Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 | Page 6

"If you don't drink," he cried, "I'll pour it over you."
For some time, she said, she scarcely realized where she was or what
had occurred, though she heard him talking. But gradually

consciousness came back to her, and though she would not open her
eyes she understood what he was saying. He talked frantically:
"Do be reasonable, and all will be right.... I am in your power ... spare
me, oh, spare me ... strike me if you like. I wish to God I could hate
you, but I can't. I swore I would never touch your hand again. Attend to
me and do what I tell you. Have faith and confidence in me and you
may remedy the past and go to Australia. Think of the talk this may
give rise to. Keep up appearances for your own sake...."
He then took her up-stairs to a bedroom and made her drink some wine
and lie down for some time. She afterwards left the house; she hardly
knew how; he accompanied her to the door, she thought; but could not
be certain; she was half dazed.
The judge here interposed with the crucial question:
"Did you know that you had been violated?"
The audience waited breathlessly; after a short pause Miss Travers
replied:
"Yes."
Then it was true, the worst was true. The audience, excited to the
highest pitch, caught breath with malevolent delight. But the thrills
were not exhausted. Miss Travers next told how in Dr. Wilde's study
one evening she had been vexed at some slight, and at once took four
pennyworth of laudanum which she had bought. Dr. Wilde hurried her
round to the house of Dr. Walsh, a physician in the neighbourhood,
who gave her an antidote. Dr. Wilde was dreadfully frightened lest
something should get out....
She admitted at once that she had sometimes asked Dr. Wilde for
money: she thought nothing of it as she had again and again repaid him
the monies which he had lent her.
Miss Travers' examination in chief had been intensely interesting. The

fashionable ladies had heard all they had hoped to hear, and it was
noticed that they were not so eager to get seats in the court from this
time on, though the room was still crowded.
The cross-examination of Miss Travers was at least as interesting to the
student of human nature as the examination in chief had been, for in her
story of what took place on that 14th of October, weaknesses and
discrepancies of memory were discovered and at length improbabilities
and contradictions in the narrative itself.
First of all it was elicited that she could not be certain of the day; it
might have been the 15th or the 16th: it was Friday the 14th, she
thought.... It was a great event to her; the most awful event in her whole
life; yet she could not remember the day for certain.
"Did you tell anyone of what had taken place?"
"No."
"Not even your father?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I did not wish to give him pain."
"But you went back to Dr. Wilde's study after the awful assault?"
"Yes."
"You went again and again, did you not?"
"Yes."
"Did he ever attempt to repeat the offence?"
"Yes."

The audience was thunderstruck; the plot was deepening. Miss Travers
went on to say that the Doctor was rude to her again; she did not know
his intention; he took hold of her and tried to fondle her; but she would
not have it.
"After the second offence you went back?"
"Yes."
"Did he ever repeat it again?"
"Yes."
Miss Travers said that once again Dr. Wilde had been rude to her.
"Yet you returned again?"
"Yes."
"And you took money from this man who had violated you against your
will?"
"Yes."
"You asked him for money?"
"Yes."
"This is the first time you have told about this second and third assault,
is it not?"
"Yes," the witness admitted.
So far all that Miss Travers had said hung together and seemed
eminently credible; but when she was questioned about the chloroform
and the handkerchief she became confused. At the outset she admitted
that the handkerchief might have been a rag. She was not certain it was
a rag. It was something she saw the doctor throw into the fire when she
came to her senses.

"Had he kept it in his hands, then, all the time you were unconscious?"
"I don't know."
"Just to show it to you?"
The witness was silent.
When she was examined as to her knowledge of chloroform, she broke
down hopelessly. She did not know the smell of it; could not describe it;
did not know whether it burnt or not; could not in fact swear that it was
chloroform Dr. Wilde had used;