Then, still, courage, my dear Lucie. I will sustain you with all my energy, with all the strength that my innocence gives me, with all the longing that I have, to see the light shine out, full, perfect, absolute, as it must shine, for our sakes, for that of our children, of our two families.
Good kisses for the dear little ones.
I embrace you as I love you.
Alfred.
3 June, 1895.
My dear Lucie:
Still no letters from you, nor from any one. Since my departure I have had no tidings of you, of our children, nor of any of the family.
You may have seen by my letters the successive crises through which I have passed. But for the moment let us forget the past. We will speak of our sufferings when we are happy again.
I do not know anything of what is passing around me, I live as in a tomb. I am incapable of deciphering in my brain this appalling enigma. All that I can do, then, and I shall not fail in this duty, is to sustain you to my last breath—is to continue to fan in your heart the flame which glows in mine, so that you may march straight forward to the conquest of the truth, so that you may get me back my honor, the honor of my children. You remember those lines of Shakespeare, in Othello. I found them again not long since among my English books. I send them to you translated (you will know why!).