How impatiently I wait for Friday! What a pity that you came to-day at
the hour of the director’s luncheon; had you come at some other time
perhaps they might have permitted you to embrace me.
_Tuesday, 7 o’clock in the evening._
They have just given me a whole package of letters--from Jeanmaire, from
your father, from Louise, and from you. Thank them all for writing to
me. The letters have made me weep, but they have eased my wounded soul.
Answer every one for me.
* * * * *
_9 January, 1895, Wednesday, 5 o’clock._
My good Darling:
I, also, receive my letters only after a long delay. They have only now
given me your letter of Tuesday morning. With it were numerous letters
from all the family. What can we do, my darling? We must bow our heads,
we must suffer without complaining. Truly, even now, when I think it
over, I wonder how I could have had the courage to promise you to live
on after my condemnation. That day, that Saturday, is burned into my
mind in letters of fire. I have the courage of the soldier who goes
forward gladly to meet death face to face: but alas! shall I have the
soul of the martyr?
But be tranquil, my darling. I shall force myself to live and to resist
until the day of my vindication. I have borne without flinching the
anguish of the most wounding affront that can be imposed upon a man of
heart who is innocent, whose conscience is pure. My heart has bled; it
bleeds still. I live only by the hope that they will give me back my
place in the army, the place I won by gallant and meritorious
conduct--the _galons_ that no act of mine had ever sullied!
And moreover, whatever sufferings may still await me, my heart commands
me to live. I must resist; I must resist for the name that is borne by
my dear children, for the name of all the family.
But duty is sometimes hard to follow. You speak of my life in this
prison--what good can it do to increase your sadness, my darling? Your
grief is great enough without my augmenting it by my complaining.
I live by hope, my good darling. I live, because I believe that it is
impossible that the truth shall not some day be made clear, because it
cannot be that my innocence shall not be some day recognised and
proclaimed by this dear France--my country, to whom I have always
brought my intelligence and my strength--to whom I would have
consecrated all the blood that is in my veins.
I must have patience; I must draw it from the deep well of your love,
from the affection of all those who love us, and from the conviction
that I shall ultimately be rehabilitated.
A thousand kisses to the darlings.