Белые ночи

White Nights

A sentimental story  
from the Diary of a Dreamer

Translated by Constance Garnett

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

УДК 
372.8
ББК 
81.2 Англ-93
Д70

ISBN 978-5-9925-1148-2

 
Достоевский, Федор Михайлович.
Д70 
Белые ночи : пер. с рус. Констанс Гарнетт. — 
Санкт-Петербург : КАРО, 2016. — 96 с. — (Русская классическая литература на иностранных 
языках).

ISBN 978-5-9925-1148-2.

Предлагаем вниманию англоязычных читателей повесть 
великого русского писателя Федора Михайловича Достоевского (1821–1881) «Белые ночи».
Перевод на английский язык Констанс Гарнетт дополнен комментарием.

УДК 372.8 
ББК 81.2 Англ-93

© КАРО, 2016

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First Night

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 live under such a sky. 
That is a youthful question too, dear reader, very 
youthful, but may the Lord put it more frequently 
into your heart! … Speaking of capricious and 
ill-humoured people, I cannot help recalling my 
moral condition all that day. From early morning 
I had been oppressed by a strange despondency. It 
suddenly seemed to me that I was lonely, that every 
one was forsaking me and going away from me. 
Of course, anyone is entitled to ask who “everyone” 
was. For though I had been living almost eight 
years in Petersburg I had hardly an acquaintance. 
But what did I want with acquaintances? I was 
acquainted with all Petersburg as it was; that was 
why I felt as though they were all deserting me 

when all Petersburg packed up and went to its 
summer villa. I felt afraid of being left alone, and 
for three whole days I wandered about the town in 
profound dejection, not knowing what to do with 
myself. Whether I walked in the Nevsky, went to the 
Gardens or sauntered on the embankment, there 
was not one face of those I had been accustomed 
to meet at the same time and place all the year. 
They, of course, do not know me, but I know them. 
I know them intimately, I have almost made a study 
of their faces, and am delighted when they are gay1, 
and downcast when they are under a cloud. I have 
almost struck up a friendship with one old man 
whom I meet every blessed day, at the same hour 
on Fontanka2. Such a grave pensive countenance; 
he is always whispering to himself and brandishing 
his left arm, while in his right hand he holds a long 
gnarled stick with a gold knob. He even notices me 
and takes a warm interest in me. If I happen not to 
be at a certain time in the same spot on Fontanka, 
I am certain he feels disappointed. That is how it is 
that we almost bow to each other, especially when 
we are both in good humour. The other day when 
we had not seen each other for two days and met on 

1 gay — cheerful, happy, full of fun
2 Fontanka — a river in Petersburg

the third, we were actually touching our hats, but, 
realising in time, dropped our hands and passed 
each other with a look of interest.
I know the houses too. As I walk along they seem 
to run forward in the streets to look out at me from 
every window, and almost to say: “Good morning! 
How do you do? I am quite well, thank God, and 
I am to have a new storey in May,” or, “How are 
you? I am being redecorated to-morrow”; or, “I was 
almost burnt down and had such a fright,” and so 
on. I have my favourites among them, some are 
dear friends; one of them intends to be treated by 
an architect this summer. I shall go every day on 
purpose to see that the operation is not a failure. 
God forbid! But I shall never forget an incident 
with a very pretty little house of a light-pink colour. 
It was such a charming little brick house, it looked 
so hospitably at me, and so proudly at its ungainly 
neighbours, that my heart rejoiced whenever I 
happened to pass it. Suddenly last week I walked 
along the street, and when I looked at my friend I 
heard a plaintive, “They are painting me yellow!” 
The villains! The barbarians! They had spared 
nothing, neither columns, nor cornices, and my 
poor little friend was as yellow as a canary. It almost 
made me bilious. And to this day I have not had 

the courage to visit my poor disfigured friend, 
painted the colour of the Celestial Empire.
So now you understand, reader, in what sense I 
am acquainted with all Petersburg.
I have mentioned already that I had felt worried 
for three whole days before I guessed the cause of my 
uneasiness. And I felt ill at ease in the street — this 
one had gone and that one had gone, and what had 
become of the other? — and at home I did not feel 
like myself either. For two evenings I was puzzling 
my brains to think what was amiss in my corner; 
why I felt so uncomfortable in it. And in perplexity 
I scanned my grimy green walls, my ceiling covered 
with a spider’s web, the growth of which Matrona 
has so successfully encouraged. I looked over all 
my furniture, examined every chair, wondering 
whether the trouble lay there (for if one chair is not 
standing in the same position as it stood the day 
before, I am not myself). I looked at the window, 
but it was all in vain … I was not a bit the better 
for it! I even bethought me to send for Matrona, 
and was giving her some fatherly admonitions 
in regard to the spider’s web and sluttishness in 
general; but she simply stared at me in amazement 
and went away without saying a word, so that the 
spider’s web is comfortably hanging in its place to 

this day. I only at last this morning realised what 
was wrong. Aie! Why, they are giving me the slip 
and making off to their summer villas! Forgive 
the triviality of the expression, but I am in no 
mood for fine language … for everything that had 
been in Petersburg had gone or was going away for 
the holidays; for every respectable gentleman of 
dignified appearance who took a cab was at once 
transformed, in my eyes, into a respectable head of 
a household who after his daily duties were over, 
was making his way to the bosom of his family, 
to the summer villa; for all the passers-by had now 
quite a peculiar air which seemed to say to every 
one they met: “We are only here for the moment, 
gentlemen, and in another two hours we shall be 
going off to the summer villa.” If a window opened 
after delicate fingers, white as snow, had tapped 
upon the pane, and the head of a pretty girl was 
thrust out, calling to a street-seller with pots of 
flowers — at once on the spot I fancied that those 
flowers were being bought not simply in order to 
enjoy the flowers and the spring in stuffy town 
lodgings, but because they would all be very soon 
moving into the country and could take the flowers 
with them. What is more, I made such progress in 
my new peculiar sort of investigation that I could 

distinguish correctly from the mere air of each in 
what summer villa he was living. The inhabitants of 
Kamenny and Aptekarsky Islands or of the Peterhof 
Road1 were marked by the studied elegance of their 
manner, their fashionable summer suits, and the 
fine carriages in which they drove to town. Visitors 
to Pargolovo2 and places further away impressed 
one at first sight by their reasonable and dignified 
air; the tripper to Krestovsky Island could be 
recognised by his look of irrepressible gaiety. If I 
chanced to meet a long procession of waggoners 
walking lazily with the reins in their hands beside 
waggons loaded with regular mountains of furniture, tables, chairs, ottomans and sofas and domestic 
utensils of all sorts, frequently with a decrepit cook 
sitting on the top of it all, guarding her master’s 
property as though it were the apple of her eye; or 
if I saw boats heavily loaded with household goods 
crawling along the Neva or Fontanka to the Black 
River or the Islands — the waggons and the boats 
were multiplied tenfold, a hundredfold, in my eyes. 
I fancied that everything was astir and moving, 

1 Kamenny and Aptekarsky Islands or of the Peterhof Road — formerly the places of summer vaca tions 
of St. Petersburg citizens, now part of the city
2 Pargolovo — a resort not far from St. Petersburg

everything was going in regular caravans to the 
summer villas. It seemed as though Petersburg 
threatened to become a wilderness, so that at last I 
felt ashamed, mortified and sad that I had nowhere 
to go for the holidays and no reason to go away. I 
was ready to go away with every waggon, to drive 
off with every gentleman of respectable appearance 
who took a cab; but no one — absolutely no one — 
invited me; it seemed they had forgotten me, as 
though really I were a stranger to them!
I took long walks, succeeding, as I usually did, in 
quite forgetting where I was, when I suddenly found 
myself at the city gates. Instantly I felt-light hearted, 
and I passed the barrier and walked between 
cultivated fields and meadows, unconscious of 
fatigue, and feeling only all over as though a burden 
were falling off my soul. All the passers-by gave me 
such friendly looks that they seemed almost greeting 
me, they all seemed so pleased at something. They 
were all smoking cigars, every one of them. And I 
felt pleased as I never had before. It was as though I 
had suddenly found myself in Italy — so strong was 
the effect of nature upon a half-sick townsman like 
me, almost stifling between city walls.
There is something inexpressibly touching in 
nature round Petersburg, when at the approach 

of spring she puts forth all her might, all the powers 
bestowed on her by Heaven, when she breaks 
into leaf, decks herself out and spangles herself 
with flowers … Somehow I cannot help being 
reminded of a frail, consumptive girl, at whom one 
sometimes looks with compassion, sometimes with 
sympathetic love, whom sometimes one simply 
does not notice; though suddenly in one instant she 
becomes, as though by chance, inexplicably lovely 
and exquisite, and, impressed and intoxicated, 
one cannot help asking oneself what power made 
those sad, pensive eyes flash with such fire? What 
summoned the blood to those pale, wan cheeks? 
What bathed with passion those soft features? 
What set that bosom heaving? What so suddenly 
called strength, life and beauty into the poor girl’s 
face, making it gleam with such a smile, kindle 
with such bright, sparkling laughter? You look 
round, you seek for some one, you conjecture … 
But the moment passes, and next day you meet, 
maybe, the same pensive and preoccupied look 
as before, the same pale face, the same meek and 
timid movements, and even signs of remorse, 
traces of a mortal anguish and regret for the fleeting 
distraction … And you grieve that the momentary 
beauty has faded so soon never to return, that it