Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 | Page 6

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."[2]
"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?"