Zeeshan Rasool Khan
Love is an involuntary phenomenon. You don’t know when or whom you will fall for. Sometimes, an elegant person, a bearer of all the best qualities, doesn’t affect you, and other times, a person devoid of anything unique literally rules your heart. You not only lose your heart to that person, but also the purpose of life and begin to orbit around him/her. In some cases, this love yields dividends. In others, people lose. What takes the greatest toll on a person is not the desolation itself, but the unanswered question of where everything went wrong. The question of why the efforts made, the emotions expended, the time devoted, and the dreams cherished did not yield the desired results pushes a person into a corner and takes away the sheen from him/her.
A person becomes stupefied, losing trust in the process, and essentially becomes philophobic. S/he fails to love anyone else with the same rhythm and zeal. The person’s life stops moving forward because, for him/her, love is the centre and engine of life, giving it direction and momentum. As a result, the person sees an end, the end of everything.
But maturity is about seeing a silver lining amidst the gloom. It is about cherishing the moments that once brought relief, beautifying memories with those beautiful days, and living on with gratitude.
This is what great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novella White Nights tells us.
It is not easy to comment on Fyodor’s realm and worldview, yet as readers, what we learn is a brute reality: that not everyone is lucky to see his/her sacrifices bearing fruit, his/her emotions inciting a ripple in another’s heart and attracting him/her for an everlasting union, to see “Man tu Shudam, Tu man shudi”, meaning “I became you, and you became me”, being embodied in their relationship.
The narrator, a dreamer, lives in seclusion in Petersburg, unconcerned with his surroundings. He sees the people, remembers them, but never gets attracted to anyone. Even though he feels no emotion toward anyone, he also feels unloved himself. In such a scenario, he meets the girl Nastenka while she is crying because someone has deserted her. The girl had a tiny universe of her own: her grandmother, to whom she remained attached, the maid, and herself. She had no one else to care for. She had a humble family, with a couple of rooms to live in and one for rent, which helped make ends meet.
Once, a paying guest stayed at her home. Gradually, she became enamoured of his charm.
The love story begins. But it is a transient one. The paying guest leaves for Russia, leaving Nastenka single again. He promises her he will marry her when he returns and is able to do so. But years pass. There is no sign of him. The Dreamer, after listening to her, consoles her and promises her every support in getting her beloved back, as a best friend. They keep meeting during the White Nights, a phenomenon specific to St. Petersburg, Russia.
He writes letters on Nastenka’s behalf, reminding her lover of the promises made to her. But to no avail. They don’t get a response. They wait with hope, and the nights pass. During all this, the Dreamer falls in love with her with every fibre of his being. After days of waiting, the Dreamer expresses himself. He tells Nastenka that he has moved beyond friendship. Nastenka also finds in him a great human being standing by her during emotionally draining days. She responds to him affirmatively.
Together, they weave dreams of living together. They discuss finances, emotional securities and insecurities. In other words, all is set for them to become two bodies, one soul.
However, things become topsy-turvy. Much to the Dreamer’s disappointment, the white nights transform into darker ones, and forever.
Nastenka meets her first love. The spark he had lit stokes unquenchable flames of love. Nastenka, without a second thought, yields to him and decides to befriend the Dreamer again, pushing him back to the dreamland, where he dreams, dreams, and dreams.
The Dreamer feels heartbreak, loneliness, and a sense of emptiness, but surprisingly, he harbours no real hatred towards Nastenka. Despite his pain, he is grateful to her for providing him with beautiful nights that, for him, overpower everything else. While reflecting upon this unrequited love in White Nights, he sees these memories as precious ones. It implies that even a single moment of genuine happiness can be enough to illuminate one’s life. It just sums up: love need not be returned to have been real, nor must it last forever to have been worthwhile. Sometimes, a handful of white nights is enough to light the rest of a life.
It affirms the idea that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
The language of the book is simple, and it is not voluminous. It can be read in one sitting. Readers with a romantic taste may find it to be one of the finest readings.
Writer: Zeeshan Rasool Khan is a Student, Educator, and Columnist.
