Page:Lettres d'un innocent; the letters of Captain Dreyfus to his wife ; (IA lettresduninnoce00drey).pdf/62

 Monday, 5 P. M., 7 January, 1895.

My Darling:

I have borne for your sake, my adored one, for the name which my dear children bear, the most agonizing, the most appalling, of calvaries for a heart that is pure and honorable. I ask myself how I am yet alive. That which sustained me is, above all else, the hope that I shall soon be united to you down there. Then, though innocent as I am, but sustained as I shall be by your profound love, I shall have the patience to await in exile the vindication of my name. There, too, I shall work, I shall be busy. I shall impose silence upon my heart and my brain by force of physical fatigue. But in my prison it would be difficult to live, for my thought always brings me fatally back to my condition.

They have not given me any letter from you to-day; do not be anxious, my darling, if my letters do not reach you regularly. I will write to you every day as long as I am permitted to.

I have been told that I can see you Monday and Friday. Alas! Monday has passed, and I am obliged to wait until Friday. I wait with extreme joy for the moment when I can kiss you; when I can throw myself into your arms. It is in your eyes, in your noble heart, that I find the strength needful to enable me to bear my fearful tortures of soul. I should almost like it better had I some sin upon my conscience; then I should, at least, have something to expiate. But alas! you know, my darling, how honest, how upright, my life has always been.

I will do all I can to live. I will do all I can to resist until the supreme moment when they give back to me the honor of my name.