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-humoured and capricious people could really live under such a sky.

That too is a youthful question, dear reader, very youthful, but may the Lord put it more often into your heart! Speaking of capricious and ill-humoured people, I cannot help recalling my own moral condition all that day.

From early morning I had been oppressed by a strange despondency. It suddenly seemed to me that I, the lonely one, was being forsaken by everyone, and that everyone was moving away from me. Of course, anyone has the right to ask who 'everyone' was, for I had not been acquainted with anyone in Petersburg for nearly eight years.

I knew all Petersburg, and that was why I felt so abandoned when all Petersburg took wing and departed for its summer villas. I felt alarmed at being left alone, and for three whole days I wandered about the town in a state of profound melancholy.

I walked along the embankment. It was past ten. Beside the canal railing stood a woman. She was leaning with her elbows on the rail, gazing fixedly at the muddy water of the canal. She was wearing a charming yellow hat and a coquettish black mantle. 'She is a girl, and of course she is dark,' I thought. She did not hear my footsteps, and did not even stir when I passed by with bated breath.

Then I stopped. She was crying. Sobs were shaking her whole slender frame. Good heavens! My heart sank within me. And shy as I was with women, this was a moment...

'Well, listen! Do you know what a dreamer is, Nastenka?'

'A dreamer? Of course I know. I am a dreamer myself! Sometimes, as I sit by my grandmother, all sorts of things come into my head.'

'No, not like that. A dreamer—if you want an exact definition—is not a human being, but a creature of an intermediate sort. He lives for the most part in some inaccessible corner, as though hiding from the light of heaven, and once he slips into his corner, he grows to it like a snail.'

'Why does he love his four walls so much? Because in his corner he creates whole worlds. In his room he has lived centuries of happiness, heroic deeds, and boundless love. He has loved imaginary women with tears of real adoration. And then... morning comes, and he looks around his dingy room, and sees that his youth is passing, and that he has never lived, never loved in real life, not even for an hour!'

Nastenka listened with wide, shining eyes. She pressed my hand and whispered: 'You talk as though you were reading from a book! But tell me your whole truth, don't hide anything from me...'

Today was a gloomy, rainy day without a gleam of sun, just like my coming old age. Such strange thoughts, such dark sensations, questions that are still obscure to me are crowding into my brain, and I seem to have neither the power nor the will to solve them.

We met at ten o'clock as usual. She was waiting for the letter that did not come. Her chin was quivering, and her eyes were brimming with tears.

'He hasn't come,' she said in a trembling whisper. 'He didn't come yesterday, and he hasn't sent a single line today. What does it mean?'

I tried to comfort her. I invented excuses for the man who was keeping her waiting. I told her that his business might have delayed him, that tomorrow morning he would surely appear. She looked at me with such immense, grateful tenderness that my heart began to ache with impossible love.

The letter came. He returned. She flung her arms around him, and then she turned back to me, weeping with joy, and kissed my lips with a gratitude that felt like the sharpest blade.

And now, my white nights are ended.

My years are passing. My hair is beginning to turn grey. In my solitary room, I take out her little letter and read it again: 'Forgive me, forgive me! I love you for having loved me so purely. Remember me, think of me sometimes...'

And I read her letter, and I do not curse her. I do not cast a single bitter word or reproach over her memory. May no shadow of sadness ever darken your divine happiness, Nastenka! May your sky be clear, may your sweet smile be bright and untroubled, and may you be blessed for that moment of blissful happiness which you gave to another lonely, grateful heart!

My God! A whole minute of bliss! Is that too little for the whole of a man's life?