Alyosha the Pot

"Alyosha the Pot" is a short story by Leo Tolstoy and a masterpiece of rare perfection. Alyosha, a young child who lives in a village and obtained the nickname "the Pot" from an incident where he broke a pot in his youth, is sent to live with a merchant's family as a servant. He falls in love with Ustinja, a young girl who cooks for the merchant's family. Eventually he asks Ustinja to marry him, but his father scolds him and tells him that marriage will come when and with whom the father ch...