I have just received your letters of July. You tell me again that you
have the certainty that the full light of day is soon to shine; this
certainty is in my soul; it is inspired by the right that every man has
to demand it, to will that he shall have it when he demands but one
thing--the truth.
As long as I shall have the strength to live in a situation as inhuman
as it is undeserved, I shall continue to write to you, to inspire you by
my indomitable will.
Indeed, the last letters I wrote to you are my moral will and testament.
I spoke to you in them first of all of our love. I confessed to you also
my physical and cerebral breaking down, but I spoke to you not less
energetically of your duty, the duty of you all.
This grandeur of soul that you all have shown equally--let there be no
illusion about this--this grandeur of soul should be accompanied neither
by weakness nor by boasting. On the contrary, it should ally itself to a
determination each day more resolute, a determination that strengthens
with each hour of the day, to march on toward the goal--the discovery of
the truth, the whole truth, for all France.
Truly, this wound sometimes bleeds too hard, and the heart rises in
revolt. Truly, worn out as I am, I often fall under the blows of the
sledge-hammer, and then I am no more than a poor human being, full of
agony and suffering; but my indomitable soul lifts me up quivering with
pain, with energy, with implacable desire for that that is most precious
in this world--our honor, the honor of our children, the honor of us
all. And then I brace myself anew to cry out to all men the thrilling
appeal of a man who asks, who wants, only justice. And then I come to
illume in you all the ardent fire that burns in my soul, that shall be
extinguished only with my life.
As for me, I live only by my fever; for a long time I have lived on from
day to day, proud when I have been able to hold out through a long day
of twenty-four hours. I am subjected to the stupid and useless lot of
the man in the iron mask, because there is always that same afterthought
lingering in the mind, I told you so, frankly, in one of my last
letters.
As for you, you must not pay any attention either to what any one says
or to what any one thinks. You have your duty to do unflinchingly, and
it is incumbent upon you, and to resolve not less unflinchingly, to have
your right, the right of justice and of truth. Yes, the light must
shine out. I put my thought in a few words; but if there are in this
horrible affair other interests than ours--interests that we have never
misunderstood--there are also the imprescriptible rights of justice and
of truth; there is for us both, for all, the duty, while we respect all
these interests, of bringing to an end a situation so atrocious, so
unmerited.
I can then but hope for both of us, for all, that our martyrdom is to
have an end.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account