Sentimental novel
(From the memory of a dreamer)
NIGHT ONE
The hero of the story, the Dreamer (we never learn his name), has been living in St. Petersburg for eight years, but has not managed to make a single acquaintance. He is 26 years old. It’s summer, everyone has gone to their dachas. The dreamer wanders around the city and feels abandoned, not meeting the people he is used to seeing every day. Unnoticed, he finds himself at the city outpost and walks further among the fields and meadows, feeling spiritual relief. Nature struck him, a half-sick city dweller. St. Petersburg nature in the spring reminds the hero of a stunted and sick girl, who for a moment suddenly becomes inexplicably beautiful. Returning home happy late in the evening, the Dreamer notices a woman - she is standing, leaning over the parapet of the canal, and crying. The girl quickly leaves. The hero follows her, not daring to approach. A girl is accosted by a drunk, and the Dreamer rushes to her aid. Then they walk together. The dreamer is delighted with the unexpected meeting and tells the girl that tomorrow evening he will come to the canal again and will be waiting for her. The girl agrees to come, but warns Dreamer not to think that she is making a date with him. She playfully warns him not to fall in love with her, she is only ready to be friends with him. They will meet tomorrow. The hero is happy.
NIGHT TWO
They meet. The girl asks the Dreamer to tell about himself. She herself lives with her blind grandmother, who two years ago began pinning it to her dress. They sit like this all day: the grandmother knits blindly, and the granddaughter reads a book to her. This has been going on for two years now. The girl asks the young man to tell his story. He tells her that he is a dreamer. There are such types in the hidden corners of St. Petersburg. When communicating with people, they get lost, embarrassed, don’t know what to talk about, but alone such a person is happy, he lives “his own special” life, he is immersed in dreams. What he just can’t imagine - friendship with Hoffmann, St. Bartholomew’s Night, the battle of Berezina and much, much more. The dreamer is afraid that Nastenka (that, it turns out, is the girl’s name) will laugh at him, but she only asks him with timid sympathy: “Have you really lived your whole life like this?” In her opinion, you can’t live like that. The hero agrees with her. He thanks Nastenka for giving him two evenings real life. Nastenka promises him that she will not leave him. She tells her story. Nastenka is an orphan; her parents died when she was very young. Grandmother used to be rich. She taught her granddaughter French and hired her a teacher. Since she was fifteen, her grandmother has been “pinning” her. Grandma has her own house, and she rents out the mezzanine to tenants. And now they have a young tenant. He gives grandmother and Nastenka novels by Walter Scott and works by Pushkin, and invites Nastenka and her grandmother to the theater. Nastenka is in love with a young tenant, and he begins to avoid her. And then one day the tenant tells his grandmother that he must leave for Moscow for a year. Nastenka, shocked by this news, decides to go with him. She goes up to the young man's room. He tells her that he is poor and cannot get married now, but when he returns from Moscow, they will get married. Exactly a year has passed, Nastenka found out that he arrived three days ago, but still does not come to her. The dreamer invites the girl to write him a letter, and he will deliver it. Nastenka agrees. It turns out that the letter has already been written, all that remains is to take it to such and such an address.
NIGHT THREE
The dreamer remembers his third date with Nastenka. He now knows that the girl does not love him. He carried the letter. Nastenka arrived ahead of time, she is waiting for her beloved, she is sure that he will come. She is glad that Dreamer did not fall in love with her. The hero is sad at heart. Time is running, but the Tenant is still not there. Nastenka is hysterically excited. She says to the Dreamer: “You are so kind... 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.” The Dreamer calms Nastenka, assures her that the one she is waiting for will come tomorrow. He promises to go see him again.
NIGHT FOUR
Nastenka thought that the Dreamer would bring her a letter, but he was sure that the Tenant had already come to the girl. But there is neither a letter nor the Tenant himself. Nastenka, in despair, says that she will forget him. The dreamer declares his love to her. He would so much like Nastenka to love him. He cries, Nastenka consoles him. She tells him that her love was a deception of feelings and imagination, that she is ready to marry the Dreamer, and invites him to move into her grandmother’s mezzanine. They will both work and be happy. It's time for Nastenka to go home. And then the Tenant appears. Nastenka rushes to him. Dreamer watches them both leave.
MORNING
The dreamer receives a letter from Nastenka. She asks him for forgiveness, thanks him for his love, calls him her friend and brother. No, the Dreamer is not offended by Nastenka. He wishes her happiness. He had a whole minute of bliss... “Isn’t this enough even for a person’s entire life? ..”
Option 1
Sentimental novel
(From the memory of a dreamer)
NIGHT ONE
The hero of the story, the Dreamer (we never learn his name), has been living in St. Petersburg for eight years, but has not managed to make a single acquaintance. He is 26 years old. It’s summer, everyone has gone to their dachas. The dreamer wanders around the city and feels abandoned, not meeting the people he is used to seeing every day. Unnoticed, he finds himself at the city outpost and walks further among the fields and meadows, feeling spiritual relief. Nature struck him, a half-sick city dweller. St. Petersburg nature in the spring reminds the hero of a stunted and sick girl, who for a moment suddenly becomes inexplicably beautiful. Returning home happy late in the evening, the Dreamer notices a woman - she is standing, leaning over the parapet of the canal, and crying. The girl quickly leaves. The hero follows her, not daring to approach. A girl is accosted by a drunk, and the Dreamer rushes to her aid. Then they walk together. The dreamer is delighted with the unexpected meeting and tells the girl that tomorrow evening he will come to the canal again and will be waiting for her. The girl agrees to come, but warns Dreamer not to think that she is making a date with him. She playfully warns him not to fall in love with her, she is only ready to be friends with him. They will meet tomorrow. The hero is happy.
NIGHT TWO
They meet. The girl asks the Dreamer to tell about himself. She herself lives with her blind grandmother, who two years ago began pinning it to her dress. They sit like this all day: the grandmother knits blindly, and the granddaughter reads a book to her. This has been going on for two years now. The girl asks the young man to tell his story. He tells her that he is a dreamer. There are such types in the hidden corners of St. Petersburg. When communicating with people, they get lost, embarrassed, don’t know what to talk about, but alone such a person is happy, he lives “his own special” life, he is immersed in dreams. What he just can’t imagine - friendship with Hoffmann, St. Bartholomew’s Night, the battle of Berezina and much, much more. The dreamer is afraid that Nastenka (that, it turns out, is the girl’s name) will laugh at him, but she only asks him with timid sympathy: “Have you really lived your whole life like this?” In her opinion, you can’t live like that. The hero agrees with her. He thanks Nastenka for giving him two evenings of real life. Nastenka promises him that she will not leave him. She tells her story. Nastenka is an orphan; her parents died when she was very young. Grandmother used to be rich. She taught her granddaughter French and hired her a teacher. Since she was fifteen, her grandmother has been “pinning” her. Grandma has her own house, and she rents out the mezzanine to tenants. And now they have a young tenant. He gives grandmother and Nastenka novels by Walter Scott and works by Pushkin, and invites Nastenka and her grandmother to the theater. Nastenka is in love with a young tenant, and he begins to avoid her. And then one day the tenant tells his grandmother that he must leave for Moscow for a year. Nastenka, shocked by this news, decides to go with him. She goes up to the young man's room. He tells her that he is poor and cannot get married now, but when he returns from Moscow, they will get married. Exactly a year has passed, Nastenka found out that he arrived three days ago, but still does not come to her. The dreamer invites the girl to write him a letter, and he will deliver it. Nastenka agrees. It turns out that the letter has already been written, all that remains is to take it to such and such an address. NIGHT THREE The Dreamer remembers his third date with Nastenka. He now knows that the girl does not love him. He carried the letter. Nastenka arrived ahead of time, she is waiting for her beloved, she is sure that he will come. She is glad that Dreamer did not fall in love with her. The hero is sad at heart. Time passes, but the Tenant is still missing. Nastenka is hysterically excited. She tells Dreamer, “You are so kind. .. 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.” The Dreamer calms Nastenka, assures her that the one she is waiting for will come tomorrow. He promises to go see him again. NIGHT FOUR Nastenka thought that the Dreamer would bring her a letter, but he was sure that the Tenant had already come to the girl. But there is neither a letter nor the Tenant himself. Nastenka, in despair, says that she will forget him. The dreamer declares his love to her. He would so much like Nastenka to love him. He cries, Nastenka consoles him. She tells him that her love was a deception of feelings and imagination, that she is ready to marry the Dreamer, and invites him to move into her grandmother’s mezzanine. They will both work and be happy. It's time for Nastenka to go home. And then the Tenant appears. Nastenka rushes to him. Dreamer watches them both leave. MORNING The Dreamer receives a letter from Nastenka. She asks him for forgiveness, thanks him for his love, calls him her friend and brother. No, the Dreamer is not offended by Nastenka. He wishes her happiness. He had a whole minute of bliss... “Isn’t this enough even for a person’s entire life? ..”
Option 2
A young man of twenty-six years old is a petty official who has been living for eight years in St. Petersburg in the 1840s, in one of the apartment buildings along the Catherine Canal, in a room with cobwebs and smoky walls. After service, his favorite pastime is walking around the city. He notices passers-by and houses, some of them become his “friends”. However, he has almost no acquaintances among people. He is poor and lonely. With sadness, he watches as the residents of St. Petersburg gather for their dacha. He has nowhere to go. Going out of town, he enjoys the northern spring nature, who looks like a “sick and sick” girl, who for one moment becomes “wonderfully beautiful.”
Returning home at ten in the evening, the hero sees a female figure at the canal grate and hears sobbing. Sympathy prompts him to make an acquaintance, but the girl timidly runs away. A drunk man tries to pester her, and only a “bough stick”, which ends up in the hero’s hand, saves the pretty stranger. They talk to each other. The young man admits that before he knew only “housewives,” but he never spoke to “women” and therefore is very timid. This calms down the fellow traveler. She listens to the story about the “romances” that the guide created in his dreams, about falling in love with ideal fictional images, about the hope of someday meeting in reality a girl worthy of love. But now she’s almost home and wants to say goodbye. The dreamer begs for new meeting. The girl “needs to be here for herself,” and she does not mind the presence of a new acquaintance tomorrow at the same hour in the same place. Her condition is “friendship”, “but you can’t fall in love.” Like the Dreamer, she needs someone to trust, someone to ask for advice.
On their second meeting, they decide to listen to each other's "stories". The hero begins. It turns out that he is a “type”: in the “strange corners of St. Petersburg” live “neuter creatures” like him - “dreamers” - whose “life is a mixture of something purely fantastic, ardently ideal and at the same time dull prosaic and ordinary " They are afraid of the company of living people, as they spend long hours among “magical ghosts”, in “ecstatic dreams”, in imaginary “adventures”. “You speak as if you are reading a book,” Nastenka guesses the source of the plots and images of her interlocutor: the works of Hoffmann, Merimee, W. Scott, Pushkin. After intoxicating, “voluptuous” dreams, it can be painful to wake up in “loneliness”, in your “musty, unnecessary life.” The girl feels sorry for her friend, and he himself understands that “such a life is a crime and a sin.” After the “fantastic nights,” he already “has moments of sobering that 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 I studied with a teacher, and two last year sits, “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 V. Scott, Pushkin and other authors. He invited them and their grandmother to the theater. The opera “The Barber of Seville” was especially memorable. When he announced that he was leaving, the poor recluse decided on a desperate act: she gathered her things in a bundle, came to the tenant’s room, sat down and “cryed in three streams.” Fortunately, he understood everything, and most importantly, he managed to fall in love with Nastenka. But he was poor and without a “decent place”, and therefore could not get married right away. They agreed that exactly a year later, having returned from Moscow, where he hoped to “arrange his 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. He has been in St. Petersburg for three days already. He is not at the appointed place... Now the hero understands the reason for the girl’s tears on the evening of their acquaintance. Trying to help, he volunteers to deliver her letter to the groom, which he does the next day.
Because of the rain, the third meeting of the heroes occurs only through the night. Nastenka is afraid that the groom will not come again, and cannot hide her excitement from her friend. She dreams feverishly about the future. The hero is sad because he himself loves the girl. And yet the Dreamer has enough selflessness to console and reassure the despondent Nastenka. Touched, the girl compares the groom with a new friend: “Why is he not you?.. He is worse than you, even though I love him more than you.” And he continues to dream: “Why aren’t we all like brothers and brothers? Why the most best person always seems to be hiding something from the other and is silent from him? everyone looks as if he is harsher than he really is...” Gratefully accepting the Dreamer’s sacrifice, Nastenka also shows concern for him: “you are getting better,” “you will fall in love...” “God grant you happiness with her ! In addition, now her friendship is with the hero forever.
And finally the fourth night. The girl finally felt abandoned “inhumanly” and “cruelly.” The dreamer again offers help: go to the offender and force him to “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 moral beauty a friend sitting next to him: “You wouldn’t do that? Wouldn’t you throw someone who would come to you on her own into the eyes of shameless mockery of her weak, stupid heart?” The dreamer no longer has the right to hide the truth that the girl has already guessed: “I love you, Nastenka!” He doesn’t want to “torment” her with his “selfishness” 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 previous feelings completely subside, then the girl’s gratitude and love will go to him alone. Young people happily dream of a future together. At the moment of their farewell, the groom suddenly appears. Screaming and trembling, Nastenka breaks free from the hero’s hands and rushes towards him. Already, it would seem, a fulfilling hope for happiness, for true life leaves the Dreamer. He silently looks after the lovers.
The next morning, the hero receives a letter from the happy girl asking for forgiveness for the involuntary deception and with gratitude for his love, which “cured” her “broken heart.” One of these days she is getting married. But her feelings are contradictory: “Oh God! If only I could love you both at once!” And yet the Dreamer must remain “eternally a friend, brother...”. Again he is alone in a suddenly “old” room. But even fifteen years later he remembers his life with tenderness. 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! Is this really not enough for even a person’s entire life?..”
The story “White Nights” by Dostoevsky was written in 1848 and published in the literary magazine “Otechestvennye zapiski”. The phrase “white nights” indicates a certain unreality, fantastic nature of the plot, and also that the setting of the story is St. Petersburg.
Main characters
Dreamer- a young, poor official, a lonely and sensitive person who is used to leaving real world into your fantasies.
Nastenka- a young, inexperienced girl, a big dreamer, a kindred spirit of the Dreamer.
Other characters
Grandmother- Nastenka’s own grandmother, who raised the girl after the death of her parents.
Guest- Nastenka’s fiancé, a pragmatic and sensible young man.
Night one
The narrator is a young official who has been living in St. Petersburg for eight years, but during this time he has not made “almost a single acquaintance.” IN free time he leisurely walks around the city, looking at passers-by.
With the onset of warm weather, the city became noticeably deserted, and young man it seems that “all of St. Petersburg rose up and suddenly left for the dacha.”
Looking at the endless processions of carts, “loaded with whole mountains of all kinds of furniture,” the young man feels endless loneliness in his soul. He would not mind going out of town with other vacationers, but he “had absolutely nowhere to go and there was no need to go to the dacha.”
He finds joy in walks, admiring the blossoming nature of spring. At such moments, he indulges in romantic dreams with special rapture.
One day, returning home after a long walk in the country, the hero meets a girl who is crying bitterly on the bank of a canal. He is overcome by the desire to reassure the stranger, but self-doubt takes over, and the young man only timidly watches her.
Frightened, the girl quickly leaves, and the young man follows, reproaching himself for his indecision. An incident comes to his aid when a drunk passer-by begins to pester the girl. With a stick in his hands, the hero drives away the impudent man and offers the frightened girl his services as a guide.
Glancing briefly at his companion, the young man notices that “she was pretty and brunette.” He begs for a new meeting, and the girl agrees, only on the condition that he will not consider this a romantic date and will not fall in love with her.
Night two
When they meet, Nastenka—that’s the girl’s name—asks the hero to tell about himself “in the most detailed way.” Fulfilling her wish, the young man shares his secret: he is a Dreamer, who is even “terrified to think about the future.” In reality, the young man is very lonely, and he is oppressed by his own “musty, unnecessary life.” He dreams only of meeting a kindred spirit, and Nastenka reassures him that now he has a friend. Having completely trusted her new acquaintance, the girl tells her life story
Nastenka's story
Seventeen-year-old Nastenka was left an orphan in early childhood, and her grandmother took up her upbringing. Until the age of fifteen, the girl studied with teachers hired by her grandmother, thanks to which she received a very good education.
They lived by renting out the mezzanine of their small two-story house. One day a new tenant settled in, who invited his grandmother to freely use his rich library.
After talking with Nastenka, the guest was very surprised that she spends all her time with her grandmother, and she has no friends at all “to whom she could go to visit.” He invited the housewives to the theater several times, and Nastenka herself did not notice how she fell in love with the young man.
“Exactly a year ago, in the month of May,” the lodger informed his grandmother that he was forced to leave for Moscow for work reasons. Having learned about this, Nastenka gathered all her things into a bundle and invited the young man to go with him.
A touching scene took place between the lovers, and in the end they agreed to meet exactly a year later on the embankment at ten o’clock in the evening.
Found the dreamer on the embankment crying girl just at the moment when she found out that her beloved had returned, “but for the third day now there has been neither a letter nor him.” The young man suggested that Nastenka write a letter and volunteered to give it to the lovers’ mutual acquaintances.
Night three
The next day, the hero, as promised, took Nastenka’s letter to the indicated address. The girl invited the Dreamer to come at ten o'clock in the evening to share her joy with her.
Looking forward to the arrival of the groom, Nastenka “became somehow unusually talkative, cheerful, playful.” She addressed the young man kindly, and was very grateful to him for not falling in love with her and thus not spoiling their tender friendship.
In high spirits, Nastenka began to enthusiastically make plans for her life, not noticing with what eyes the loving Dreamer was looking at her. However, not a trace remained of the girl’s joy when the chimes struck eleven o’clock - her groom never showed up.
However, the hero managed to calm Nastenka and assure her of a successful outcome of the matter.
Night four
Arriving at the embankment at nine o'clock in the evening, the Dreamer finds a girl there. He admits that he never heard back from her fiancé. Nastenka is immensely upset and offended in her feelings. She sincerely does not understand how the groom could “insult, offend, a poor, defenseless girl, who is to blame for loving him.”
The dreamer tried to console her, but all in vain. The girl says she doesn't like it anymore evil man, who so vilely deceived her.
At this moment the young man feels that he “must finally speak, express” his true feelings for Nastenka. He confesses his love to her, and in response, along with reproaches, he is surprised to hear Nastenka’s reciprocal confession. The girl sees that he is much better than her fiancé, but cannot yet reciprocate his feelings. She invites the Dreamer to move into their empty mezzanine and, perhaps, over time, she will be able to love him as much as he loves her.
Young people, “as if in a daze, in a fog,” begin to dream about a future together. But at that moment a man approached them, and Nastenka recognized him as her fiancé. She quickly “fluttered towards him,” leaving the Dreamer, who had no choice but to watch with bitterness the touching meeting of lovers.
Morning
The next morning was cloudy. It began to rain, knocking sadly on the Dreamer's windows. He was very sick and dizzy - this was “a fever creeping in” on the unlucky lover.
The hero received an enthusiastic letter from Nastenka, in which she asked to forgive her and admitted that his love for her “was imprinted like sweet Dreams, which you remember for a long time after waking up.” She also said that she was getting married in a week and would really like for the Dreamer and her fiance to meet and become friends.
The hero re-read this letter for a long time. The “unwelcoming and sad whole prospect” of his joyless life flashed before his eyes, which even after fifteen years is unlikely to change for the better.
However, the Dreamer does not reproach Nastenka. On the contrary, he is grateful to her “for a minute of bliss and happiness,” the memory of which he will carry throughout his entire life.
Conclusion
Dostoevsky defined the genre of his work as a sentimental novel, thereby placing emphasis on the emotional experiences of the characters, their emotions and feelings. But, despite the lightness and apparent simplicity of the story, it touches on important philosophical questions about love and happiness.
A brief retelling of “White Nights” will be especially useful for reader's diary. After reading it, we recommend reading Dostoevsky’s story in its full version.
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A young man of twenty-six years old is a petty official who has been living for eight years in St. Petersburg in the 1840s, in one of the apartment buildings along the Catherine Canal, in a room with cobwebs and smoky walls. After service, his favorite pastime is walking around the city. He notices passers-by and houses, some of them become his “friends”. However, he has almost no acquaintances among people. He is poor and lonely. With sadness, he watches as the residents of St. Petersburg gather for their dacha. He has nowhere to go. Going out of the city, he enjoys the northern spring nature, which looks like a “sick and sick” girl, for one moment becoming “wonderfully beautiful.”
Returning home at ten in the evening, the hero sees a female figure at the canal grate and hears sobbing. Sympathy prompts him to make an acquaintance, but the girl timidly runs away. A drunk man tries to pester her, and only a “bough stick”, which ends up in the hero’s hand, saves the pretty stranger. They talk to each other. The young man admits that before he knew only “housewives,” but he never spoke to “women” and therefore is very timid. This calms down the fellow traveler. She listens to the story about the “novels” that the guide created in his dreams, about falling in love with ideal fictional images, about the hope of someday meeting in reality a girl worthy of love. But now she’s almost home and wants to say goodbye. The dreamer begs for a new meeting. The girl “needs to be here for herself,” and she does not mind the presence of a new acquaintance tomorrow at the same hour in the same place. Her condition is “friendship”, “but you can’t fall in love.” Like the Dreamer, she needs someone to trust, someone to ask for advice.
On their second meeting, they decide to listen to each other's "stories". The hero begins. It turns out that he is a “type”: in the “strange corners of St. Petersburg” live “neuter creatures” like him - “dreamers” - whose “life is a mixture of something purely fantastic, ardently ideal and at the same time dull prosaic and ordinary " They are afraid of the company of living people, as they spend long hours among “magical ghosts”, in “ecstatic dreams”, in imaginary “adventures”. “You speak as if you are reading a book,” Nastenka guesses the source of the plots and images of her interlocutor: the works of Hoffmann, Merimee, W. Scott, Pushkin. After intoxicating, “voluptuous” dreams, it can be painful to wake up in “loneliness”, in your “musty, unnecessary life.” The girl feels sorry for her friend, and he himself understands that “such a life is a crime and a sin.” After the “fantastic nights,” he already “has moments of sobering that 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. He lives with his old blind grandmother in a small house of his own. She studied with a teacher until she was fifteen, and for the last two years she has been sitting, “pinned” with a pin to her grandmother’s dress, 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 V. Scott, Pushkin and other authors. He invited them and their grandmother to the theater. The opera “The Barber of Seville” was especially memorable. When he announced that he was leaving, the poor recluse decided on a desperate act: she gathered her things in a bundle, came to the tenant’s room, sat down and “cryed in three streams.” Fortunately, he understood everything, and most importantly, he managed to fall in love with Nastenka. But he was poor and without a “decent place”, and therefore could not get married right away. They agreed that exactly a year later, having returned from Moscow, where he hoped to “arrange his 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. He has been in St. Petersburg for three days already. He is not at the appointed place... Now the hero understands the reason for the girl’s tears on the evening of their acquaintance. Trying to help, he volunteers to deliver her letter to the groom, which he does the next day.
Because of the rain, the third meeting of the heroes occurs only through the night. Nastenka is afraid that the groom will not come again, and cannot hide her excitement from her friend. She dreams feverishly about the future. The hero is sad because he himself loves the girl. And yet, the Dreamer has enough selflessness to console and reassure the despondent Nastenka. Touched, the girl compares the groom with a new friend: “Why is he not you?.. He is worse than you, even though I love him more than you.” And he continues to dream: “Why aren’t we all like brothers and brothers? Why does the best person always seem to hide something from another and remain silent from him? Everyone looks as if he is harsher than he really is...” Gratefully accepting the Dreamer’s sacrifice, Nastenka also shows concern for him: “you are getting better,” “you will fall in love...” “God grant you happiness with her.” ! In addition, now her friendship is with the hero forever.
And finally the fourth night. The girl finally felt abandoned “inhumanly” and “cruelly.” The dreamer again offers help: go to the offender and force him to “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: “You wouldn’t do that? Wouldn’t you throw someone who would come to you on her own into the eyes of shameless mockery of her weak, stupid heart?” The dreamer no longer has the right to hide the truth that the girl has already guessed: “I love you, Nastenka!” He doesn’t want to “torment” her with his “selfishness” 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 previous feelings completely subside, then the girl’s gratitude and love will go to him alone. Young people happily dream of a future together. At the moment of their farewell, the groom suddenly appears. Screaming and trembling, Nastenka breaks free from the hero’s hands and rushes towards him. Already, it would seem, the hope for happiness, for genuine life, that is coming true leaves the Dreamer. He silently looks after the lovers.
The next morning, the hero receives a letter from the happy girl asking for forgiveness for the involuntary deception and with gratitude for his love, which “cured” her “broken heart.” One of these days she is getting married. But her feelings are contradictory: “Oh God! If only I could love you both at once!” And yet the Dreamer must remain “eternally a friend, brother...”. Again he is alone in a suddenly “old” room. But even fifteen years later, he fondly remembers 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! Is this really not enough for even a person’s entire life?..”
Sentimental novel (From the memories of a dreamer) (Tale).
Retelling
Night one
The hero of the work has been living in St. Petersburg for eight years, but has not managed to make a single acquaintance. He knows almost the entire city: he knows many people by sight and sees them on the streets every day. One of these people is an old man whom the hero meets at a certain hour on the Fontanka. If they are both in a good mood, they bow to each other. The dreamer is also familiar with houses. Sometimes he even imagines that they are talking to him, or that he himself communicates with them with pleasure: “Of them I have favorites, there are short friends; one of them intends to undergo treatment this summer with an architect. I’ll come in every day on purpose so that they don’t get healed somehow, God forbid!..” For three days the hero was tormented by anxiety, the cause of which was the fear of loneliness. The city was deserted as its inhabitants left for their dachas. The dreamer was ready to go with them, but no one invited him, as if everyone had forgotten him, as if he was a complete stranger to them.
Returning to late time After a walk, the hero saw a girl on the embankment, looking intently into the water of the canal. The girl was crying, and while the hero was looking for polite words of consolation, she walked past him along the sidewalk. He did not dare to follow her. A drunken gentleman suddenly appeared not far from the stranger and hurried after her. Ge-
the swarm rushed at the man with a knotty stick, and only then did he leave the lady alone. The dreamer tells the girl that in his dreams he creates entire novels, but in reality he has never even met women because of his timidity. The girl says that she even likes such modesty. The hero hopes for the next meeting and asks the stranger to come to the embankment again the next night. The lady promises to be there at nine, but begs him not to fall in love with her and count only on friendship. The girl has some secret that she doesn’t want to talk about. The dreamer felt so happy that he wandered around the city all night, unable to return home.
Night two
When meeting, the lady asks the hero to tell her his story, to which he replies that he has no story. The girl has a blind grandmother who won’t let her go anywhere. After the heroine was naughty two years ago, the old woman pinned her dress to hers, and now the young lady is forced to sit at home and read aloud to her grandmother. The hero says that he is a dreamer, and only then remembers that he does not know the name of his companion. She introduces herself as Nastenka. The hero tells the girl about who the dreamers are: “No, Nastenka, what does he care about all this little stuff now! He is now already rich in his special life; He somehow suddenly became rich, and it was not in vain that the farewell ray of the fading sun sparkled so cheerfully in front of him and evoked a whole swarm of impressions from his warmed heart. Now he barely notices the road on which before the smallest detail could strike him.” In his dreams, the hero lived to be twenty-six years old, he even celebrates the “anniversary of his sensations.” The girl tells her story to the dreamer.
Nastenka's mother and father died very early, and so she ended up with her grandmother. One day, when the old lady fell asleep, the girl persuaded the deaf worker Fekla to sit in her place and went to her friend. When the grandmother woke up and asked about something, Thekla got scared and ran away, because she could not understand what they were asking her. One day, a new, pleasant-looking tenant moved into the mezzanine of my grandmother’s house.
He gave Nastenka books, invited her and her grandmother to the theater for " Barber of Seville" After this, the three of them visit the theater several more times, and then the tenant announces that he is leaving for Moscow. Nastenka packs her things secretly from her grandmother and wants to go with him. The man says that he cannot yet marry the girl, but in a year he will definitely come for her: “I swear to you that if I am ever able to get married, then you will certainly make up my happiness; I assure you, now only you can make up my happiness. Listen: I’m going to Moscow and will stay there for exactly a year. I hope to arrange my affairs. When I toss and turn, and if you don’t stop loving me, I swear to you, we will be happy.” Now he has been in the city for three days, but does not come to Nastenka. The dreamer invites the girl to write a letter to her beloved and promises to convey it through Nastenka’s friends. The heroine gives him a letter, already written and sealed long ago.
Night three
On a cloudy and stormy day, the hero understands that Nastenka’s love for him was only joy about a soon date with someone else. The girl arrived on a date with the hero an hour earlier, because she really wanted to see her beloved and hoped that he would come. But the man did not come. The Dreamer reassures Nastenka: “Just think: he could barely receive the letter; Suppose he can’t come, suppose he answers, the letter will not arrive until tomorrow.” The girl hopes to see her beloved the next day, but the feeling of annoyance does not leave her. She laments that her lover is not like the dreamer who is so kind to her.
Night four
The next day at nine o'clock the heroes were already on the embankment. However, the man still did not appear. The dreamer confesses his love to Nastenka, but says that he understands her feelings for another person and treats them with respect. The girl says that that man betrayed her, and therefore she will try with all her might to stop loving him. When the heroes were about to leave the embankment, a young man approached them: “God, what a cry! How she shuddered! How she escaped from my hands and fluttered towards him!..” Nastenka left with her beloved, and the dreamer looked after them for a long time.
