By Feodor Dostoyevsky
A poignant tale of love and loneliness from Russia’s foremost writer.
In short a story of unrequited love. A young man in St Petersburg, Russia out for an evening stroll around the city he loves, yet suffering from lonliness as the people he would see are leaving the city for their ‘dachas’.
He comes across as young, tearful girl and ends up rescuing her from the attentions of an older, drunk man.
A friendship forms between them, which the narrator tells us is over a few days. The man reveals his loneliness to the girl and she reveals her love for another man who has left the city, and not him.
Inevitably, our protagonist falls in love with her and she with him, until the ‘other man’ re-appears and she runs off with him, sending our man who helped her, a letter asking his forgiveness, leaving him to return to his loneliness.
