Page:Lettres d'un innocent; the letters of Captain Dreyfus to his wife ; (IA lettresduninnoce00drey).pdf/257

 ADDITIONAL LETTERS

A.—1898-99

On September 24, 1898, Dreyfus addressed a piteous letter to the Governor of French Guiana, saying that all his appeals had met with no response. It was at this period that he lost all hope. In early November he received a letter from his wife which, although giving not the slightest intimation of the stirring events in Paris, was in cheerful tone. He thought that it referred to his letter of September 24, and at once became encouraged. After more than two months' silence he wrote to her again. He spoke of the good news contained in his wife's letter, repeated that he was waiting the answer to his petition with confidence, and then he said:

"So when you receive this letter everything will, I think, be finished, and your happiness will be complete. But in these days of relief and felicity which will follow so many days of pain and suffering, I would that my thought, my heart, all that is living in me, which has not left you during those four terrible years, may again reach you, to add, if possible, to your joy until we can at least resume that happy and quiet life to which your natural qualities entitled you, and which you now deserved more than ever owing to the greatness of your soul, to the nobility of your character, to all the most beautiful qualities which a woman can display