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On the table beside me burned a lamp, and near it lay a little box. It was of no remarkable character, and I had
seen it frequently before, for it was the property of the family physician; but how came it , upon my
table, and why did I shudder in regarding it? These things were in no manner to be accounted for, and my
eyes at length dropped to the open pages of a book, and to a sentence underscored therein. The words were
the singular but simple ones of the poet Ebn Zaiat, '
curas meas aliquantulum fore levatas>.' Why then, as I perused them, did the hairs of my head erect
themselves on end, and the blood of my body become congealed within my veins?
There came a light tap at the library door, and pale as the tenant of a tomb, a menial entered upon tiptoe. His
looks were wild with terror, and he spoke to me in a voice tremulous, husky, and very low. What said
he?--some broken sentences I heard. He told of a wild cry disturbing the silence of the night--of the
gathering together of the household--of a search in the direction of the sound;--and then his tones grew
thrillingly distinct as he whispered me of a violated grave--of a disfigured body enshrouded, yet still
breathing, still palpitating, still !
He pointed to my garments;--they were muddy and clotted with gore. I spoke not, and he took me gently by
the hand;--it was indented with the impress of human nails. He directed my attention to some object against
the wall;--I looked at it for some minutes;--it was a spade. With a shriek I bounded to the table, and
grasped the box that lay upon it. But I could not force it open; and in my tremor it slipped from my hands,
and fell heavily, and burst into pieces; and from it, with a rattling sound, there rolled out some instruments of
The Black Cat and Other Stories 23
The Black Cat and Other Stories
dental surgery, intermingled with thirty-two small, white and ivory-looking substances that were scattered to
and fro about the floor.
The Black Cat
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 . Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my
phantasm to the commonplace--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 of 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 .
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 .
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 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 favourite 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
feel-ings 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.
The Black Cat and Other Stories 24
The Black Cat and Other Stories
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 fibre 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 ? Have we
not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is , merely because
we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this
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