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I really enjoy reading edgar allan poes's works. Here are some of my favotites
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 unburthen 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 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 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 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 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 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--
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TRUE! --nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had
sharpened my senses --not destroyed --not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the
heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily --how calmly
I can tell you the whole story.
It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there
was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold
I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over
it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of
the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.
Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely
I proceeded --with what caution --with what foresight --with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the
old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and
opened it --oh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed,
closed, that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it
in! I moved it slowly --very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my
whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! would a madman have been so wise as
this, And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously-oh, so cautiously --cautiously (for the
hinges creaked) --I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long
nights --every night just at midnight --but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it
was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber,
and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he has passed the night. So you see
he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while
he slept.
Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch's minute hand moves more quickly than
did mine. Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers --of my sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings
of triumph. To think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or
thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he heard me; for he moved on the bed suddenly, as if startled. Now you
may think that I drew back --but no. His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness, (for the shutters were close
fastened, through fear of robbers,) and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on
steadily, steadily.
I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang
up in bed, crying out --"Who's there?"
I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him
lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed listening; --just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the death
watches in the wall.
Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief
--oh, no! --it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound
well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful
echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled
at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise, when he had turned in the bed. His fears
had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself
--"It is nothing but the wind in the chimney --it is only a mouse crossing the floor," or "It is merely a cricket which has
made a single chirp." Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions: but he had found all in vain. All
in vain; because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. And it
was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel --although he neither saw nor heard --to feel
the presence of my head within the room.
When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little --a very, very
little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it --you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily --until, at length a simple
dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye.
It was open --wide, wide open --and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness --all a dull
blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man's
face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.
And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense? --now, I say, there came
to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the
beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.
But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could
maintain the ray upon the eve. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder
and louder every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! --do you
mark me well I have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence
of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained
and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me --the
sound would be heard by a neighbour! The old man's hour had come! With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into
the room. He shrieked once --once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then
smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done. But, for many minutes, the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however,
did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined
the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation.
He was stone dead. His eve would trouble me no more.
If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment
of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head
and the arms and the legs.
I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced
the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye --not even his --could have detected any thing wrong. There was nothing
to wash out --no stain of any kind --no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had caught all --ha! ha!
When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o'clock --still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there
came a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a light heart, --for what had I now to fear? There entered
three men, who introduced themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbour
during the night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused; information had been lodged at the police office, and they (the
officers) had been deputed to search the premises.
I smiled, --for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The old man,
I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search --search well. I led them,
at length, to his chamber. I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought
chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect
triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.
The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them. I was singularly at ease. They sat, and while I answered cheerily,
they chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied
a ringing in my ears: but still they sat and still chatted. The ringing became more distinct: --It continued and became more
distinct: I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definiteness --until, at length, I found
that the noise was not within my ears.
No doubt I now grew very pale; --but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased --and
what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound --much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for
breath --and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly --more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose
and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they
not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men --but the
noise steadily increased. Oh God! what could I do? I foamed --I raved --I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting,
and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder --louder --louder! And
still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! --no, no! They heard! --they suspected!
--they knew! --they were making a mockery of my horror!-this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this
agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must
scream or die! and now --again! --hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!
"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --tear up the planks! here, here! --It is the beating of
his hideous heart!"
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Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore
--
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber
door.
" 'T is some visitor, " I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door--
Only this and nothing more."
Ah, distinctly
I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished
the morrow -- vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow -- sorrow for the lost Lenore--
For the
rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken, sad, uncertain
rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me -- filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before:
So that now, to still
the beating of my heart, I stood repeating.
" 'T is some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door--
Some late
visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door--
That it is and nothing more."
Presently my soul grew stronger:
hesitating then no longer,
"Sir, " said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore:
But the fact is I was napping,
and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure
I heard you"-- here I opened wide the door--
Darkness there and nothing more.
Deep into the darkness peering,
long I stood there wondering fearing.
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before:
But the
silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"
This
I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word "Lenore!"--
Merely this and nothing more.
Back into the chamber
turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
"Surely," said I,
"surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore--
Let my
heart be still a moment and this mystery explore--
'T is the wind an nothing more!"
Open here i flung the shutter,
when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance
made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door--
Perched
upon a bust of Pallas just a bove my chamber door--
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling
my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and
shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore--
Tell me
what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
Much I marveled this ungainly
fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning -- little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing
that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door--
Bird or beast upon the sculptured
bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore."
But the Raven sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke
only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpoor.
Nothing further then he uttered, not a feather then
he fluttered--
Till I scarcely more then muttered, "Other friends have flown before --
On the morrow he will leave me,
as my Hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said, "Nevermore."
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so
aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utteres is it only stock and store
Caught from some unhappy master whom
unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore --
Till the dirges of his Hope
the melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never - nevermore.'"
But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight
I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door,
Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy
unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore--
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant
in croaking, "Nevermore."
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl, whose fiery eyes
now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet
lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er
But whose velvet-violet lining with lamp-light gloating o'er
She shall press,
ah, nevermore!
Then methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by seraphim whose foot-falls
tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God has lent thee -- by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite
-- respite the nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh, quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth
the Raven, "Nevermore."
"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! -- prophet still, if bird of devil!
Whether Tempter sent,
or whatever tempest tossed thee ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted --
On this home by
Horror haunted -- tell me truly, I implore --
Is there -- is there balm in Gilead? -- tell me -- tell me, I implore!"
Quoth
the Raven, "Nevermore."
"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! -- prophet still, if bird of devil!
By that Heaven that
bends above us -- by that God we both adore--
Tell his soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall
clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore --
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth
the Raven, "Nevermore."
"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting --
"Get thee back
into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave
my loneliness unbroken! -- quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my
door!
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the
pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming,
And
the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor,
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on
the floor
Shall be lifted -- nevermore!
THE CHATEAU into which my valet had ventured to make forcible entrance, rather than permit me, in my desperately wounded
condition, to pass a night in the open air, was one of those piles of commingled gloom and grandeur which have so long frowned
among the Appennines, not less in fact than in the fancy of Mrs. Radcliffe. To all appearance it had been temporarily and
very lately abandoned. We established ourselves in one of the smallest and least sumptuously furnished apartments. It lay
in a remote turret of the building. Its decorations were rich, yet tattered and antique. Its walls were hung with tapestry
and bedecked with manifold and multiform armorial trophies, together with an unusually great number of very spirited modern
paintings in frames of rich golden arabesque. In these paintings, which depended from the walls not only in their main surfaces,
but in very many nooks which the bizarre architecture of the chateau rendered necessary- in these paintings my incipient delirium,
perhaps, had caused me to take deep interest; so that I bade Pedro to close the heavy shutters of the room- since it was already
night- to light the tongues of a tall candelabrum which stood by the head of my bed- and to throw open far and wide the fringed
curtains of black velvet which enveloped the bed itself. I wished all this done that I might resign myself, if not to sleep,
at least alternately to the contemplation of these pictures, and the perusal of a small volume which had been found upon the
pillow, and which purported to criticise and describe them.
Long- long I read- and devoutly, devotedly I gazed. Rapidly and gloriously the hours flew by and the deep midnight came.
The position of the candelabrum displeased me, and outreaching my hand with difficulty, rather than disturb my slumbering
valet, I placed it so as to throw its rays more fully upon the book.
But the action produced an effect altogether unanticipated. The rays of the numerous candles (for there were many) now
fell within a niche of the room which had hitherto been thrown into deep shade by one of the bed-posts. I thus saw in vivid
light a picture all unnoticed before. It was the portrait of a young girl just ripening into womanhood. I glanced at the painting
hurriedly, and then closed my eyes. Why I did this was not at first apparent even to my own perception. But while my lids
remained thus shut, I ran over in my mind my reason for so shutting them. It was an impulsive movement to gain time for thought-
to make sure that my vision had not deceived me- to calm and subdue my fancy for a more sober and more certain gaze. In a
very few moments I again looked fixedly at the painting.
That I now saw aright I could not and would not doubt; for the first flashing of the candles upon that canvas had seemed
to dissipate the dreamy stupor which was stealing over my senses, and to startle me at once into waking life.
The portrait, I have already said, was that of a young girl. It was a mere head and shoulders, done in what is technically
termed a vignette manner; much in the style of the favorite heads of Sully. The arms, the bosom, and even the ends of the
radiant hair melted imperceptibly into the vague yet deep shadow which formed the back-ground of the whole. The frame was
oval, richly gilded and filigreed in Moresque. As a thing of art nothing could be more admirable than the painting itself.
But it could have been neither the execution of the work, nor the immortal beauty of the countenance, which had so suddenly
and so vehemently moved me. Least of all, could it have been that my fancy, shaken from its half slumber, had mistaken the
head for that of a living person. I saw at once that the peculiarities of the design, of the vignetting, and of the frame,
must have instantly dispelled such idea- must have prevented even its momentary entertainment. Thinking earnestly upon these
points, I remained, for an hour perhaps, half sitting, half reclining, with my vision riveted upon the portrait. At length,
satisfied with the true secret of its effect, I fell back within the bed. I had found the spell of the picture in an absolute
life-likeliness of expression, which, at first startling, finally confounded, subdued, and appalled me. With deep and reverent
awe I replaced the candelabrum in its former position. The cause of my deep agitation being thus shut from view, I sought
eagerly the volume which discussed the paintings and their histories. Turning to the number which designated the oval portrait,
I there read the vague and quaint words which follow:
"She was a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee. And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved,
and wedded the painter. He, passionate, studious, austere, and having already a bride in his Art; she a maiden of rarest beauty,
and not more lovely than full of glee; all light and smiles, and frolicsome as the young fawn; loving and cherishing all things;
hating only the Art which was her rival; dreading only the pallet and brushes and other untoward instruments which deprived
her of the countenance of her lover. It was thus a terrible thing for this lady to hear the painter speak of his desire to
pourtray even his young bride. But she was humble and obedient, and sat meekly for many weeks in the dark, high turret-chamber
where the light dripped upon the pale canvas only from overhead. But he, the painter, took glory in his work, which went on
from hour to hour, and from day to day. And be was a passionate, and wild, and moody man, who became lost in reveries; so
that he would not see that the light which fell so ghastly in that lone turret withered the health and the spirits of his
bride, who pined visibly to all but him. Yet she smiled on and still on, uncomplainingly, because she saw that the painter
(who had high renown) took a fervid and burning pleasure in his task, and wrought day and night to depict her who so loved
him, yet who grew daily more dispirited and weak. And in sooth some who beheld the portrait spoke of its resemblance in low
words, as of a mighty marvel, and a proof not less of the power of the painter than of his deep love for her whom he depicted
so surpassingly well. But at length, as the labor drew nearer to its conclusion, there were admitted none into the turret;
for the painter had grown wild with the ardor of his work, and turned his eyes from canvas merely, even to regard the countenance
of his wife. And he would not see that the tints which he spread upon the canvas were drawn from the cheeks of her who sate
beside him. And when many weeks bad passed, and but little remained to do, save one brush upon the mouth and one tint upon
the eye, the spirit of the lady again flickered up as the flame within the socket of the lamp. And then the brush was given,
and then the tint was placed; and, for one moment, the painter stood entranced before the work which he had wrought; but in
the next, while he yet gazed, he grew tremulous and very pallid, and aghast, and crying with a loud voice, 'This is indeed
Life itself!' turned suddenly to regard his beloved:- She was dead!
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