Page:Lettres d'un innocent; the letters of Captain Dreyfus to his wife ; (IA lettresduninnoce00drey).pdf/214

 heard, and that, knowing you all as I do, you will not fail in your duty.

What I wish to add is this: We must not bring into this horrible affair either bitterness or acrimony against individuals. To-day I shall repeat it to you as on the first day, above all human passions is our country.

Under the worst sufferings, under the most atrocious abuse and insult, when the human beast awakes ferocious, making reason vacillate under the torrents of blood that burn the eyes, the temples, the whole being, I have thought of death, I have longed for it, often I called to it with all my spirit; but my lips are ever hermetically sealed, because I want to die not only an innocent man, but a good and loyal Frenchman, who never for one single instant has forgotten his duty to his country. Then, as I told you, I think, in my last letters, precisely because the task is laudable; because your means, all your means, are limited by interests other than our own; finally because I may not be long able to resist a situation so atrocious, and when the only thing I ask of my country is the discovery of the truth, that I may see for my dear little ones the day when honor shall be given back to us—it is for all this, dear Lucie, that you must appeal to all the forces that a country, a government, has power over, to seek to put an end as soon as possible to this fearful martyrdom; for be assured my nervous and cerebral exhaustion is great, and it is more than time that I should hear at last a human word that is a kind word. Well, I hope for us all that all these efforts are soon to throw light upon this dark drama and that I am soon to learn something certain, positive; so that at last I may sleep, may rest a little.