The lodger

Who He Is

The lodger is the young man who rents the mezzanine of the grandmother's house and for whom Nastenka has waited a year. He has no name, hardly speaks, and appears in person for only a few seconds, at the end of the Fourth Night. Everything known about him comes from the Nastenka's story, Second Night, told by her: a young man from elsewhere, passing through the city, who does not haggle over the rent, lends books, takes grandmother and granddaughter to the opera and, when he leaves for Moscow, promises to return in a year. He is poor and has no standing, as he himself says. What he wants, as far as the text lets us see, is to marry Nastenka when he can; what he fears is binding her to a promise he may not keep.

Trajectory

In Nastenka's story, Second Night, he arrives after the death of the old lodger. One morning he comes to talk about the wallpaper, sees Nastenka, pinned to her grandmother's dress, drag the armchair and weep with shame, and, realizing he has shamed her, takes his leave and goes out. Two weeks later he offers French books through Fyokla, then Pushkin; on the staircase he asks what she liked and, on a second occasion, whether she does not get bored beside her grandmother, and proposes taking her to the theater without the grandmother knowing. She refuses, and that same afternoon he offers the grandmother a box for the opera (The Barber of Seville): Nastenka understands that in the morning he had put her to the test. Then he almost disappears, appearing once a month to invite them to the opera, and, when the season ends, merely greets her in silence. In May he announces that he will spend a year in Moscow. On the eve of his departure, Nastenka climbs to his room with a bundle; he takes her for an apparition, says he is poor and could not support her, and finally, also in tears, promises:

It was he who wanted nothing said to the grandmother. On the same night, on the bench by the embankment, at ten, he says he will come to see her as soon as he returns. The year passes, he has been in the city for three days and does not appear, and it is to him that the letter (The letter) that the Dreamer takes to Nastenka's acquaintances is addressed.

On the Third Night, absent, he is the subject of the night. Nastenka describes him as serious and somewhat proud, says she fears and respects him too much, and compares him to the Dreamer:

On the Fourth Night, after three days without a reply, he passes by the embankment, stops, looks at the two of them, takes a few steps and calls Nastenka by name; she runs to him and takes him by the hand. On the Morning, her letter says he came back in love, that he never forgot her, and that the two marry the following week.

Themes Embodied

The lodger is the only character who decides the book without his voice being heard on stage: everything he says reaches us quoted by Nastenka, and when at last he appears, on the Fourth Night, he says only her name. For the Dreamer he is real life arriving from the street, without asking the daydream's permission, and the difference between the two is that he leaves, settles his affairs and comes back.

What he offers in Nastenka's story, Second Night, is a promise that does not bind, and it is with this argument, that the commitment is his and the freedom is hers, that the Dreamer convinces Nastenka to write. In defending the rival as a delicate man, the Dreamer works to bring him back.

Divergent Readings

On one hand, he is delicate from beginning to end: he leaves when he sees her shame, does not take her to the theater in secret, refuses to bind the young woman to his poverty, and returns, as he promised, in love. On the other, he is prudent to the point of coldness: he greets her in silence for months, asks that nothing be said to the grandmother, stays three days in the city without appearing and does not answer the letter, and Nastenka even says, on the Fourth Night, that he mocked her.

The book does not explain the three days of silence, and the narrator, who sees him only in passing, cannot explain them either. The letter of the Morning gives her version, that of someone who came back in love, and the reader keeps her version because it is the only one.

Relationships

• Nastenka: the young woman he draws near with books and with the opera, to whom he promises to return (Nastenka's story, Second Night), and whom he marries (Morning).
• The grandmother: the landlady who accepts him because he does not haggle, and whom he takes to The Barber of Seville (Nastenka's story, Second Night).
• The Dreamer: the rival he does not know, who carries the letter that calls him back (Second Night), and who sees him arrive on the Fourth Night.