White Nights Summary & ending explained

For three days now, the whole city had been leaving me behind.

It was the beginning of summer, and all of Petersburg was packing up for its country villas. Carts piled high with sofas and kitchen pots rolled past my window. Every man who climbed into a cab was, I felt sure, off to his family and the fresh air. Nobody asked me to come. Eight years here, and hardly a soul to speak to.

But I knew Petersburg. I knew the faces I passed at the same corner at the same hour every day, though not one of them knew mine. I knew its houses even better. They were my friends. There was a little pink one that always seemed so glad to see me that my whole day went better for passing it. Last week I found it painted a loud yellow, every inch of it. I've avoided that street ever since.

So I walked, lost in my own head, until I looked up and the city was behind me. Green fields stretched out on both sides, and the weight I'd been carrying for days was simply gone. For one evening, I could have been in Italy.

I got back late; ten had already struck. My way home ran along the canal, deserted at that hour, and I sang to it the whole way, having nobody else to tell.

Then I stopped.

Someone stood at the railing ahead, gazing down into the dark canal: a girl in a yellow hat and a short black cape. I went by holding my breath, and she never turned. Then I heard it. She was crying, trying to smother it, and failing.

I am a coward with women. Every opening line I could think of belonged in a cheap romance. By the time I had rejected them all, she had wiped her eyes, edged around me and hurried across to the far pavement.

I couldn't make myself cross after her.

Then a gentleman in evening dress appeared on her side of the street, old enough to know better, propping himself up against the buildings as he went. He noticed her. And all at once, without a sound, he lurched into a run after her.

She ran too. He was gaining. She screamed.