White Nights

Saint Petersburg. Summer. White nights. A lonely man takes his usual walk and doesn’t find familiar faces. Petersburg is emptying—gentlemen are going out to dachas. Lost in sad thoughts and dreams, the main hero unexpectedly meets a girl. This is how Nastеньka appears in the narrative.

The young people grow closer. They meet during the white nights, talk about various things, touching on the story of their lives. In one of their conversations Nastеньka tells about a former lodger who stayed in their house together with her grandmother. That’s when the girl fell in love with him. Love was not destined to turn into something more, because the lodger moved out, promising to return in a year— exactly as much time as he allowed himself to improve his financial situation.

A year passes: the former lodger is back in the city, but he never contacts Nastеньka. The young man, suffering from love for the girl himself, offers to help her in order to resolve the situation that has arisen.