Book 2 Chapter 26 Lydias 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 every one," Nekhludoff 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 continual anxiety, material
want, and fear for himself and others, and for his cause, and at
last, when he is taken up and it is all over, and all
responsibility is off his shoulders, he can sit and rest. I have
been told they actually feel joyful when taken up. But the young
and innocent (they always first arrest the innocent, like Lydia),
for them the first shock is terrible. It is not that they deprive
you 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 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 22, 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 when compared with what I felt when
I found out that I had ceased being a human creature and had
become a thing. I wished to say good-bye to my little daughter. I
was told to go and get into the 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. After I had been
examined, and after they had undressed me and put numbered prison
clothes on me, they led me to a vault, opened a door, pushed me
in, and left me alone; a sentinel, with a loaded gun, paced up
and down in front of my door, and every now and then looked 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 liked smoking, and must
know that they liked 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 all that. I have ceased to believe in humanity since then,
and have grown embittered," she finished, with a smile.