bare room where Oscar Wilde was
already standing by a plain deal table. The warder who had come with
him then left us. We shook hands and sat down opposite to each other. He
had changed greatly. He appeared much older; his dark brown hair was
streaked with grey, particularly in front and over the ears. He was much
thinner, had lost at least thirty-five pounds, probably forty or more.
On the whole, however, he looked better physically than he had looked
for years before his imprisonment: his eyes were clear and bright; the
outlines of the face were no longer swamped in fat; the voice even was
ringing and musical; he had improved bodily, I thought; though in repose
his face wore a nervous, depressed and harassed air.

"You know how glad I am to see you, heart-glad to find you looking so
well," I began, "but tell me quickly, for I may be able to help you,
what have you to complain of; what do you want?"

For a long time he was too hopeless, too frightened to talk. "The list
of my grievances," he said, "would be without end. The worst of it is I
am perpetually being punished for nothing; this governor loves to
punish, and he punishes by taking my books from me. It is perfectly
awful to let the mind grind itself away between the upper and nether
millstones of regret and remorse without respite; with books my life
would be livable--any life," he added sadly.

"The life, then, is hard. Tell me about it."

"I don't like to," he said, "it is all so dreadful--and ugly and
painful, I would rather not think of it," and he turned away
despairingly.

"You must tell me, or I shall not be able to help you." Bit by bit I won
the confession from him.

"At first it was a fiendish nightmare; more horrible than anything I had
ever dreamt of; from the first evening when they made me undress before
them and get into some filthy water they called a bath and dry myself
with a damp, brown rag and put on this livery of shame. The cell was
appalling: I could hardly breathe in it, and the food turned my stomach;
the smell and sight of it were enough: I did not eat anything for days
and days, I could not even swallow the bread; and the rest of the food
was uneatable; I lay on the so-called bed and shivered all night
long.... Don't ask me to speak of it, please. Words cannot convey the
cumulative effect of a myriad discomforts, brutal handling and slow
starvation. Surely like Dante I have written on my face the fact that I
have been in hell.