A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

Saunders describes Alyosha as a seemingly simple hero, whose thoughts we do not have access to. We see him mostly from the outside, reacting to unfair and exploitative situations with cheerfulness and equanimity, traits that initially seem admirable, but increasingly become meekness rather than nobility.

The story’s plot obeys the rules of increased escalation. Since Alyosha is presented to us as a cheerful, stoical character, this “[a]ttribute must meet adversity” (451). That is, Alyosha’s cheerfulness and stoicism must be tested. The first of these tests comes in the form of Alyosha being sent to work for a family who treat him with roughness and condescension. He largely passes this test, adjusting to his new life away from home without complaint. The second test is more consequential—Alyosha’s first experience of unconditional love with Ustinya.

Saunders provides three different translations of the moment in the story where Alyosha is musing over his connection with Ustinya—the first time in A Swim in the Pond in the Rain that he considers how translation affects a reader’s experience of work original written in another language. As Saunders notes, the translation that he has used in the book is the simplest and least literary of the three, using intentional awkwardness to dramatize Alyosha’s uncertain thoughts, as he tries to find language for an entirely new feeling. This is a writing method that will later be employed by authors such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf: “Tolstoy has reached an understanding that would pervade modernism: a person and her language can’t be separated” (454)

When Alyosha is told that he and Ustinya will not be allowed to marry, he does not protest this dictum. However, he does start weeping when the merchant’s wife brings up the subject. The weeping marks a further escalation: It is a sign that Alyosha is unhappy, even if he continues to maintain a cheerful front. As readers, we wait for his unhappiness to explode in the narrative, whether through action or speech. Instead, “Tolstoy does something smart: he knocks Alyosha off that roof” (458). This action speeds up the narrative and forces Alyosha’s deep feelings to the surface; it could be called a final test of his cheerfulness.  

The story’s ending is simple but mysterious. Alyosha prays with a priest on his deathbed, looks “amazed” and then, at the moment of his death, “startled” (462). As Saunders notes, it is unclear whether Alyosha is startled by God’s grace, or by a realization of all that he has endured on earth. Tolstoy was a devout Christian, and based Alyosha on a real peasant at his farm; Tolstoy was apparently unsatisfied with the story, and did not consider it finished. Yet Saunders speculates that the story is more finished than Tolstoy realized, and that the decision not to clarify Alyosha’s feelings at the moment of his death was an unconscious artistic “swerve” (476). By leaving Alyosha’s faith uncertain, Tolstoy was able to express his ambivalence about his own Christianity.

According to Saunders, this underlying ambivalence is the source of the story’s power. The story raises questions that are still timely today, about the value of goodness versus action, and whether it is better to tolerate or to fight injustice: “Every time I read ‘Alyosha the Pot,’ it puts me in that state of wondering. And it never gives me an answer but only says: ‘Keep wondering’” (478).