THE BLACK CAT
by: Edgar Alan 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 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 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 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. [page 38:]
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 wife. At length, I even offered her
personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in
my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Pluto,
however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from
maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the
monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they
came in my way. But my disease grew upon me — for what disease is like
Alcohol! — and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and
consequently somewhat peevish — even Pluto began to experience the
effects of my ill temper.
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 [page 39:] 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 [page
40:] 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 wore
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 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 [page 41:] 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 altogether 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 stupified, 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 — [page 42:] 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 loathingfondness for
myself rather disgusted and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of
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 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 destroyed. The reader will remember that this mark,
although large, had been originally very indefinite; but, by slow
degrees — [page 43:] 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 [page
44:] 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 red of the cellar. I made no doubt that I could readily
displace the bricks at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole
up as before, so that no eye could detect any thing 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 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 whole up as before, so that no eye could detect
any thing 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 tha
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 [page 45:] 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 freeman. The monster, in terror, had
fled the premisbreathed as a freeman. 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 w
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;" [page 46:] 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 dammed 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 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 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!