白夜 (1848)

《白夜》（俄语：Белые ночи, Belye nochi）是费奥多尔·米哈伊洛维奇·杜斯妥也夫斯基的一部短篇小说，出版于1848年。

如同陀思妥耶夫斯基的许多小说一样，《白夜》采用第一人称叙事，叙述者是一位住在圣彼得堡的孤独的年轻男子，结识并爱上了一位年轻女子，但是这份爱情没有得到回报，因为这位女子思念她的爱人，并最终与他团聚。

《白夜》已被意大利、苏联、法国、伊朗、印度、美国等国改编为电影，有同名歌曲。

"White Nights" (Russian: Белые ночи, romanized: Belye nochi; original spelling Бѣлыя ночи, Beliya nochi) is a short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky, originally published in 1848, early in the writer's career.

Like many of Dostoevsky's stories, "White Nights" is told in the first person by a nameless narrator. The narrator is a young man living in Saint Petersburg who suffers from loneliness. He gets to know and falls in love with a young woman, but the love remains unrequited as the woman misses her lover, with whom she is finally reunited.

Synopsis

First Night

The narrator lives alone in a small apartment in Saint Petersburg with only his old maid Matryona to keep him company. While walking, he sees a young woman, Nastenka, standing against a railing and crying. He considers asking her what is wrong, but continues walking. He then hears her scream, intervenes and saves her from a man who is harassing her.

Nastenka holds his hand, but he has never known a woman and feels timid with her. Nastenka reassures him that ladies like timidity and that she likes it, too. He tells her that he spends every minute of every day dreaming about a girl who would talk to him, who will not repulse him or ridicule him. He says that he thinks of talking to a random girl timidly, respectfully, passionately – telling her that he is dying in solitude and that he has no chance of success with her. He says that it is a girl's duty not to rudely reject or mock a man as timid and luckless as he. As they reach Nastenka's door, he asks if he will ever see her again. Before she can answer, he adds that he will be at the spot they met tomorrow anyway just so he can relive this one happy moment in his lonely life. She agrees, stating she cannot tell him not to come, and she has to be there anyway. Nastenka would tell him her story and be with him, provided that talking does not lead to romance. She is as lonely as the narrator.

Second Night

On their second meeting, Nastenka seeks to find out more about him. He tells her that he has spent his life utterly alone. He talks about his longing for companionship, and begins to tell his story in third person, calling himself "the hero". This "hero" is happy at the hour when all work ends and people walk about. He dreams of everything, from befriending poets to having a place in the winter with a girl by his side. He says that the dreariness of everyday life kills people, while in his dreams he can make his life as he wishes it to be. Nastenka sympathetically assures him that she will be his friend.

Nastenka's History

Nastenka then tells her story. She grew up with a strict and blind grandmother, who gave Nastenka a sheltered upbringing. Nastenka's grandmother uses a safety pin to keep the two joined at the hip, as she fears her granddaughter will get into mischief. Her grandmother's pension being too small, they rent a room in their house. When their first lodger dies, the grandmother rents to a younger man. Despite embarrassing herself in front of him by revealing that she is literally and figuratively pinned to her grandmother, the young man begins a silent courtship with Nastenka, giving her books so that she may develop a reading habit. The young man invites Nastenka and her grandmother to a performance of a play. On the night that the young lodger is about to leave Petersburg for Moscow, Nastenka urges him to marry her. He refuses immediate marriage and claims that he does not have money to support them but assures her that he will return for her a year later. Nastenka finishes her story and notes that a year has gone, and he has not sent her a single letter.

Third Night