- fore with all my heart and soul; to-day I do more—I
marvel at you. You are truly one of the noblest women upon the earth. My admiration for you is so great that if I live to drink my cup to the dregs it will be because I have aspired to be worthy of your heroism.
But it will be terrible to submit to that shameful humiliation! I should rather stand before an execution squad. I do not fear death, but the thought of contempt is terrible.
However it may be, I pray you tell them all to life their heads as I lift mine; to look the world in the face without flinching. Never bow your heads—proclaim my innocence aloud.
Now, my darling, I am going anew to lay my head upon my pillow to think of you.
I kiss you; I press you to my heart.
Alfred.
Embrace the little ones tenderly for me.
Will you please deposit two hundred francs with the clerk of the prison?
25 December, 1894.
My Darling:
I cannot date this letter, for I do not even know what day it is. Is it Tuesday? Is it Wednesday? I do not know. It is always night. As sleep flies my eyelids I arise to write to you.
Sometimes it seems to me that all this has not happened; that I have never left you.
In my hallucinations all that has happened to us
