I went to Reading Gaol and sent in my letter.  I was met by the Governor, who gave orders that Oscar Wilde should be conducted to a room where we could talk alone.  I cannot give an account of my interviews with the Governor or the doctor; it would smack of a breach of confidence; besides all such conversations are peculiarly personal:  some people call forth the best in us, others the worst.  Without wishing to, I may have stirred up the lees.  I can only say here that I then learned for the first time the full, incredible meaning of “Man’s inhumanity to man.”

In a quarter of an hour I was led into a 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.  Only Dante never imagined any hell like an English prison; in his lowest circle people could move about; could see each other, and hear each other groan:  there was some change, some human companionship in misery....”