GERALD (smiling). Silly old ass! But there are lots of things one can do in prison, only no one ever seems to think of them. (He gets interested and begins to walk up and down the room.) Now take this solitary confinement there's so much fuss about. If you look at it the right way, there's nothing in it at all.
WENTWORTH. A bit boring, perhaps.
GERALD. Boring? Nonsense. You're allowed one book a week from the prison library, aren't you?
WENTWORTH. You know, you mustn't think that, because I'm a barrister, I know all about the inside of a prison.
GERALD. Well, suppose you are allowed one, and you choose a French dictionary, and try to learn it off by heart before you come out. Why, it's the chance of a lifetime to learn French.
WENTWORTH. Well, of course, if you could get a French dictionary—
GERALD. Well, there'd be some book there anyway. If it's a Bible, read it. When you've read it, count the letters in it; have little bets with yourself as to which man's name is mentioned most times in it; put your money on Moses and see if you win. Anything like that. If it's a hymn-book, count how many of the rhymes rhyme and how many don't; try and make them all rhyme. Learn 'em by heart; I don't say that that would be particularly useful to you in the business world afterwards, but it would be amusing to see how quickly you could do it, how many you could keep in your head at the same time.
WENTWORTH. This is too intellectual for me; my brain would go in no time.
GERALD. You aren't doing it all day, of course; there are other things. Physical training. Swedish exercises. Tell yourself that you'll be able to push up fifty times from the ground before you come out. Learn to walk on your hands. Practise cart-wheels, if you like. Gad! you could come out a Hercules.
WENTWORTH. I can't help feeling that the strain of improving myself so enormously would tell on me.