26

‘YES, solitary confinement is a terrible thing for young people,’ said the aunt, shaking her head and lighting a cigarette also.

‘I should think for everybody,’ said Nekhlyudov.

‘No, not for everyone,’ replied the aunt. ‘I’ve been told it’s a relief – a rest – for the real revolutionary. An outlaw lives in constant anxiety, enduring all sorts of material hardships, in a perpetual state of fear for himself, for others and for the cause; and when, finally, he is arrested, and it’s all over, and all responsibility taken off his shoulders – then he can sit in prison and rest. I have been told that they actually feel glad when they’re picked up. But for the young and innocent – and they always get hold of innocent creatures like Lydia first – the initial shock is terrible. It’s not the loss of freedom, the rough treatment, the bad food and bad air, the deprivations in general – all that is nothing. If there were three times as many hardships, they could be endured easily if it were not for the psychological shock you receive when you’re arrested for the first time.’

‘Have you been through it, then?’

‘Me? I have been in prison twice,’ she answered with a sad, pleasant smile. ‘When I was arrested the first time – and I had done nothing – I was only twenty-two. I had one child and was expecting another. To lose my freedom and be parted from my child and husband was hard enough, but it was nothing compared with what I felt when I realized that I wasn’t a human being any longer, and had become a thing. I wanted to say good-bye to my little daughter – I was told to go and get into the trap. I asked where they were taking me – and was told I would find out when I got there. I asked what I was accused of – and they didn’t answer. After my interrogation I was stripped and dressed in prison clothes marked with a number, and taken to a vaulted passage; a door was unlocked, I was shoved inside and the door locked after me; and they went away, leaving only a guard with a rifle who walked up and down the passage without saying a word, and every now and then peering through a crack in the door. I felt utterly wretched. What struck me most at the time, I remember, was that the gendarme officer who interrogated me offered me a cigarette. So he knew that people like to smoke and therefore he must have known, too, that they like light and liberty. He must have known that mothers love their children, and children love their mothers. Then how was it he could tear me pitilessly from all that was dear to me, and lock me up like a wild beast? Nobody can go through that with impunity. If one has believed in God and in humanity, has believed that human beings love one another, one loses all faith after such treatment. I have ceased to believe in humanity since then, and become bitter,’ she concluded, and smiled.

Lydia’s mother entered the room by the door through which Lydia had left, and said that poor Lydia was very much upset and would not be coming back.

‘And why should her young life be ruined? I feel it all acutely since I was unwittingly responsible,’ said Lydia’s aunt.

‘Please God, she will get better in the country air. We will send her to her father,’ said her mother.

‘Yes, if it hadn’t been for you, she would have perished altogether,’ said the aunt. ‘We are indeed grateful to you. But what I wanted to see you for was to ask you to give a letter to Vera Bogodoukhovskaya,’ she said, drawing a letter out of her pocket. ‘It isn’t sealed – you may read it and tear it up or hand it to her, as you think fit,’ she said. ‘There is nothing compromising in the letter.’

Nekhlyudov took the letter and, promising to transmit it, rose, said good-bye and went out into the street.

He sealed the letter unread, deciding to deliver it as he had been asked.