Page:Lettres d'un innocent; the letters of Captain Dreyfus to his wife ; (IA lettresduninnoce00drey).pdf/148

 me. I feel a childish pleasure in reading what you have written, for then it seems to me that I hear you speak, that I feel the beating of your heart close to mine.

When you suffer too much take your pen and come and talk with me.

I thank you for your good tidings of the children. Kiss them tenderly for me.

My body, dear Lucie, is indifferent to everything; it is fortified by a strength almost superhuman, by a higher power—the anxiety, desire for our honor.

It is the sacred duty which I must fulfill—my duty to you, to our children, to our families—which fills my soul and rules it, which silences my broken heart. Were it not for that the burden would be too heavy for human shoulders.

Enough of moaning, Lucie; it will not make things any better. This appalling suffering must end for us all.

Strong in my innocence, march straight onward to your goal; silently, quietly, but openly and energetically, even if you are forced to carry your cause before the highest heads. No human heart can remain insensible to the supplications of a wife who comes with her little children to ask that the guilty be unmasked, that justice be done to the miserable, wretched victims. Do not look back over the past, but speak from your heart, from your whole heart; this tragedy of which we are the victims is poignant enough even in its simplicity.

Act, then, as I advised you in my letters of the 7th and 27th of September, frankly, resolutely, with the spirit of a woman who has to defend the honor—that is to say, the life—of her husband, of her children.

Do not give way to grief, my dear and good Lucie;