Your devoted
Alfred.
Thank your dear parents, all our family, for their letters, so full of profound tenderness and with grief not less profound.
Why should I write to them? To speak of myself, of our sufferings? We all know each other too well not to know both the intense love that unites us and the deep grief that fills our souls. But for all, unchangingly, unalterable, steadfast courage! As —— has said so truly: there is an object to attain, and in the thought of that object we must forget all present griefs, whatsoever they be!
20 May, 1897.
My dear Lucie:
Very often I have taken my pen to talk with you—to unburden my bruised and bleeding heart, as in the presence of yours—but each time I did so the cries of our common sorrow burst out in spite of me.
And of what good is it to cry out? In the presence of such martyrdom, in the presence of such sufferings, I must be silent. So what I will repeat to you is simply this: it is the invariable, the ever-ardent, persistent cry of my soul, “Courage, courage!” When you consider the end we are to attain you should count neither time nor sufferings. We must wait with confidence until it shall be attained.
I embrace you, as I love you, with all the power of my love, and so also I embrace our dear children.