Not long after visiting his mother’s grave Alyosha suddenly announced that he wanted to enter the monastery, and that the monks were willing to receive him as a novice.
He explained that this was his strong desire, and that he was solemnly asking his consent as his father. The old man knew that the elder Zossima, who was living in the monastery hermitage, had made a special impression upon his “gentle boy.”
“That is the most honest monk among them, of course,” he observed, after listening in thoughtful silence to Alyosha, and seeming scarcely surprised at his request. “H’m! … So that’s where you want to be, my gentle boy?”
He was half drunk, and suddenly he grinned his slow half-drunken grin, which was not without a certain cunning and tipsy slyness. “H’m! … I had a presentiment that you would end in something like this. Would you believe it? You were making straight for it. Well, to be sure you have your own two thousand. That’s a dowry for you. And I’ll never desert you, my angel. And I’ll pay what’s wanted for you there, if they ask for it. But, of course, if they don’t ask, why should we worry them? What do you say? You know, you spend money like a canary, two grains a week. H’m! …