La Correspondencia de Puerto Rico - Monday, June 24, 1895
This report was originally published in Spanish. Machine translations may be available in other languages.
PARIS
Es una semana deliciosa para el arte. León A. Daudet ha publicado un nuevo libro, los Kamtchatka, admirable; y Paul Verlaine, el ídolo del Barrio Latino, que, segun ha dicho un critico, pasea el dureo arco de sus bellos versos por el alma del lector, ha publicado otro tomo de exquisita lectura.
Y entre los regocijos del triunfo, cada uno de estos literatos ha tenido una lágrima para llorar el infortunio de Oscar Wilde, porque la_monstruosidad de la pena hace olvidar el pecado delincuente.
Sus dos años de trabajos forzados llevan anexa la espantosa pena del Hard Labour.
He aquí en qué consiste:
"En medio de la prisión, cuyos altos muros aseméjanla una forialeza, hállase colocada una rueda gigantesca, parecida á la rueda de un vapor. Los radios de este inmenso cilindro tienen cuatro metros de longitud, y la circunferencia está dividida en paletas, cuya extremidad superior llega á las estrechas celdas dispuestas como los resbaladizos peldaños de una escalera. Esta máquina horrible funciona dia y noche. No se mueve por el vapor. ¡ La mueven Beres humanos! Suspendidos por las manor á anillos que se balancean sobre sus cabezas, los reos agítanse en el vacío pedaleando sobre las pesadas paletas. La rueda voitea, voltea .... y al crugir sordo de la hélice mézclanse los sollozos y los ayes doloridos de los que trabajan en esta labor obscura.... Si el paciente se detiene por el cansancio, recibe inmediatamente terrible latigazo, asestado por un capataz, que destroza la carne. Es preciso que el reo cumpla con las tres horas de trabajo reglamentario, porque la ley dispone que el sentenciado á tal pena ha de perder carnes, enflaquecer, marchitarse...."
Y á esta pena ha sido condenado el refinado y sibarita Oscar Wilde. Una tarea bastó para dar al traste con sus fuerzas. Fué el primer dia, como si dijéramos, el debut. Ensangrentado, arrastrándose como una alimaña por la prisión de Pantonville, el infeliz poeta, que experimenta sintomas de locura, fué conducido á la enfermería, y allí esté esperando la muerte.... Hase apoderado de él un temblor de azogado y ha perdido absolutamente el sueño. No creo que haya ocasién de aplicarle otro gaje de su pena, el cual consiste en desmenuzar con las uñas unos cables embreados.
"Las uñas saltan, — dice un espectador de aquel tormento, — la sangre corre, los músculos se contraen; y hay que seguir, seguir, hasta que el cable se convierta en estopa."
El marqués de Queensberry, jurado enemigo de Oscar Wilde, puede estar satisfecho, puesto que ha podido vengar las vergüenzas de su hijo lord Douglas. Pero como la familia del marqués es una colección de desequílibrados, resulta que otro hijo suyo, residente en San Francisco de California, ha dado allí un escándalo atroz por querer casarse con una criada de un café cantante. No habiende podido realizar sudeseo, sacó del café á la criada, en unión de la cual esté en viage para Londres, en donde será recibido á estacazo limpio por su papa, el marqués que tuvo recientemente una agarrada con otro hijo suyo, el cual lo trompeó, como dicen en la república argentina.
LUIS BONAFOUX
PARIS
It's a delightful week for art. León A. Daudet has published a new book, the Kamtchatka, admirable; and Paul Verlaine, the idol of the Latin Quarter, who, according to one critic, walks the hard arch of his beautiful verses through the soul of the reader, has published another volume of exquisite reading.
And among the rejoicings of triumph, each of these writers has had a tear to cry over the misfortune of Oscar Wilde, because the monstrosity of punishment makes us forget the delinquent sin.
His two years of forced labor are attached to the awful penalty of Hard Labour.
Here's what it consists of:
"In the middle of the prison, whose high walls resemble a fortress, there is placed a gigantic wheel, similar to the wheel of a steamship. The spokes of this immense cylinder are four meters long, and the circumference is divided into paddles, whose extremity The uppermost reaches the narrow cells arranged like the slippery rungs of a ladder. This hideous machine works day and night. It is not moved by steam. It is moved by human Beres! Suspended by the hands or rings that swing above their heads, the prisoners shake in the void pedaling on the heavy paddles.The wheel voites, turns....and the dull creak of the propeller mixes the sobs and the painful woes of those who work in this dark work.... If the patient becomes arrested due to fatigue, he immediately receives a terrible whipping, dealt by a foreman, which destroys the flesh.It is necessary that the prisoner complies with the three hours of statutory work, because the law provides that the sentence bound to such pain, he must lose flesh, become emaciated, wither..."
And to this penalty the refined and sybaritic Oscar Wilde has been sentenced. One task was enough to ruin his forces. It was the first day, as it were, the debut. Bloodied, crawling like vermin through the Pantonville prison, the unhappy poet, experiencing symptoms of madness, was taken to the infirmary, and there awaits death.... A quicksilver tremor has seized him and he has absolutely lost his mind. the dream. I don't think there will be an occasion to apply another part of his sentence, which consists of shredding some tarred cables with his fingernails.
"Nails jump, — says a spectator of that torment, — the blood runs, the muscles contract; and you have to keep going, keep going, until the cable turns into tow."
The Marquess of Queensberry, sworn enemy of Oscar Wilde, can be satisfied, since he has been able to avenge the shame of his son Lord Douglas. But since the Marquis's family is a collection of unbalanced people, it turns out that another of his sons, a resident of San Francisco, California, has caused an atrocious scandal there for wanting to marry a maid from a singing café. Not having been able to carry out his wish, he took the maid out of the cafe, with whom he is on his way to London, where he will be received with a clean slap by his father, the Marquis, who recently had an affair with another of his sons, who spun, as they say in the Argentine Republic.
LOUIS BONAFOUX