THE BLACK CAT audiobook A Short Story by Edgar Allan Poe Learn English Through Story
the black cat
by edgar allan
poe 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 tomorrow i die
and today 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 commonplace
some intellect more calm more logical
and far less excitable than my own
which will perceive in the circumstances
i detail with all
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 goldfish a fine dog
rabbits a small monkey and a cat
this ladder 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 mentioned 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
in temperance
had
i blushed 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 retain
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 west 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 of 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 cold 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 a bitterest remorse in 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 very
minut and eager attention
the words strange
singular
and other similar expressions
excited my curiosity
i approached and saw as if graven in bar
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 all together 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 hog’s head 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 splash 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 a reverse of what i had
anticipated
but
i know not how or why it was
it’s 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
shimmers 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
o 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 anymore
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
nightmare 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 soul 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 outburst 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 staid 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
[Music]
this hideous murder accomplished i set
myself forth with 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
their neighbors
many projects entered my mind
at one period i thought of cutting the
corpse into my newt 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
merchandise
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 seller
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 hole up
as before so that no eye could detect
anything suspicious
and in this calculation i was not
deceived
by means of a crowbar 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 relayed 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 for bore 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
i
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 made 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’d delight to have allayed your
suspicions
i wish you all health and a little more
courtesy
by the by 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 wrapped heavily with a cane
which i held in my hand upon that very
portion of the brickwork behind which
stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom
but my god shield and deliver me from
the fangs of the arch fiend
no sooner had the reverberation of my
blows sunk into silence
then 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
toiling at the wall
it fell badly
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
end of the black cat
by edgar allan poe