Page:Lettres d'un innocent; the letters of Captain Dreyfus to his wife ; (IA lettresduninnoce00drey).pdf/202

 *ble dream which has held us all enthralled for so long.

I profit by a moment when my brain is less fatigued to try to lucidly explain my thoughts, the scattered convictions expressed in my different letters. The end, you know it, the light, full and unshrouded, that end shall be attained.

Tell yourself, then, that my confidence and my faith are complete; for, on one hand, I am absolutely certain that this last appeal that I made recently to the Ministry has been heard; that in that quarter everything is to be set in motion to discover the truth. And, on the other hand, I see that you all are wrestling for the honor of our name—that is to say, our very lives—and I see that nothing can turn you from your purpose.

Let me add that the point in question is not the bringing into this horrible affair of either acrimony or bitterness against individuals. We must aim higher.

If at times I have cried out in my grief, it has been because the wounds of the heart are at times too cruel, too burning, for human strength. But if I have made of myself the patient man that I am not, that I never shall be, it is because above all our sufferings there is the one, only object—the honor of our name, the life of our children. This object ought to be your very soul, let come what may. You must be, heroically, invincibly, at the same time a mother and a Frenchwoman.

I repeat it then, my dear Lucie, my confidence and my faith are absolutely alike in the efforts of one and all. I am absolutely certain that light shall be let in, and that is the essential thing—but it will be in a future that we know not.

For, alas! the energies of the heart, the forces of the brain, have their limits in a situation as atrocious as