Good kisses to the poor darlings.
* * * * *
_7 o’clock in the evening._
My God, how sorrowful is my soul! What in all my life have I done that I
should be thus punished? The wretch who has committed the crime of
betraying me, the wretch through whom I am lost, deserves, if there is a
God, a terrible chastisement. He deserves to be punished through all he
loves. In the name of my poor children I curse him.
_Monday, 5 P. M., 7 January, 1895._
My Darling:
I have borne for your sake, my adored one, for the name which my dear
children bear, the most agonizing, the most appalling, of calvaries for
a heart that is pure and honorable. I ask myself how I am yet alive.
That which sustained me is, above all else, the hope that I shall soon
be united to you down there. Then, though innocent as I am, but
sustained as I shall be by your profound love, I shall have the patience
to await in exile the vindication of my name. There, too, I shall work,
I shall be busy. I shall impose silence upon my heart and my brain by
force of physical fatigue. But in my prison it would be difficult to
live, for my thought always brings me fatally back to my condition.
They have not given me any letter from you to-day; do not be anxious, my
darling, if my letters do not reach you regularly. I will write to you
every day as long as I am permitted to.
I have been told that I can see you Monday and Friday. Alas! Monday has
passed, and I am obliged to wait until Friday. I wait with extreme joy
for the moment when I can kiss you; when I can throw myself into your
arms. It is in your eyes, in your noble heart, that I find the strength
needful to enable me to bear my fearful tortures of soul. I should
almost like it better had I some sin upon my conscience; then I should,
at least, have something to expiate. But alas! you know, my darling, how
honest, how upright, my life has always been.
I will do all I can to live. I will do all I can to resist until the
supreme moment when they give back to me the honor of my name.
But I shall bear the waiting better when you are there, in exile, with
me. So, together, proud and worthy of one another, we will, in exile,
give proof of the calm of two pure, honest hearts; of two hearts whose
thoughts have always all been given to our dear country--France.
Good kisses to our poor darlings. Kisses to all our friends.