正文
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 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—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 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 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 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
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—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
woe! 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 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
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 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 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
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 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 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 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
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!