Part 3

It is impossible, when we are so bound together, when we are upheld by the wonderful devotion shown us by Me. Demange, that we shall not sooner or later discover the truth. I was wrong to wish to desert life. I had not the right to. I will struggle as long as I have a breath of life. In these long days, in these sad nights, my soul is purified and strengthened. My duty is clearly traced. I must leave my children a name pure and stainless.

Let us strive for that, my darling, without a truce, without rest. Let us not be rebuffed by the difficulty of any step, of any attempt. We must try everything.

The books of M. Bayles, which you sent me, are enough for the moment; later I shall need a work with exercises, with corrections on the opposite page; so that I can work by myself.

For the moment I must gather all my strength to meet the horrible humiliation that awaits me. But do not relax a single instant. You may, perhaps, enter upon a course of which I have spoken to Me. Demange this evening. Nothing must be neglected; everything must be tried.

I embrace you as I love you.

ALFRED.

Good kisses to the darlings. I dare not wish you “A Happy New Year;” this feast does not accord with our present sorrow.

I have even forgotten to wish your mother a happy birthday. I pray you to repair this forgetfulness; it is excusable under the sad circumstances.

I suppose you have given the children the toys from their father. We must not let these young souls suffer through our sorrows.

I have received the inkstand. I thank you for it.

* * * * *

_5 o’clock in the evening._

The appeal is rejected, as I might have expected it would be. They have just told me. Ask immediately for permission to see me.

Send me what I asked you for; that is to say, my sabre, my belt, and the valise with my belongings. The cruel and horrible anguish is approaching; I am going to meet it with the dignity of a pure and tranquil conscience. To tell you that I do not suffer would be to lie; but I shall not weaken. I shall be strong. Keep on, for your part, without truce, without rest.

* * * * *

_1 January, 1895._

My Darling:

It is no longer Sunday. It is the beginning of Monday. The stroke of midnight has just sounded at this moment, as I lighted my candle. I cannot sleep. I would rather rise than toss upon my bed, and what more delicious occupation than to talk with you! When I write it seems that you are near me, as it used to be in those good evenings of my happy memories, when, as I sat at my desk, you would work by my side.

Let us hope--let us hope that happiness shall shine again for us. It is impossible that some day the light of truth shall not make all clear. I know the energetic character of Mathieu; I have learned to appreciate your energy, your profound devotion, I will say your heroism; and I do not doubt the success of your investigations.

You are right to act with calmness, with method. Your progress will be surer.

But I hope that soon I can speak of all this face to face with you.

From this hour the agony is to become still more bitter. First, the humiliating ceremony, then the sufferings which will follow it. I shall bear them calmly, with dignity--be sure of it.

To say that I have not at times moments of violent revolt would be to lie. The injustice is by far too cruel; but I have faith in the future; and I hope to have my recompense.

So I try to think that the time will come when my only care will be to ensure my happiness--the happiness of our dear children.

I have received a charming letter from Marie, which I shall answer one of these days.

Be of good courage always, my darling. Take good care of your health, for you will have need of all your strength; your courage must not betray you in the crucial moment. Good-night and good rest.

I embrace you as I love you.

ALFRED.

_Tuesday, 1 January, 1895._

I have not received a letter from you this morning. I miss it. I have received several others, it is true; but dare I tell you that it is not the same thing? Yesterday, when he left me, Me. Demange hoped to come back and pass some hours with me to-day; but alas! not long after his departure they told me that my appeal had been rejected; this closes my prison door to him; he will not be permitted to visit me any more. He must have been warned this morning. So I shall pass my day alone. What a sad New Year, my darling! But do not let us dwell upon this subject. It will do us no good to weep and groan; that will not open the doors of my prison. On the contrary, we must guard all our physical strength and all our mental energy; we must not relax our struggle for one instant. Let nothing beat you down; do not lose hope. Throw your nets out on all sides; the guilty one will be caught in them at last.

Have you received an answer to your application? I am waiting now with impatience for the moment when I shall hold you in my arms.

Have you bought the toys for the children? Were they pleased? I am thinking always of you and of them. I live only in the thought that some day this frightful nightmare will vanish. It seems impossible that it can be otherwise. We will help overcome it, I promise it to you. I embrace you as I love you.

ALFRED.

* * * * *

_Monday, 2 January, 1895, 11 o’clock in the evening._

My Darling:

A new year is beginning. What has it in store for us? Let us hope that it will be better than the year that is just ended. Should it be otherwise, death would be preferable. In this calm, deep night which surrounds me, I think of you all, of you, of our dear children. What a fearful stroke of fate, undeserved and cruel!

Let me give way a little, weep without restraint in your arms. Do not believe because I weep that my courage weakens. I have promised you to live; I shall keep my word. But I must always feel your heart beating close to mine. I must be sustained by your love.

We must have courage. We must have an almost superhuman energy. As for me, I can only summon my whole strength to bear all the tortures which await me.

Good-night and kisses.

ALFRED.

* * * * *

_Thursday, noon._

My Darling:

They have informed me that the supreme humiliation is set for the day after to-morrow. I expected it; I was prepared for it; but in spite of that the blow was terrible. I shall stand fast, as I promised you I would. I shall draw the force I still need for that awful day from the deep well of your love, from the affection of you all; from the memory of our dear children; from the supreme hope that some day the truth will come to light; but on every side I must feel the warmth of the affection that you all bear me. I must feel that you are struggling with me. Search always; let there be no truce, no rest.

I hope to see you soon, to gather strength from your loving eyes. Let us sustain each other through everything and against everything.

Your love is necessary to my life; without it the mainspring of my being would be broken.

When I am gone persuade them all that they must not stop their efforts.

Take measures at once, so that you may be able to come to see me on Saturday and the following days at the prison of la Santé. It is there, above all, that I must feel that I am sustained.

Find out also what I asked you yesterday--when I am to leave, how I am to go, etc.

We must be prepared for everything; we must not let ourselves be surprised.

Until the blessed moment, soon to come, when I shall see you, I embrace you.

ALFRED.

* * * * *

_4:15 P. M._

Since four o’clock my heart has been beating to bursting. You are not yet here, my darling. The seconds seem hours to me. My ear is listening--perhaps they come to call me. I cannot hear; I am waiting.

* * * * *

_5 o’clock._

I am more calm; the sight of you has helped me. The rapture of having held you in my arms has done me immense good. I could not wait for the moment. I thank you for the joy that you have given me. How I love you, my good darling! Let us hope that some time all this sorrow is to end.

I must husband all my energy.

A thousand kisses more, my darling.

ALFRED.

_Thursday, 11 o’clock in the evening._

My Darling:

The nights are long; it is to you that I turn again and again; it is in your eyes that I look for all my strength. It is in your profound love that I find the courage to live. Not that the struggle makes me afraid, but truly fate is too cruel to me. Could one imagine a situation more awful, more tragic, for an innocent man? Could there be a martyrdom more fraught with sorrow?

Happy is it for me that I have the deep affection with which both our families surround me--that above everything I have your love, which pays me for all my sufferings.

Forgive me if sometimes I complain; do not think that my soul is less valiant because a groan escapes my lips; these cries relieve my heart; and to whom could I cry if not to you, my dear wife?

A thousand kisses for you and for the little ones.

ALFRED.

* * * * *

_Wednesday, 5 o’clock._

My Darling:

I wish to write these few words more, so that you may find them to-morrow morning when you awake. Our conversation, even through the bars of the prison, has done me good. My limbs trembled under me when I went down to met you, but I gathered all my strength, so that I should not fall from my emotion. Even now my hand is still trembling; our interview has violently shaken me. If I did not insist that you should stay still longer it was because I was at the end of my strength. I had to hide myself, so that I might weep a little; do not believe because I weep that my soul is less brave or less strong; but my body is somewhat weakened by three months of the prison, without a breath of the outer air. I must have had a robust constitution to have been able to resist all these tortures.

What has done me the most good is that I felt that you were so brave, so valiant, so full of love for me. Let us, my dear wife, continue to command the respect of the world by our attitude and by our courage. As for me, you must have felt that I am decided to face everything. I want my honor, and I shall have it. No obstacle shall stop me.

Kiss the babies for me. A thousand kisses.

ALFRED.

The parlor is to be occupied to-morrow, Thursday, from 1 until 4 o’clock. So you must come either in the morning between 10 and 11 o’clock, or in the afternoon at 4 o’clock. This takes place only Thursdays and Sundays.

* * * * *

IN THE PRISON OF LA SANTE.

_5 January, 1895._

I will not tell you what I have suffered to-day. Your grief is great enough already. I will not augment it.

In promising you to live, in promising you to resist until my name is rehabilitated, I have made the greatest sacrifice that a man of deep feeling of heart, an upright man, from whom his honor has been taken, can make. My God, let not my physical strength abandon me! My spirit is unshaken; a conscience that has nothing with which to reproach me upholds me, but I am coming to the end of patience and of my physical strength. After having consecrated all my life to honor, never having deserved reproach, to be here, to have borne the most wounding affront that can be inflicted upon a soldier!

Oh, my darling, do everything in the world to find the guilty one; do not relax your efforts for one instant. That is my only hope in the terrible misfortune which pursues me.

If only I may soon be with you there, and if we may soon be united, you will give me back my strength and my courage. I have need of both. This day’s emotions have broken my heart; my cell offers me no consolation.

Picture a little room all bare--four yards and a half long, perhaps--closed by a grated garret window; a pallet standing against the wall--no, I will not tear your heart, my poor darling.

I will tell you later, when we are happy again, what I have suffered to-day, in all my wanderings, surrounded by men who are truly guilty, how my heart has bled. I have asked myself why I was there; what I was doing there. I seemed the victim of an hallucination; but alas! my garments, torn, sullied, brought me back roughly to the truth. The looks of scorn they cast on me told me too well why I was there. Oh, why could not my heart have been opened by a surgeon’s knife, so that they might have read the truth! All the brave, good people along my way could have read it: “_This is a man of honor!_” But how easy it is to understand them! In their place I could not have contained my contempt for an officer who I had been told was a traitor. But alas! there is the tragedy. There is a traitor, but it is not I!

Write to me soon; do everything in your power so that I may see you, for my strength is giving way. I need to be upheld; come, so that we may be together once again, that I may find in your heart all the strength I need in this awful hour.

I embrace you as I love you.

_Saturday afternoon._

ALFRED.

* * * * *

_Saturday, 6 o’clock, January, 1895._

In my dark cell, in the tortures of my soul, which refuses to understand why I suffer so, why God so punishes me, it is always to you that I turn, my dear wife, who, in these sad and terrible moments, have shown for me a devotion without boundaries, a love illimitable.

You have been and you are sublime; in my moments of weakness I have been ashamed not to be at the height of your heroism. But this grief must gnaw the best disciplined soul; the grief of seeing so many efforts, so many years of honor, of devotion to one’s country, lost because of a machination that seems to belong to the realms of the grotesque, rather than to real life. Sometimes I cannot believe it; but these moments, alas! are rare here, for subjected to the strictest discipline of the prison cell, everything reminds me of the dark reality. Continue to sustain me with your profound love, my darling; aid me in this awful struggle for my honor; let me feel your beautiful soul throbbing close to mine.

When can I see you?

I need affection and consolation in my sorrow.

Alas! I may have the courage of a soldier, but I ask myself have I the heroic soul of the martyr!

A thousand good kisses for you, for our darlings. May these children be your consolation.

A. DREYFUS.

Write to me often and at length. Think that I am here alone from morning until evening, and from evening until morning. Not one sympathetic soul comes to lighten my dark sorrow. I long to be there with you, where I can wait in peace and tranquillity, until they rehabilitate me--until they give me back my honor.

* * * * *

_7 o’clock, evening, 5 January, 1895._

I have just had a moment of terrible weakness; of tears mingled with sobs; all my body shaken by the fever. It was the reaction from the awful tortures of the day. It had to be--I knew it. But alas! instead of being allowed to sob in your arms, to lean my head upon your breast, my sobs have resounded in the emptiness of my prison. It is finished. Be lifted up, my heart; I concentrate all my energy. Strong in my conscience, pure and unstained, I owe myself to my family, I owe myself to my name. I have not the right to desert. While there remains in me a breath of life I will struggle, hoping that light soon may be let in upon the truth. And do you continue your searches. As for me, the only thing that I ask is to leave here as soon as possible; to find you there; to settle down to our life there, while our friends, our families, are busy here searching for the guilty one, so that we may come back to our dear country, martyrs who have borne the most terrible, the most harrowing, of trials.

_Saturday, 7:30 P. M._

It is the hour when we are obliged to go to bed. What will become of me? What am I going to do when I am in my bed, a straw mattress supported on iron rods. Physical sufferings are nothing--you know that I do not fear them--but my moral tortures are far from being ended. Oh, my darling, what did I do the day I promised you to live! I thought then that my soul was stronger. It is easy to talk of being resigned because the heart is innocent, but it is hard to be so.

Write to me soon, my darling; try to see me. I need to draw new strength from your dear eyes.

A thousand kisses.

ALFRED.

* * * * *

_Sunday, 5 o’clock, 6 January, 1895._

Forgive me, my adored one, if in my letters yesterday I poured out my grief and made a parade of my torture. I must confide them to some one. What heart is better prepared than yours to receive the overflowing grief of mine? It is your love that gives me courage to live; I must feel the thrill of your love close to my heart. Let us show that we are worthy of each other; that you are a noble, a sublime wife.

Courage, then, my darling. Do not think too much of me; you have other duties to fulfil. You owe yourself to our dear children, to our name, which must be restored to honor. Think, then, of all the noble duties incumbent upon you. They are heavy, but I know that you will be capable of undertaking, of accomplishing them all, if you do not let yourself be beaten down--if you preserve your strength.

You must struggle, therefore, against yourself. Summon all your energy; think only of your duties.

As to me, my darling, your know that I suffered yesterday even more than you can imagine. I shall tell you how much some day, when we are once more happy and united. For the present I hope but one thing. Since I am useless to you here, and since, on the other hand, the search for the guilty man will, I fear, be a long one, I hope to be sent down there soon, and under the best conditions possible to wait there with you until the combined efforts of all our relations shall have been successful. The life of the prison cell is wearing me out, and I ask but one thing, to be sent down there as soon as possible. I was heart-broken this morning because I did not get any letters. Happily, at 2 o’clock, the director of the prison brought me a package of good letters, which gave me much pleasure. They have been the one ray of joy in my wretched cell. Will you please send me my travelling rug, for it is very cold in our cells.

Try to obtain permission to see me as soon as possible.

I embrace you a thousand times.

ALFRED.

Good kisses to the poor darlings.

* * * * *

_7 o’clock in the evening._

My God, how sorrowful is my soul! What in all my life have I done that I should be thus punished? The wretch who has committed the crime of betraying me, the wretch through whom I am lost, deserves, if there is a God, a terrible chastisement. He deserves to be punished through all he loves. In the name of my poor children I curse him.

_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.

But I shall bear the waiting better when you are there, in exile, with me. So, together, proud and worthy of one another, we will, in exile, give proof of the calm of two pure, honest hearts; of two hearts whose thoughts have always all been given to our dear country--France.

Good kisses to our poor darlings. Kisses to all our friends.

I embrace you as I love you.

ALFRED.

* * * * *

_8 January, 1895._

My Darling:

They have given to me to-day your letters of Sunday, also those sent to me by R., H. and A.

Thank them all. Give them news of me. Pray them to write to me, but tell them that it is impossible for me to answer them all. Not that the time is lacking, alas! but I cannot abuse the time and the kindness of the director of the prison, who is obliged to read all my letters. I am relatively strong in this sense: that I live by hope. But I feel that this situation cannot be prolonged. I have, and this is easy to understand, moments of violent revolt against the injustice of my fate. It is truly terrible to suffer as I have suffered through these long months for a crime of which I am innocent. My brain, after all these shocks, has moments of wandering.

I hope to see Me. Demange this evening and to beg of him to take steps with those who have the power to grant my prayer, so that they will, under conditions which I shall indicate, arrange to have me sent into exile with you, to wait until light is let in upon this crime. As to this last, I have great hope. My efforts must eventually have their reward. But I must have air, hard physical work, your dear society, to steady my brain, which has been shaken by so many shocks. Great God, how little I expected them!

Pray Me. Demange, who has obtained permission to see me, to come as soon as he can, so that I may explain to him the favor asked by an innocent man waiting until complete justice shall be done him.

You ask me also, my darling, what I do from morning until night. I do not want to tell you all my sad reflections. Your grief is great enough, and it is useless to add to it. What I have said above will tell you what at this moment I desire, exile with you in the free air, while I await my vindication.

As to the rest I will tell it all to you by and by, when we are together again and happy.

I will confide one thing to you, however--in the moments of my deepest sadness, in my moments of violent crisis, a star shines all at once, lighting up my brain and beaming upon me. It is your image, my darling, it is your adored image that I hope soon to behold face to face. And with that before me I can wait patiently until they give me back that which I hold dearest in this world--my honor, my honor that has never failed me.

Embrace them all for me. Kisses to the darlings.

I embrace you a thousand times.

ALFRED.

How impatiently I wait for Friday! What a pity that you came to-day at the hour of the director’s luncheon; had you come at some other time perhaps they might have permitted you to embrace me.

_Tuesday, 7 o’clock in the evening._

They have just given me a whole package of letters--from Jeanmaire, from your father, from Louise, and from you. Thank them all for writing to me. The letters have made me weep, but they have eased my wounded soul. Answer every one for me.

* * * * *

_9 January, 1895, Wednesday, 5 o’clock._

My good Darling: