In St. Petersburg, at the beginning of summer, when the city empties toward the country houses, a twenty-six-year-old man, nameless, who has lived in the capital for eight years without a single acquaintance, one night meets a young woman crying on an embankment. The story is driven by her wait, for a year, for the return of a lodger, and by his love, which is born against the condition she imposed. The arc runs from the encounter on the embankment to the letter of the morning, passing through the two confessions of the second night, the wait of the third and the declaration of the fourth, interrupted by the arrival of the other man.
First Night: The Encounter
The Dreamer spends three days in anguish without knowing why, until he understands that the whole city is leaving for the country houses and no one has invited him. He knows Petersburg through the faces he crosses every day, like those of a little old man on the Fontanka with whom he almost exchanges greetings, and through the houses, which speak to him as he passes. He walks to the city gate, passes the barrier and walks through the fields, happier than ever, and returns after ten by the embankment of a canal, where he sees a young woman crying, leaning on the railing; he wants to speak, but the words that come to him belong to a novel, and he falls silent. When a gentleman in a tailcoat, drunk, runs after her, he catches up with her using the knotted cane he carries in his hand, and the drunk falls behind. He offers her his arm, confesses that he is shy, that he has never known a woman and that he has only fallen in love with ideals, and asks to return to the same place the next day, to remember. She agrees, because she has her own reasons for being there at ten, on one condition: that he not fall in love. He cannot go home and walks all night (First Night).
Second Night: The Dreamer and Nastenka's Story
The young woman arrives laughing and asks him to tell his story; he says he has no story, that he has lived completely alone, and she mentions in passing that she lives pinned to her blind grandmother's dress by a pin. Only then does she give her name, Nastenka. The Dreamer strikes a bookish pose and describes, in the third person, the dreamer of Petersburg: the man who clings to his corner like a snail, for whom the goddess Fantasy weaves an invented life every evening, who lives loves, journeys and battles without leaving his room. He expects her to laugh; she does not, and he speaks without pose of the lost years and wonders, on revisiting the places of a year before, whether he has lived. She promises that they will stay together, whatever happens, and asks in return for brotherly advice (Second Night). An orphan, Nastenka was raised by her grandmother, who pinned her to her dress after a prank. When the old lodger of the mezzanine died, a young man came who lent her books, took grandmother and granddaughter to The Barber of Seville and then almost disappeared; a year earlier, on the eve of his departure for Moscow, she climbed to his room with a bundle, and he promised to return and marry her if he could, without binding her to any word. The year has passed, he has been in the city for three days and has not appeared. The Dreamer proposes a letter, dictates the whole letter in her name and discovers that she already had one, written and sealed, like Rosina in the opera; he agrees to take it to the acquaintances who will get it to the lodger and bring back the reply by ten (Nastenka's story, Second Night).
Third Night: The Wait
The Dreamer writes on a rainy day when the two do not see each other, and recounts the third encounter. Nastenka had arrived an hour early, certain that the lodger would come; her joy made her tender, and he took the tenderness for genuine currency. She said she liked him because he had not fallen in love; he, hurt, made her count the chimes of eleven, regretted it, and began consoling her with arguments that delighted him. She compared the two men, said the other was worse and that she loved him more, and even said that he seemed to be sacrificing something for her; she took her leave by asking whether they were now together forever. On the day of writing, he goes to the bench at nine, goes as far as her street and returns ashamed; there was no letter, and he concludes that the two of them are already together (Third Night).
Fourth Night: The Declaration and the Lodger
Nastenka waits for him in the same position as on the first night. There is no letter; she cries, rebels against three days of silence, looks for excuses for the other man and says she will forget him. When she asks the Dreamer whether he would abandon a girl who came to him of her own accord, he declares his love, calling it impossible, and offers a love that does not demand to be preferred. She wonders whether her love for the lodger was not an illusion of the imagination, born of her grandmother's watchfulness, and offers him her hand. The two make plans: he will rent their mezzanine and become her lodger, they will take the grandmother with them, and Matryona and Fyokla will live together; she laughingly refuses the trip to The Barber of Seville. A young man passes, stops and calls Nastenka by name: it is the lodger. She runs to him, comes back to kiss the Dreamer and leaves, taking the other man by the hand (Fourth Night).
The Morning: The Letter
The nights end on a rainy morning, and the Dreamer has a fever. Matryona brings him a letter from Nastenka, who asks forgiveness, says she loves him, that she wished she could love them both, and announces the marriage for the following week, asking that he remain her friend and brother forever. Matryona reports that she has taken the cobwebs off the ceiling. The Dreamer sees the maid, the room and the house across the way age all at once, imagines himself fifteen years from now in the same room, alone, with the same Matryona, and instead of accusing Nastenka he blesses her for the minute of happiness she gave him, asking whether such a minute is little for a whole lifetime (Morning).