Embrace your dear parents, all the family for me; my health is good.
I received from you at the beginning of the month a dozen packages of
provisions and some cardigans. I thank you for your touching care for
me. I have not yet received any of the reviews and the books you
announced in your letters of September, December, and January; not one
of them has yet arrived at Cayenne. Please send the things so that they
may come by parcels post. Either address them to me directly, care of
the Director of the Penitentiary Service at Cayenne, or else have them
addressed to me from the Ministry, at your own expense.
* * * * *
_26 March, 1896, evening._
Dear Lucie:
Before sending you the letter that I had written, I re-read, perhaps for
the hundredth time, your dear letters, for you can imagine what my long
days and nights are like, when, my arms crossed, I am alone with my
thoughts, without anything to read, sustaining myself only by the force
of duty, so that I may uphold you so that I may see, at last, the day
when our honor is given back to us. You ask me to await calmly the day
when you can announce to me the discovery of the truth.
Ask me to wait as long as I have the strength; but with calmness? Oh,
no! When they have torn, all-living, the heart from my breast, when I
feel myself struck in my most precious possession, in you and my
children, when my heart groans with agony night and day, without one
hour of rest, when for eighteen months I have lived in a frightful
nightmare!
But, then, that which I desire with a ferocious determination, that
which has made me bear everything, that which has made me live, is not
that you should protest my innocence by your words, but that you should
march, that you all should march, straight forward, no matter by what
means, to the conquest of the truth, to the laying bare in the full
light of day this dark story ... in a word, to the recovery of our whole
honor.
These are the words I spoke to you before my departure--already more
than a year ago ... and, alas! it is not that I would reproach you; but
it seems to me that you are very long on this supreme mission, for it is
not living to live without honor.
And in my long nights of torture, suffering this martyrdom, how often
have I told myself, “Ah, how I should have solved the enigma of this
horrible drama--by any means, no matter what, even had I been forced to
put the knife to the throats of the wretched accomplices, however well
hidden they might have been, of the vile criminal!” And more often still
have I cried to myself, “Will there be no one, then, with enough heart
and soul or clever enough to tear the truth from them, and to bring to
an end this fearful martyrdom of a man and of two families?” Ah, I know
that these are only the dreams of one who suffers horribly! But what
would you? All that is too horrible, too atrocious! It leads astray my
reason, my faith in loyalty and rectitude, for there is a moral law that
is above all things, above passion and hatred; it is the law that
demands the truth always and in all things. And then when my thoughts
turn back upon my past, upon my whole life, and then to see myself where
I am now! Oh, then it is horrible! black night closes in upon my soul,
and I long to shut my eyes, to think no more. It is in my thought of
you, of our dear children, in my wish to see the end of this horrible
drama that I find again the energy to live, to hold myself erect. These
are my thoughts, these are my dreams, my dear and good Lucie, and it is
in answer to your question that I have thus laid bare my soul. Know,
then, that I suffer with you, that I live in your life, that our mental
and moral tortures are the same, that they can have but one end--full
light upon this sinister affair. Let us press on, then, toward this
supreme end, active in every day, in every hour, with ferocious and
unconquerable will, the conviction that overturns all obstacles. It is
our honor that has been torn from us, and we must regain it. And now I
am going to bed to try to rest my brain a little, or rather to try to
dream of you and of our dear children. The 5th of April Pierre will be
five years old. Be sure that on that day all my heart, all my thoughts,
my tears, alas! also will have been of him, of you. And I close in
wishing that you may soon announce to me the end of this infernal
torture, and by embracing you with all my strength, as I love you.
Your devoted
ALFRED.
* * * * *
_5 April, 1896._
My dear Lucie:
I have just received your dear letters of February, also those of the
family. In your turn, my dear wife, you have been subjected to the
atrocious anguish of waiting for tidings!... I have known this anguish;
I have known many others; I have seen things that are deceiving to the
human consciousness.... Well, I say again, what matters it? Your
children are there, they live. We have given them life, we must restore
their honor to them. It is necessary to go straight forward to the end,
our eyes fixed upon one single object--to go forward with an
unconquerable will, with the courage given by the knowledge of an
absolute necessity. I told you in one of my letters that each day brings
with it its anguish. It is true. When the evening comes, after a
struggle of every instant against the turmoil of my brain, against the
overthrow of my reason, against the revolts of my heart, then I have a
cerebral and nervous depression, and I long to close my eyes to see no
more, to think no more, to suffer no more. Then I have to make a violent
effort of the will to drive away the ideas that drag me down, to bring
back the thought of you, the thought of our adored children, and to say
to myself again, “However horrible your martyrdom may be, you must be
able to die in peace, knowing that you leave to your children a proud
and honored name.” If I recall this to you, it is simply to tell you
again what effort of my will I put forth in a single day because it
concerns the honor of our name, the name of our children; that this same
determination should animate you all. I want to tell you also what I
suffer from your torture, from that of you all, what I suffer for our
children, and that then at all hours of the day and night I cry to you
and to all of you, in the agony of my grief, “March on to the conquest
of the truth, boldly, like honest and valiant people, to whom honor is
everything.”
Ah, the means! Little do I care for means. They must be found, when one
knows what one wants, and when it is one’s right and one’s duty to want
it.
This voice you should hear at every moment, across all space; it should
animate your souls.
I repeat myself ever, dear Lucie; it is because but one thought, one
will gives me strength to endure everything.
I am neither patient nor resigned, be sure of that. I long for the
light, the truth, our honor throughout all France, with all the fibres
of my being; and this supreme desire ought to inspire in you--in you, as
in all the others--all courage, all daring, so that at last we may
escape from a situation as infamous as it is undeserved.
You have no mercy and no favor to ask of any one. You wish the light,
and that you must obtain.
The more the physical strength decreases--for the nerves end by becoming
absolutely shattered by so many appalling shocks--the more the energies
should increase.
Never, never, never--and this is the cry from the depths of my soul--can
a man resign himself to dishonor when he has not deserved it.
To-day our dear little Pierre is five years old. All my heart, all my
thoughts go out to him, to you, to our dear children. All my being
quivers with sorrow.
What can I add, my dear Lucie? My affection for you, for our children,
you know it. It has kept me alive; it has made me endure what otherwise
I should never have accepted; it gives me the force still to endure all.
You say that we are approaching the end of our sufferings. I wish it
with all my strength; for never have human beings suffered like this. I
wrote you a long letter, ten days ago, by the French mail.
I embrace you, as I love you, with all my strength, and also our
children.
Your devoted
ALFRED.
I received some days ago the reviews and books that you sent in
November. Their tardy arrival may be traced to the fact that they were
sent by freight--that is to say, by sailing vessels. I find a little
solace in them. But my brain is so shaken, so fatigued, by all these
appalling shocks that I cannot fix my mind upon anything. The other
parcels you have sent will reach me some day.
Embrace your dear parents, and all of our family for me. I wrote to them
by the French mail.
* * * * *
_26 April, 1896._
My dear Lucie:
In the long and atrocious days of which all these months are made, I
have read and re-read your dear letters of February. My heart has bled
with the anguish to which you have been subjected during these long
months, and of which each word in your letters bears the trace. I could
feel how you restrained the shivers of your being, how you held back the
overflowing volume of your grief, and in an effort of your loving and
devoted heart you found the strength to cry again to me, “Oh, I am
strong!”
Yes, be strong, for strength is needed.
One of these nights I dreamed of you, of our children, of our torture,
compared with which death would be sweet, and in my agony I cried out in
my sleep.
My suffering is at times so strong that I would tear my skin from my
flesh, to forget in physical pain this too violent torture of soul. I
arise in the morning with the dread of the long hours of the day, alone,
for so long, with the horrors of my brain; I lie down at night with the
fear of the sleepless hours. You ask me to speak to you at length of
myself, of my health. You must realize that after the tortures to which
I have been subjected, supporting the atrocious life of the present, a
life that never leaves me a moment of rest, day or night, my health
cannot be brilliant. My body is broken, my nerves are sick, my brain is
crushed, say, simply, that I still hold myself erect in the absolute
sense of the word only because I resolved to, so as to see with you and
our children the day when honor shall be returned to us.
You ask yourself sometimes, in your hours of calmness, why we have been
thus tried.... I ask it of myself at every instant, and I find no
answer.
We deceived each other mutually, dear Lucie, by alternately recommending
each other to be calm and to be patient. Our love tries in vain to hide
from each other the thoughts that agitate our hearts.
My anguish when I write to you, the heart quivering with pain and fever,
tells me too clearly what you feel when you write to me.
No, let us tell each other simply that if we still live with torn and
panting hearts, with our souls shivering with anguish, it is because
there is a supreme object to be attained, cost what it may--the full
honor of our name, that of our children--and that right speedily, for
sensitive people cannot live in a situation whose every moment is a
torture.
Very often I have wished to speak to you at length of our children--I
cannot. A dull, bitter anger floods my heart at the thought of these
dear little creatures, struck through their father, who is innocent of a
crime so abominable.... My throat contracts, my sobs choke me, my hands
are wrung with grief at not being able to do anything for them, for you
... to struggle to keep from dying in such a situation, and for so long.
So I can only repeat to you, dear Lucie, “Courage, and determination,
and action, also, for human strength has a limit.”
I wrote you long letters by the last mail; I wrote also to your dear
parents, to my brothers and sisters. I hope that these letters will
still more embolden your courage, the courage of every one of you, that
they will animate your souls with the fire that consumes my own
soul--the fire that gives me the strength to still stand erect.
You tell me that you have good reasons for believing that this atrocious
situation is not to be of long duration. Ah, I wish with all my soul
that this time your hope may not be deceived, that you may soon announce
to me something certain, positive; for truly this is suffering too hard
to bear!
What can I add, dear Lucie? The hours are all alike in their atrocity
for me; I live only by the thought of you, of our children, in the
expectation of a _dénouement_, an escape from a situation which has
lasted but too long.
I embrace you with all my heart, as I love you; also our dear children,
and I am waiting now until I shall have the happiness of receiving your
dear letters, always so impatiently expected.
Your devoted
ALFRED.
Kisses to all.
* * * * *
_May 7, 1896._
My dear Lucie:
A few moments before I received your dear letters I was subjected to an
outrage--only a mean, shabby trick--but such things hurt one whose heart
has been already so deeply wounded. I have not, alas! the soul of a
martyr. To tell you that there are not times when I would be glad to die
and end this atrocious life would be to lie. Do not see in this any
trace of discouragement. The goal is immutable, it must be attained, and
it shall be. But I am a human being as well, undergoing the most
appalling of martyrdoms for a man of heart and a sense of honor, bearing
it only for you and for our children.
Each time they turn the knife in the wound my heart cries with grief. I
wept after this last outrage ... but enough of that. As I was saying, I
have just received your dear letters of March, the letters of all the
family, and with all the joy of reading the words you have written, I
have always as well that sense of bitter disappointment, which you can
well realize, that comes from not yet seeing the end of our tortures.
How you must suffer, Lucie! how you all must suffer when you cannot
hasten the moment our honor will be restored to us, when the wretches
who committed the infamous crime shall be unmasked! I wish that this
moment may be near and that it may not be too late.
Thanks for the good news that you give me of the children. It is from
the thought of them, from the thought of you, that I draw the strength
to resist. You must expect that sufferings, the climate, the situation,
have done their work. I have left only my skin, my bones, and my moral
energy. I hope that this last will carry me through to the end of our
trials. You spoke to me of some supplies that I might ask you for. You
know that my material life has always been indifferent to me, to-day
more so than ever. I have only asked for books, and unhappily I have
still only those you sent me in November.
Please do not send me any more provisions. The sentiment which inspires
me to beg this favor may be puerile, but everything you send me is, by
regulations, subjected to a most minute examination, and it seems to me
each time that they give you a slap in the face, ... and my heart bleeds
and I tremble with pain of it.
No; let us accept the atrocious situation that has been made for us. Do
not let us try to alleviate it by any care for the material order, but
let us repeat to ourselves that we must find the guilty wretch, that we
must get back our honor! March on, then, toward this goal; march on,
moved by one common, unchangeable will; try to attain it as quickly as
possible and give no care to anything else. I, for my part, shall resist
as long as I can, for I want to be there, present on that day of supreme
happiness when our honor is given back to us.
Say to yourself, that while the head may bow before some misfortunes,
that while commonplace condolences may be received in some situations,
when it is a question of honor there can be no consolations, but only a
goal to be struggled for so long as we can keep up to have that honor
restored to us.
Then, for you, as for all of us, I can only cry from the depths of my
soul, _Lift up your hearts_! There must be no recrimination, no
complaint, nothing but the unswerving march onward to our end--the
wretch or the wretches who are really guilty--and we must attain our end
as soon as possible.
As I have already told you, there must not remain one single Frenchman
who can doubt our honor.
Kiss our dear children with all your heart for me, and yourself a
thousand kisses the most tender, the most affectionate kisses of your
devoted