Your devoted
ALFRED.
Kisses to all.
* * * * *
_20 November, 1895._
My dear Lucie:
On the 11th I received your dear, good letters of September, as well as
letters from all the family. I need not tell you the intense joy I felt
in reading words from you.
I thank you for remembering my birthday. I will not speak of it further,
for we must not linger over sad memories. What we need now, as you have
said so truly, is reality, the truth. After one has suffered in a manner
so atrocious and for so long a time, one’s energies, one’s activity,
above all, ought to grow in proportion to the sufferings which one
endures. Strong in your conscience, it is your right, I will even say it
is your duty, to attempt all, to dare all, in order to throw light upon
this tragic story, to regain at last our honor, the honor of our
children.
As I have told you, in this situation, as horrible as it is undeserved,
which would soon crush us, there no longer can be any thought of waiting
for some happy chance, such as we have already waited for too long.
You have now received my letters of October. You ought to act with the
force given by my innocence, with the power inspired by the knowledge
that you have a noble mission to fulfill.
If I have told you to ask to have this matter cleared up by every, if
even by heroic means, it is because there are situations which, when
they are undeserved, are too much to be endured, which we must put an
end to. You know that your soul and mine are but one; they throb
together; and what I have told you must certainly have made yours
tremble and throb.
So I am now waiting for the end of this awful drama, and I count the
days.
Thanks for the good news that you give me of the children. Kiss them
fondly for me until I can embrace them for myself.
My tenderest kisses for you.
From your devoted
ALFRED.
Embrace your dear parents, all our family, for me.
I do not know by what route you sent the books and the reviews that you
spoke of in your letters of the 25th of August, but they certainly have
not yet arrived at Guiana.
* * * * *
_27 December, 1895._
My dear Lucie:
I have not yet received your dear letters of October. Neither the French
mail of November nor the English mail of December has brought them. What
does it mean? What ought I to think of it? In what horrible nightmare
have I lived for almost fifteen months?
As for suffering, alas! my poor darling, we both know what that is; and
besides that, sufferings are of little importance, no matter what they
are. What you must have is our honor, the honor of our children.
I wrote you a long letter on the 2d of December. To add anything to that
letter, or, indeed, to any that preceded it, would be superfluous, would
it not? Our thoughts are the same; our hearts have always beaten as one;
our souls thrill together to-day, and they cry out for their honor with
the burning ardor of honorable hearts struck in all that they hold most
precious.
I wait with feverish impatience for news of you. I feel sure that it
will soon arrive. I will even say that nearly every day I expect good
news. I hope at last to hear something certain, positive, that the light
has broken, or, at least, is soon to break, upon this bitterly sad
story.
Let me tell you to-day simply that the thought of you, of our dear
children, alone gives me the force to live through these long days,
these interminable nights.
I embrace you with all my strength, as I love you, and our dear, adored
children.
Your devoted
ALFRED.
Kisses to your dear parents, to all our family.
Again for long months I have received neither books nor reviews. Those
that you told me of in your letter of August have not yet arrived. I
cannot understand it.
I thought that you would have continued to send me regularly each month
the reviews and a few packages of books, by mail. I am all day long, and
I may add, nearly all night long, without a minute of forgetfulness,
looking at the four walls of my cabin--well, it is of little importance,
but it would be well to inquire what has become of these books.
* * * * *
_31 December, 1895._
My dear Lucie:
I wrote to you some days ago to tell you that I had not yet received
your letters of October. At last, after a long and terrible time of
waiting, I have just received your letters of October, and at the same
time those of November.
How must I sometimes cause you pain by my letters, my poor darling, and
you suffer so much without that! But at times it is stronger than I am,
so eager am I to see the end of this horrible drama, for I would
willingly give my blood, drop by drop, to learn at last that my
innocence is recognized, that the guilty ones, doubly criminal as they
are, are unmasked.
But when I suffer too much, when I faint before this life of deluding
memories, of restraint of all my intellectual and physical forces, I
murmur to myself the three names that are my talisman, that make me live
on--yours, those of our dear little Pierre, and Jeanne.
Let us hope that we shall soon see the end of this awful drama. I cannot
write much to you, for what can I tell you that is not already common to
us? I live in the thought of you, and my soul is with you from morning
till night, and from night till morning. All my faculties are straining
toward the end that must be attained, that you will attain--all my honor
as a soldier, all the honor of our children.
Perhaps I give you extravagant advice at times, the issue of the dreams
of a lonely exile who is suffering martyrdom, a martyrdom whose tortures
are made up not only of his own anguish, but of yours, of the anguish
you all suffer ... and nevertheless I know perfectly well that you can
judge far better than I can of the means to attain my complete, my
absolute, rehabilitation. I am going to pass a good part of the night,
of the long, long days in reading and re-reading your dear letters, in
living with you, in sustaining you in my thoughts with all my strength,
with all my ardor, with all the force of my will.
My health is good; do not be anxious on that score. Moreover, to
reassure you, I have asked permission to send you a dispatch. I trust
that it will reach you. I hope that your health, that the health of you
all, is also good. You must sustain yourself physically to have the
force necessary to arrive at the goal.
Let us hope that soon, near to one another and with our dear children at
our side, we may forget the events of this horrible tragedy. You must
all tell yourselves, too, that if at times I cry out in anguish, it is
because I am always as silent as the dead. I have only the paper, and
these cries of grief, these cries of suffering--call them what you
will--my heart is always valiant, even if it cannot always be silent. So
I am waiting just as you asked me to, and I will wait until that day
when the light shall at last shine out.
Long and tender kisses to our dear children. I often gaze at their
portraits and I try to see them as they are to-day.
Ah, dear Lucie, remember that in my moments of distress I have these
three names, that are my support, my safeguard, that raise me when I
fall, for our children must enter upon life with heads erect.