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THE
BLACK CAT
By Edgar Allen Poe
For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to
pen,
I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to
expect
it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence.
Yet,
mad am I not - and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I
die,
and to-day I would unburden my soul. My immediate purpose is to
place
before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a
series
of mere household events. In their consequences, these events
have
terrified - have tortured - have destroyed me. Yet I will not
attempt
to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror
-
to many they will seem less terrible than baroques. Hereafter,
perhaps,
some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to
the
common-place - some intellect more calm, more logical, and far
less
excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances
I
detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very
natural
causes and effects.
From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my
disposition.
My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to
make
me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals,
and
was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With
these
I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding
and
caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew with my
growth,
and in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal
sources
of pleasure. To those who have cherished an affection for a
faithful
and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of
explaining
the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus
derivable.
There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing
love
of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had
frequent
occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity
of
mere Man.
I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition
not
uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic
pets,
she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most
agreeable
kind. We had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small
monkey,
and a cat.
This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely
black,
and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his
intelligence,
my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with
superstition,
made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion,
which
regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she
was
ever serious upon this point - and I mention the matter at all
for
no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be
remembered.
Pluto - this was the cat's name - was my favorite pet and
playmate.
I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about
the
house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from
following
me through the streets.
Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during
which
my general temperament and character - through the
instrumentality
of the Fiend Intemperance - had (I blush to confess
it)
experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by
day,
more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of
others.
I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At
length,
I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course,
were
made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected,
but
ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient
regard
to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of
maltreating
the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by
accident,
or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease
grew
upon me - for what disease is like Alcohol! - and at length even
Pluto,
who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish -
even
Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.
One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my
haunts
about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I
seized
him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight
wound
upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly
possessed
me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at
once,
to take its flight from my body and a more than fiendish
malevolence,
gin-nurtured, thrilled every fiber of my frame. I took
from
my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor
beast
by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the
socket!
I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable
atrocity.
When reason returned with the morning - when I had slept off the
fumes
of the night's debauch - I experienced a sentiment half of
horror,
half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty;
but
it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul
remained
untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in
wine
all memory of the deed.
In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost
eye
presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer
appeared
to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but,
as
might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so
much
of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident
dislike
on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But
this
feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to
my
final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of
this
spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that
my
soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive
impulses
of the human heart - one of the indivisible primary
faculties,
or sentiments, which give direction to the character of
Man.
Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or
a
silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should
not?
Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best
judgment,
to violate that which is Law, merely because we
understand
it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to
my
final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul _to
vex
itself_ - to offer violence to its own nature - to do wrong for
the
wrong's sake only - that urged me to continue and finally to
consummate
the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One
morning,
in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it
to
the limb of a tree; - hung it with the tears streaming from my
eyes,
and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; - hung it because
I
knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no
reason
of offence; - hung it because I knew that in so doing I was
committing
a sin - a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal
soul
as to place it - if such a thing wore possible - even beyond the
reach
of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible
God.
On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was
aroused
from sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were in
flames.
The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty
that
my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the
conflagration.
The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth
was
swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair.
I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of
cause
and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am
detailing
a chain of facts - and wish not to leave even a possible
link
imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins.
The
walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This exception was
found
in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the
middle
of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed.
The
plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the
fire
- a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread.
About
this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons seemed
to
be examining a particular portion of it with very minute and eager
attention.
The words "strange!" "singular!" and other similar
expressions,
excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven
in
base relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic
cat.
The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvelous.
There
was a rope about the animal's neck.
When I first beheld this apparition - for I could scarcely regard
it
as less - my wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length
reflection
came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a
garden
adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had
been
immediately filled by the crowd - by some one of whom the animal
must
have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window,
into
my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of
arousing
me from sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the
victim
of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread
plaster;
the lime of which, with the flames, and the ammonia from
the
carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it.
Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether
to
my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did not
the
less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For months I
could
not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and, during this
period,
there came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed,
but
was not, remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the
animal,
and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now
habitually
frequented, for another pet of the same species, and of
somewhat
similar appearance, with which to supply its place.
One night as I sat, half stupefied, in a den of more than infamy,
my
attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon
the
head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or of Rum, which
constituted
the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking
steadily
at the top of this hogshead for some minutes, and what now
caused
me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the
object
thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It
was
a black cat - a very large one - fully as large as Pluto, and
closely
resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto had not a
white
hair upon any portion of his body; but this cat had a large,
although
indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole
region
of the breast. Upon my touching him, he immediately arose,
purred
loudly, rubbed against my hand, and appeared delighted with my
notice.
This, then, was the very creature of which I was in search. I
at
once offered to purchase it of the landlord; but this person made
no
claim to it - knew nothing of it - had never seen it before.
I continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go home, the
animal
evinced a disposition to accompany me. I permitted it to do
so;
occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. When it
reached
the house it domesticated itself at once, and became
immediately
a great favorite with my wife.
For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me.
This
was just the reverse of what I had anticipated; but - I know not
how
or why it was - its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted
and
annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance
rose
into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided the creature; a certain
sense
of shame, and the remembrance of my former deed of cruelty,
preventing
me from physically abusing it. I did not, for some weeks,
strike,
or otherwise violently ill use it; but gradually - very
gradually
- I came to look upon it with unutterable loathing, and to
flee
silently from its odious presence, as from the breath of a
pestilence.
What
added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the discovery,
on
the morning after I brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had
been
deprived of one of its eyes. This circumstance, however, only
endeared
it to my wife, who, as I have already said, possessed, in a
high
degree, that humanity of feeling which had once been my
distinguishing
trait, and the source of many of my simplest and
purest
pleasures.
With
my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself
seemed
to increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which
it
would be difficult to make the reader comprehend. Whenever I sat,
it
would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon my knees, covering
me
with its loathsome caresses. If I arose to walk it would get
between
my feet and thus nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long
and
sharp claws in my dress, clamber, in this manner, to my breast.
At
such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet
withheld
from so doing, partly by a memory of my former crime, but
chiefly
- let me confess it at once - by absolute dread of the beast.
This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil - and yet I
should
be at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am almost ashamed
to
own - yes, even in this felon's cell, I am almost ashamed to own -
that
the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me, had
been
heightened by one of the merest chimaeras it would be possible
to
conceive. My wife had called my attention, more than once, to the
character
of the mark of white hair, of which I have spoken, and
which
constituted the sole visible difference between the strange
beast
and the one I had destroyed. The reader will remember that this
mark,
although large, had been originally very indefinite; but, by
slow
degrees - degrees nearly imperceptible, and which for a long
time
my Reason struggled to reject as fanciful - it had, at length,
assumed
a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was now the
representation
of an object that I shudder to name - and for this,
above
all, I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the
monster
_had I dared_ - it was now, I say, the image of a hideous -
of
a ghastly thing - of the GALLOWS ! - oh, mournful and terrible
engine
of Horror and of Crime - of Agony and of Death !
And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere
Humanity.
And a brute beast - whose fellow I had contemptuously
destroyed
- a brute beast to work out for me - for me a man,
fashioned
in the image of the High God - so much of insufferable woe!
Alas!
neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of Rest any
more!
During the former the creature left me no moment alone; and, in
the
latter, I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to
find
the hot breath of _the thing_ upon my face, and its vast weight
-
an incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off -
incumbent
eternally upon my heart !
Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble
remnant
of the good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole
intimates
- the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of
my
usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind;
while,
from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a
fury
to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife,
alas!
was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.
One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the
cellar
of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit.
The
cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me
headlong,
exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an axe, and
forgetting,
in my wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed
my
hand, I aimed a blow at the animal which, of course, would have
proved
instantly fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow
was
arrested by the hand of my wife. Goaded, by the interference,
into
a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp
and
buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot, without
a
groan.
This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and
with
entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I knew
that
I could not remove it from the house, either by day or by night,
without
the risk of being observed by the neighbors. Many projects
entered
my mind. At one period I thought of cutting the corpse into
minute
fragments, and destroying them by fire. At another, I resolved
to
dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar. Again, I
deliberated
about casting it in the well in the yard - about packing
it
in a box, as if merchandize, with the usual arrangements, and so
getting
a porter to take it from the house. Finally I hit upon what I
considered
a far better expedient than either of these. I determined
to
wall it up in the cellar - as the monks of the middle ages are
recorded
to have walled up their victims.
For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its walls
were
loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered throughout
with
a rough plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere had
prevented
from hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a
projection,
caused by a false chimney, or fireplace, that had been
filled
up, and made to resemble the red of the cellar. I made no
doubt
that I could readily displace the bricks at this point, insert
the
corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye could
detect
any thing suspicious. And in this calculation I was not
deceived.
By means of a crow-bar I easily dislodged the bricks, and,
having
carefully deposited the body against the inner wall, I propped
it
in that position, while, with little trouble, I re-laid the whole
structure
as it originally stood. Having procured mortar, sand, and
hair,
with every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster which
could
not be distinguished from the old, and with this I very
carefully
went over the new brickwork. When I had finished, I felt
satisfied
that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest
appearance
of having been disturbed. The rubbish on the floor was
picked
up with the minutest care. I looked around triumphantly, and
said
to myself - "Here at least, then, my labor has not been in
vain."
My next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause
of
so much wretchedness; for I had, at length, firmly resolved to put
it
to death. Had I been able to meet with it, at the moment, there
could
have been no doubt of its fate; but it appeared that the crafty
animal
had been alarmed at the violence of my previous anger, and
forbore
to present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to
describe,
or to imagine, the deep, the blissful sense of relief which
the
absence of the detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did
not
make its appearance during the night - and thus for one night at
least,
since its introduction into the house, I soundly and
tranquilly
slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my
soul!
The second and the third day passed, and still my tormentor came
not.
Once again I breathed as a freeman. The monster, in terror, had
fled
the premises forever! I should behold it no more! My happiness
was
supreme! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some
few
inquiries had been made, but these had been readily answered.
Even
a search had been instituted - but of course nothing was to be
discovered.
I looked upon my future felicity as secured.
Upon the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police
came,
very unexpectedly, into the house, and proceeded again to make
rigorous
investigation of the premises. Secure, however, in the
inscrutability
of my place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment
whatever.
The officers bade me accompany them in their search. They
left
no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for the third or fourth
time,
they descended into the cellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My
heart
beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked
the
cellar from end to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom, and
roamed
easily to and fro. The police were thoroughly satisfied and
prepared
to depart. The glee at my heart was too strong to be
restrained.
I burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph, and
to
render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness.
"Gentlemen," I said at last, as the party ascended the steps,
"I
delight
to have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a
little
more courtesy. By the bye, gentlemen, this - this is a very
well
constructed house." [In the rabid desire to say something
easily,
I scarcely knew what I uttered at all.] - "I may say an
excellently
well constructed house. These walls are you going,
gentlemen?
- these walls are solidly put together;" and here, through
the
mere frenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I
held
in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind
which
stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom.
But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the
Arch-Fiend
! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into
silence,
than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb! - by a
cry,
at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and
then
quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream,
utterly
anomalous and inhuman - a howl - a wailing shriek, half of
horror
and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of
hell,
conjointly from the throats of the dammed in their agony and of
the
demons that exult in the damnation.
Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered to
the
opposite wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs remained
motionless,
through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a
dozen
stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The
corpse,
already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect
before
the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended
mouth
and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had
seduced
me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to
the
hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!