Summary of the night
The three final units tell of the wait for a man who does not come and of what happens when he does. On the Third Night, written on a rainy day when the two do not see each other, the Dreamer recalls the meeting of the day before: Nastenka, happy as she waited for the lodger, praised him for not having fallen in love, and he realises that her tenderness is that of someone waiting for another. On the Fourth Night her hope breaks, he declares his love, she accepts him, the two make plans for a life together, and in the middle of the plans the lodger appears. In the Morning a letter from her arrives, and the Dreamer, alone in his room, decides what to do with what has been left to him.
Third Night
Summary of the night
The Dreamer writes on a rainy day, without light, a day that seems to him like his future old age. On the eve, when they parted, Nastenka had warned that if it rained she would not come, and she did not come. He then recounts the third meeting.
Nastenka arrived an hour early, certain that the lodger would come in reply to the letter, and her joy made her tender, which the Dreamer took as affection directed at him. She says she loves him as a friend precisely because he did not fall in love, and he feels sadness. When the clock strikes eleven and the other does not appear, he consoles her with arguments that delight him as he utters them, and she weeps. She compares the two men, the other worse and more loved, suspects that he is sacrificing something for her, and asks whether they are now together forever. He answers only on paper, confessing himself alone. At nine o'clock that same rainy day, despite the weather, he goes to the bench and even to her side street, and returns without a letter.
Analysis
Вчера было наше третье свиданье, наша третья белая ночь…
, Yesterday was our third meeting, our third white night...
It is the only time the book says white night, and the Dreamer says it with a possessive: our. He counts the nights as one counts a treasure, on a day when he will no longer see her. The ellipsis marks the tone of farewell that the sentence has before he knows why.
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Fourth Night
Summary of the night
The Dreamer opens the night with an exclamation about how everything ended, and tells it. He arrives at nine; Nastenka is already there.
She waits in the same position as on the first night, with no letter and no news from the lodger. Resentful, she weeps, looks for excuses for the other, says that she will forget him, and asks the Dreamer whether he would abandon a girl who came to him of her own accord. It is the push he needed: he declares his love, calling it impossible, and offers a love that does not demand to be preferred. She examines her own feeling, admits that her love for the lodger may have been an illusion born of her grandmother's watch, and offers her hand. They make plans for a life together, in which he will rent the mezzanine and be her lodger, until a young man passes by and calls her by name. She runs to him, comes back to kiss the Dreamer, and goes away with the other.
Analysis
The Morning
Summary of the night
The nights end in the morning, on a rainy day; the Dreamer has a fever. Matryona brings him a letter by the city post: it is from Nastenka. She begs forgiveness on her knees, says she deceived him and herself, that it was a dream, and that she has not changed with him: she said she would love him, and she does love him.
The letter thanks him for his love, announces the wedding the following week and asks that he be a friend and brother to her forever. He rereads it, lets it fall, and Matryona, knowing nothing, says she took the cobweb off the ceiling. Then he sees the maid, the room and the house opposite grow old all at once, and imagines himself alone in the same room, fifteen years later. Instead of accusing Nastenka, he blesses her for the minute of happiness she gave him, and closes the book by asking whether a minute like that is too little for a whole life.
Analysis
Reading of the night
Analysis