that will not help us. Pass from words to acts, and become great and worthy by those acts.
Embrace your dear parents and all our family for me. Thank them for their good, affectionate letters; thank also your dear aunt for the touching lines she has written to me. I do not write to them directly, though my heart night and day is with them all; for I could only go on repeating myself.
Courage, then, dear Lucie; we must see the end of this tragedy.
I embrace you with all my strength, with all my soul, and also our dear children.
Your devoted
Alfred.
The books you have sent me have been announced, but I have not yet received them. I thank you; I had great need of them, for reading is the only thing which can distract my thoughts a little.
5 October, 1895.
My dear Lucie:
I had already written to you yesterday, but after I had read and re-read all the letters from this last mail there arose from them such a cry of agony that all my being was profoundly shaken.
You suffer for me, and I suffer for you.
No, it is not possible, it cannot be that an entire family can be subjected to such martyrdom.
Merely from the agony of waiting, we shall all be brought to the ground. It must not be; there are our children; they must be thought of before all
