White nights / Белые ночи

“But how alone? Do you mean you never saw any one?”

“Oh no, I see people, of course; but still I am alone.”

“Why, do you never talk to any one?”

“Strictly speaking, with no one.”

“Who are you then? Explain yourself! Stay, I guess: most likely, like me you have a grandmother. She is blind and will never let me go anywhere, so that I have almost forgotten how to talk; and when I played some pranks two years ago, and she saw there was no holding me in, she called me up and pinned my dress to hers, and ever since we sit like that for days together; she knits a stocking, though she’s blind, and I sit beside her, sew or read aloud to her – it’s such a queer habit, here for two years I’ve been pinned to her …”

“Good Heavens! what misery! But no, I haven’t a grandmother like that.”

“Well, if you haven’t why do you sit at home? …”

“Listen, do you want to know the sort of man I am?”

“Yes, yes!”

“In the strict sense of the word?”

“In the very strictest sense of the word.”

“Very well, I am a type!”

“Type, type! What sort of type?” cried the girl, laughing, as though she had not had a chance of laughing for a whole year. “Yes, it’s very amusing talking to you. Look, here’s a seat, let us sit down. No one is passing here, no one will hear us, and – begin your history. For it’s no good your telling me, I know you have a history; only you are concealing it. To begin with, what is a type?”

“A type? A type is an original, it’s an absurd person!” I said, infected by her childish laughter. “It’s a character. Listen; do you know what is meant by a dreamer?”

“A dreamer! Indeed I should think I do know. I am a dreamer myself. Sometimes, as I sit by grandmother, all sorts of things come into my head. Why, when one begins dreaming one lets one’s fancy run away with one – why, I marry a Chinese Prince! … Though sometimes it is a good thing to dream! But, goodness knows! Especially when one has something to think of apart from dreams,” added the girl, this time rather seriously.

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1

gay – cheerful, happy, full of fun

2

Fontanka – a river in Petersburg

3

Kamenny and Aptekarsky Islands or of the Peterhof Road – formerly the places of summer vacations of St. Petersburg citizens, now part of the city

4

Pargolovo – a resort not far from St. Petersburg