LYDIA’S AUNT
“YES, that solitary confinement is terrible for the young,” said the aunt, shaking her head, and also lighting a cigarette.
“I should say for any one,” Nekhlyudov replied.
“No, not for all,” answered the aunt. “For the real revolutionists, I have been told, it is rest and quiet. A man who is wanted by the police lives in a state of continual anxiety and material want, in fear for himself and others and for his cause; and at last, when he is taken and it is all over, and all responsibility is off his shoulders, he can sit and rest. I have been told they actually feel glad when arrested. But the young and innocent – they always first arrest the innocent, like Lydia – for them the first shock is terrible. It is not the loss of freedom, and the bad food and bad air – all that is nothing. Three times as many privations would be easily borne if it were not for the moral shock when one is first taken.”
“Have you, then, experienced it?”
“I? I was twice in prison,” she answered, with a sad gentle smile. “When I was arrested for the first time I had done nothing. I was twenty-two, had a child, and was expecting another. Though the loss of freedom and the parting with my child and husband were hard, they were nothing compared with what I felt when I found out that I had ceased to be a human being and had become a thing. I wished to say good-bye to my little daughter. I was told to go and get into an izvozchik’s trap. I asked where I was being taken to. The answer was that I should know when I got there. I asked what I was accused of, but got no reply. When, after I had been examined, and they had undressed me and put numbered prison clothes on me, they led me to a vault, opened a door, pushed me in, locked the door again, and left me alone – a sentry with a loaded rifle pacing up and down in front of my door and every now and then looking in through a crack – I felt terribly depressed. What struck me most at the time was that the gendarme officer who examined me offered me a cigarette. So he knew that people like to smoke, and must also have known that they like freedom and light, and that mothers love their children, and children their mothers. Then how could they tear me pitilessly from all that was dear to me, and lock me up in prison like a wild animal? That sort of thing could not be borne without evil effects. Any one who believes in God and men, and believes that men love one another, will cease to believe it after going through all that. I have ceased to believe in humanity since then, and have grown embittered,” she concluded, with a smile.