 Section 8 of Five Years of My Life, 1894, 1899. Section 8. The Devil's Island Diary, July 16 to November 4, 1895. Tuesday, July 16, 1895. The heat is becoming unbearable, the more because the part of the island where my hut is situated is completely bare. The cocoa palms grow only in the other part, which is unoccupied. I pass the greater part of my days indoors, nothing to read, the silence of death ever around me, and during this time what is becoming of my wife and children. Saturday, July 20, 1895. The days pass by in frightful monotony, and I am ever anxiously waiting for a better, morrow. My sole occupation is to work a little at English. These are the pangs of death suffered by a living heart. Torrents of rain in the afternoon followed by a hot, stifling mist, fever for me. Sunday, July 21, 1895. Fever all last night, constant inclination to vomit. The guards seem to be as much depressed as I am by the climate. Tuesday, July 23, 1895. Again a bad night, rheumatic or rather neuritic pains constantly shifting, sometimes between my ribs, sometimes locating themselves across the shoulders. But I struggle against my body. I want to live. I must see the end. Wednesday, July 24, 1895. I am also becoming melancholy. I never see a kindly face. I can never open my mouth. Night and day my heart and brain are stifled in an eternal silence. Sunday, July 28, 1895. The mail from France has just come. But my letters go first to Cayenne and then come back here, although they have already been read and checked off in France. Monday, July 29, 1895. Always the same thing, alas. Days and nights pass in struggling with myself, in calming the excitement of my brain, in stifling my heart's impatience, in rising above the miseries of my life. Evening. A hot, stifling, irritating day. My nerves are stretched like violin strings. This is the dry season and may last until January. Let us hope that everything will be finished by that time. Tuesday, July 30, 1895. A guard has just left, worn out by the fevers of the place. He is the second one that has been forced to go away since I have been here. I regret him, for he was an honest man, doing strictly and loyally, and, with tact and moderation, the service expected of him. Wednesday, July 31, 1895. All last night I dreamed of you, my dear Lucy, and of our children. I wait with feverish impatience for the mail that is coming from Cayenne. I hope it will bring me my letters. Will they contain good news? Are they at last on the track of the wretch who committed the infamous deed? Thursday, August 1, noon. The mail from Cayenne arrived this morning at a quarter after seven. Does it bring my letters? Up to now, nothing has come. Half past four o'clock, still nothing, terrible hours of waiting. Nine o'clock in the evening, nothing has come. What a bitter disappointment. Friday, August 2, 1895. Morning. What a horrible night I have passed, and I must struggle on always and ever. I have sometimes a crazy desire to sob. Sob allowed. My sorrow is so overwhelming. But I must hold back my tears. I should be ashamed to show my weakness before the men who guard me night and day. Not even for an instant am I alone with my grief. Ever and I suspiciously watching me. These trials wear me out, and today I am broken in body and spirit. But I am going to write to Lucy, hiding my condition from her, to inspire her with courage. Our children must take up their careers with heads held high, whatever happens to me. Seven o'clock, evening. My mail has been in for some time, but they have just brought it to me. No new developments as yet. But I shall have the necessary patience. The machinations of which I am the victim must be discovered. It must be so. I can still suffer. Here are a few extracts from my wife's letters, which I received on the evening of August 2. I am waiting with the keenest anxiety for some letters from you to reassure me as to your health of which I hope you are taking good care. The boat arrived on the twenty-third of May. It is now the sixth of June, and your letters have not yet reached me. Each time the postman comes it gives me a new start. A very useless emotion. My thoughts are all for you. My life is bound up in yours. I have just been interrupted by the arrival of your dear letters. From your energy I draw courage for myself. It is you who sustain me. On the other hand, that I can live thus separated from you and tormented by cruel suffering, is, because my hope is boundless and my confidence in the future, absolute. My longing for you is so imperative that I have made a new appeal that I may go and share your exile. Thus I should at least have the happiness of living the same life as you, of being near you, and of proving my great affection for you. I pass hours in reading and re-reading your letters. They are my consolation while waiting for the happiness of meeting you again. Lucy. When I saw what my condition of life was to be at the Ildu Salu, I had no illusion as to the answer to my wife's requests to come and join me. I knew they would be consistently refused. Continuation of my diary. Saturday, August 3, 1895. I did not close my eyes all night. All these emotions overcome me. To have afflictions thus heaped upon one unjustly, and to be able to do nothing, nothing to remedy them. Sunday, August 4, 1895. I have passed two hours from half past five to half past seven in washing my clothes, towels, and dishes. That sort of labor tires me out, but it does me good all the same. I mean to struggle all I can against the climate and against my torture. Before giving up I must know that my honour is again acknowledged by the world. But how long the nights and days are? I have received no magazines for two months and have nothing to read. I never open my mouth. I am more silent than a trappist. I had them asked in Cayenne for a box of carpenter's tools that I might occupy myself a little with manual labour. This has been refused me. Why? Another riddle which I will not try to solve. For nine months I have found myself face to face with so many enigmas upsetting my reason that I must stop thinking and try to live unconsciously. Monday, August 5, 1895. The heat is becoming terrific and my spirits are inexpressibly low, crushed by the weariness of these past nine months. Saturday, August 10, 1895. I do not know how far I can go. My heart and brain cause me so much suffering, and this dreadful tragedy so unhinges my reason. All my belief in human justice, honesty and righteousness has completely forsaken me in the light of the horrible facts. If I then succumb and these lines reach you, my dear Lucy, believe that I have resisted all that it was humanly possible to resist. Be courageous and strong. May our children become your comfort. May they inspire you to do your duty. When one has the testimony of his conscience that he has always and everywhere done his duty, he can bear himself at all times and in all places with head erect and claim as his right what we claim are stainless honour. Monday, September 2, 1895. For a long time I have added nothing to my diary. What is the use of it? Let us hope there will soon be an end to this. I am so utterly weary. Yesterday I had a fainting fit, my heart all at once ceased to beat, and I felt myself unconsciously drifting away without suffering. Exactly what it was I have not been able to determine. I am waiting for my mail. Friday, September 6, 1895. Still I have no letters. Are there words to express the torture of such suspense? Happy are the dead, and to be obliged to live on so long as the heart shall beat. Saturday, September 7, 1895. Letters have this moment come. The guilty person has not yet been discovered. A few extracts from my wife's letters received on this date. Paris, July 8, 1895. Your letters of May and of the 3rd of June have reached me. They have done me immense good. It seemed I heard you speak, that your dear voice sounded in my ears. Something of yourself had come to me at last. Your noble and beautiful thoughts were reflected in my mind. To say that I did not weep when I received letters so impatiently awaited would be a falsehood, but I saw with intense happiness that you had become master of yourself again. You are upholding us all. Your example fortifies us in the task that we have set for ourselves. I was touched to the depths of my soul by the letter you wrote to our pierre. He was enchanted, and his childish face lighted up when I read your lines over to him. He knows them by heart. When he speaks of you, he is all a flame. Paris, July 10, 1895. I again urge you to have courage and patience. With unflagging purpose we shall surmount all obstacles and attain to the truth of the mystery that imposes on us such tragic humiliations. It is my one aim, my sole desire and fixed idea, as of Matthew and of all of us, to give you the supreme happiness of beholding your innocence blazoned forth to the world in the light of day. I will succeed in unmasking those who have been guilty of so monstrous an iniquity. If we were not ourselves the victims of this horrible crime, I would not believe that there could exist men cowardly and perverse enough to rend from a family its pride in its stainless name and to allow an officer in every way above reproach to be condemned without their consciences forcing from them a cry of confession. Lucy. Continuation of my diary. September 22, 1895. Palpitation of the heart all last night. Consequently I am very weak this morning. Truly one's mind becomes perplexed in dwelling on such deeds. Condemned on the evidence of handwriting, it will soon be a year since I asked for justice, and the justice I demand is the unmasking of the wretch who wrote that infamous letter. We are not in the presence of commonplace crime, of which we know neither the particulars nor the ramifications. In this case they are known, and so the truth can be discovered whenever an honest effort is made. However the method matters nothing to me. What bewilders my mind and reason is that they have not yet succeeded in clearing up this horrible mystery. What a life for a man who placed no one's integrity above his own. Death would be a blessing, yet I have not even the right to think of it. September 27, 1895. Such torment finally passes the bounds of human strength. It renews each day the poignancy of the agony. It crushes an innocent man alive into the tomb. I leave the consciences of those men who have condemned me on the sole evidence of a suspected handwriting, without any tangible proofs, without witnesses, without a motive to make so infamous an act conceivable to be their judges. If only after my condemnation they had resolutely and actively followed out as they had promised me in the name of the Minister of War the investigations to unmask the guilty man. And then there is a way through diplomatic channels. A government has all the machinery necessary to investigate such a mystery. It is morally compelled to do it. Ah, human nature with its passions and hatreds with its moral hideousness. Ah, men to whom compared with their selfish interests all else matters little. Just this is a good thing when there is plenty of time and nobody is inconvenienced. Sometimes I am so despairing, so worn out, that I have a longing to lie down and passively let my life ebb away. I cannot by my own act hasten the end. I have not. I shall never have that right. The misery of my situation is becoming too unbearable. It must end. My wife must make her voice heard. The voice of the innocent crying out for justice. If I had only my own life to struggle for, I should strive no longer. But it is for our honor that I live and must struggle inch by inch to the end. Bodily pains are nothing. Heartache is the terrible thing. September 29, 1895. Violent palpitations of the heart this morning. I was suffocating. The machine falters. How long has it still to run? Last night also I had a fearful nightmare in which I called you loudly my poor dear Lucy. Ah, if there were only myself, my disgust for men and things is so deep that I should aspire only to the great rest, to the rest that is eternal. October 1, 1895. I no longer know how to write down my feelings. The hours seem centuries to me. October 5, 1895. I have received letters from home. Always nothing. From all these letters rises such an agonized cry of suffering that my whole being is shaken to its depths. I have just written the following letter to the President of the Republic. Accused and then condemned on the evidence of handwriting for the most infamous crime which a soldier can commit, I have declared and I declare once again that I did not write the letter which was charged against me and that I have never forfeited my honor. For a year I have been struggling alone in the consciousness of innocence against the most terrible fatality which can pursue a man. I do not speak of physical sufferings. They are nothing. The sorrows of the heart are everything. To suffer thus is frightful in itself, but to feel that those who are dear to me are suffering with me is the crowning agony. My whole family rise under punishment inflicted for an abominable crime which I never committed. I do not come to beg for grace or favors or alleviating assurances. What I ask is that light, revealing and penetrating light, may be thrown upon this cabal of which my family and I are the unhappy victims. That I live on, M. le Président, is because the sacred duty which I have to fulfill toward my own upholds me, otherwise I should long since have succumbed under a burden too heavy for human shoulders. In the name of my honor, torn from me by an appalling error, in the name of my wife, in the name of my children, O M. le Président, at this last thought alone my father's heart, the heart of a loyal Frenchman and an honorable man, is pierced with grief. I ask justice from you, and this justice that I beg of you with all my soul, with all the strength of my heart, with hands clasped in prayer, is that you search out the secret of this tragic history and thus put an end to the martyrdom of a soldier and of a family to whom their honor is their all. I am writing also to Lucy, bidding her to act on her side with energy and resolution, for this cruelty will in the end destroy us all. They tell me that I think more of the suffering of others than of my own. Ah, yes, assuredly, for if I were alone in the world, if I allowed myself to think only of myself, long since my tongue would have been silenced forever, it is the thought of Lucy and my children that gives me strength. Ah, my darling children, to die is a small matter. Could I but know before I die that your name has been cleared of this stain? A few extracts from my wife's letters received by me in October. Paris, August 4, 1895. I have not the patience to wait for your letters before writing you. I need to speak a little with you, to draw near to your noble soul so tried and to draw from you a new stock of strength and courage. Paris, August 12, 1895. At last I have received your letters. I devour them, read and reread them with a greediness never satisfied. When shall I, by my solicitude and my affection, be able to efface in you the remembrance of the atrocious days of this haunted year which has left in our hearts such deep wounds? I wish I could triple my strength to hasten the time so anxiously awaited and to show to the whole world that our honor is untarnished despite the infamy with which they have sought to besmirch us. Paris, August 19, 1895. When I wish to lessen a little the nervous anxiety of waiting, to cool the fever of my impatience, I come to you and thus renew my composure and my strength. What breaks my heart is to think that you must bear alone this awful suspense. You are torturing your mind to clear up the mystery while your poor heart and your upright conscience cannot realize such infamy. Lucy. Continuation of my diary. October 6, 1895. Awful heat. The hours are leaden. October 14, 1895. Violent wind. Impossible to go out. The day is of terrible length. October 26, 1895. I no longer know how I live. My brain is crushed. To say that I do not suffer beyond all expression, that often I do not aspire to eternal rest, that this struggle between my deep disgust for men and things and my duty is not terrible, would be a lie. But each time that I fail in my long nights or in my solitary days, each time that my reason, wavering from so many shocks, finally asks how, after a life of toil and honor, is it possible I should be here? Then, when I would close my eyes to hear and think and suffer no more, with a violent effort I regain the mastery of myself and cry aloud, you are not alone. You are a father. You must stand up for the good name of your wife and your children. And I begin again with new strength to fall alas, a little further on, and then begin again. This is my daily life. October 30, 1895. Violent heart spasms. The sultry weather takes away all energy. This is the changeable weather preceding the rainy season, the worst period of the year here in Guyana. Night from the second to third November, 1895. The mailboat is in from Cayenne, but there are no letters. I believe it is impossible to express the keen disappointment one experiences when, after anxiously waiting during a long month for news of one's dear ones, nothing comes. But so many arrows have pierced my heart for more than a year that I can no longer reckon each fresh wound. Yet this emotion, to which I should be well enured, since it is renewed so often, has broken me so that although I rose this morning at half past five and have walked at least six hours to calm my nerves, it is impossible for me to sleep. November 4, 1895. Terrific heat, over 45 degrees centigrade, 113 Fahrenheit. Nothing is so depressing, nothing so wears on heart and mind as these long agonizing silences, never hearing human speech, seeing no friendly face, or even one that shows a little sympathy. End of Section 8. Section 9 of Five Years of My Life, 1894-1899. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Sue Anderson. Five Years of My Life, 1894-1899. By Alfred Dreyfus. Translated from the French. Section 9. The Devil's Island Diary, November 7, 1895 to March 12, 1896. November 7, 1895. What has become of the mail that has been sent me? Where has it stopped? Has it remained in Paris or at Cayenne? How many distressing questions I ask myself every hour of the day? I constantly wonder if I am really awake, or if I dream so incredible, unimaginable is all that has occurred during the year. To have left my native Alsace, to have given up an independent situation amid my own people, to have served my country single-heartedly, only to find myself one fine day, accused and then condemned for a crime as contemptible as it is hateful, on the ground of the handwriting of a suspicious paper. Is this not enough to shatter one's whole life? November 9, 1895. Day terribly long. The first rains, obliged to shut myself up in my hut. Nothing to read. The books announced in the letter of August have not reached me yet. November 15, 1895. I have at last received my mail. The guilty one is not yet discovered. I shall soon reach the end of my strength which is declining daily. It has been a ceaseless struggle to resist this deadly isolation, this perpetual silence, in a climate which drains one of all energy, with nothing to do, nothing to read, alone with my sad thoughts. A few extracts from my wife's letters which I received November 15, 1895. Paris, September 5, 1895. What long hours and days we have passed since the hour when our frightful misfortune came to strike us down at a blow. Let us hope that we have at length mounted the steepest part of our calvary, that we have passed through the bitterest of the anguish. Our consciences alone have given us the strength to endure the horror of our martyrdom. God, who has so cruelly tried us, will give us the strength to fulfill our duty to the end. I understand your anguish and share it. Like you at times I lose all patience. The time seems so long and the hours of waiting too cruel. But then I think of you, of the example of noble courage which you give me, and I draw strength from your love. Paris, September 25, 1895. This is the last letter I shall write you by this mail. I will ardently hope that it may find you in good health and always strong and courageous. I cannot come to join you. I have not yet permission. For me the waiting is cruel and it is one more bitter disappointment to add to so many others. Lucy, at the foot of this letter were the following lines from my brother Matthew. I have received your good letter, my dear brother, and it is a great consolation and a great comfort to me to know that you are so strong and courageous. It is not hope that I say to you, but have faith, have confidence. It is impossible that an innocent man should suffer for a guilty one. There is no day that I am not with you in mind and in heart, Matthew. Continuation of my diary. November 30, 1895. I will not speak of the daily pinpricks, for I despise them. It is enough for me to ask from the chief guard anything of common necessity, no matter how insignificant, to have my request abruptly and instantly refused. Accordingly, I never renew a request, preferring to go without everything rather than humiliate myself. But my reason will end by sinking under the strain of this inconceivable treatment. December 30, 1895. I have not yet received the mail of the month of October. A gloomy day with ceaseless rain, the air full of tangible darkness, the sky black as ink, a real day of death and burial. How often there comes to my mind that exclamation of Schopenhauer at the thought of human iniquity. If God created the world, I would not care to be God. The mail from Cayenne has come, it seems, but has not brought my letters. Nothing to read, no avenue of escape from my thoughts. Neither books nor magazines come to me any more. I walk in the daytime until my strength is exhausted, to calm my brain and quiet my nerves. December 5, 1895. What does conscience count for nowadays? To think there are men who call themselves honorable, like that man Bertillon, who has dared to swear without compunction that since the handwriting of that infamous letter slightly resembles mine, therefore I alone could have penned it. As to moral or other proofs, they were of little consequence. If any capacity of human suffering still exists in such men, I hope that on the day when the real culprit shall be unmasked, they may put a bullet through their heads as an expiation of the misery they have visited on a whole family. December 7, 1895. How often I feel it beyond my power to support this life of constant suspicion and uninterrupted surveillance by day and by night, caged as I am like a wild beast and treated like the vilest of criminals. December 8, 1895. Racking violent neuralgia in the head, which increases every day. What a martyrdom every hour, every minute. And always this silence of the tomb, with never the sound of a human voice. A word of sympathy, a friendly look, may prove balm to cruel wounds and soothe for a time the most acute grief. Here there is nothing. December 9, 1895. Never any letters. They are probably a cayenne where they lie about for a fortnight. The mail boat coming from France passed here before my eyes on the 29th of November, and the letters must have been at cayenne ever since. The same day, six o'clock evening. The second mail from cayenne arrived today at one o'clock. Does it bring me this time my letters? And what is the news? December 11, six o'clock evening. No letters. December 12, morning. My mail did not arrive. Where has it stopped? I have requested them to telegraph to cayenne and find out. Same day evening. The second mail arrived from cayenne since the arrival of the last mail from France. My letters remain in France. My heart feels as though pierced by a dagger. Oh, the ceaseless complaining of the sea. What an echo to my anguished soul. Also fiery and anger against all human inequity sometimes burns within me, that I could wish to tear my flesh so as to forget in physical pain this mental torture. December 13, 1895. They will certainly end by killing me through repeated sufferings, or by forcing me to seek in suicide and escape from insanity. The opprobium of my death will be on commandant to pati, Bertillon, and all those who have imbued their hands in this iniquity. Each night I dream of my wife and children, but what terrible awakenings. When I open my eyes and find myself in this hut, I have a moment of such anguish that I could close my eyes forever, never to see or think again. Evening. Violent heart spasms with frequent paroxysms of suffocation. I ask for the bath that I have been authorized to take by order of the physician. No, is the answer the chief guard sends. A few minutes later he goes to take one himself. I do not know why I should abase myself to ask anything whatever of him. Until now I have renewed none of my requests. And now on I shall make no new ones. December 16, 1895. From ten o'clock to three the hours are terrible, with nothing to distract my morbid thoughts. December 20, 1895. No affront is spared me. When I receive my linen, which is washed at the ill royale, they unfold it, search through it in every possible way, and then throw it to me as to a vile creature. Every time I look upon the sea there comes back to me the recollection of the bright vacation days I have passed on its shore with my wife and children. I see myself taking my little pier along the beach, where while we play and gamble together I dream of a happy future for him. Suddenly I see myself in my present appalling situation. The disgrace cast upon my name, and upon that of my children comes home again to me with renewed bitterness. My eyes grow dim. The blood rushes to my head. My heart beats wildly. Indignation fills my whole being. Ah, light must break in upon this darkness. December 22, 1895. Never any news from my dear ones. What a fearful night I have just passed, the monotonous patrol of the guards, the lights that pass and pass again feeding my nightmares. December 25, 1895. Alas, always the same thing, no letters. The English mail passed two days ago. My letters probably cannot have arrived, for otherwise I think they would have sent them to me. What am I to think? What to believe? The rain fell all day. During a lighter spell, when only a few drops were falling, I went out to stretch myself a bit. The chief guard came up and said to the guard accompanying me, you must not stay out when it rains. Once could emanate such instructions, but I disdained to reply, ignoring all these daily meannesses. Night, December 26 to 27, 1895. Impossible to sleep. In what a nightmare have I lived for nearly fifteen months, and when will it end? December 28, 1895. Intense weariness. My brain is crushed. What is happening? Why have the letters of October not reached me? Oh, my Lucy, if you read these lines, if I succumb before this anguish has an end, you will be able to measure all I have suffered. In the two frequent moments, when in this rising nausea for everything, my heart fails, three names which I murmur low resurrect my energy, and ever give me new strength. Lucy, Pierre, Jean. Same day, eleven o'clock, morning. I have seen the mailboat from France passing, but alas, my letters go on first to Cayenne. At any rate, I hope the first mail from Cayenne will bring them to me, and that I shall at last have news of home, that I shall know whether this monstrous riddle has been solved, whether the end of this torture is in sight. Sunday, December 29, 1895. What happy hours I used to pass on Sunday with my family, playing with my children. My little Pierre is now nearly five years old. He is quite a big boy. I used to wait with impatience for the time when I could take him with me and talk to him, opening his young mind, instilling into him the love of beauty and truth, and helping fashion for him so lofty a soul that the ugliness of life could not degrade it. Where is all that and why? That eternal why? December 30, 1895. My blood burns and fever devours me. When will all this end? Same day evening. My nerves trouble me so that I am afraid to lie down. This silence of the tomb with no news of my dear ones for three months, with nothing to read, crushes and overwhelms me. I must pull all my strength together to resist always and yet again. I must murmur low these three words which are my talisman, Lucy, Pierre, Jean. December 31, 1895. What a frightful night. Strange dreams, monstrous nightmares followed by copious perspiration. Today at first dawn I saw the arrival of the boat from Cayenne. Ever since I have been in a state of feverish anxiety, asking myself each moment if at last I am to have news from home. January 1, 1896. At last, yesterday evening, I received my letters of October and November. Always nothing. The truth is not yet discovered. What grief have I caused Lucy by my last letters? I rend her soul by my impatience, and yet hers is as great as my own. A few extracts from my wife's letters received by me January 1, 1896. Paris, October 10, 1895. This mail my dear husband has brought only a single letter from you. That which you wrote me the fifth of August has not yet reached me. The dear lines written by your hand, the only sign I have of your existence, always comfort me. Paris, October 15, 1895. This date recalls such painful memories to me that I cannot help coming to you for a moment. I am feeling better, and I seem to be doing some good to you also. I no longer wish to speak of those calamitous days we have endured, each of us suffering away from the other. It is best to think of them no more. The wound is still open. It is useless to gallot. But I wish to tell you we are full of confidence and hope that our strenuous determination will triumph over all obstacles. We shall certainly expose the scoundrels who have committed this crime. Paris, October 25, 1895. The months are so long when one suffers so cruelly. They are all the same in their monotony and sadness. Here is a new mail, like those that went before. It will bring you words of hope and the echo of our boundless affection. To wait patiently is a supreme trial. But count on us, your waiting shall not be in vain. Paris, November 10, 1895. I read and reread the only letter from you that has reached me by this mail. I received it only this morning. It is very little, and I am only too happy to have this poor little echo of your beloved self. I doubt not that you often talk with me, painful as it may be to you to write, being able to say nothing, and compelled to repress the outpourings of your heart for fear of doing me harm. Why do they not give me the letters which are my only consolation? Why do they render yet more painful the situation of two beings already so miserable? Our little Pierre and Jean are always such sweet children, trustful and affectionate with everyone. They are both looking well and growing daily, taller and stronger. What a pleasure it will be for you when at last we shall have made the truth known to hold in your arms these dear little beings whom you love so much, for whom you are suffering, and who, by their affection, will make your life happy. Paris, November 25, 1895, Midnight I have to send my letters tomorrow morning in order that they may catch the boat of the 9th of December, and in spite of the late hour of the night I cannot help coming to talk with you again. It is heart-rendering for me to send you lifeless lines, commonplace and cold, which are so far from embodying my thought, my tenderness, my affection. I cannot express to you what I feel for you. The feeling is too deep and strong for me to describe, but it seems to me that I am now only a portion of myself. My soul, my heart, are far away in those islands near you, my well-beloved husband. Hour by hour my thoughts are with you. Lucy. Continuation of my Diary, January 8, 1896 Days and nights pass by depressingly monotonous, spun out to infinite length. By day I await with impatience the coming of the night, hoping to forget myself in sleep. By night I await with impatience no wit lessened the day, hoping to calm my nerves with a little exercise. As I read over and again the letters brought by the last mail, I realized what a catastrophe to my dear ones my death would be, and that my whole duty is to fight to my last breath. January 12, 1896 Reply of the President of the Republic to the petition I addressed to him on the 5th of October, 1895. Refused without comment. January 24, 1896 I have nothing to add. All hours are the same in the anguish of unnerved waiting for a better morrow. January 27, 1896 At last, after long months, I have received a fine consignment of books. By forcing my thoughts to fix themselves on the pages, I succeed in giving my brain a few moments of rest. But alas, I can no longer read for any length of time I am so utterly broken down. February 2, 1896 The mail from Cayenne has arrived. There are no letters for me. February 12, 1896 I have only just received my mail. There is never any news, and I must struggle and resist ever. A few extracts from my wife's letters received on this date. Paris, December 9, 1895 As always, your letters awaited with such keen anxiety have caused me deep emotion, a ray of happiness, the only moments of relaxation, of joy, which I have during these months of darkened days. When I read your lines, I feel that all your being thrills with mine. Paris, December 19, 1895 Last year at this time we hoped to have nearly reached the end of our trials. We had placed all our confidence in justice. Then the abominable error of the condemnation stupefied us. An entire year has passed in suffering as much from the undeservedness of the fate that has been inflicted on us as from the cruelty of the life to which you are morally and physically condemned. Paris, December 20, 1895 I cannot refrain before the mail leaves from coming inwards to you again. It is always the same thing I say over and over again. But what does it matter? I speak to you, I come near to you for a moment and it does me good. I have scarcely written of the children and yet it is they who bind us to life. It is for these poor little ones we endure this intolerable situation. And thank God they have no knowledge of it. For them all is joy. They sing and laugh and chatter and give life to the house. Lucy The continuation of my diary, February 28, 1896 Nothing new to read. Days, nights are all alike. I never open my mouth. I no longer ask for anything. My speech is limited to asking if my mail has come or not. But I am now forbidden to ask even that. Or at least, which is the same thing, the guards are forbidden to answer even such commonplace questions that I used to ask. I wish to live until the day of the discovery of the truth that I may cry aloud my grief and the torture they inflict on me. March 3, 6 o'clock evening. The mail from Cayenne came this morning at 9 o'clock. Have I any letters? March 4, 1896. No letters. What frightful torment of fresh. March 8, 1896. Days of gloom. Everything is forbidden me. I am forever alone with my thoughts. March 9, 1896. This morning very early I saw the launch of the commandant arriving. Was there at last something for me? No. There was nothing. Only an inspection of my hut. I no longer live except by a supreme tension of the nerves while eagerly awaiting the end of these unspeakable tortures. March 12, 1896. I have at last received my mail. Never anything alas as to the discovery of the truth. Extracts from my wife's letters received at this date. Paris, January 1, 1896. This day the first of January is to me longer and more painful than the others. Why, I ask myself, the reasons for suffering are the same. So long as your innocence is not recognized the weight of our burden is too crushing for us to take any part in the life around or to make any difference among the days whatever they may be. And yet today we seem to labor under a more poignantly sad impression. No doubt this comes from the fact that anniversaries with those who love each other tenderly are the days of great happiness while we who are so unhappy so cruelly beset feel still more keenly the desire of drawing together of sustaining each other so as to keep up our strength. Paris, January 7, 1896. I have just received your letters. As always they stir me to the depths of my soul. My emotion is intense when I catch sight of your beloved writing and I saturate myself with your thoughts. Your letters show the same undaunted energy but I feel your impatience piercing through them and I understand it. How could it be otherwise? Throne upon yourself in complete isolation devoured by anxieties knowing nothing of the infamy which has made and is making us so unhappy torn away from your supremely happy home where early earth holds no sorrow more bitter than this, Lucy. To the last letter of the month of January were appended the following lines from my brother. My dear brother, yes as you say in your letter of the 20th of November all my strength is devoted to a single aim the discovery of the truth and we shall succeed in it. I can only repeat myself until the day when I shall be able to tell you the truth is known but you must live until that day you must use all your powers to hold out against mental and physical collapse. Such a task is not above your courage. Matthew. End of section 9 Section 10 of 5 years of my life 1894-1899 This is the LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Sue Anderson 5 years of my life 1894-1899 by Alfred Dreyfuss translated from the French. Section 10 The Devil's Island Diary March 15th to September 10th 1896 continuation of my diary March 15th 1896 4 o'clock a.m. impossible to sleep my brain is void from lack of physical and intellectual activity the packages of books which Lucy announced to me in the last three mails have not yet reached me moreover my brain is so tired and agitated that it is impossible for me to read for any length of time however the few moments in which I can escape from my thoughts bring a slight alleviation March 27th 1896 I just now received the books which were sent on the 25th of November 1895 April 5th 1896 the mail of the month of February has just come the guilty man has not yet been unmasked whatever my sufferings may be the discovery must come hence I crushed down all complaining extracts from my wife's letters received the 5th of April Paris February 11th 1896 I have not yet received your letters of the month of December I will not complain of the anguish of this delay it is useless how keen are my sufferings caused by the anxiety nothing is so unbearable as to be deprived of the news of one whom I know to be most unhappy and whose life is a hundred times dearer to me than my own often in my calmer hours I ask myself why we are so tried for what reason we are called on to endure torments beside which death would be sweet Paris February 18th 1896 I am always without news from you yet I know that the letters you have written me have been at the ministry for more than three weeks I am wild with impatience to have them and to receive at last my month's consolation Paris February 20th 1896 at the very instant when I am finishing my last letter for the closing mail they bring me your letters thanks with all my heart for the reassuring lines that you have sent me and for your splendid firmness Lucy continuation of my diary May 5th 1896 I have nothing more to say all is alike in hideousness what a horrible life not a moment of rest by day or night until the last few days the guards remain seated in their room during the night I was awakened only every hour now they have to march without ever stopping and most of them wear wooden shoes here my diary stopped for more than two months the days all equally sad and anxious crawled along but I kept my will firm to struggle and not to allow myself to be beaten down by the torments which were heaped upon me moreover in June I had heavy attacks of fever so heavy as to cause congestion of the brain here are a few extracts from my wife's letters received in May and June 1896 Paris February 29th 1896 when I received your December mail my letters were all ready to go the few lines I was able to add could not express sufficiently the happiness and uplifting joy that your letters created in me your words of affection moved me deeply when one is very unhappy the heart broken and the soul engulfed in darkness nothing is sweeter than to feel that in the midst of all sorrows one can lean upon a sure affection and intense devotion concentrated and directed to supporting one and they bring one in the absence of tangible help a moral aid present every hour which increasing one's strength tenfold prevents one from playing the coward when grief seems too great to be born Paris March 20th 1896 you can imagine the anxiety I feel when I see the second fortnight of the month coming it means for me the departure of the mail so long as this mail is not near I hope up to the last minute to be able to tell you of the end of your suffering and of our own sorrow and then my letters go always empty of news and I am heart broken at the thought of your disappointment you will have Paris April 1st 1896 I was very sad when the last mail went away up to the last moment I had hoped that I might send you some comforting word but courage I implore this of you as the woman who adores you in the name of your beloved children who love you with all their little hearts and who will feel infinite gratitude when they understand the greatness of the sacrifice you have made for them as for me I cannot express my admiration for you with what tenderness my thoughts enfold you night and day this affection which I so much wish to lavish upon you in the midst of your sorrows is increased yet more if that is possible by the anguish inflicted on me by the distance which separates us the absence of news from you the sadness and the isolation of the life to which you are subjected I must give up describing to you all these emotions of mine they are too melancholy for you to read too intense and deep to confide to this cold and commonplace sheet of paper Lucy continuation of my diary July 26th 1896 it is very long since I have added anything to my diary my thoughts, my feelings, my sadness are the same but while my weakness of body and brain grow more pronounced daily my will remains as strong as ever this month I have received no letters from my wife August 2nd 1896 at last the males of May and June have come there is never any of the news I seek it matters nothing I shall struggle against the decline of body and brain and heart so long as a shadow of force is left me so long as they leave me a spark of life I must see the end of this dark tragedy for the sake of us all I pray that the end be not long delayed extracts from my wife's letters received the 2nd of August 1896 Paris June 10th 1896 I write you still troubled by your dear letters which I have just received at the first moment when I see your beloved writing when I read the lines which bring me your thoughts the only news I have for a long month I am crazy with grief my poor head comprehends nothing more and I weep hot tears then I pull myself together ashamed of my weakness from your firmness and energy and from my love I draw new stores of courage nevertheless these letters of yours do me a world of good and if emotion crushes me yet I have the happiness of reading your words and the illusion of listening for a few moments to your beloved voice Paris June 20th 1896 I add a few lines to my letters before the mail leaves to tell you that I am strong that my purpose is not to be shaken that I shall succeed in having your honor vindicated and I beseech you to join with me in this compelling faith in the future in this faith which makes us accept the harshest trials in order that we may give our children a stainless and respected name Lucy continuation of my diary August 30th 1896 again the period which so irritates my nerves when I am waiting for the mail when I ask myself what day it will come and what news it will bring what a painful month of August my poor Lucy must have had first the letter which I wrote her at the beginning of July in the midst of the fever I had for ten days and when I was not receiving my mail it was everything at once coming to add to my troubles I could not contain myself and so I again cried to her in distress as if she did not already suffer enough as if her impatience to see the end of this horrible tragedy were not as great as mine my poor dear Lucy her fate they must have passed very sorrowfully I thought it was impossible that I should suffer any more bitterly yet that day was worse than the others if I had not held myself in with a savage effort of will choking down my frenzy I should have shrieked aloud in the violence of my grief through space dearest Lucy I send you now the expression of my deep affection and my great love and this watchword always the same ardent and invariable courage and courage again September 1st 1896 day horribly long passed in waiting as happens every month for my mail in asking myself what it will bring me I am petrified as it were in sorrow I am obliged to concentrate all my strength to escape from my thoughts what torment for a family whose entire life has ever been one of honor uprightness and loyalty Wednesday September 2nd 1896 10 a.m. my nerves have tormented me horribly all night I should have liked to calm them a little this morning by walking but the rain falls in torrents a rare thing at this time of year for we are in the dry season and again I have nothing to read none of the packages of books sent me by my dear Lucy since the month of March has reached me nothing to quicken this petty pace of the hours I asked long ago for some manual labor no matter of what sort to occupy myself a little they have not even answered me I scan the horizon through the grading of my little window to see if I cannot catch sight of the smoke which announces the coming of the mail boat from Cayenne same day noon on the horizon toward Cayenne there hangs a pall of smoke it must be the mail boat same day seven o'clock evening the boat came at one o'clock in the afternoon I have not my letters and I think it did not bring them what infernal torment but above all hovers immutable the care of our honour that is the aim never varying no matter what our troubles may be Thursday September 3rd 6 o'clock morning horrible night of fever and delirium nine o'clock morning the last boat has come and has not brought my letters it is clear they are held in Cayenne where they have been since the 28th of last month Friday September 4th 1896 yesterday evening I finally received the mail and there was only a single one of the letters that my dear Lucy had written me I feel that with all at home there is a wild despair at being unable to tell me as yet of the discovery of the guilty man sweat rolled down my forehead and my knees shook under me while reading the letters from my people is it possible that human beings can suffer thus and so undeservedly in such a situation words have no longer any force one even suffers no longer he becomes so benumbed oh my poor Lucy oh my beloved children ah in the day when justice shall be done and the guilty one unmasked may the burden of all these nameless tortures fall back on those who have persecuted an innocent man and his family Saturday September 5th 1896 I have just written three long letters successively to my dear Lucy to tell her not to allow herself to be cast down but to persevere appealing to every possible source of help such a situation as ours endured for so long becomes too overwhelming too unbearable it is a question of the honor of our name of the life of our children in that thought we must conquer and control our rebellious hearts our wandering minds the bitterness of our feelings I no longer speak of my days and nights they resemble one another in agony Sunday September 6th 1896 I have just been warned that I must no longer walk in the part of the aisle which had been reserved to me I can henceforth only walk close about my hut how long can I hold out I do not know oh that this inhuman treatment may soon end otherwise I shall have to bequeath my children to France that beloved country of mine which I have always served devotedly and loyally beseeching from the bottom of my soul those who are at the head of affairs to have the fullest light shed on this shocking enigma and on that day it will be for them to comprehend what atrocious and undeserved torment some human beings have suffered and to make my poor children heirs to all the pity such misfortune merits same day two o'clock evening how my head hurts how sweet death would be to me oh my dear Lucy my poor children all my dear ones what have I done that I should be made to suffer in such a manner Monday, September 7th, 1896 yesterday evening I was put in irons why I know not since I have been here I have always scrupulously observed the orders given me how is it I did not go crazy during the long dreadful night what wonderful strength a clear conscience and the feeling of duty toward one's children gives one as an innocent man my imperative duty is to go on to the end of my strength so long as they do not kill me I shall ever and simply perform my duty and to those who thus constitute themselves my executioners I leave them to the judgment of their own consciences in the day when the truth shall be revealed sooner or later in life everything is bound to come out same day what I suffer is horrible yet I no longer feel anger against those who thus torture an innocent man I feel only a great pity toward them Tuesday, September 8th, 1896 these nights in irons I do not even speak of the physical suffering but what moral ignomy and without any explanation without knowing why or for what cause what an atrocious nightmare is this in which I have lived for nearly two years in any case my duty is to endure to the limit of my strength my whole will shall be bent to that and in what deep distress of my whole being I send you again the full expression of my love my dear Lucy, my darling children same day to a clock evening nearly two years of this have worn me out I can do no more the very instinct of life falters it is too much for mortal man to bear why am I not in the grave oh, for that everlasting rest once again if I do not survive may my beloved country accept my children as a heritage my dear little Pierre, my dear little Jean my dear Lucy all of you whom I love from the depths of my heart and with all the ardor of my soul believe me if these lines reach you that I have done everything which is humanly possible to do to hold out Wednesday, September 9th, 1896 the commandant of the islands came yesterday evening he told me that the last measure which had been taken against me was not a punishment but a measure of precaution as an administration had no complaint to make against me putting in irons a measure of precaution when I am already watched like a wild beast night and day by a guard armed with rifle and revolver no, the truth shall be told that is a measure of hatred and torture ordered from Paris by those who not being able to strike a family strike an innocent man because neither he nor his family will accept submissively the most frightful judicial error that has ever been made who is it that thus constitutes himself my executioner and the executioner of my dear ones one easily feels that the local administration except the chief guardian who has been specially sent from Paris has itself a horror of such arbitrary and inhumane measures but has no choice but to carry out the orders which are imposed on it no, the responsibility is higher it rests entirely with the author or authors of these inhumane orders in any case no matter what sufferings what physical and moral tortures they may inflict on me my duty and that of my family remains always the same as I keep thinking of all this I no longer fear that I shall lose control of myself I have only an immense pity for those who thus torture human beings what remorse they are preparing for themselves when all shall be known for history keeps no secrets everything is so black to me my heart overwrought, my brain ground down that it is with difficulty I can gather my thoughts together oh, I suffer too much this frightful riddle always present before me Thursday, September 10th, 1896 I am so utterly weary so broken down in body and soul that today I stop my diary not being able to foresee how long my strength will hold out or what day my brain will succumb under the weight of so great a burden I finish it by addressing to the President of the Republic this supreme appeal in case strength and sanity fail before the end of this horrible tragedy Monsieur le Président de la République I take the liberty of asking you that this diary written day by day be handed to my wife there will be found in it perhaps Monsieur le Président cries of anger, of a fright at the most awful condemnation that ever befell a human being a human being who never forfeited his honour I no longer feel the courage to reread it to retrace the bitter journey today I have no recriminations to make against anyone each one has thought himself acting in the fullness of right and conscience I simply declare once more that I am innocent of this abominable crime and I ask ever and again for this one thing always the same thing that the search for the culprit who is the real author of this base crime be diligently prosecuted and when he is discovered I beseech that the compassion which so great a misfortune as mine inspires may be given to my dear wife and my darling children end of the diary Reader's note the next page of the book Five Years of My Life is a facsimile of the last page of the handwritten Devil's Island diary where Dreyfus inscribed some lines in English from Shakespeare's Hamlet they read doubt thou the stars are fire doubt that the sun doth move doubt truth to be a liar but never doubt I love end of Reader's note editor's note the words of Hamlet to Ophelia were written by Captain Dreyfus as the fitting final expression of that devotion which from the dedication to my wife throughout the diary to the end where he laid down his pen unable to do more is its vital and informing spirit the marginal annotation written and signed by the chief guard reads 50th and last page end of editor's note end of section 10 section 11 of Five Years of My Life 1894-1899 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Sue Anderson Five Years of My Life 1894-1899 by Alfred Dreyfus translated from the French section 11 Devil's Island September 1896 to March 1897 thus the days dragged on sad and sorrowful during the first period of my captivity in the Ile du Salut I received every three months a few of the books which were sent me by my wife but I had no physical occupation the nights especially which in that climate last nearly 12 hours were dwearily prolonged in the month of July 1895 I had asked permission to buy a few Carpenter's tools a categorical refusal was the answer from the director of the prison service under the pretext that the tools might afford a means of escape I failed to see myself escaping on a Carpenter's plane from an island where I am kept under scrutiny night and day in the autumn of 1896 the regime already so severe became more rigorous still on the 4th of September my jailers received from Monsieur Libond minister of colonies the order to keep me until further notice confined to my hut through the 24 hours with the double boucle at night to surround the space left for my walk close around my hut with a solid palisade and to set another guard in my hut in addition to the one already there besides this they withheld all letters and packages sent to me and transmission of my correspondence was henceforth ordered to be made only in copies of the originals conformably to these instructions I was shut up night and day without a minute's exercise this absolute confinement was continued during the whole time needed for the bringing of the lumber and the construction of the palisade that is to say for nearly two months and a half the heat that year was particularly torrid and was so great in the hut that the guards made complaint after complaint declaring that they felt their heads bursting it became necessary on their account to have their quarters in the shed attached to my house sprinkled every day with water as for myself I literally melted dating from the 6th of September I was put in the double boucle at night and this torment which lasted nearly two months was of the following description two irons in the form of a U were fixed by their lower parts to the sides of the bed and these irons an iron bar was inserted and to this were fastened two bucla clasps at the extremity of the bar on one side there was a head and at the other a padlock so that the bar was fastened into the irons and consequently to the bed therefore when my feet were inserted in the two rings it was no longer possible for me to move about I was fastened in an unchangeable position to my bed the torture was hardly bearable during those tropical nights soon also the rings which were very tight lacerated my ankles the hut was surrounded by a palisade over eight feet high and distant not quite five feet from it this palisade was much higher than the little graded window of the hut which was hardly three and a half feet above the ground outside of this first palisade which was one of defense was a second one built quite as high and that like the first hit everything from my sight after some three months of absolute confinement to the 17 square yards of my hut I received permission to go about during the middle of the day always accompanied by the armed guard in the little plot of ground between the two palisades there was no shadow or cloud the burning sun blazed directly overhead up to the fourth of September 1896 I had occupied my hut only at night and during the hottest hours of the day except in the hours which I gave to my little walks about the two thousand square feet of the island which was reserved to me I often sat in the shade of the hut facing the sea and though my thoughts were sad and preoccupied and though I often shook with fever I at least had the consolation of looking upon the sea and letting my eyes wander over its waves often feeling my soul in the days of storm rise up with its furious waters but from the fourth of September 1896 the sight of the sea and of all the outer world was shut off and I stifled in a hut where there was no longer air or light in the course of the month of June 1896 I had had violent attacks of fever followed by congestion of the brain during one of these nights of pain and fever I tried to get up but fell helpless to the floor and lay there unconscious the guard on duty had to lift me up limp and covered with blood during the days which followed my stomach refused all food I grew much thinner my health was grievously shaken I was still extremely weak when the arbitrary and inhumane measures of the month of September 1896 were taken and as a result I had a relapse it was under such conditions that I thought I should not be able to go further for whatever the will and energy of a man may be human strength has a limit and this limit had been reached so I stopped my diary with the request that it should be given to my wife it was just as well for a few days afterward all my papers were seized I now had in my possession only a limited quantity of paper each sheet numbered and signed as before and a new rule provided that as each sheet was written on it should be given up and until it was handed over I could obtain no further supply but on one of these long nights of torture when riveted to my bed with sleep far from my eyes I sought my guiding star my guide in moments of supreme resolve I saw all at once the light before me illuminating for me my duty today less than ever have you the right to desert your post less than ever have you the right to shorten by a single hour your wretched life whatever the torments they inflict on you you must march forward until they throw you into your grave you must stand up before your executioners so long as you have a shadow of strength a living wreck to be kept before their eyes by the unassailable sovereignty of the soul which they cannot reach there upon I resolve to keep up the struggle with more energy than ever during the next period from the month of September 1896 until August 1897 the hourly surveillance became daily more rigorous at the beginning the number of the guards besides the chief was five it was raised to six and then to ten in the course of the year 1897 it was still further increased later until 1896 I received every three months the books sent by my wife from September 1896 this sending of books was stopped I was then notified it is true that I might ask every twelve weeks for twenty books to be bought at my expense the first time I made such a request the books did not reach me for several months the second time the books were still longer in reaching me my third request was never even acknowledged henceforth I had to content myself with the books in my possession this little library comprised besides a certain number of literary and scientific reviews and a few volumes of current literature sharers studies in contemporary literature Lansen's history of literature a few of Balzac's works Bara's memoirs Jeanine's essays in criticism a history of painting a history of France Augustine Thierry's Merovingiens the seventh and eighth volumes of Lavise and Humble's general history from the fourth century to our own days Montaigne's essays and best of all the complete works of Shakespeare I had never before understood the great poet so well as I did during these tragic days I read and reread and realized for the first time the tremendous dramatic power of Hamlet and King Lear I also applied myself to sciences but not possessing the necessary books in mathematics I made up for myself the elements of the integral and differential calculus thus for moments always too short alas I compelled my thoughts to dwell on topics far removed from those which habitually engrossed my conscious moments but my books were after a little while in a wretched condition insects laid their eggs in them and devoured them vermin hatched out everywhere in my hut mosquitoes swarmed in the rainy season ants in all seasons the latter in such considerable numbers that I had to protect my table by placing the legs in old tin cans filled with petroleum water was no barrier I had to tune with their bodies across its surface and when the chain was complete other ants passed over it as on a bridge the most harmful of my creeping visitors was the spider crab whose bite is poisonous this reptile resembles a crab in body while the long, widespread legs are those of a spider the size is about that of a man's hand I killed any number in my hut into which they came I had to lay my legs in roof and walls after the severe shock to my system of the month of September 1896 I had a period of despair followed by a determined reaction in which all my willpower was brought to bear on preserving my steadfastness and composure in October I wrote to my wife Ilda Salu, October 3rd, 1896 I have not yet received the mail of August but by the English mail I must send you a few words an echo of my great love last month I wrote you laying bare my heart and telling all my thoughts there is nothing that I can add I hope that the help you are asking for will be given you to the end that I may soon learn that light has at last been let in upon this horrible affair in the face of our sufferings our courage should grow greater we must not recriminate or complain but must ask indeed demand light on this tragedy that he or they whose victims we are be unmasked if I write to you often and at great length it is because there is something that I would express better than I do express it it is that strong in our consciences we must lift ourselves high above all this without complaint like sensitive honorable people who are suffering a martyrdom to which they may succumb we must simply do our duty if my part of this duty is to stand fast as long as I can your part of it the part of you all is to demand that light shall penetrate our gloom Alfred he'll disillue October 5th, 1896 I have just received your dear letters of August as well as letters from all the family and it is under the profound impression not only of all the sufferings that we all endure but of the pain that I have caused you by my letter of July 6th that I write to you ah, dear Lucy, how weak a creature man is how cowardly and egotistical he is at times when I wrote as I did I was, I think I told you a parade of fevers that burned body and brain then in my distress when I received no letter when I had need of a friendly hand of a kindly face I had to cry out to you for I could cry to no one else afterward I regained possession of myself and became again what I had been what I shall remain to my last breath you must understand that the only counsel I can give you is that which is suggested by my heart and such as I have developed in my preceding letters you are all better placed you have better advisers and you must know better than I could tell you what you must do Alfred the letter from my wife which I received the 5th of October 1896 was dated the 13th of August it was the only one of all the letters my wife had written during that month which reached me I take from it this simple passage I have just received your letter of the 6th of July I write you with my eyes still swollen with tears poor, poor dear husband what a calvary you are enduring it is so atrocious, so frightful that merely the thought of it drives me crazy Lucy none of her letters written in September ever reached me in December of all my wife's letters of the month of October I received but one that of October 10th of which the following is an extract I am waiting with keen anxiety for letters from you only think I have had no news of you since the 9th of August that is, for two months and a half long weeks of anxiety they are that pass between the males and each day's delay brings me new anguish Lucy on the 4th of January 1897 I wrote to Lucy I have just received your letters of November also those of the family the emotion they cause me is indescribable your thoughts are mine my dear Lucy my thoughts never leave you and our dear children my heart, you know it is still the heart of a soldier indifferent to physical suffering who holds honor above all else who has resisted this incredible uprooting of everything that makes life possible who has borne it all because he is a father and must see that honor is restored to the name his children bear I have already written you at length I have tried to sum it all up to you to explain to you why my confidence and my faith are so absolute my confidence in the efforts of one and all is fully fixed for believe it be absolutely certain of it the appeal that I have again made in the name of our children has revealed to those to whom I appealed a duty which true hearted men will never attempt to evade on the other hand I know well the sentiments that animate you all I know them too well ever to think that any one of you will ever lag as long as the truth remains in darkness cheer up until the brute is run to earth but alas as I have told you though my confidence is absolute the energies of the heart and brain have limits when an ordeal so appalling has been born so long I know also what you suffer and that is horrible it is not in your power to abridge my martyrdom our martyrdom the government alone possesses means of investigation powerful enough to do it if it does not wish to see a Frenchman who asks from his country nothing but justice succumb under the weight of so unmerited a fate I am hoping then that the government will lend you its cooperation whatever may become of me be brave and strong always I embrace you with all the strength of my love and I embrace also our dear children Alfred I quote from letters received from my wife at this time the following passages Paris November 12 1896 I have just received your good letters of the third and fifth of October I am still under their influence and happy to have abandoned myself for a few minutes to the sweet emotions which your words cause me I pray you my beloved husband do not think of my grief or of the suffering I may endure as I have said to you already do not consider me at all for my heart would be rung did I add by my complaints one single pang to your torments you need all your strength all your courage to hold out your moral struggle and to maintain yourself against the physical strain of the climate and all the privations which are imposed upon you Paris November 24 1896 I wish I could come and talk with you every day but what is the use of repeating always the same thing I know very well that my letters are all alike but they are all steeped in the same idea the only idea that fills us all and that in which center our own lives those of our children and the future of the whole family like you I can give myself up to but one thing to your rehabilitation apart from this fixed idea which haunts me nothing interests, nothing touches me Lucy then in February Paris December 15 1896 I was in hopes of receiving again this month some letters from you I looked forward with joy to the good talks we should have but not a word so I have taken up your letters of the month of October and read and re-read them Lucy Paris December 25 1896 once again I am going to send off my mail for you with bitter chagrin that I am unable to give you the news you long for the news which we all await anxiously I know this eternal lengthening out of your sufferings will be for you a new disappointment that is why I am doubly distressed poor dear my heart sickens at the thought that our utmost exertions have not as yet been able to shorten your torment by a single instant Lucy in March 1897 they made me wait until the 28th of the month for my wife's letters of January for the first time mere copies of her letters were handed to me how far this text written out by a hired clerk represented the original is a question I cannot answer authors note since I wrote these lines I have applied to the ministry of colonies for the originals of my wife's letters both those which never reached me and those which I received only in copies and also for all my writings I stay in the Ildu Diabla of which each leaf of paper numbered and signed page by page was taken away as soon as finished before more paper was given me all that was written by me at the Ildu Diabla has been found and returned but of the numerous letters from my wife which reached me not at all or only in copies only for have been given back all the others having been destroyed by the order of Monsieur Le Bon then minister of colonies end of authors note I felt keenly this new outrage coming after so many others but though it wounded me to the depths of my soul nothing could weaken my determination I wrote to my wife Ildu Salud, March 28, 1897 I have just received a copy of two January letters from you you complain that I do not write more at length but I sent you many letters towards the end of January perhaps by this time they have reached you you ask me again dear Lucy to tell you about myself ah, I cannot when one's sufferings are so sharp and one's soul so utterly miserable one cannot bear to think though that is all one can do you will forgive me if I have not always been self-controlled at times it was more than I could endure alone such absolute isolation is terrible but today darling as yesterday let us put recriminations behind us this life is nothing a pure soul that has a sacred duty to fulfill must rise above suffering have courage, have courage look straight before you neither to the right nor to the left but steadfastly to the end I know well that you too are but human yet when grief becomes too great when trials still to come seem too hard for you to bear look into the faces of our children and say to yourself that you must live to be with them and care for them until the day when our country shall acknowledge what I have been and am what I wish to repeat to you with a voice that you must always hear is courage, courage your patience, your resolution that of all of us must never tire until the full truth is revealed I cannot fill my letters full enough of the love that my heart holds for you all that I have been able to withstand so much agony of soul such misery and strain is because I have drawn strength from the thought of you and the children Alfred from the two letters written by my wife in January copied by some clerk and not received until the 28th of March I give the following excerpts today more than ever I need to draw near to you and to talk to you of our trials and of our hopes this day is all the sadder in that it recalls to me happy memories now so far away I must pass the whole day in speaking with you it will seem to me shorter and less bitter I cannot again give voice to those hopes repeated so often and so wearily I can only pray with all my strength for that long deferred moment when we shall at last be able to live in peace when I can fold you in my arms and call you by a name once more honored by all let us hope this new year will bring us the realization of our prayers in this continual suspense in which I live your letters are my only respite they are something of yourself a part of your soul which seeks me out to console me during a long month Lucy I did not learn from the few copied letters I received of the events passing at this time in France I recall them briefly the articles in the eclair of September 15th, 1896 disclosing the communication in court to my judges alone of a secret document the courageous initiative of Bernard Lazar who in November 1896 published his pamphlet A Judicial Error publication by the Matin of November 10th, 1896 of the facsimile of the Baudero the Castella interpolation of November 1896 in the Chamber of Deputies I learned of these events only on my return in 1899 neither my wife nor anyone outside of the Ministry of War nor of the discovery of the real trader by Lieutenant Colonel Picard nor of the heroic conduct of this admirable officer and the criminal maneuvers which prevented him from bringing to an issue his work on behalf of truth and justice End of section 11