating these minutes in my dreams. I will dream of you all night, all week, all year. I will certainly come here tomorrow, exactly here, at the same place, at this very hour, and I will be happy, remembering yesterday. This place is sweet to me. I already have two or three such places in St. Petersburg. I even once wept from the memory, how did you ... Who knows, maybe you, ten minutes ago, wept from the memory ... But forgive me, I am forgotten again; maybe you have ever been especially happy here ...

- Okay, - said the girl, - I think I'll come here tomorrow, also at ten o'clock. I see that I can no longer forbid you ... That's the point, I need to be here; do not think that I made an appointment with you; I warn you, I need to be here for myself. But ... well, I'll tell you frankly: it will be okay if you come too; firstly, there may be troubles again, like today, but this aside ... in a word, I just would like to see you ... to say two words to you. Only, do you see, you will not condemn me now? do not think that I am so easy to make appointments ... I would not, if only ... But let it be my secret! Just forward an agreement ...

- An agreement! speak, say, say everything in advance; I agree to everything, I'm ready for everything, - I cried in delight, - I am responsible for myself - I will be obedient, respectful ... you know me ...

“Precisely because I know you and invite you tomorrow,” the girl said, laughing. “I know you perfectly. But look, come on condition; firstly (just be kind, do what I ask - you see, I speak frankly), do not fall in love with me ... This is impossible, I assure you. I'm ready for friendship, here's my hand ... But you can't fall in love, please!

“I swear to you,” I shouted, grabbing her hand ...

- Completeness, do not swear, I know you are capable of blazing like gunpowder. Don't judge me if I say so. If you only knew ... I also have no one with whom I could say a word, who I could ask for advice. Of course, it’s not on the street to look for advisors, but you are an exception. I know you as if we had been friends for twenty years ... Isn't it true, you won't change? ..

“You will see… only I don’t know how I’ll live at least a day.

- Sleep well; good night - and remember that I've already trusted you. But you exclaimed so well just before: really give an account in every feeling, even in fraternal sympathy! You know, it was said so well that I immediately had the thought to confide in you ...

“For God's sake, but what?” what?

- Till tomorrow. Let it be a secret for the time being. So much the better for you; at least from a distance it will look like a novel. Maybe I'll tell you tomorrow, or maybe not ... I'll talk to you in advance, we'll get to know each other better ...

- Oh, yes, I'll tell you everything about myself tomorrow! But what is it? as if a miracle is happening to me ... Where am I, my God? Well, tell me, are you really unhappy that you didn’t get angry, as the other did, didn’t drive me away at the very beginning? Two minutes and you made me happy forever. Yes! happy; who knows, maybe you have reconciled me with yourself, resolved my doubts ... Maybe they find such minutes on me ... Well, yes, I'll tell you everything tomorrow, you will know everything, everything ...

- Okay, I accept; you will start ...

- I agree.

- Goodbye!

- Goodbye!

And we parted. I walked all night; I could not make up my mind to go home. I was so happy ... until tomorrow!

Second night

- Well, here we are! She said to me, laughing and shaking both my hands.

- I've been here for two hours; you don't know what happened to me all day!

“I know, I know ... but to the point. Do you know why I came? It's not nonsense to talk like yesterday. Here's the thing: we need to move forward smarter. I thought about all this for a long time yesterday.

- In what, in what to be smarter? For my part, I am ready; but, really, nothing has ever happened to me smarter than now.

- Indeed? First, I beg you, do not shake my hands like that; secondly, I declare to you that today I have been thinking about you for a long time.

- Well, how did it end?

- How did it end? In the end, I have to start all over again, because at the end of everything, I decided today that you are still completely unknown to me, that yesterday I acted like a child, like a girl, and, of course, it turned out that my good heart is to blame for everything, that is, I praised myself, as it always ends when we begin to take apart ours. And therefore, in order to correct the mistake, I decided to find out about you in the most detailed way. But since there is no one to find out about you, you must tell me everything yourself, all the ins and outs. What kind of person are you? Hurry up - get started, tell your story.

- History! - I shouted, frightened, - history! But who told you that I have my story? I have no history ...

- So how did you live if there is no history? She interrupted, laughing.

- Absolutely no stories! so he lived, as we say, by himself, that is, one completely, one, one completely - do you understand what one is?

- How is one? So you've never seen anyone?

- Oh, no, I see, - but all the same I am alone.

- Well, don't you talk to anyone?

- In a strict sense, with no one.

- Who are you, explain yourself! Wait, I guess: you probably have a grandmother, just like me. She's blind, and for a whole life she hasn't let me go anywhere, so I almost forgot how to speak at all. And when I found two years ago, she sees that you cannot hold me, she took me, and pinned my dress to hers with a pin - and so we have been sitting all day since then; she knits a stocking, even though she is blind; and I sit next to her, or read a book aloud to her - such a strange custom that it has been pinned for two years now ...

- Oh my God, what a misfortune! No, I don't have such a grandmother.

- And if not, how can you sit at home? ..

- Look, you want to know who I am?

- Well, yes, yes!

- In the strict sense of the word?

- In the strictest sense of the word!

- Excuse me, I'm a type.

- Type, type! what type? - shouted the girl, laughing as if she had not been able to laugh for a whole year. - Yes, it's great with you! Look: there is a bench here; let's sit down! No one walks here, no one hears us, and - start your story! because, you will not believe me, you have a story, and you are only hiding. First, what is a type?

- A type? the type is the original, this is such a funny person! - I answered, laughing myself after her childish laughter. - It's such a character. Listen: do you know what a dreamer is?

- Dreamer! excuse me, but how not to know! I am a dreamer myself! Sometimes you sit next to your grandmother and something will not enter your head. Well, you’ll start dreaming, but you won’t think so - well, I’m just marrying a Chinese prince ... But it’s good another time - dreaming! No, however, God knows! Especially if you already have something to think about, - added the girl this time quite seriously.

- Excellent! If you have married a Chinese bogdyhan, then you will completely understand me. Well, listen ... But excuse me: do I yet know your name?

- Finally! they remembered early!

- Oh my god! but it didn't even come to my mind, I felt so good ...

- My name is Nastenka.

- Nastenka! only?

- Only! Yes, are you really not enough, you insatiable sort of!

- You never know? Many, many, on the contrary, very many, Nastenka, you are a kind girl, if from the first time you became Nastenka for me!

- That's the same! Well!

- Well, here, Nastenka, listen, what a funny story comes out here.

I sat down next to her, took a pedantically serious pose and began, as if written:

- Yes, Nastenka, if you don’t know that, there are rather strange corners in St. Petersburg. It is as if the same sun that shines for all Petersburg people does not look into these places, but some other, new one, as if deliberately ordered for these corners, looks in and shines on everything with a different, special light. In these corners, dear Nastenka, it is as if a completely different life is surviving, not like the one that is boiling around us, but one that may be in a thirty unknown kingdom, and not with us, in our serious, serious time. This very life is a mixture of something purely fantastic, hotly ideal and at the same time (alas, Nastenka!) Dull prosaic and ordinary, not to say: to the incredible vulgarity.

- Ugh! Oh my God! what a preface! What am I going to hear?

- Hear you, Nastenka (it seems to me, I will never tire of calling you Nastenka), you will hear that strange people - dreamers live in these corners. The dreamer - if you need a detailed definition - is not a person, but, you know, some kind of creature of the neuter genus. For the most part, he settles somewhere in an impregnable corner, as if he is hiding in him even from daylight, and if he climbs up to himself, then he will grow to his corner, like a snail, or at least he is very similar in this respect to that entertaining animal, which is an animal and a house together, which is called a turtle. Why do you think he is so fond of his four walls, which are always painted green, smoky, dull and inadmissibly stoned? Why is this funny gentleman, when one of his rare acquaintances comes to visit him (and he ends up with all his acquaintances being translated), why does this funny man greet him with such confusion, with such a change in his face and in such confusion, as if he just committed a crime within his four walls, as if he had fabricated false papers or some rhyme to be sent to a magazine with an anonymous letter, which indicates that the real poet has already died and that his friend considers it a sacred duty to publish his verses? Why, tell me, Nastenka, does the conversation not fit so well between these two interlocutors? why does not laughter, or some brisk word, leave the tongue of a suddenly entered and bewildered friend, who in another case loves laughter, and a brisk word, and talk about a beautiful field, and other funny topics? Why, finally, is this friend, probably a recent acquaintance, and at the first visit - because in this case there will be no second, and the friend will not come another time - why is the friend himself so embarrassed, so stiff, with all his wit ( if only he has it), looking at the overturned face of the owner, who, in turn, has already completely managed to get lost and get lost in the last sense after gigantic, but vain efforts to smooth out and slow down the conversation, to show, and on his part, the knowledge of secularism, to also talk about a beautiful field and at least with such humility please a poor man who got in the wrong place, who by mistake came to visit him? Why, finally, does the guest suddenly grab his hat and quickly leave, suddenly remembering a self-imperative business that has never happened, and somehow frees his hand from the hot shakes of the host, who is trying in every possible way to show his repentance and correct what he has lost? Why does the outgoing friend laugh, walking out the door, and immediately gives himself the word never to come to this eccentric, although this eccentric, in essence, is the most excellent fellow, and at the same time cannot deny his imagination a little whim: compare, even in a distant way, the physiognomy of their recent interlocutor during all the meeting with the look of that unfortunate kitten, who was crushed, intimidated and offended in every possible way by the children, treacherously captured him, embarrassed into dust, which finally huddled from them under a chair, into the darkness, and there for an hour in his spare time he is forced to bristle, snort and wash his offended stigma with both paws and for a long time after that gaze with hostility at nature and life and even at the handout from the master's dinner, reserved for him by the compassionate housekeeper?

- Listen, - Nastenka interrupted, who all the time listened to me in surprise, opening her eyes and mouth, - listen: I do not know at all why all this happened and why you are asking me such ridiculous questions; but what I know for certain is that all these adventures certainly happened to you, from word to word.

- Without a doubt, - I answered with the most serious expression.

- Well, if there is no doubt, then continue, - answered Nastenka, - because I really want to know how it will end.

- You want to know, Nastenka, what our hero was doing in his corner, or, better to say, me, because the hero of the whole thing is me, my own modest person; Do you want to know why I was so alarmed and lost for the whole day from an unexpected visit from a friend? Do you want to know why I fluttered so badly, blushed so much when the door to my room was opened, why I did not know how to receive a guest and died so shamefully under the weight of my own hospitality?

- Well, yes, yes! - answered Nastenka, - that's the point. Listen: you are a great storyteller, but can you tell something less beautiful? And then you say as if you are reading a book.

- Nastenka! - I answered in an important and stern voice, barely restraining myself from laughing, - dear Nastenka, I know that I’m telling you beautifully, but - I’m guilty, otherwise I don’t know how to tell. Now, dear Nastenka, now I am like the spirit of King Solomon, who was in a box for a thousand years, under seven seals, and from which all these seven seals were finally removed. Now, dear Nastenka, when we met again after such a long separation - because I have known you for a long time, Nastenka, because I have been looking for someone for a long time, and this is a sign that I was looking for you and that we were destined now see each other - now thousands of valves have opened in my head, and I have to pour out a river of words, otherwise I will suffocate. So, please do not interrupt me, Nastenka, but listen both humbly and obediently; otherwise, I will shut up.

- No, no, no! no way! speak! Now I won't say a word.

- I continue: there is, my friend Nastenka, in my day there is one hour, which I love extremely. This is the very hour when almost all business, duties and obligations end, and everyone rushes home to dine, lie down to rest, and right there, on the way, they invent other funny themes concerning the evening, night and all the remaining free time. At this hour our hero too - because let me, Nastenka, tell in the third person, then that in the first person it is terribly embarrassing to tell all this - so, at this hour our hero, who was also not without work, walks behind the others. But a strange feeling of pleasure plays on his pale, as if somewhat wrinkled face. He looks with indifference at the evening dawn, which is slowly dying out in the cold Petersburg sky. When I say - looks, so I lie: he does not look, but somehow unconsciously contemplates, as if tired or busy at the same time with some other, more interesting subject, so that only in passing, almost involuntarily, can give time for everything around. He is pleased because he has finished with the annoying things for him until tomorrow, and he is happy, like a schoolboy who was released from the classroom to his favorite games and pranks. Look at him from the side, Nastenka: you will immediately see that the joyful feeling has already happily affected his weak nerves and painfully irritated fantasy. Here he is thinking about something ... Do you think about lunch? about tonight? What is he looking at like that? Is it this gentleman of solid appearance, who so picturesquely bowed to the lady who rode past him on frisky horses in a shiny carriage? No, Nastenka, what does he care about all this trifle now! He is now already rich in his own special life; he somehow suddenly became rich, and it was not in vain that the parting ray of the dying sun flashed so merrily in front of him and caused a whole swarm of impressions from his warmed heart. Now he barely notices the road on which before the smallest trifle could strike him. Now the "goddess of fantasy" (if you've read Zhukovsky, dear Nastenka) has already tucked her golden base with a whimsical hand and went to develop with the front the patterns of an unprecedented, bizarre life - and, who knows, maybe, with a whimsical hand, transferred it with a whimsical hand to the seventh crystal sky from the excellent granite sidewalk along which he goes home. Try to stop him now, ask him suddenly: where is he now, on what streets did he walk? - he probably would not have remembered anything, neither where he went, nor where he stood now, and, blushing with annoyance, he would certainly lie something to save decency. That is why he shuddered so, almost screamed, and looked around in fright when a very respectable old woman politely stopped him in the middle of the sidewalk and began to ask him about the road she had lost. Frowning with annoyance, he walks on, barely noticing that more than one passer-by smiled, looking at him, and turned after him, and that some little girl, fearfully making way for him, laughed loudly, looking with all eyes at his broad contemplative smile and hand gestures. But all the same fantasy caught up on its playful flight and the old woman, and curious passers-by, and the laughing girl, and the peasants who immediately sup on their barges that dammed the Fontanka (let's say, at that time our hero was walking along it), playfully plugged everyone and everything in its own canvas, like flies in a spider's web, and with a new acquisition, the eccentric has already entered into a pleasant hole, has already sat down for dinner, had already dined for a long time and woke up only when the brooding and eternally sad Matryona, who was serving him, was all she cleared the table and handed him the phone, woke up and was surprised to remember that he had already had his dinner completely, decisively overlooking how it had happened. The room went dark; his soul is empty and sad; a whole kingdom of dreams collapsed around him, collapsed without a trace, without noise or crackling, flashed through like a dream, and he himself does not remember what he was dreaming of. But some dark sensation, from which his chest slightly ached and agitated, some new desire seductively tickles and irritates his imagination and imperceptibly summons a whole swarm of new ghosts. Silence reigns in the small room; solitude and laziness nourish the imagination; it ignites slightly, boils slightly, like the water in the coffee pot of old Matryona, who is serenely fiddling around in the kitchen, making her own cook's coffee. Here it is already slightly bursting with flashes, and now the book, taken without purpose and at random, falls out of the hands of my dreamer, who has not even reached the third page. His imagination was tuned up again, excited, and suddenly again a new world, a new, charming life flashed before him in its brilliant perspective. New dream - new happiness! A new way of refined, voluptuous poison! Oh, what is he in our real life! At his bribed look, you and I, Nastenka, live so lazily, slowly, sluggishly; in his opinion, we are all so unhappy with our fate, so languishing in our life! And indeed, look, in fact, how at first glance everything between us is cold, gloomy, as if angry ... "Poor!" - thinks my dreamer. And it's no wonder what he thinks! Look at these magical ghosts, which are so charming, so whimsical, so boundless and widespread in front of him in such a magical, animated picture, where in the foreground, the first person, of course, is himself, our dreamer, with his dear person. See what a variety of adventures, what an endless swarm of rapturous dreams. You ask, maybe what is he dreaming about? Why ask this! yes about everything ... about the role of a poet, first unrecognized, and then crowned; friendship with Hoffmann; St. Bartholomew's Night, Diana Vernon, heroic role in the capture of Kazan by Ivan Vasilyevich, Clara Movbray, Evfia Dens, the cathedral of prelates and Hus in front of them, the uprising of the dead in Robert (remember the music? Smells like a cemetery!), Minna and Brenda, the battle at Berezina, reading a poem Countess V - d - D - d, Danton, Cleopatra ei suoi amanti, a house in Kolomna, her own corner, and next to a cute creature that listens to you on a winter evening, opening her mouth and eyes, as you are now listening to me, my little angel ... No, Nastenka, what is he, what is he, a voluptuous sloth, in the life in which we so want with you? he thinks that this is a poor, miserable life, not knowing that for him, perhaps, someday a sad hour will strike when he will give up all his fantastic years for one day of this miserable life, and not yet for joy, not for happiness will give, and will not want to choose in that hour of sadness, repentance and unrequited grief. But while it has not yet arrived, this is a terrible time - he does not want anything, because he is above desires, because everything is with him, because he is satiated, because he himself is the artist of his life and creates it for himself every hour according to new arbitrariness. And this fabulous, fantastic world is created so easily, so naturally! As if all this is really not a ghost! Indeed, I’m ready to believe at another moment that this whole life is not an excitement of feelings, not a mirage, not a deception of the imagination, but that this is really real, real, existing! Why, tell me, Nastenka, why is the spirit shy at such moments? Why, by some kind of magic, by some unknown arbitrariness, the pulse is accelerating, tears are sprinkling from the eyes of the dreamer, his pale, moist cheeks are burning and his whole existence is filled with such irresistible joy? Why, then, whole sleepless nights pass, as if in one moment, in inexhaustible joy and happiness, and when the dawn flashes a pink beam through the windows and the dawn illuminates the gloomy room with its dubious fantastic light, as here, in Petersburg, our dreamer, tired, exhausted, rushes on the bed and falls asleep in fading from the delight of his painfully shaken spirit and with such an agonizingly sweet pain in his heart? Yes, Nastenka, you will be deceived and involuntarily you will believe that real, true passion excites his soul, you will involuntarily believe that there is living, tangible in his ethereal dreams! And after all, what a deception - for example, love descended into his chest with all inexhaustible joy, with all agonizing torments ... Just look at him and be convinced! Do you believe, looking at him, dear Nastenka, that he really never knew the one he loved so much in his frenzied dreams? Did he only see her in some seductive ghosts and only dreamed of this passion? Did they really not go hand in hand for so many years of their life - alone, together, having thrown away the whole world and united each of their worlds, their lives with the life of a friend? Was it not she, at a late hour, when parting had come, she was not lying, sobbing and longing, on his chest, not hearing the storm playing under the harsh sky, not hearing the wind that tore away and carried away tears from her black eyelashes? Was it really all a dream - and this garden, dull, abandoned and wild, with paths overgrown with moss, secluded, gloomy, where they walked so often together, hoped, yearned, loved, loved each other for so long, “so long and tender "! And this strange, great-grandfather's house, in which she lived for so long alone and sadly, with an old, gloomy husband, always silent and bilious, frightening them, timid, like children, sadly and fearfully hiding their love from each other? How they suffered, how they feared, how innocent, how pure was their love, and how (of course, Nastenka) people were evil! And my God, was it really not her that he met later, far from the shores of his homeland, under a strange sky, midday, hot, in a wonderful eternal city, in the splendor of a ball, with the thunder of music, in a palazzo (certainly in a palazzo), sunk in a sea of ​​lights , on this balcony, entwined with myrtle and roses, where she, recognizing him, so hastily took off her mask and, whispering: "I am free," for a moment they forgot both grief, and parting, and all the torment, and the gloomy house, and the old man, and the gloomy garden in the distant homeland, and the bench on which, with a last, passionate kiss, she escaped from his embrace, numb in desperate torment ... , you must agree, Nastenka, that you will flutter, be embarrassed and blush like a schoolboy who has just stuffed an apple stolen from a nearby garden into his pocket, when some long, healthy guy, a merry fellow and a joker, your uninvited friend, opens your door and shouts like as if nothing had happened: “And I, brother, this very minute from Pavlovsk! " Oh my God! the old count is dead, unspeakable happiness is coming - and here people come from Pavlovsk!

I fell silent pathetically, ending my pathetic exclamations. I remember that I really wanted to laugh out loud somehow, because I already felt that some hostile imp was stirring in me, that my throat was already starting to grip my chin, and that my eyes were getting more and more wet ... I expected that Nastenka, who was listening to me, opening her clever eyes, would laugh with all her childish, irresistibly cheerful laughter, and was already regretting that he had gone far, that in vain told what had long been boiling in my heart, about which I could speak as in a written way, because I had long ago prepared a sentence on myself, and now I could not resist not to read it, to confess, not expecting to be understood; but, to my surprise, she said nothing, after a little lightly shook my hand and asked with a kind of timid sympathy:

- Have you really lived like this all your life?

- All my life, Nastenka, - I answered, - all my life, and it seems that I will end this way!

“No, that’s not allowed,” she said uneasily. “It won’t happen; That is how, perhaps, I will live my whole life beside my grandmother. Listen, do you know it's not at all good to live like this?

- I know, Nastenka, I know! - I cried, not holding back my feelings any longer. - And now I know more than ever that I have lost all my best years for nothing! Now I know this, and I feel more painful from this consciousness, because God himself sent me you, my good angel, to tell me this and prove it. Now, when I sit next to you and talk to you, I’m really scared to think about the future, because in the future there is again loneliness, again this musty, unnecessary life; and what will I dream of when I was already so happy next to you! Oh, be blessed, you, dear girl, for not rejecting me the first time, for the fact that I can already say that I have lived at least two evenings in my life!

- Oh no, no! - Nastenka shouted, and tears sparkled in her eyes, - no, it won't be like this anymore; we will not part like that! What is two evenings!

- Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka! do you know how long you have made peace with yourself? Do you know that now I will not think of myself as badly as I thought at other times? Do you know that, perhaps, I will no longer yearn for the fact that I have committed a crime and a sin in my life, because such a life is a crime and a sin? And do not think that I exaggerate anything for you, for God's sake do not think this, Nastenka, because sometimes they find moments of such melancholy, such melancholy ... real life, because it already seemed to me that I had lost all tact, all instinct in the present, real; because, finally, I cursed myself; because after my fantastic nights they already find moments of sobering up on me, which are terrible! Meanwhile, you hear the crowd of people thundering around you and whirling in a vortex of life, you hear, you see how people live - they live in reality, you see that life is not ordered for them, that their life will not scatter like a dream, like a vision that life is eternally renewing, eternally young, and not one hour of it is similar to another, while the fearful fantasy, the slave of the shadow, the idea, the slave of the first cloud, which suddenly covers the sun and squeezes the real St. Petersburg heart, which so values with your sun - and what a fantasy in anguish! You feel that she is finally getting tired, this inexhaustible fantasy is exhausted in eternal tension, because you grow up, you survive from your former ideals: they are crushed into dust, into fragments; if there is no other life, then you have to build it from the same debris. And meanwhile the soul asks and wants something else! And in vain the dreamer rummages, as in the ashes, in his old dreams, looking for at least some spark in this ash to inflate it, with renewed fire to warm the chilled heart and resurrect in it again everything that was before so sweet that it touched the soul, what boiled blood, what tore tears from his eyes and so luxuriously deceived! Do you know, Nastenka, what I have reached? do you know that I am already compelled to celebrate the anniversary of my feelings, the anniversary of what was so sweet before, which, in fact, never happened - because this anniversary is coping with the same stupid, ethereal dreams - and to do it, because even these silly dreams do not exist, because there is nothing to survive with them: after all, dreams survive too! Do you know that I now like to remember and visit at a certain time those places where I was once happy in my own way, I like to build my present in the harmony of something already irrevocably past, and I often wander like a shadow, needlessly and without purpose, sadly and sad across the St. Petersburg back streets and streets. What are all the memories! It is recalled, for example, that here exactly a year ago, exactly at the same time, at the same hour, on the same sidewalk, wandered just as lonely, as sadly as now! And you remember that even then the dreams were sad, and although it was no better before, you still somehow feel that it was as if it was easier and quieter to live, that there was no such black thought, which is now attached to me; that there was no such remorse of conscience, remorse of gloomy, gloomy, which now do not give rest day or night. And you ask yourself: where are your dreams? and you shake your head, you say: how quickly the years fly by! And again you ask yourself: what have you done with your years? where did you bury your best time? Did you live or not? Look, you tell yourself, watch the world get cold. Years will pass, and for them will come gloomy loneliness, shaking old age will come with a stick, and after them longing and despondency. Your fantastic world will turn pale, your dreams will fade, your dreams will fade and crumble like yellow leaves from trees ... O Nastenka! After all, it will be sad to be alone, completely alone, and even not having anything to regret - nothing, absolutely nothing ... because everything that I lost, all this, everything was nothing, stupid, round zero, it was just a dream!

- Well, don't pity me anymore! - said Nastenka, wiping away a tear that rolled out of her eyes. - It's over now! Now we will be together; now no matter what happens to me, we will never part. Listen. I am a simple girl, I did not study much, although my grandmother hired a teacher for me; but, really, I understand you, because everything that you have told me now, I myself have lived, when my grandmother pinned me to the dress. Of course, I would not have told so well, as you said, I did not study, '' she added timidly, because she still felt some respect for my pathetic speech and for my lofty style, `` but I am very glad that you are completely opened up to me. Now I know you, absolutely, I know everything. And you know what? I want to tell you my story, all without concealment, and then you will give me advice for that. You are a very smart person; do you promise that you will give me this advice?

- Ah, Nastenka, - I answered, - although I have never been an adviser, and even more so a clever adviser, but now I see that if we always live like this, it will be somehow very clever, and everyone pounces on each other a lot of clever advice! Well, my pretty Nastenka, what advice do you have? Speak to me directly; I am now so cheerful, happy, courageous and clever that I cannot reach into my pocket for a word.

- No no! - Nastenka interrupted, laughing, - I need more than one smart advice, I need a heartfelt, brotherly advice, as if you have loved me for centuries!

- Coming, Nastenka, coming! - I shouted in delight. “And if I had loved you for twenty years, I wouldn’t love you any more than now!”

- Your hand! - said Nastenka.

- There she is! - I answered, giving her my hand.

- So, let's start my story!

Nastenka's story

- You already know half of the story, that is, you know that I have an old grandmother ...

“If the other half is as short as this one…” I interrupted, laughing.

- Be quiet and listen. First of all, an agreement: not to interrupt me, or else I might get lost. Well, listen quietly.

I have an old grandmother. I came to her when I was a very little girl, because both my mother and father died. One must think that my grandmother was richer before, because now she remembers better days. She taught me French and then hired a teacher for me. When I was fifteen (and now I am seventeen), we finished school. It was at this time that I nailed: what I have done - I will not tell you; it is enough that the offense was small. Only my grandmother called me over to her one morning and said that since she was blind, she would not look after me, took a pin and pinned my dress to hers, and then she said that we would sit like this all our lives, if, of course, I won't get better. In a word, at first there was no way to move away: work, read, and study - all by my grandmother's side. I tried to cheat once and persuaded Thekla to take my place. Fyokla is our worker, she is deaf. Thekla sat down instead of me; grandmother at this time fell asleep in an armchair, and I went not far to my friend. Well, it ended badly. Grandma woke up without me and asked about something, thinking that I was still sitting quietly in place. Fyokla sees that her grandmother is asking, but she herself does not hear about what, she thought, wondered what to do, unfastened the pin, and started to run ...

Then Nastenka stopped and began to laugh. I laughed with her. She stopped at once.

“Listen, don’t laugh at your grandmother. I'm laughing because it's funny ... What to do when grandmother, really, is like that, but I still love her a little. Well, then it got to me: they immediately put me in my place again and, no, no, it was impossible to move.

Well, I forgot to tell you that we, that is, grandmother, have our own house, that is, a small house, only three windows, completely wooden and as old as grandmother; and upstairs is a mezzanine; so a new tenant moved to our mezzanine ...

- So there was also an old tenant? - I remarked in passing.

- Of course there was, - answered Nastenka, - and who knew how to keep silent better than you. True, he barely moved his tongue. He was an old man, dry, dumb, blind, lame, so that at last it became impossible for him to live in the world, and he died; and then a new tenant was needed, because we cannot live without a tenant: this is with my grandmother's pension, almost all of our income. The new tenant, as if on purpose, was a young man, not a local, visiting. Since he did not bargain, his grandmother let him in, and then asks: "What, Nastenka, is our tenant young or not?" I didn’t want to lie: “So, I say, grandmother, not that very young, but so, not an old man”. - "Well, and a pleasant appearance?" - asks the grandmother.

I don’t want to lie again. "Yes, pleasant, I say, appearance, grandmother!" And the grandmother says: “Ah! punishment, punishment! I tell you this, granddaughter, so that you do not stare at him. What an age! go, such a small tenant, and yet also a pleasant appearance: not that in the old days! "

And grandmother would be all in the old days! And she was younger in the old days, and the sun was warmer in the old days, and the cream didn't turn sour in the old days - everything is in the old days! So I sit and say nothing, and to myself I think: what is it that grandmother herself is bothering me, asks if the tenant is good, is she young? Yes, just like that, just thought, and immediately began to count the loops again, knit a stocking, and then completely forgot.

Once in the morning a tenant comes to us to ask that they promised to cover the room with wallpaper. Word for word, grandmother is chatty, and says: "Go, Nastenka, to my bedroom, bring the score." I jumped up at once, all, I don't know why, blushed, and even forgot that I was sitting pinned; no, so that you can quietly bang off, so that the tenant does not see, - it jerked so that the grandmother's chair drove off. When I saw that the tenant now knew everything about me, I blushed, stood still as if rooted to the spot, but suddenly I began to cry - I felt so embarrassed and bitter at that moment that I could not even look at the light! Grandma shouts: "What are you standing for?" - and I'm even more ... The tenant, when he saw that I felt ashamed of him, took his leave and immediately left!

Since then I, a little noise in the hallway, as if dead. Here, I think, the tenant is coming, but on the sly, just in case, I will pin the pin. Only it wasn’t him, he didn’t come. Two weeks passed; a tenant and sends them to tell Thekla that he has a lot of French books and that all are good books, so you can read; Doesn't my grandmother want me to read them to her, so that it’s not boring? Grandmother agreed with gratitude, only she kept asking whether the books were moral or not, because if the books are immoral, then, Nastenka says, you can't read it, you will learn bad things.

- And what can I learn, grandmother? What is written there?

- A! - he says, - they describe how young people seduce well-behaved girls, how they, under the pretext that they want to take them for themselves, take them away from their parent's house, how then they leave these unfortunate girls to the will of fate, and they die the most deplorable way. I, - says the grandmother, - have read many such books, and everything, he says, is so beautifully described that you sit at night, read quietly. So you, - he says, - Nastenka, look, don't read them. What kind of books did he send?

“And all of Walter Scott’s novels, grandmother.

- Walter Scott novels! And it’s full, aren’t there any tricks here? See if he put some love notes in them?

- No, - I say, - grandmother, there is no note.

- Look under the cover; they sometimes stuff it into the binding, robbers! ..

“No, grandma, and there’s nothing under the cover.

- Well, that's the same!

So we started reading Walter Scott and in a month we read almost half. Then he sent more and more, sent Pushkin, so that at last I could not be without books and stopped thinking how to marry a Chinese prince.

This was the case when one time I happened to meet our tenant on the stairs. Grandma sent me for something. He stopped, I blushed, and he blushed; however, he laughed, greeted, asked about his grandmother's health and said: "What, have you read the books?" I answered: "I read it." - "What, he says, did you like it better?" I say: "Ivangoye" and Pushkin liked the most. " This time it ended.

A week later, he again came across me on the stairs. This time my grandmother did not send, but for some reason I needed it myself. It was three o'clock, and the tenant was coming home at that time. "Hello!" - is talking. I told him: "Hello!"

- And what, - he says, - are you not bored sitting with your grandmother all day?

As he asked me this, I, I do not know why, blushed, felt ashamed, and again I felt hurt, evidently because others began to question this case. I really wanted not to answer and leave, but I didn't have the strength.

- Listen, - he says, - you are a kind girl! Excuse me for talking to you like that, but I assure you, I wish you well better than your grandmother. Do you have any girlfriends to visit?

I say that no, that there was one, Mashenka, and even she left for Pskov.

- Listen, - he says, - would you like to go to the theater with me?

- To the theatre? what about grandma?

- Yes you, - he says, - quietly from the grandmother ...

“No,” I say, “I don’t want to deceive my grandmother. Goodbye sir!

- Well, goodbye, - he says, but he said nothing.

Only after dinner does he come to us; sat down, talked to my grandmother for a long time, asked if she was going out somewhere, if there were any acquaintances - and suddenly he said: “And today I was taking a box to the opera; "The Barber of Seville" is given; acquaintances wanted to go, but then they refused, and I still had a ticket in my hands ”.

- The Barber of Seville! - shouted the grandmother, - is this the same barber who was given in the old days?

“Yes,” he says, “this is the same barber,” and he looked at me. And I already understood everything, blushed, and my heart jumped with anticipation!

- But how, - says the grandmother, - how not to know! In the old days I myself played Rosina at the home theater!

- So, would you like to go today? - said the tenant. - My ticket is wasted.

- Yes, perhaps we will go, - says the grandmother, - why not go? But Nastenka has never been to the theater with me.

My God, what a joy! Immediately we packed up, equipped ourselves and drove off. Although grandmother was blind, she still wanted to listen to music, and besides, she was a kind old woman: she wanted to amuse me more, we ourselves would never have gathered. I won’t tell you what the impression of the "The Barber of Seville" was, only that all that evening our tenant looked at me so well, spoke so well that I immediately saw that he wanted to test me in the morning, suggesting that I be alone with I went to them. Well, what a joy! I went to bed so proud, so cheerful, my heart was beating so hard that I got a little fever, and I raved all night about The Barber of Seville.

I thought that after that he would keep coming in more and more often - it was not so. He almost stopped completely. So, once a month, he would come in, and then only in order to invite him to the theater. Once or twice we went again later. Only with this I was completely unhappy. I saw that he was simply sorry for me for being with my grandmother in such a pen, and nothing else. Further and further, it came over me: I don’t sit, and I don’t read, and I don’t work, sometimes I laugh and do something to my grandmother, sometimes I just cry. Finally, I lost weight and almost got sick. The opera season passed, and the tenant stopped visiting us altogether; when we met - all on the same staircase, of course - he would bow so silently, so seriously, as if he didn’t want to speak, and he would go down the porch altogether, but I’m still standing halfway down the stairs, red as a cherry, because all the blood started rushing to my head when I met him.

Now is now the end. Exactly one year ago, in the month of May, a tenant comes to us and tells grandmother that he has procured his own business here and that he must again leave for Moscow for a year. As I heard, I turned pale and fell into a chair as if dead. Grandmother did not notice anything, but he, announcing that he was leaving us, bowed to us and left.

What should I do? I thought and thought, yearned and yearned, but finally I made up my mind. Tomorrow he will leave, and I have decided that I will finish everything in the evening, when my grandmother goes to bed. And so it happened. I tied into a bundle everything that was dresses, how much linen I needed, and with a bundle in my hands, neither alive nor dead, I went to the mezzanine to our tenant. I think I walked up the stairs for an hour. When she opened the door to him, he screamed at me. He thought I was a ghost, and rushed to give me some water, because I could hardly stand on my feet. My heart was beating so hard that my head ached, and my mind was clouded. When I woke up, I started right by putting my bundle on his bed, sat down beside him, covered myself with my hands and cried in three streams. He seemed to understand everything in an instant and stood before me pale and looked at me so sadly that my heart broke.

“Listen,” he began, “listen, Nastenka, I can’t do anything; I am a poor man; I still have nothing, not even a decent place; how are we going to live if I married you?

We talked for a long time, but I finally fell into a frenzy, said that I could not live with my grandmother, that I would run away from her, that I did not want to be pinned with a pin, and that I, as he wanted, would go with him to Moscow, because I can’t live without him. And shame, and love, and pride - all at once spoke in me, and I almost fell on the bed in convulsions. I was so afraid of rejection!

He sat in silence for several minutes, then got up, came up to me and took my hand.

- Listen, my dear, my dear Nastenka! - he began, too, through tears, - listen. I swear to you that if ever I am able to marry, then you will certainly make up my happiness; I assure you that now only you can make up my happiness. Listen: I am going to Moscow and will stay there for exactly a year. I hope to arrange my own affairs. When I turn and if you don’t stop loving me, I swear to you, we will be happy. Now it is impossible, I cannot, I have no right to promise anything. But I repeat, if this is not done in a year, then at least someday it will certainly be; of course - in the event that you do not prefer another to me, because I cannot and dare not bind you with any word.

That's what he told me and left the next day. Together, the grandmother was supposed not to say a word about it. So he wanted it. Well, now my whole story is almost over. Exactly a year has passed. He arrived, he's been here for three whole days and, and ...

- And what? I shouted, eager to hear the end.

- And I haven’t appeared yet! - answered Nastenka, as if gathering her strength, - not a rumor, not a soul ...

Then she stopped, was silent for a while, lowered her head and suddenly, covering herself with her hands, sobbed so that my heart turned over from these sobs.

I never expected such an outcome.

- Nastenka! - I began in a timid and insinuating voice, - Nastenka! for God's sake, don't cry! Why do you know? maybe he is not yet ...

- Here, here! - picked up Nastenka. “He’s here, I know that. We had a condition, then, on that evening, on the eve of departure: when we had already said everything that I told you and agreed, we went out here for a walk, on this embankment. It was ten o'clock; we sat on this bench; I no longer cried, it was sweet for me to listen to what he was saying ... He said that he would come to us immediately upon arrival, and if I did not refuse him, then we would tell grandmother about everything. Now he has arrived, I know that, and he is not, no!

And she burst into tears again.

- Oh my God! Is there really no way to help grief? I shouted, jumping up from the bench in utter despair. - Tell me, Nastenka, will it be possible for me to go to him? ..

- Is it possible? She said, suddenly raising her head.

- No, of course not! - I remarked, recollecting myself. - Here's what: write a letter.

- No, it’s impossible, it’s impossible! She answered resolutely, but with her head downcast and not looking at me.

- How is it impossible? why not? - I continued, seizing on my idea. - But, you know, Nastenka, what a letter! Letter to letter is different and ... Oh, Nastenka, that's so! Trust me, trust! I won't give you bad advice. All this can be arranged. You started the first step - why now ...

- You can't, you can't! Then I seem to impose ...

- Oh, my dear Nastenka! - I interrupted, not hiding a smile, - no, no; you are finally entitled, because he promised you. Yes, and in everything I see that he is a delicate person, that he did well, - I continued, more and more delighted with the consistency of my own reasons and convictions, - what did he do? He tied himself with a promise. He said he would not marry anyone but you, if only he did; he left you complete freedom even now to refuse it ... In this case, you can take the first step, you have the right, you have an advantage over him, at least, for example, if you wanted to untie him from the given word ...

- Listen, how would you write?

- Yes, this is a letter.

- I would write like this: "Dear sir ..."

- Is this so absolutely necessary - my dear sir?

- Certainly! However, why? I think…

- "Your Majesty!

Sorry that I ... ”However, no, no apology is needed! Here the very fact justifies everything, just write:

“I am writing to you. Forgive me my impatience; but for a whole year I was happy with hope; Am I to blame for not being able to endure a day of doubt now? Now that you have arrived, perhaps you have already changed your minds. Then this letter will tell you that I do not grumble or accuse you. I do not blame you for having no power over your heart; such is my fate!

You are a noble person. You will not smile or annoy my impatient lines. Remember that a poor girl writes them, that she is alone, that there is no one to teach her or advise her, and that she has never been able to control her heart herself. But forgive me that doubt has crept into my soul even for one moment. You are incapable even of mentally offending the one who loved and loves you so much. "

- Yes Yes! this is exactly what I thought! - Nastenka shouted, and joy shone in her eyes. - O! you have resolved my doubts, God himself has sent you to me! Thank you, thank you!

- For what? because God sent me? - I answered, looking in delight at her joyful face.

- Yes, at least for that.

- Oh, Nastenka! After all, we thank other people even for the fact that they live with us. I thank you for meeting me, for remembering you for my whole century!

- Well, that's enough, that's enough! And now here's what, listen: then there was a condition that as soon as he arrived, he would immediately let know about himself by leaving me a letter in one place with some of my friends, kind and simple people who did not know anything about it. ; or if it will not be possible to write letters to me, then, because in a letter you will not always tell everything, he will be here exactly at ten o'clock the same day he arrives, where we decided to meet with him. I already know about his arrival; but for the third day there is neither the letter nor his. I can't get away from my grandmother in the morning. Give my letter tomorrow you yourself to those kind people about whom I told you: they will already forward it; and if there is an answer, you yourself will bring it in the evening at ten o'clock.

- But a letter, a letter! After all, you first need to write a letter! So unless the day after tomorrow all this will be.

- A letter ... - Nastenka answered, slightly confused, - a letter ... but ...

But she didn't finish. At first she turned her face away from me, blushed like a rose, and suddenly I felt in my hand a letter, apparently written long ago, completely prepared and sealed. Some familiar, sweet, graceful memory flashed through my head.

- R, o - Ro, s, i - si, n, a - na, - I began.

- Rosina! - we both sang, I, almost hugging her with delight, she blushed as soon as she could blush, and laughing through the tears, which, like pearls, trembled on her black eyelashes.

- Well, that's enough, that's enough! Goodbye now! She said quickly. - Here is a letter for you, here is the address where to take it. Farewell! goodbye! till tomorrow!

She squeezed both my hands tightly, nodded her head and flashed like an arrow into her alley. I stood still for a long time, following her with my eyes.

"Till tomorrow! till tomorrow!" - flashed through my head when she disappeared from my eyes.

Third night

Today was a sad, rainy day, without a glimpse, as if my future old age. I am crowded with such strange thoughts, such dark sensations, such questions that are still not clear to me crowd in my head - and somehow I have neither the strength nor the desire to resolve them. It's not for me to allow all this!

We won't see you today. Yesterday, when we were saying goodbye, clouds began to cover the sky and fog rose. I said that tomorrow will be a bad day; she did not answer, she did not want to speak against herself; for her this day is both bright and clear, and not a single cloud covers her happiness.

- If it rains, we will not see you! - she said, - I will not come.

I thought she didn’t notice the rain today, but meanwhile she didn’t come.

Yesterday was our third date, our third white night ...

However, how joy and happiness make a person beautiful! how the heart boils with love! It seems that you want to pour out all your heart into another heart, you want everything to be fun, everything to laugh. And how infectious this joy is! Yesterday there was so much bliss in her words, so much kindness towards me in her heart ... How she looked after me, how she caressed me, how she encouraged and didn’t live my heart! Oh, how much coquetry with happiness! And I ... I took everything at face value; I thought she ...

But, my God, how could I think that? how could I be so blind when everything has already been taken over by others, everything is not mine; when, finally, even this very tenderness of her, her care, her love ... yes, love for me - was nothing but the joy of a quick meeting with another, the desire to impose his happiness on me too? .. When he did not come, when we waited in vain, she frowned, she was stiff and frightened. All her movements, all her words had already become not so light, playful and cheerful. And, strange to say, she redoubled her attention to me, as if instinctively wanting to pour out on me what she wanted for herself, for which she was afraid, if it did not come true. My Nastenka was so intimidated, so frightened, that, it seems, she finally realized that I love her, and took pity on my poor love. Thus, when we are unhappy, we feel the unhappiness of others more strongly; the feeling is not broken, but concentrated ...

I came to her with a full heart and barely waited for a date. I had no presentiment of what I would feel now, had no presentiment that it would all not end like that. She beamed with joy, she expected an answer. The answer was himself. He had to come, come running to her call. She came an hour before me. At first she laughed at everything, laughed at every word of mine. I started to speak and fell silent.

- Do you know why I am so glad? - she said, - so glad to look at you? love you so much today?

- Well? I asked, and my heart began to tremble.

“I love you because you didn’t fall in love with me. After all, here's another, in your place, would bother, pester, blow out, get sick, and you are so cute!

Then she squeezed my hand so hard that I almost screamed. She laughed.

- God! what a friend you are! - She began a minute later, very seriously. - God sent you to me! Well, what would have happened to me if you were not with me now? How selfless you are! How well you love me! When I get married, we will be very friendly, more than like brothers. I will love you almost as much as him ...

I felt somehow terribly sad at that moment; however, something akin to laughter stirred in my soul.

“You're in a fit,” I said. - you are a coward; you think he won't come.

- God with you! - she answered, - if I were less happy, I would, it seems, weep from your disbelief, from your reproaches. However, you gave me an idea and gave me a long thought; but I will think about it later, and now I confess to you that you are telling the truth. Yes! I am somehow not myself; I am somehow all in expectation and I feel everything is somehow too easy. Yes, fullness, let's leave about feelings! ..

At this time, footsteps were heard, and a passer-by appeared in the darkness, walking towards us. We both trembled; she almost screamed. I dropped her hand and made a gesture as if I wanted to step away. But we were deceived: it was not him.

- What are you afraid of? Why did you throw my hand away? She said, handing it to me again. - Well, what then? we will meet him together. I want him to see how we love each other.

- How we love each other! I shouted.

“Oh Nastenka, Nastenka! - I thought, - how you said a lot with that word! From this kind of love, Nastenka, at another hour my heart grows cold and my soul becomes heavy. Your hand is cold, mine is hot as fire. What a blind you, Nastenka! .. Oh! how unbearable a happy man is at any other moment! But I could not be angry with you! .. "

Finally my heart overflowed.

- Listen, Nastenka! - I shouted, - do you know what happened to me all day?

- Well, what, what is it? tell me soon! Why have you all been silent up to now!

- Firstly, Nastenka, when I fulfilled all your commissions, gave the letter, I was with your kind people, then ... then I came home and went to bed.

- Only that? She interrupted, laughing.

“Yes, almost just that,” I answered reluctantly, because stupid tears were already boiling in my eyes. - I woke up an hour before our date, but as if I had not slept. I don't know what happened to me. I walked to tell you all this, as if time had stopped for me, as if one sensation, one feeling had to remain from that time in me forever, as if one minute had to go on for an eternity and as if my whole life had stopped for me ... When I woke up, it seemed to me that some musical tune, long familiar, somewhere before heard, forgotten and sweet, was now recollecting to me. It seemed to me that he had been asking from my soul all his life, and only now ...

- Oh, my God, my God! - Nastenka interrupted, - how is it all so? I don't understand a word.

- Oh, Nastenka! I wanted to somehow convey this strange impression to you ... - I began in a plaintive voice, in which there was still hope, although very distant.

- Completeness, stop, completeness! - She began to speak, and in an instant she guessed, a cheat!

Suddenly she became somehow unusually talkative, cheerful, playful. She took my arm, laughed, wanted me to laugh too, and every embarrassed word of mine echoed in her with such a ringing, such a long laugh ... I was beginning to get angry, she suddenly began to flirt.

“Listen,” she began, “but I’m a little annoyed that you didn’t fall in love with me. Disassemble after this person! But all the same, sir adamant, you cannot but praise me for being so simple. I tell you everything, I tell you everything, no matter what stupidity flashed through my head.

- Listen! It's eleven o'clock, isn't it? I said as the measured sound of a bell rang out from the distant city tower. She suddenly stopped, stopped laughing and started counting.

“Yes, eleven,” she said at last in a timid, hesitant voice.

I immediately repented that I had frightened her, forced her to count the hours, and cursed myself for a fit of anger. I felt sad for her, and I did not know how to atone for my sin. I began to console her, to look for reasons for his absence, to bring up various arguments and proofs. No one could have been easier to deceive than her at that moment, and everyone at that moment somehow happily listens to at least some consolation, and glad-glad if there is even a shadow of justification.

“And it’s a funny thing,” I began, getting more and more ardent and admiring the extraordinary clarity of my evidence, “and he could not come; you deceived and lured me too, Nastenka, so I lost count of time ... Just think: he could hardly receive the letter; suppose he cannot come, suppose he answers, so the letter will not arrive earlier than tomorrow. I'll go after him tomorrow before the light and will immediately let you know. Finally, suppose a thousand probabilities: well, he was not at home when the letter arrived, and perhaps he still has not read it? Anything can happen.

- Yes Yes! - answered Nastenka, - I didn't even think; of course, anything can happen, - she continued in the most accommodating voice, but in which, like an annoying dissonance, was heard some other distant thought. “Here's what you do,” she continued, “you go tomorrow as early as possible, and if you get anything, let me know at once. Do you know where I live? - And she started repeating her address to me.

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

- Well, is it possible, is it possible? Oh, what a child you are! What childishness! .. Complete!

She tried to smile, to calm down, but her chin was trembling and her chest was still fluttering.

“I think of you,” she said to me after a moment's silence, “you are so kind that I would be stone if I didn’t feel it… Do you know what came to my mind now? I compared you both. Why is he not you? Why is he not like you? He is worse than you, although I love him more than you.

I didn’t answer anything. She seemed to be waiting for me to say something.

- Of course, maybe I don't quite understand him yet, I don't quite know him. You know, I seemed to have always been afraid of him; he was always so serious, as if proud. Of course, I know that he only looks in such a way that there is more tenderness in his heart than in mine ... I remember how he looked at me then, as I, remember, came to him with a bundle; but nevertheless I somehow respect him too much, but it’s as if we are uneven?

- No, Nastenka, no, - I answered, - this means that you love him more than anything else, and you love yourself much more.

“Yes, let’s assume that this is so,” answered the naive Nastenka, “but do you know what came to my mind now? Only now I'm not going to talk about him, but in general; all this has crossed my mind for a long time. Listen, why are we all not like brothers and sisters? Why does the best person always seem to hide something from the other and keep silent from him? Why, right now, not say what is in your heart, if you know that you will not say your word to the wind? And then everyone looks as if he is harsher than he really is, as if everyone is afraid to offend their feelings, if they will very soon show them ...

- Ax, Nastenka! you speak the truth; But this is due to many reasons, ”I interrupted, myself more than ever at that moment inhibited my feelings.

- No no! She answered with deep feeling. - Here you, for example, are not like the others! I really don't know how I could tell you how I feel; but it seems to me that you, for example ... even now ... it seems to me that you are sacrificing something for me, ”she added timidly, glancing at me briefly. “Forgive me if I tell you so: I’m a simple girl; I have seen little in the world and, really, I sometimes do not know how to speak, - she added in a voice trembling with some hidden feeling, and trying meanwhile to smile, - but I just wanted to tell you that I am grateful that I, too I feel all this ... Oh, God bless you for that! What you told me then about your dreamer is completely untrue, that is, I mean, it does not concern you at all. You are recovering, you are really a completely different person than how you described yourself. If you ever fall in love, then God give you happiness with her! And I do not wish her anything, because she will be happy with you. I know, I am a woman myself, and you must believe me if I tell you so ...

She fell silent and shook my hand tightly. I, too, could not say anything out of excitement. Several minutes passed.

- Yes, it is clear that he will not come today! She said finally, lifting her head. - Late!..

“He will come tomorrow,” I said in the most confident and firm voice.

“Yes,” she added, amused, “I can see myself now that he will only come tomorrow. Well, goodbye! till tomorrow! If it rains, I may not come. But the day after tomorrow I will come, I will certainly come, no matter what happens to me; be here without fail; I want to see you, I will tell you everything.

And then, when we were saying goodbye, she gave me her hand and said, looking clearly at me:

- After all, we are now together forever, is not it?

O! Nastenka, Nastenka! If you knew how lonely I am now!

When it struck nine o'clock, I could not sit in the room, got dressed and left, despite the stormy time. I was there, sitting on our bench. I was about to go into their alley, but I felt ashamed, and I returned without looking at their windows, not having reached two steps to their house. I came home in a sadness that I have never experienced. What a damp, boring time! If the weather was fine, I would walk there all night ...

But see you tomorrow, see you tomorrow! She'll tell me everything tomorrow.

However, there was no letter today. But, however, it should be so. They are already together ...

The fourth night

God, how it all ended! How did it all end!

I arrived at nine o'clock. She was already there. I noticed her from a distance; she stood, as then, for the first time, leaning on the railing of the embankment, and did not hear how I approached her.

- Nastenka! - I called her, through the force suppressing my excitement.

She quickly turned to me.

- Well! - she said, - well! hurry up!

I looked at her in disbelief.

- Well, where is the letter? Did you bring the letter? She repeated, clutching the railing with her hand.

“No, I don’t have a letter,” I said finally, “hasn’t it been there yet?”

She turned terribly pale and looked at me motionless for a long time. I dashed her last hope.

- Well, God bless him! - she said at last in a broken voice, - God bless him, if he leaves me like that.

She lowered her eyes, then wanted to look at me, but could not. For a few more minutes she overpowered her excitement, but suddenly she turned away, leaning her elbows on the embankment balustrade, and burst into tears.

- Completeness, completeness! - I started to speak, but I didn't have the strength to continue looking at her, and what would I say?

“Don’t console me,” she said, crying. For what, for what? Was there really something in my letter, in this unfortunate letter? ..

- Oh, how inhuman and cruel! She began again. - And not a line, not a line! If only he answered that he does not need me, that he rejects me; otherwise not a single line in three whole days! How easy it is for him to offend, to offend the poor, defenseless girl, who is to blame for loving him! Oh, how much I have endured during these three days! My God, my God! As I remember that I came to him for the first time myself, that I humiliated myself in front of him, cried, that I begged him for at least a drop of love ... And after that! .. Listen, - she spoke, turning to me, and her black eyes flashed - but it is not! It cannot be so; this is unnatural! Either you or I have been deceived; maybe he didn’t receive the letter? Maybe he still doesn't know anything? How is it possible, judge for yourself, tell me, for God's sake, explain to me - I cannot understand this - how it is possible to act so barbarously and rudely as he did to me! Not a single word! But they can be more compassionate to the last person in the world. Maybe he heard something, maybe someone told him about me? - she cried, turning to me with a question. - What do you think?

- Listen, Nastenka, I'll go to him tomorrow on your behalf.

- I will ask him about everything, I will tell him everything.

- You write a letter. Don't say no, Nastenka, don't say no! I will make him respect your deed, he will know everything, and if ...

“No, my friend, no,” she interrupted. “Enough! Not a word, not a single word from me, not a single line - that's enough! I don’t know him, I don’t love him anymore, I’m him for ... for ... I will ...

She didn't finish.

- Calm down, calm down! Sit here, Nastenka, - I said, seating her on the bench.

- Yes, I'm calm. Completeness! This is true! These are tears, it will dry out! What do you think that I will ruin myself, that I will drown myself? ..

My heart was full; I wanted to speak, but could not.

- Listen! - She continued, taking my hand, - tell me: would you do something wrong? would you not abandon the one who would come to you by herself, would you not throw shameless mockery at her weak, stupid heart in her eyes? Would you take care of her? You would imagine that she was alone, that she did not know how to discern behind herself, that she did not know how to protect herself from love for you, that she was not to blame, that she was finally not to blame ... that she did nothing! .. Oh my god, my god ...

- Nastenka! - I finally shouted, unable to overcome my excitement. - Nastenka! you torment me! You hurt my heart, you are killing me, Nastenka! I cannot be silent! I must finally speak, express what is boiling here in my heart ...

As I said this, I got up from the bench. She took my hand and looked at me in surprise.

- What's wrong with you? She finally said.

- Listen! I said emphatically. - Listen to me, Nastenka! What am I going to say now, everything is nonsense, everything is unrealizable, everything is stupid! I know that this can never happen, but I cannot remain silent. In the name of what you are now suffering, I pray you in advance, forgive me! ..

- Well, what, what? - she said, having stopped crying and gazed at me intently, while a strange curiosity shone in her surprised eyes, - what is the matter with you?

- It's impossible, but I love you, Nastenka! that's what! Well, now it's all said! I said, waving my hand. - Now you will see if you can talk to me like you just said, if you can finally listen to what I will tell you ...

- Well, well, what then? - Nastenka interrupted, - what of this? Well, I have known for a long time that you love me, but only it seemed to me that you loved me so, just, somehow ... Oh my God, my God!

- At first it was simple, Nastenka, but now, now ... I am just like you when you came to him then with your bundle. Worse than like you, Nastenka, because then he did not love anyone, but you do.

- What are you telling me! Finally, I don't understand you at all. But listen, why is this, that is, not why, but why is it you, and so suddenly ... God! I'm talking nonsense! But you ...

And Nastenka was completely confused. Her cheeks flushed; she dropped her eyes.

- What to do, Nastenka, what can I do! I am guilty, I have used it for evil ... But no, no, I am not guilty, Nastenka; I can hear it, I feel it, because my heart tells me that I am right, because I can not offend you, nothing offend you! I was your friend; well, here I am and now a friend; I haven't changed anything. Now my tears are flowing, Nastenka. Let them flow, let them flow - they do not interfere with anyone. They will dry out, Nastenka ...

“Yes, sit down, sit down,” she said, placing me on the bench, “oh my God!

- Not! Nastenka, I will not sit down; I can no longer be here, you can no longer see me; I'll tell you everything and leave. I just want to say that you would never know that I love you. I would keep my secret. I would not torment you now, at this minute, with my egoism. Not! but I could not bear it now; you yourself have started talking about it, you are to blame, you are to blame for everything, but I am not to blame. You cannot drive me away from you ...

- No, no, no, I'm not driving you away, no! - said Nastenka, hiding as much as she could her embarrassment, poor thing.

- Don't you drive me away? No! and I myself wanted to run away from you. I’ll leave, but I’ll say everything from the beginning, because when you spoke here, I could not sit still, when you were crying here, when you were tormented because, well, because (I’ll call this, Nastenka), because you are being rejected, because they pushed away your love, I felt, I heard that in my heart there is so much love for you, Nastenka, so much love! .. And I felt so bitter that I could not help you with this love ... that my heart broke, and I , I - could not be silent, I had to speak, Nastenka, I had to speak! ..

- Yes Yes! talk to me, talk to me like that! - said Nastenka with an inexplicable movement. - It may be strange for you that I am talking to you like that, but ... speak! I'll tell you later! I'll tell you everything! ..

- You feel sorry for me, Nastenka; you just feel sorry for me, my friend! What is gone is gone! what has been said cannot be undone! Is not it? Well, now you know everything. Well, this is the starting point. Well, OK! now everything is fine; just listen. When you were sitting and crying, I thought to myself (oh, let me tell you what I thought!), I thought that (well, of course, this cannot be, Nastenka), I thought that you ... I thought that you are somehow there ... well, in a completely foreign way, you don't love him anymore. Then - I already thought this yesterday and the day before yesterday, Nastenka, - then I would have done so, I would certainly have done so that you would love me: after all, you said, after all, you yourself said, Nastenka, that you are almost completely loved. Well, what next? Well, that's almost all I wanted to say; it remains only to say what would have happened if you loved me, only that, nothing else! Listen, my friend, - because you are still my friend, - I, of course, am a simple, poor, so insignificant person, but that's not the point (somehow I'm not talking about that, it's out of embarrassment, Nastenka ), but only I would love you so much, love you so much that if you also loved him and continued to love the one whom I do not know, you still would not notice that my love is somehow hard for you there. You would only hear, you would only feel every minute that a grateful, grateful heart is beating near you, a warm heart that is for you ... Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka! what have you done to me! ..

“Don’t cry, I don’t want you to cry,” said Nastenka, quickly getting up from the bench, “come on, get up, come with me, don’t cry, don’t cry,” she said, wiping my tears with her handkerchief, “well , let's go now; Perhaps I will tell you something ... Yes, if he has left me now, since he has forgotten me, although I also love him (I do not want to deceive you) ... but listen, answer me. If, for example, I fell in love with you, that is, if only I ... Oh, my friend, my friend! how I think, how I think that I insulted you then, that I laughed at your love, when I praised you for not falling in love! .. Oh my God! but how could I not have foreseen this, how I had not foreseen, how I was so stupid, but ... well, well, I made up my mind, I will tell everything ...

- Listen, Nastenka, you know what? I'll leave you, that's what! It's just that I'm just torturing you. Now you have remorse for making fun of you, but I don’t want, yes, I don’t want you, apart from your grief ... I am, of course, to blame, Nastenka, but goodbye!

- Wait, listen to me: can you wait?

- What to expect, how?

- I love him; but it will pass, it must pass, it cannot but pass; already passing, I hear ... Who knows, maybe it will end today, because I hate him, because he laughed at me, while you cried here with me, that is why you would not reject me as he did, because you love, and he did not love me, because I finally love you myself ... yes, I do! I love the way you love me; But I myself told you this before, you yourself heard, - because I love that you are better than him, because you are nobler than him, because, because he ...

The poor thing's excitement was so strong that she did not finish, put her head on my shoulder, then on my chest, and wept bitterly. I consoled, persuaded her, but she could not stop; She kept shaking my hand and said between her sobs: “Wait, wait; now I will stop! I want to tell you ... do not think that these tears are so, from weakness, wait until it passes ... "Finally she stopped, wiped away her tears, and we went again. I was about to speak, but she kept asking me to wait for a long time. We fell silent ... Finally she pulled herself together and began to speak ...

“That's what,” she began in a weak and trembling voice, but in which suddenly something rang out that pierced my heart and sank sweetly in it, “don’t think that I’m so fickle and windy, don’t think that I’m I can so easily and quickly forget and change ... I loved him for a whole year and I swear to God that I have never, never even thought was untrue to him. He despised it; he laughed at me - God bless him! But he hurt me and insulted my heart. I - I do not love him, because I can love only that which is generous, that understands me, that is noble; because I myself am such, and he is not worthy of me - well, God bless him! He did better than when I would later be deceived in my expectations and find out who he is ... Well, it's over! But who knows, my good friend, - she continued, shaking my hand, - who knows, maybe all my love was a deception of feelings, imagination, maybe it began as a prank, trifles, because I was under the supervision of grandmothers? Maybe I should love another, and not him, not such a person, someone else who would have pity on me and, and ... Well, let's leave, let's leave that, "Nastenka interrupted, choking with excitement," I just wanted to tell you ... I will I wanted to say that if, despite the fact that I love him (no, I loved him), if, in spite of that, you still say ... if you feel that your love is so great that it can finally oust the old one from my heart ... if you want to take pity on me, if you don’t want to leave me alone in my fate, without consolation, without hope, if you want to love me always, as you love me now, then I swear that gratitude ... that my love will finally be worthy of your love … Will you take my hand now?

“Nastenka,” I shouted, choking with sobs. - Nastenka! .. Oh Nastenka! ..

- Well, that's enough, that's enough! well, now quite enough! - she began, barely overpowering herself, - well, now everything has been said; is not it? So? Well, you are happy, and I am happy; not a word more about it; Wait; spare me ... Talk about something else, for God's sake! ..

- Yes, Nastenka, yes! Enough about that, now I'm happy, I ... Well, Nastenka, well, let's talk about something else, quickly, quickly; Yes! I'm ready…

And we did not know what to say, we laughed, we cried, we spoke thousands of words without connection and thought; we either walked along the sidewalk, then suddenly came back and started to cross the street; then they stopped and again crossed to the embankment; we were like children ...

“Now I live alone, Nastenka,” I said, “and tomorrow ... Well, of course, you know, Nastenka, I'm poor, I have only a thousand two hundred, but that's nothing ...

- Of course not, but my grandmother has a pension; so it will not bother us. We need to take grandmother.

- Of course, you need to take grandmother ... Only here Matryona ...

- Oh, and we also have Thekla!

- Matryona is kind, only one flaw: she has no imagination, Nastenka, absolutely no imagination; but that's nothing! ..

- Does not matter; they both can be together; only you move to us tomorrow.

- Like this? to you! Ok, I'm ready ...

- Yes, you will hire from us. We have a mezzanine up there; it is empty; There was a lodger, an old woman, a noblewoman, she moved out, and my grandmother, I know, wants to let the young man in; I say: "Why a young man?" And she says: “Yes, I’m already old, but just don’t think, Nastenka, that I want to marry you to him.” I guessed that it was for this ...

- Ah, Nastenka! ..

And we both laughed.

- Well, fullness, fullness. And where do you live? I forgot.

- There near the bridge, in the house of Barannikov.

- Is it such a big house?

- Yes, such a big house.

- Ah, I know, a good house; only you, you know, leave him and move to us as soon as possible ...

- Tomorrow, Nastenka, tomorrow; I owe a little there for the apartment, but that's okay ... I'll get my salary soon ...

- Do you know, maybe I will give lessons; I will learn myself and give lessons ...

- Well, that's fine ... and I will soon receive an award, Nastenka.

- So tomorrow you will be my tenant ...

- Yes, and we will go to the Barber of Seville, because now they will give it again soon.

- Yes, let's go, - said, laughing, Nastenka, - no, we'd better listen not to Barber, but something else ...

- Well, okay, something else; of course it will be better, otherwise I didn’t think ...

Saying this, we both walked as if in a daze, a fog, as if we ourselves did not know what was happening to us. They stopped and talked for a long time in one place, then again they started walking and went in, God knows where, and again laughter, again tears ... Now Nastenka suddenly wants to go home, I dare not hold back and I want to accompany her to the house; we set off on the road and suddenly, a quarter of an hour later, we find ourselves on the embankment at our bench. Then she will sigh, and again a tear will run into her eyes; I’m afraid, I’ll get colder ... But she immediately shakes my hand and drags me back to walk, chat, talk ...

- It's time now, it's time for me to go home; I think it's very late, - said Nastenka at last, - we are full of being so childish!

- Yes, Nastenka, only I won't sleep now; I'm not going home.

- I also, it seems, will not fall asleep; only you will accompany me ...

- Certainly!

- But now we will certainly reach the apartment.

- Certainly, certainly ...

- Honestly? .. because you need to come back home someday!

- Honestly, - I answered, laughing ...

- Well, let's go!

- Let's go.

- Look at the sky, Nastenka, look! Tomorrow will be a wonderful day; what a blue sky, what a moon! Look: this yellow cloud is now covering it, look, look! .. No, it passed by. Look, look! ..

But Nastenka did not look at the cloud, she stood silently rooted to the spot; after a minute she began to somehow timidly, closely cuddle up to me. Her hand trembled in my hand; I looked at her ... She leaned on me even harder.

At that moment a young man walked past us. He suddenly stopped, looked at us intently, and then again took a few steps. My heart began to tremble ...

- It's him! - She answered in a whisper, even closer, even more tremblingly clinging to me ... I could hardly stand on my feet.

- Nastenka! Nastenka! it's you! - a voice was heard behind us, and at the same moment the young man took a few steps towards us ...

God, what a cry! how she shuddered! how she broke free from my hands and fluttered towards him! .. I stood and looked at them like a dead man. But she barely gave him her hand, barely threw herself into his arms, when suddenly she turned to me again, found herself beside me like the wind, like lightning, and before I had time to recover, she wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me tightly, warmly. ... Then, without saying a word to me, she rushed to him again, took his hands and drew him along with her.

I stood for a long time and looked after them ... Finally, both of them disappeared from my eyes.

Morning

My nights ended in the morning. It was not a good day. It was raining and knocking dejectedly on my windows; it was dark in the room, cloudy outside. My head ached and was spinning; fever crept through my limbs.

“The postman brought a letter to you, father, by the city mail,” Matryona said over me.

- Letter! from whom? I shouted, jumping up from my chair.

“But I don’t know, father, look, maybe it’s written there from whom.

I broke the seal. It's from her!

“Oh, forgive, forgive me! - Nastenka wrote to me, - on my knees I beg you, forgive me! I have deceived both you and myself. It was a dream, a ghost ... I was in sorrow for you today; excuse me, excuse me! ..

Do not blame me, because I have not changed in anything before you; I said that I would love you, and now I love you, more than I love you. Oh my God! if I could love you both at the same time! Oh, if only you were him! "

"Oh, if only he were you!" - flew through my head. I remembered your words, Nastenka!

“God knows what I would do for you now! I know that it is hard and sad for you. I insulted you, but you know - if you love, how long do you remember the insult. Do you love me!

Thanks to! Yes! thank you for this love. Because it is imprinted in my memory like a sweet dream that you remember for a long time after awakening; because I will forever remember the moment when you so brotherly opened your heart to me and so generously accepted as a gift my killed, to take care of it, cherish, heal it ... If you forgive me, then the memory of you will be lifted up in me forever a grateful feeling for you, which will never be erased from my soul ... I will keep this memory, I will be faithful to it, I will not betray it, I will not betray my heart: it is too constant. Yesterday it returned so quickly to the one it had belonged to forever.

We will meet, you will come to us, you will not leave us, you will be forever my friend, my brother ... And when you see me, you will give me your hand ... yes? you will give it to me, you have forgiven me, won't you? Do you still love me?

Oh, love me, do not leave me, because I love you so much this minute, because I deserve your love, because I deserve it ... my dear friend! I'm marrying him next week. He returned in love, he never forgot about me ... You will not be angry for what I wrote about him. But I want to come to you with him; you will love him, won't you? ..

Forgive us, remember and love your

Nastenka. "

I reread this letter for a long time; tears begged from my eyes. Finally it fell out of my hands and I covered my face.

- Iris! and the iris! - Matryona began.

- What, old woman?

- And I took the whole web from the ceiling; now at least get married, call the guests, so at that time ...

I looked at Matryona ... She was still a cheerful, young old woman, but I don't know why, she suddenly introduced herself to me with a dull look, with wrinkles on her face, bent over, decrepit ... I don't know why, I suddenly imagined that my room had aged the same way, like the old woman. The walls and floors were damp, everything was dull; the cobwebs have spread even more. I don’t know why, when I looked out the window, it seemed to me that the house opposite was also decrepit and faded in turn, that the plaster on the columns had peeled off and crumbled, that the cornices had turned black, cracked, and the walls were of a dark yellow bright color of steel piebald ...

Or a ray of the sun, suddenly peering out from behind a cloud, again hid under a rain cloud, and everything again dimmed in my eyes; or, perhaps, the whole prospect of my future flashed before me so unfriendly and sadly, and I saw myself as I am now, exactly fifteen years later, aged, in the same room, just as lonely, with the same Matryona, who is not at all hasn't grown wiser in all these years.

But so that I remember my insult, Nastenka! So that I overtake a dark cloud on your clear, serene happiness, so that I, bitterly reproaching, overtake melancholy on your heart, hurt it with a secret remorse and make it beat sadly in a moment of bliss, so that I crumple at least one of these delicate flowers that you have woven in her black curls when she went with him to the altar ... Oh, never, never! May your sky be clear, may your sweet smile be bright and serene, may you be blessed for the minute of bliss and happiness that you gave to another, lonely, grateful heart!

Oh my God! A whole minute of bliss! But is this not enough even for the whole human life? ..

The romance and tenderness that Dostoevsky put into his work also seeps through the summary of the story "White Nights" for the reader's diary.

Plot

The dreamer often walks alone, knowing all the passers-by and at home. He has lived in Petersburg for many years, but has no friends and has never met women. One of the white nights, he saw a crying girl on the embankment, but did not dare to approach. When a drunkard began to molest the girl, the dreamer drove him away and met her. Nastya agrees to friendly meetings and conversations. On the second night, Nastya talks about her life with her grandmother - she fell in love with their tenant and confessed it to him, but he was too poor to marry, and left, promising to return for her in a year. A year has passed, he returned, but did not come. The dreamer volunteers to deliver the letter. 2 days pass, Nastya cries and says that she no longer loves that person. The dreamer confesses his love to her. Nastya is sure that she will love him, and they are planning to move the dreamer to the room rented by her grandmother. Nastya's beloved comes, and she rushes to him.

Conclusion (my opinion)

A loving person understands that love is an act of giving, not an act of receiving. For a lover, the happiness of the beloved is more important than his own welfare. So the dreamer had a high nobility and did everything he could for the happiness of Nastya, although these actions were against his own success.