Hyperbole

Deliberate exaggeration, which no one takes literally, to emphasize a feeling or a situation.

In White Nights

I would certainly have said: Madam!, if I did not know that this exclamation had already been uttered a thousand times in all the Russian novels of high society.

“A thousand times” is an exaggeration by someone who wants to say that the exclamation has become a commonplace. The inflated number shows how worn out the Dreamer feels the speech of books to be, and that is why he falls silent before the girl.

First Night: The encounter, the Dreamer

she took a pin and fastened my dress to hers, and right then said that we would sit like this for the rest of our lives, unless, of course, I became better.

Second Night: The Dreamer and Nastenka's Story, Nastenka