Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated) (282 page)

“Was the food the worst of it?” I asked.

“The hunger made you weak, Frank; but the inhumanity was the worst of it; what devilish creatures men are. I had never known anything about them. I had never dreamt of such cruelties. A man spoke to me at exercise. You know you are not allowed to speak. He was in front of me, and he whispered, so that he could not be seen, how sorry he was for me, and how he hoped I would bear up. I stretched out my hands to him and cried, ‘Oh, thank you, thank you.’ The kindness of his voice brought tears into my eyes. Of course I was punished
at once for speaking; a dreadful punishment. I won’t think of it: I dare not. They are infinitely cunning in malice here, Frank; infinitely cunning in punishment.... Don’t let us talk of it, it is too painful, too horrible that men should be so brutal.”

“Give me an instance,” I said, “of something less painful; something which may be bettered.”

He smiled wanly. “All of it, Frank, all of it should be altered. There is no spirit in a prison but hate, hate masked in degrading formalism. They first break the will and rob you of hope, and then rule by fear. One day a warder came into my cell.

“‘Take off your boots,’ he said.

“Of course I began to obey him; then I asked:

“‘What is it? Why must I take off my boots?’

“He would not answer me. As soon as he had my boots, he said:

“‘Come out of your cell.’

“‘Why?’ I asked again. I was frightened, Frank. What had I done? I could not guess; but then I was often punished for nothing: what was it? No answer. As soon as we were in the corridor he ordered me to stand with my face to the wall, and went away. There I stood in my stocking feet waiting. The
cold chilled me through; I began standing first on one foot and then on the other, racking my brains as to what they were going to do to me, wondering why I was being punished like this, and how long it would last; you know the thoughts fear-born that plague the mind.... After what seemed an eternity I heard him coming back. I did not dare to move or even look. He came up to me; stopped by me for a moment; my heart stopped; he threw down a pair of boots beside me, and said:

“‘Go to your cell and put those on,’ and I went into my cell shaking. That’s the way they give you a new pair of boots in prison, Frank; that’s the way they are kind to you.”

“The first period was the worst?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, infinitely the worst! One gets accustomed to everything in time, to the food and the bed and the silence: one learns the rules, and knows what to expect and what to fear....”

“How did you win through the first period?” I asked.

“I died,” he said quietly, “and came to life again, as a patient.” I stared at him. “Quite true, Frank. What with the purgings and the semi-starvation and sleeplessness and, worst of all, the regret gnawing at my soul and the incessant torturing self-reproaches, I got weaker and weaker; my clothes hung on me; I could scarcely move.
One Sunday morning after a very bad night I could not get out of bed. The warder came in and I told him I was ill.”

“‘You had better get up,’ he said; but I couldn’t take the good advice.

“‘I can’t,’ I replied, ‘you must do what you like with me.’

“Half an hour later the doctor came and looked in at the door. He never came near me; he simply called out:

“‘Get up; no malingering; you’re all right. You’ll be punished if you don’t get up,’ and he went away.

“I had to get up. I was very weak; I fell off my bed while dressing, and bruised myself; but I got dressed somehow or other, and then I had to go with the rest to chapel, where they sing hymns, dreadful hymns all out of tune in praise of their pitiless God.

“I could hardly stand up; everything kept disappearing and coming back faintly: and suddenly I must have fallen....” He put his hand to his head. “I woke up feeling a pain in this ear. I was in the infirmary with a warder by me. My hand rested on a clean white sheet; it was like heaven. I could not help pushing my toes against the sheet to feel it, it was so smooth and cool and clean. The nurse with kind eyes said to me:

“‘Do eat something,’ and gave me some thin white bread and butter. Frank, I shall never forget it. The water came into my mouth in streams; I was so desperately hungry, and it was so delicious; I was so weak I cried,” and he put his hands before his eyes and gulped down his tears.

“I shall never forget it: the warder was so kind. I did not like to tell him I was famished; but when he went away I picked the crumbs off the sheet and ate them, and when I could find no more I pulled myself to the edge of the bed, and picked up the crumbs from the floor and ate those as well; the white bread was so good and I was so hungry.”

“And now?” I asked, not able to stand more.

“Oh, now,” he said, with an attempt to be cheerful, “of course it would be all right if they did not take my books away from me. If they would let me write. If only they would let me write as I wish, I should be quite content, but they punish me on every pretext. Why do they do it, Frank? Why do they want to make my life here one long misery?”

“Aren’t you a little deaf still?” I asked, to ease the passion I felt of intolerable pity.

“Yes,” he replied, “on this side, where I fell in the chapel. I fell on my ear, you know, and I must have burst the drum of it, or injured
it in some way, for all through the winter it has ached and it often bleeds a little.”

“But they could give you some cotton wool or something to put in it?” I said.

He smiled a poor wan smile:

“If you think one dare disturb a doctor or a warder for an earache, you don’t know much about a prison; you would pay for it. Why, Frank, however ill I was now,” and he lowered his voice to a whisper and glanced about him as if fearing to be overheard, “however ill I was I would not think of sending for the doctor. Not think of it,” he said in an awestruck voice. “I have learned prison ways.”

“I should rebel,” I cried; “why do you let it break the spirit?”

“You would soon be broken, if you rebelled, here. Besides it is all incidental to the
System
. The
System
! No one outside knows what that means. It is an old story, I’m afraid, the story of man’s cruelty to man.”

“I think I can promise you,” I said, “that the
System
will be altered a little. You shall have books and things to write with, and you shall not be harassed every moment by punishment.”

“Take care,” he cried in a spasm of dread, putting his hand on mine, “take care, they may punish me much worse. You don’t know
what they can do.” I grew hot with indignation.

“Don’t say anything, please, of what I have said to you. Promise me, you won’t say anything. Promise me. I never complained, I didn’t.” His excitement was a revelation.

“All right,” I replied, to soothe him.

“No, but promise me, seriously,” he repeated. “You must promise me. Think, you have my confidence, it is private what I have said.” He was evidently frightened out of self-control.

“All right,” I said, “I will not tell; but I’ll get the facts from the others and not from you.”

“Oh, Frank,” he said, “you don’t know what they do. There is a punishment here more terrible than the rack.” And he whispered to me with white sidelong eyes: “They can drive you mad in a week, Frank.”

“Mad!” I exclaimed, thinking I must have misunderstood him; though he was white and trembling.

“What about the warders?” I asked again, to change the subject, for I began to feel that I had supped full on horrors.

“Some of them are kind,” he sighed. “The one that brought me in here is so kind to me. I should like to do something for him, when I get out. He’s quite human. He does not mind talking to me and explaining things; but some of them at Wandsworth were brutes.... I will not think of them again. I have sewn those pages up and you must never ask me to open them again: I dare not open them,” he cried pitifully.

“But you ought to tell it all,” I said, “that’s perhaps the purpose you are here for: the ultimate reason.”

“Oh, no, Frank, never. It would need a man of infinite strength to come here and give a truthful record of all that happened to him. I don’t believe you could do it; I don’t believe anybody would be strong enough. Starvation and purging alone would break down anyone’s strength. Everybody knows that you are purged and starved to the edge of death. That’s what two years’ hard labour means. It’s not the labour that’s hard. It’s the conditions of life that make it impossibly hard: they break you down body and soul. And if you resist, they drive you crazy.... But, please! don’t
say I said anything; you’ve promised, you know you have: you’ll remember: won’t you!”

I felt guilty: his insistence, his gasping fear showed me how terribly he must have suffered. He was beside himself with dread. I ought to have visited him sooner. I changed the subject.

“You shall have writing materials and your books, Oscar. Force yourself to write. You are looking better than you used to look; your eyes are brighter, your face clearer.” The old smile came back into his eyes, the deathless humour.

“I’ve had a rest cure, Frank,” he said, and smiled feebly.

“You should give record of this life as far as you can, and of all its influences on you. You have conquered, you know. Write the names of the inhuman brutes on their foreheads in vitriol, as Dante did for all time.”

“No, no, I cannot: I will not: I want to live and forget. I could not, I dare not, I have not Dante’s strength, nor his bitterness; I am a Greek born out of due time.” He had said the true word at last.

“I will come again and see you,” I replied. “Is there nothing else I can do? I hear your wife has seen you. I hope you have made it up with her?”

“She tried to be kind to me, Frank,” he said in a dull voice, “she was kind, I suppose. She
must have suffered; I’m sorry....” One felt he had no sorrow to spare for others.

“Is there nothing I can do?” I asked.

“Nothing, Frank, only if you could get me books and writing materials, if I could be allowed to use them really! But you won’t say anything I have said to you, you promise me you won’t?”

“I promise,” I replied, “and I shall come back in a short time to see you again. I think you will be better then....

“Don’t dread the coming out; you have friends who will work for you, great allies— “ and I told him about Lady Dorothy Nevill at Mrs. Jeune’s lunch.

“Isn’t she a dear old lady?” he cried, “charming, brilliant, human creature! She might have stepped out of a page of Thackeray, only Thackeray never wrote a page quite dainty and charming enough. He came near it in his ‘Esmond.’ Oh, I remember you don’t like the book, but it is beautifully written, Frank, in beautiful simple rhythmic English. It sings itself to the ear. Lady Dorothy” (how he loved the title!) “was always kind to me, but London is horrible. I could not live in London again. I must go away out of England. Do you remember talking to me, Frank, of France?” and he put both his hands on my shoulders, while tears ran
down his face, and sighs broke from him. “Beautiful France, the one country in the world where they care for humane ideals and the humane life. Ah! if only I had gone with you to France,” and the tears poured down his cheeks and our hands met convulsively.

“I’m glad to see you looking so well,” I began again. “Books you shall have; for God’s sake keep your heart up, and I will come back and see you, and don’t forget you have good friends outside; lots of us!”

“Thank you, Frank; but take care, won’t you, and remember your promise not to tell.”

I nodded in assent and went to the door. The warder came in.

“The interview is over,” I said; “will you take me downstairs?”

“If you will not mind sitting here, sir,” he said, “for a minute. I must take him back first.”

“I have been telling my friend,” said Oscar to the warder, “how good you have been to me,” and he turned and went, leaving with me the memory of his eyes and unforgettable smile; but I noticed as he disappeared that he was thin, and looked hunched up and bowed, in the ugly ill-fitting prison livery. I took out a bank note and put it under the blotting paper that had been placed on the table for me. In two or three minutes the warder came back, and as I
left the room I thanked him for being kind to my friend, and told him how kindly Oscar had spoken of him.

“He has no business here, sir,” the warder said. “He’s no more like one of our reg’lars than a canary is like one of them cocky little spadgers. Prison ain’t meant for such as him, and he ain’t meant for prison. He’s that soft, sir, you see, and affeckshunate. He’s more like a woman, he is; you hurt ‘em without meaning to. I don’t care what they say, I likes him; and he do talk beautiful, sir, don’t he?”

“Indeed he does,” I said, “the best talker in the world. I want you to look in the pad on the table. I have left a note there for you.”

“Not for me, sir, I could not take it; no, sir, please not,” he cried in a hurried, fear-struck voice. “You’ve forgotten something, sir, come back and get it, sir, do, please. I daren’t.”

In spite of my remonstrance he took me back and I had to put the note in my pocket.

“I could not, you know, sir, I was not kind to him for that.” His manner changed; he seemed hurt.