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28 March, 1897.
Dear Lucie:
After a long and anxious waiting I have just received a copy of two letters from you written in January. You complain that I do not write more at length. I wrote you numerous letters toward the end of January; perhaps by this time they have reached you.
And then, the sentiments that are in our hearts, and that rule our souls, we know them. Moreover, we have, both of us, drained the cup of all suffering.
You ask me again, dear Lucie, to speak to you at length about my own self. Alas! I cannot. When one suffers so atrociously, when one has to bear such misery of soul, it is impossible to know at night where one will be on the morrow.
You will forgive me if I have not always been a stoic; if often I have made you share my bitter grief, you who had already so much to bear. But sometimes it was too much; and I was absolutely alone.
But to-day, darling, as yesterday, let us put behind us all complaints, all recriminations. Life is nothing! You must triumph over all griefs, whatever they may be, over all sufferings, like a pure, exalted human soul that has a sacred duty to fulfill.
Be invincibly strong and valiant; keep your eyes fixed straight before you, looking to the end—looking neither to the right nor to the left.
Ah, I know well that you, too, are only a human being, . . . but when grief becomes too great, when the trials that the future has in store for you are too hard to bear, then look into the faces of our children, and say to yourself that you must live, that you must be
