Metaphor

Saying one thing by means of another, with no word of comparison: instead of saying that something is like another thing, one says that it is. The image transfers to the subject the qualities of the thing it was identified with.

In White Nights

Or was he created only for this: / to be, even for an instant, / in the neighborhood of your heart?

“In the neighborhood of your heart” treats the heart as a house with a neighborhood around it. The image says that being near someone for an instant means living, for a single moment, beside the one we love.

First Night: The encounter, the epigraph, by Turgenev

Well, for no one, for an ideal, for her who appears in a dream. I create whole novels in my reveries.

First Night: The encounter, the Dreamer

New dream, new happiness! New dose of a refined and voluptuous poison!

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

I already find myself obliged to celebrate the anniversary of my sensations, the anniversary of what was once so dear and, in truth, never happened.

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

what did you do with your years? where did you bury your best time? Did you live or not?

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

that, even if you still loved him and went on loving the one I do not know, you still would not notice that my love somehow weighs on you.

Third and Fourth Nights and the Morning: The wait and the outcome, the Dreamer