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Intro
Returning home after a day-long ramble through the countryside around St. Petersburg, the Dreamer observes a young woman standing alone by the side of a canal weeping. When a drunken man starts to harass her, he comes to the young woman’s aid, after which they strike up a conversation. This isn’t something that normally happens to the Dreamer, who is so shy and withdrawn that he almost never speaks to anyone, much less a woman. But he finds himself immediately comfortable with this one. She says she will be in the same place the next night, and he vows to meet her again there.
On the second night, the young woman introduces herself as Nastenka. She asks the Dreamer to tell her about himself. He is, he says, a perfectly representative example of “the dreamer”—a kind of person who immerses him- or herself in literature and the arts and who escapes the painful, inconvenient, and unaesthetic aspects of real life by constructing elaborate fantasy worlds. Nastenka understands; she identifies as a dreamer too. She lives with her blind grandmother, a woman so overprotective that she’s taken to pinning their skirts together during the day so that Nastenka can’t sneak out (something, Nastenka admits, she has done in the past). A little more than a year ago, a new lodger started renting the attic room from Nastenka’s grandmother. He and Nastenka fell in love. When his business called him back to Moscow, he promised to return for her in a year. It’s been a year, and she is waiting each night for him to show up at the appointed place. When he fails to do so on the second night, the Dreamer offers to help Nastenka send a letter to him through intermediaries.
On the third night, Nastenka is upset when the new lodger neither reappears nor sends a return letter. The Dreamer is upset, too. Despite Nastenka’s warning that her heart was committed to the new lodger, he’s started to fall in love with her. When she starts comparing him favorably to the new lodger, he hopes that she might be falling in love with him instead.
The next day and night are rainy, so although the Dreamer waits by the canal as usual, Nastenka fails to appear.
But on the following night, Nastenka is at the canal before the Dreamer. There is still no sign of the new lodger, and she concludes that he must not love her any longer. The Dreamer comforts her and offers to love her forever, even if her heart is already committed to the new lodger. She accepts his offer gratefully, and they giddily begin to imagine their lives together. But then, the new lodger appears out of nowhere and Nastenka flies instantly back into his arms.
The following day, the Dreamer’s housekeeper Matryona brings him a letter from Nastenka. It says she and the new lodger will be married within the week. She thanks the Dreamer for everything he did for her during her agonizing wait, she begs his forgiveness for breaking his heart, and she expresses her hope that they can still be friends. He doesn’t answer the letter. But neither does he ever forget Nastenka, whom he still loves, pines for, and remembers fondly in his daydreams 15 years later.
