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Updated: May 25, 2025
It had seemed to him quite natural, as though he were feeling sorry for himself. But here was Ustinia, a perfect stranger, and sorry for him. She would save him some hot porridge, and sit watching him, her chin propped on her bare arm, with the sleeve rolled up, while he was eating it. When he looked at her she would begin to laugh, and he would laugh too.
"Get along with you, Alyosha the Pot; but you've found your tongue, haven't you?" she exclaimed, slapping him on the back with a towel she held in her hand. "Why shouldn't I?" At Shrovetide Alyosha's father came to town for his wages. It had come to the ears of the merchant's wife that Alyosha wanted to marry Ustinia, and she disapproved of it.
Ustinia used to help him whenever she could, and he helped her. She told him all about her life; how she had lost her parents; how her aunt had taken her in and found a place for her in the town; how the merchant's son had tried to take liberties with her, and how she had rebuffed him. She liked to talk, and Alyosha liked to listen to her.
"It's no good; it can't come off. Did you hear? He was angry won't have it at any price." Ustinia cried into her apron. Alyosha shook his head. "What's to be done? We must do as we're told." "Well, are you going to give up that nonsense, as your father told you?" his mistress asked, as he was putting up the shutters in the evening.
Ustinia asked. "Of course I am. You can't go on living for ever. You must go when the time comes." Alyosha spoke rapidly as usual. "Thank you, Ustinia. You've been very good to me. What a lucky thing they didn't let us marry! Where should we have been now? It's much better as it is." When the priest came, he prayed with his bands and with his heart.
"How, nothing? They tell me you want to get married. You shall get married when the time comes. I'll find you a decent wife, not some town hussy." His father talked and talked, while Alyosha stood still and sighed. When his father had quite finished, Alyosha smiled. "All right. I'll drop it." "Now that's what I call sense." When he was left alone with Ustinia he told her what his father had said.
Suddenly Alyosha felt he was such a man. He made this discovery through the cook Ustinia. She was young, had no parents, and worked as hard as Alyosha. He felt for the first time in his life that he not his services, but he himself was necessary to another human being. When his mother used to be sorry for him, he had taken no notice of her.
"To be sure we are," Alyosha replied with a smile, and then burst into tears. From that day Alyosha went about his work as usual, and no longer talked to Ustinia about their getting married. One day in Lent the clerk told him to clear the snow from the roof.
Alyosha climbed on to the roof and swept away all the snow; and, while he was still raking out some frozen lumps from the gutter, his foot slipped and he fell over. Unfortunately he did not fall on the snow, but on a piece of iron over the door. Ustinia came running up, together with the merchant's daughter. "Have you hurt yourself, Alyosha?" "Ah! no, it's nothing."
This was such a new, strange thing to him that it frightened Alyosha. He feared that it might interfere with his work. But he was pleased, nevertheless, and when he glanced at the trousers that Ustinia had mended for him, he would shake his head and smile. He would often think of her while at work, or when running on errands. "A fine girl, Ustinia!" he sometimes exclaimed.
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