White Nights

I am reading the Russian White Nights, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I have 18 pages left to go, but so far, it is about a lonely man who meets on chance a woman who is very nearly attacked by a drunk. He rescues her, and they agree to meet the next night.

When they do, he is so thrilled to have actually broken his solitude within St. Petersburg, and especially with the company of an attractive woman, no less, that he spends several pages at her encouraging of expressing his whole history, telling her of how he has so dreamed of such a meeting, and that he shall never be alone again. He is eloquent and verbose, and almost flatulent in long tale of how he has found happiness at last in her.

Then she finally gets him to shut up, and she tells him of her whole history, which is abridged to the telling of how she is in waiting for a man who used to lodge with her and her grandmother, and went away to find his fortunes a year gone by, and was due to have returned, and she was sure he had, but he has not yet made contact with her. So still, she waits, eager to know if he has come to marry her.

This is the basic construction of some conversations I remember having with a couple of girls in high school! They must have read White Nights! I remember the same broken heart as I thought I had found someone to befriend but only found someone who was looking for a place to put her sorrows. It was positively unbearable!

Of course, I do not fly like a bee seeking the best nectar from the colorful flowers, but now experience the flow of the river, constant and powerful. Flights of fancy hold no interest. And neither does carrying pollen! Sometimes it is so good to be old, and reminding myself of those foolish young days, I am glad to be old now.

But! Let’s see what the remainder of the pages hold! I am genuinely interested!

(I also say, with the joint pain gone, I am able to endure the holding of the book for so much longer that I am really able to enjoy the act, where I could not for years as it was impossible to even hold up a book without my arms begging me to stop. One more reason I owe thanks to the good doctor who was concerned about my middle-aged weight! It turns out that the breads I have eaten were the cause of my joint pains. And milk, it turns out, has other consequences on my body that send me flying to the loo for a standing visit!)

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