* * * * *
_Wednesday, 4 o’clock, 26 December, 1894._
My Darling:
You ask me what I do all day long.
I think of you; I think of you all. If this consoling thought did not
sustain me, if I could not feel through the thick walls of my prison the
strengthening breath of your sympathy, I believe that I should lose my
hold on reason and that despair would enter my soul. It is your love, it
is the affection of you all, that gives me the courage to live on.
Me. Demange has just been here. He stayed some minutes with me. His
faith in me is absolute; that also gives me courage.
It is not physical suffering that affrights me--I am able to bear
that--but this continual torture of soul, this contempt that is to
pursue me everywhere. I, so proud, so sure of my honor, it is that that
I find so terrible; that that I shrink from.
Well, my darling, I will not torture your heart any longer; your grief
is already great enough.