A thousand kisses to our dear children.
Your devoted
Alfred.
And for all of you, whatever may come, whatever may become of me, this earnest cry, the invincible cry of my soul: “Lift up your hearts! Life is nothing, honor is all!” And for you, all the tenderness of my heart.
24 April, 1897.
Dear Lucie:
I want to talk with you while I wait for your dear letters, not to speak of myself, but to tell you always the same words, which ought to sustain your unalterable courage; and then, too, it is a human weakness, that is excusable enough, to get a little warmth for my tortured heart near yours, alas! not less sad than mine.
I have read over your letters of February in which you are astonished, in which you almost make excuses because at times cries of grief, of revolt, escape from your heart. Do not make excuses for them; they are only too legitimate. In this long agony of thought to which I am subjected, be sure that I know them, those very griefs.
Yes, truly, all this is appalling. No human word can express such sorrows, and sometimes I have wanted to shriek out, so inexpressible is such anguish. I also have terrible moments, atrocious moments, the more appalling because they are restrained, because never a complaint escapes my silent lips, when reason is submerged, and all that is in me is agonized, cries out in revolt. I have told you that for a long time in my dreams I have often thought, “Ah, yes, to hold one of those miserable accomplices of the author of that crime between my hands for a few minutes—and were I compelled to tear his skin from him shred by shred, I should make him confess this vile machination against our country;” but all that, sorrows and thoughts, they are only sentiments, they are only dreams, and it is the reality that we must see. And the reality is this, always the same: it is that in this horrible affair there is a double interest at stake—that of the country, our own—and one is as sacred as the other.