My face burns with shame.

Until my ghastly tale is told, this heart within me burns.

I understand too well the dreadful act
I'm going to commit, but my judgement
can't check my anger, and that incites
the greatest evils human beings do.

Bad as I am thought, I cannot express the horror I feel at this atrocity.

I blush to think of our origins—our hands are steeped in blood and crime. And there is no letup to the slaughter and pillage.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns:
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.

But yester-night I prayed aloud
In anguish and in agony,
Up-starting from the fiendish crowd
Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me:
A lurid light, a trampling throng,
Sense of intolerable wrong,
And whom I scorned, those only strong!
Thirst of revenge, the powerless will
Still baffled, and yet burning still!
Desire with loathing strangely mixed
On wild or hateful objects fixed.
Fantastic passions! maddening brawl!
And shame and terror over all!
Deeds to be hid which were not hid,
Which all confused I could not know
Whether I suffered, or I did:
For all seemed guilt, remorse or woe,
My own or others still the same
Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame.

Writing brings about a catharsis of my own terror and pity. It is something I have to do.

5306. Truth makes the Devil blush.

"I know what it’s like to lie in bed at night, wondering if I was the one who had done something wrong. I know what it’s like years later to remember that rush of humiliation and anger.

He who blushes is already guilty.

A cry of horror against the inhuman brutality of this act of tyranny.

I am too horrified for words at this monstrous horrible sentence against this poor martyr Dreyfus. If only all Europe would express its horror and indignation! I trust there will be a severe retribution.

[Writers] are feared by every tyrant — who shows his fear by burning the books and destroying the individuals.