"[1] Alyosha's simple life, soft-spoken manner, and calm acceptance of death epitomizes Tolstoyan principles.
According to the memoirs of Tatyana Andreevna Kuzminskaya (Lev Tolstoy's sister-in-law), "the assistant to the cook and yard-keeper was the half idiot Alyosha the Pot, who was, for some reason, romanticized to the point that reading about him, I could not recognize our yurodivy and ugly Alyosha.
At 19, his father sends him to live with a merchant's family working a yard-keeper (дворник).
After a year and a half, Alyosha began to feel that the cook, Ustinia, took pity on him.
For the first and only time in the story, Alyosha breaks his lighthearted, laughing demeanor and cries.