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!