THE BLACK CAT
                    by Edgar Allan 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 peculiar 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 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 inally 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 --if such a thing were 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 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 every minute
                        and eager attention. The words "strange!" "singular!" and other
                     similar expressions, excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if
                          graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a
                        gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly
                           marvellous. 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, had then with the flames, and the
                      ammonia from the carcass, 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 fall 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 it at 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 y si 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 wo! 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 rest of the cellar. I made no
                         doubt that I could readily displace the at this point, insert the
                      corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye could detect
                                        anything 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 could not every poss be distinguished
                        from the old, and with this I very carefully went over the new
                         brick-work. 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 forebore 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 free-man. 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
                     phrenzy 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 damned 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 tolling 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!
                                                              --THE END--