Introduction:
White nights is a short Novella written by Fyodor Dostoevsky early in his career as a writer. White Nights, or in Russian Белые ночи, is a short novella with romantic overtones and a romantic plot, but you could consider it, (if you wish to generalize it), a tragic romantic story, which is also at the same time rather existential. The book is rather short considering his other works I have talked about on this project, but nevertheless it is a great book that I myself have grown to love for what it is, and in the book I can also see themes that come up later in some of his works. The plot is written in the first person perspective as a journal in a certain sense. The unnamed narrator, who is the main character, suffers from severe loneliness in the city of St Petersburg. The story, (summarized), is that the narrator falls in love with a girl who can't give back any love back to him, (in a certain sense, it is just a story about somebody getting friend zoned, but that is just a joke.) And at the end of the book, the girl gets reunited with her other lover she was waiting for to come and take her away.
The Plot: The story of this novella is divided into six parts.
The first night:
The first part of this book is a little section where the narrator talks about the severe loneliness he has been suffering from and how he loves to walk around the city at night while nobody is there and feels rather comfortable being in the city by himself and he doesn't feel comfortable anymore in the days. As he walked through the city he describes how he knows everyone in the city and all of their faces and has come to recognize each one. The opening line reads:
"It was a wonderful night, such a night as is only possible when we are young, dear reader. The sky was so starry, so bright that, looking at it, one could not help asking oneself whether ill-humored and capricious people could live under such a sky. That is a youthful question too, dear reader, very youthful, but may the Lord put it more frequently into your heart!... Speaking of capricious and ill-humored people, I cannot help recalling my moral condition all that day. From early morning I had been oppressed by a strange despondency. It suddenly seemed to me that I was lonely, that every one was forsaking me and going away from me. Of course, any one is entitled to ask who "every one" was. For though I had been living almost eight years in Petersburg I had hardly an acquaintance. But what did I want with acquaintances? I was acquainted with all Petersburg as it was; that was why I felt as though they were all deserting me when all Petersburg packed up and went to its summer Dacha's."
In this section he is describing how alone he is and how he has no friends or acquaintances, but as I mentioned before, he says that he feels as if he knows everybody in St Petersburg because he walks around all time and sees everybody's face, so he feels even more lonely when everybody leaves in summer to go to their Dacha houses. He also recounts how he knows everybody, but everybody has no idea how he is. In this first section, he also recounts how, because he is so lonely, he literally has conversations with the houses in the street.
"I know the houses too. As I walk along they seem to run forward in the streets to look out at me from every window, and almost to say: "Good-morning! How do you do? I am quite well, thank God, and I am to have a new story in May," or, "How are you? I am being redecorated to-morrow;" or, "I was almost burnt down and had such a fright," and so on. I have my favorites among them, some are dear friends; one of them intends to be treated by the architect this summer. I shall go every day on purpose to see that the operation is not a failure. God forbid! But I shall never forget an incident with a very pretty little house of a light pink color. It was such a charming little brick house, it looked so hospitably at me, and so proudly at its ungainly neighbors, that my heart rejoiced whenever I happened to pass it. Suddenly last week I walked along the street, and when I looked at my friend I heard a plaintive, "They are painting me yellow!" The villains! The barbarians! They had spared nothing, neither columns, nor cornices, and my poor little friend was as yellow as a canary. It almost made me bilious. And to this day I have not had the courage to visit my poor disfigured friend, painted the color of the Celestial Empire."
The unnamed narrator lives alone in his terrible apartment building with no one other than his maid to keep him company, who is rather taciturn and her name is Matryona. The sad and lonely man is writing a story about his relationship with his love interest, Nastenka. When the man was walking down the streets of St Petersburg, (he was apparently singing to himself, because why not?), and then he noticed the young women Nastenka against the railing of the canal of St Petersburg. With a great yellow hat on her head as she was bawling her eyes out with her elbows against the railing. He thinks about going up to her and asking her if she is okay, but ends up not doing so and walking on. He thinks that there is something special about her and he is very curious about her. But then he hears the sound of her being harassed by a man on the street and she runs down an alley and then the unnamed man saves her from the abusing man. The lady then thanks him, and then goes on to observe that he has never had a woman in his life and that he is very alone, and also, she observes that he is extremely timid in his mannerisms. Nastenka goes on to say that women like timid men and that she likes his timidness as well. The man goes on to remark that he has always dreamed, everyday, a woman who would say just two words to him, and a woman who wouldn't ridicule him or make fun of him and his timidity. He then goes on to say that he has always dreamt of talking to a woman very delicately and timidly, and he also mentions that he is dying in solitude and that he has no chance with her whatsoever. They then get to Nastenka's door and then he asks if he will be able to see her again, but before she can answer, he says that she can meet him at this very spot that he is at right now outside her house so he can relive this happy moment once again. She then agrees to that and says that she can't forbid him to do so and that she will be there anyway. She says to him that she will tell him her story if on the condition he doesn't become romantic to her and just acts as a brother. She says that she is as lonely as the unnamed narrator is.
The Second Night:
On this second time they meet, she wishes to find out more about him and who he is. He then goes on to say that he has no history whatsoever in any form because he has just been utterly alone his entire life. When she presses him to continue, he suggests that he is of the type of the "dreamer". "'The dreamer'", he explains, "is not a human being, but a creature of an intermediate sort." He then starts a long monologue, where you can see the beginnings of the underground man in the novella he would write later on in his career. He talks about his desire for a companion ship with someone, but because the speech is so long and it is rather fancy she goes on to comment that: "You talk as if you were reading from a book". He then goes on to tell his story from the third person view and he ends up calling himself the "hero". He then goes on to explain the world in his imagination and how he would be a great poet and meet great poets and have a lovely life in a winter house with a wife by his side; he claims that the everyday life kills the people of society and that in his dreams and visions he can make whatever he chooses. After the moving speech was completely, Nastenka reassures him and say that she will be his friend.
Nastenka's Story:
After him she goes on to tell him her own story. She claims that she was raised by her extremely strict grandmother and that she had a very sheltered upbringing from her over protective grandmother, and that she still lives with her. She also tells him that her grandmother is completely blind and that her grandmother pinned her dress to her own all the time so she knew where she was all the time. She then goes on tell him that their renter had died some time ago and that when he died a new tenant moved in and that she started to fall in love with this new tenant, and that this man started to give her many books so that she then developed a reading habit. Then the grandmother worried that she would be corrupted by the books and their themes. The young man then invites them both to come and see a play in the St Petersburg theatre, that play being "The barber of Seville. And then on the night that the tenant was going to leave them all and go to St Petersburg, Nastenka begs him to marry her and take her away. He rejects her immediate marriage claim and then says that he has no money to provide for her in the first place and then he promises that he would come back a year later to marry her. She finishes off the story by saying that he has not sent a single letter to her and that a year has already gone by.
The Third Night:
The unnamed narrator soon realizes that despite himself saying that everything will remain platonic, he has already fallen in love with her. He still helps her by sending a posting letter to her long lost lover and also conceals all of his feelings for her. They both wait for a response from the man, but Nastenka grows very anxious and tired of waiting for him and then seeks energy in her new friendship. Her, not aware of his feeling, says that she loves him because he hasn't fallen in love with her already. The narrator, now in despair, notes how he feels alienated from her as well now.
The Fourth Night:
Nastenka is engulfed in despair now because she knows that her lover is in St Petersburg at the moment, but that he hasn't visited her. He ends up trying to comfort her, with great success, which she is very grateful for, but this leads towards the Narrator confessing his love to her finally. Nastenka is confused and disoriented at first, and then the narrator realizes what he has done and then does on to say that they will never be able to have a friendship again and that she should not visit him and that they should part ways now. She urges him to stay, and suggests that their relationship might become romantic some day, but that she wants his friendship in her life. The narrator becomes very hopeful at this prospect. As they are walking, they pass by a young man who stops and calls after them. And then they realize that this man is actually her lover and then she jumps into his arms before giving the narrator a kiss and then walking off into the night with him, leaving him all alone.
The Morning:
The final section of this great early novella is a brief afterword about a letter he receives from Nastenka, in which she apologizes for hurting him and insists that she will always be thankful for his companionship. She says that she will be married within a week and hopes that he will come to visit them in their new marriage as a friend. The man then breaks out into terrible convulsive weeping. His maid then comes in and then says that she had finished cleaning the cobwebs. He then concludes the novella while resisting the urge to fall into utter despair. The last pargraph of the novella goes as follows:
"But that I should feel any resentment against you, Nastenka! That I should cast a dark shadow over your bright, serene happiness! ...That I should crush a single one of those delicate blooms which you will wear in your dark hair when you walk up the aisle to the altar with him! Oh no — never, never! May your sky be always clear, may your dear smile be always bright and happy, and may you be for ever blessed for that moment of bliss and happiness which you gave to another lonely and grateful heart ... Good Lord, only a moment of bliss? Isn't such a moment sufficient for the whole of a man's life?"