"White Nights" ( Fyodor Dostoevsky )
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Well written prose often spark my curiosity and, almost always, prompt the question, what I would do in that circumstance? In the case of the following passage I wonder, would I have been as noble and gracious as the narrator of this passage? Would the happiness of the woman I dearly love, guide my heart, my words, and my hand to pen a letter of well wishes and happiness as she prepares to marry another man? Would my last words to her be blessings of “bliss and happiness”? I sometimes read this passage silently, sometimes aloud, but always with deep contemplation because it speaks to the type of human being I would want to be, particularly in affairs of a wounded heart.
“But that I should feel any resentment against you, Nastenka! That I should cast a dark shadow over your bright, serene happiness! That I should chill and darken your heart with bitter reproaches, wound it with secret remorse, cause it to beat anxiously at the moment of bliss! That I should crush a single one of those delicate blooms which you will wear in your dark hair when you walk up the aisle to the altar with him! Oh no—never, never! May your sky be always clear, may your dear smile be always bright and happy, and may you be for ever [sic] blessed for that moment of bliss and happiness which you gave to another lonely and grateful heart! Good Lord, only a moment of bliss! Isn't such a moment sufficient for the whole of a man’s life?”