First Night

The First Night is the foundational event of Fyodor Dostoevsky's "White Nights," in which the solitary, unnamed Dreamer, after a day of acute loneliness during Petersburg's summer exodus, encounters a weeping young woman on a canal embankment, rescues her from a drunken pursuer, and through a halting, self-revealing conversation secures an appointment to meet again the following night. This chance meeting transforms the Dreamer's inner world, breaks his lifelong isolation from women, and establishes the emotional and narrative framework for the four white nights that follow.

The Dreamer's State Before the Encounter

The First Night begins not with the meeting itself but with the Dreamer's extended account of his psychological condition earlier that day. He describes being oppressed by a strange despondency from early morning, feeling that everyone was forsaking him and going away. The cause, he realizes, is that all Petersburg has packed up and moved to its summer villas, leaving him behind. He has lived in Petersburg for almost eight years but has hardly an acquaintance; his only companions are the houses he passes daily, which he personifies and addresses in his imagination. One favorite house, a charming little brick house of a light pink color, has been painted yellow, an act the Dreamer calls barbarous and which makes him almost bilious. At home, he scrutinizes his grimy green walls, the spider's web Matrona has successfully encouraged, and the position of every chair, but finds no relief. He even sends for Matrona to give her fatherly admonitions about the spider's web, but she stares at him in amazement and goes away without a word. That evening, he takes a long walk and finds himself at the city gates, where he feels lighthearted, as though a burden were falling from his soul. He passes the barrier and walks between cultivated fields and meadows, unconscious of fatigue, feeling as though he had suddenly found himself in Italy. He returns to town very late, and it has struck ten as he walks along the canal embankment, where at that hour he never meets a soul. He walks along singing, for when he is happy he is always humming to himself, like every happy man who has no friend or acquaintance with whom to share his joy.

The Encounter and Rescue

On the canal embankment, the Dreamer sees a woman leaning on the railing, apparently looking with great attention at the muddy water. She wears a very charming yellow hat and a jaunty little black mantle. He guesses she is dark-haired. She does not seem to hear his footsteps and does not stir when he passes by with bated breath and loudly throbbing heart. Then he hears a muffled sob, and then sob after sob. His heart sinks. Timid as he is with women, he turns and takes a step toward her, but hesitates, knowing that the exclamation "Madam!" has been uttered a thousand times in every Russian society novel. While he is seeking for a word, the girl comes to herself, looks round, starts, casts down her eyes, and slips by him along the embankment. He follows her, but she divines this, leaves the embankment, crosses the road, and walks along the pavement. He dares not cross the street after her; his heart is fluttering like a captured bird. Then a chance comes to his aid. Along the same pavement, a gentleman in evening dress, of dignified years but by no means of dignified carriage, staggers into view, leaning cautiously against the wall. The girl flies straight as an arrow with the timid haste of all girls who do not want anyone to volunteer to accompany them home at night. The staggering gentleman suddenly sets off in full pursuit of her, overtakes her, and the girl utters a shriek. The Dreamer, blessing his luck for the excellent knotted stick that happens to be in his right hand, is in a flash on the other side of the street. The obtrusive gentleman takes in the position, grasps the irresistible argument, and falls back without a word, though when they are far away he protests in rather vigorous language. The Dreamer says to the girl, "Give me your arm. And he won't dare to annoy us further." She takes his arm without a word, still trembling with excitement and terror.

The Conversation and Mutual Revelation

As they walk, the Dreamer steals a glance at her and confirms she is charming and dark. On her black eyelashes there still glistens a tear, but there is already a gleam of a smile on her lips. She too steals a glance at him, faintly blushes, and looks down. He tells her that if he had been there, nothing would have happened. She replies that she did not know him and thought he too might have been a threat. He admits he is shy with women, agitated, and that it is like a dream, for he never guessed even in his sleep that he would ever talk with any woman. He confesses that his arm trembles because it has never been held by a pretty little hand like hers; he is a complete stranger to women, never having been used to them. He is twenty-six and has never seen anyone. He tells her that he does nothing but dream every day that at last he shall meet someone, and that he has often been in love in that way — with no one, with an ideal, with the one he dreams of in his sleep. He has even thought of speaking to some aristocratic lady in the street, telling her that he is perishing in solitude, begging her not to send him away. The girl listens with amazement, opening her eyes and her little mouth. She tells him that women like such timidity, and that she likes it too, and will not drive him away till she gets home. She says that no kind-hearted woman, unless she were stupid or vexed about something, could bring herself to send him away without those two words he asks for so timidly. He thanks her, crying that she does not know what she has done for him. She asks what made him decide to come up to her, and he admits he heard her crying and could not bear it; it made his heart ache. She says it is her fault for having spoken of it, but she is glad she was not mistaken in him.

The Appointment and the Promise

When they reach her turning, she says good-bye and thanks him. He asks desperately whether they will never see each other again. She laughs and says perhaps they will meet. He declares he cannot help coming to the same place tomorrow, at the same hour, because he is a dreamer and has so little real life that he cannot help going over such moments again in his dreams. He says he will be dreaming of her all night, a whole week, a whole year. She agrees to come tomorrow at ten o'clock, but insists it is not an appointment; she has to be there on her own account. She says she does not mind if he comes, and that she would simply like to see him and say two words to him. She makes a compact: he must not fall in love with her. That is impossible, she assures him; she is ready for friendship, but he must not fall in love. He swears, gripping her hand. She says she knows he is ready to flare up like gunpowder, but she has no one to whom she can say a word or whose advice she can ask. She tells him she knows him as though they had been friends for twenty years, and asks if he will not deceive her. He says he does not know how he is going to survive the next twenty-four hours. She tells him to sleep soundly, and says that his exclamation about brotherly compassion struck her so nicely that the idea came to her that she might confide in him. She promises to tell him her secret tomorrow, or perhaps not; they will get to know each other better first. He cries that it is as though a miracle has befallen him, and that in two minutes she has made him happy forever. They agree that he will begin his story tomorrow. They part with repeated good-byes. The Dreamer walks about all night, unable to make up his mind to go home, so happy is he. The chapter ends with the single word "To-morrow!"

Significance and Aftermath

The First Night establishes the central dynamic of the entire novella: the Dreamer's sudden, overwhelming entry into real human connection after a lifetime of solitary fantasy. The encounter is framed by the white nights of Petersburg, a time of unnatural brightness and suspended time that mirrors the Dreamer's own suspension between dream and reality. The event also introduces the key spatial and emotional coordinates of the story — the canal embankment, the seat where they will meet again, the knotted stick that enables the rescue, and the promise of tomorrow that becomes the organizing principle of the following nights. The Dreamer's confession of his lifelong loneliness and his idealistic fantasies prepares the ground for the deeper revelations of the Second Night, while Nastenka's cautious trust and her condition that he must not fall in love foreshadow the emotional complications to come. The First Night is thus not merely a chance meeting but a threshold event that transforms the Dreamer's inner world and sets in motion the brief, intense romance that will define the white nights.