Edgar Allan Poe - The Black Cat
FOR the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a ca where my very ns 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 purpo is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a ries of mere houhold events. In their conquences, the events have terrified -- have tortured -- have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have prented little but Horror -- to many they will em less terrible than barroques. 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 caus 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 the 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 tho 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 unlfish and lf-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. Obrving my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring tho 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 t
o 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 disgui. Not that she was ever rious 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 hou. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets.
Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for veral 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 wor. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered mylf to u intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of cour, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only n
eglected, but ill-ud 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 dia grew upon me -- for what dia is like Alcohol ! -- and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and conquently 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 prence. I ized 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 possd me. I knew mylf no longer. My original soul emed, 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 ntiment half of horror, half of remor, 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.
