Overview & Impressions
White Nights is a bittersweet yet beautiful read. It follows a lonely young man in St Petersburg who over four nights meets a young woman named Nastenka and falls in love with her while she waits for the return of another man. The prose was lovely to read and much of the story is carried by the dialogue between the two. The plot is simple but engaging and it's short enough to read in a couple sittings. This was my first exposure to Dostoevsky and it’s made me keen to read more of his work. I don’t usually add fiction to my book notes but this one felt like it belonged here.
Quotes
It was a wonderful night, such a night as is only possible when we are young, dear reader.
I am a dreamer. I know so little of real life that I just can’t help re-living such moments as these in my dreams, for such moments are something I have very rarely experienced. I am going to dream about you the whole night, the whole week, the whole year. I feel I know you so well that I couldn’t have known you better if we’d been friends for twenty years. You won’t fail me, will you? Only two minutes, and you’ve made me happy forever. Yes, happy. Who knows, perhaps you’ve reconciled me with myself, resolved all my doubts.
I don’t know how to be silent when my heart is speaking.
In the end, you feel that your much-vaunted, inexhaustible fantasy is growing tired, debilitated, exhausted, because you’re bound to grow out of your old ideals; they’re smashed to splinters and turn to dust, and if you have no other life, you have no choice but to keep rebuilding your dreams from the splinters and dust. But the heart longs for something different! And it is vain to dig in the ashes of your old fancies, trying to find even a tiny spark to fan into a new flame that will warm the chilled heart and bring back to life everything that can send the blood rushing wildly through the body, fill the eyes with tears - everything that can delude you so well!
And what shall I have to dream of when I have been so happy in reality beside you!
Oh, how unbearable is a happy person sometimes!
I love you because you didn’t fall in love with me.
Your hand is cold, mine burns like fire. How blind you are, Nastenka!
If and when you fall in love, may you be happy with her. I don’t need to wish her anything, for she’ll be happy with you. May your sky always be clear, may your dear smile always be 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. Isn’t such a moment sufficient for the whole of one’s life?
My God, a moment of bliss. Why, isn’t that enough for a whole lifetime?