White Nights

Have you lived or not? Look, one says to oneself, look how cold the world is growing

In two minutes you have made me happy for ever.

. . Good-bye, thank you! . . . ”

“Surely . . . surely you don’t mean . . . that we shall never see each other again? . . . Surely this is not to be the end?”

“You see,” said the girl, laughing, “at first you only wanted two words, and now. . . . However, I won’t say anything . . . perhaps we shall meet. . . . ”

You . . . perhaps it was my fancy

asking oneself whether

It was a wonderful night, such a night as is only possible when we are young,

!

Indeed, he is ready to believe at some moments that all this life is not suggested by feeling, is not mirage, not a delusion of the imagination, but that it is concrete, real, substantial!

Stillness reigns in the little room; imagination is fostered by solitude and idleness

Then how have you lived, if you have no history?

My God, a whole moment of happiness! Is that too little for the whole of a man’s life?