The Theme in the Work
The book has two loves running at the same time and in a single direction: the Dreamer loves Nastenka, and Nastenka loves the lodger. Neither is returned in the time the story covers, and the book puts them on the same night, on the same bench (The embankment and the bench), with a rule that forbids the first and a promise that sustains the second. What makes the theme is the manner in which each loves: the Dreamer loves as he dreamed of loving, without demanding to be preferred; Nastenka loves with a concrete gesture, the bundle she carried up to the mezzanine room, and waits a year for an answer.
There is also a third love, smaller and decisive: the one Nastenka feels for the Dreamer, which she says is love like his, and which in the Morning she asks him to keep as a brother's friendship, and which leads her to accept his hand on the fourth night and to kiss him after choosing the other man. It is this love that the letter of the Morning (The letter) tries to keep, asking that he be her friend and brother forever.
On the First Night, the young woman agrees to return to the embankment with a condition:
не влюбляйтесь в меня… Это нельзя, уверяю вас, do not fall in love with me... That cannot be, I assure you.
In Nastenka's story, Second Night, Nastenka recounts the night she climbed to the lodger's room with a bundle, on the eve of his departure for Moscow:
сказала, что не могу жить у бабушки, что убегу от нее, что не хочу, чтоб меня булавкой пришпиливали, и что я, как он хочет, поеду с ним в Москву, потому что без него жить не могу. И стыд, и любовь, и гордость — все разом говорило во мне, и я чуть не в судорогах упала на постель. Я так боялась отказа!, I said that I could not live with my grandmother, that I would run away from her, that I did not want to be pinned with a pin, and that, if he wished it, I would go with him to Moscow, because I could not live without him. Shame, love and pride all spoke in me at once, and I nearly fell onto the bed in convulsions. I was so afraid of a refusal!
And his promise, which does not bind her:
Но, повторяю, если через год это не сделается, то хоть когда-нибудь непременно будет; разумеется — в том случае, если вы не предпочтете мне другого, потому что связывать вас каким-нибудь словом я не могу и не смею., But, I repeat, if this does not happen within a year, it will happen someday, without fail; of course, provided you do not prefer another to me, because I can neither bind you with any word nor dare to.
On the Third Night, waiting for the other man, she praises the Dreamer precisely for what he hides:
Я оттого люблю вас, что вы не влюбились в меня., I love you because you did not fall in love with me.
And she compares the two men:
Зачем он — не вы? Зачем он не такой, как вы? Он хуже вас, хоть я и люблю его больше вас., Why is he not you? Why is he not like you? He is worse than you, though I love him more than you.
On the Fourth Night, after learning that there is no letter, she asks whether he would abandon a girl who came to him of her own accord, and he declares himself:
Это несбыточно, но я вас люблю, Настенька! вот что!, It is impossible, but I love you, Nastenka! That is all there is to it!
The love he offers accepts second place:
что если б вы еще и любили его и продолжали любить того, которого я не знаю, то все-таки не заметили бы, что моя любовь как-нибудь там для вас тяжела, that even if you still loved him and went on loving the one I do not know, you would nonetheless not notice that my love weighs on you in some way.
She accepts it, the two make plans, and when the lodger calls her by name she runs to him and comes back once:
обхватила мою шею обеими руками и крепко, горячо поцеловала меня, she threw both her arms around my neck and kissed me firmly, passionately.
On the Morning, her letter says she has not changed toward him and wishes for the impossible:
О боже! если б я могла любить вас обоих разом! О, если б вы были он!, Oh God! If only I could love you both at once! Oh, if only you were he!
The book does not measure the two loves by strength, it measures them by form. Nastenka's love for the lodger begins with a gesture, the bundle, and is fulfilled with a gesture, the run through the street; the Dreamer's begins with a word, a confession of ideals on the First Night, and ends with a word, a blessing written in the Morning. He offers the most generous love in the book, the one that does not ask to be preferred, and it is the only one that is not realized: his generosity is also that of someone who never imagined himself chosen.
Who Embodies It
The Dreamer loves before he has someone to love. On the First Night he says he has fallen in love only with an ideal, and on the Fourth Night he loves Nastenka without asking her to leave the other man.
Nastenka loves with her whole body and with fear. In Nastenka's story, Second Night, what she fears most as she climbs with the bundle is refusal; on the Fourth Night, she wonders whether a year's love was not an illusion, and minutes later she runs to the same man.
The lodger loves from afar and keeps his word. In Nastenka's story, Second Night, he refuses to bind her with a word; on the Morning, her letter says he came back in love and never forgot her.
Where It Appears
- First Night: The young woman agrees to return to the embankment the next day on the condition that the Dreamer not fall in love with her.
- Second Night, Nastenka's story: Nastenka climbs to the lodger's room with a bundle, and he promises to marry her if one day he can, without binding her to his word.
- Third Night: Nastenka says she loves the Dreamer because he did not fall in love with her, and that the lodger is worse than him, though she loves the lodger more.
- Fourth Night: The Dreamer declares his love, Nastenka accepts it, and when the lodger calls her by name she runs to him and comes back to kiss the Dreamer.
- Morning: Nastenka writes that she still loves him, that she wished she could love both at once, and that she is marrying the lodger the following week.
Where the Readings Diverge
Nastenka's acceptance on the Fourth Night can be read as a love just beginning, which chance interrupts, or as consolation on a night of despair, which the other man's return undoes without effort. The text supports both: she asks the Dreamer to wait, because her love for the other is already passing, and in the Morning she says her heart, too constant, has returned to the one it belongs to.
The letter does not contradict what she said on the fourth night, and that is what makes it hard: she says she loved the Dreamer and still loves him, and that she chose the other man. The book does not ask the reader to choose between sincerity and convenience; it shows a seventeen-year-old girl who loves two people in different ways and can marry only one.