The path Alyosha chose was a path going in the opposite direction, but he chose it with the same thirst for swift achievement. As soon as he reflected seriously he was convinced of the existence of God and immortality, and at once he instinctively said to himself:
“I want to live for immortality, and I will accept no compromise.”
In the same way, if he had decided that God and immortality did not exist, he would at once have become an atheist and a socialist. For socialism is not merely the labor question, it is before all things the atheistic question, the question of the form taken by atheism today, the question of the tower of Babel built without God, not to mount to heaven from earth but to set up heaven on earth.
Alyosha would have found it strange and impossible to go on living as before. It is written:
“Give all that thou hast to the poor and follow Me, if thou wouldst be perfect.”
Alyosha said to himself:
“I can’t give two roubles instead of ‘all,’ and only go to mass instead of ‘following Him.’ ”
Perhaps his memories of childhood brought back our monastery, to which his mother may have taken him to mass. Perhaps the slanting sunlight and the holy image to which his poor “crazy” mother had held him up still acted upon his imagination.
Brooding on these things he may have come to us perhaps only to see whether here he could sacrifice all or only “two roubles,” and in the monastery he met this elder.