The Black Cat

by Edgar Allan Poe
(published 1845)
  

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    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.

    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
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
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
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
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 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
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
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 chimæras 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 !
-- 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 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
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 which could not 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 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 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 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 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!

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