The black cat

…written from a prison cell…

1843

This is the wildest, yet basic story which I am about to tell you. I don’t expect you to believe me. I would be crazy to expect you to believe me because I am not sure I believe it myself.

Yet, I am not mad – and I am not dreaming.

But tomorrow I die, and today I need to unburden my soul. I want to tell the world simply and quickly about what happened.

The consequences of what happened have terrified – have tortured – have destroyed me.

Perhaps someday, someone wiser than me will understand how my feelings about this event are exaggerated – that the details I share are nothing more than…

…an ordinary sequence of very natural causes and effects.

From birth I was known for being peaceful and nice. My tenderness of heart stood out so much that my friends used to make fun of me.

I loved animals and was spoiled by my parents with a lot of cool pets. I spent most of my time with them and was never so happy as when feeding and petting them..

This love of animals continued into my adulthood. Those who have loved a faithful and intelligent dog, will understand the pleasure I got from my pets.

There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of an animal which goes directly to the heart of its owner.

Men don’t show each other that kind of loyalty.

I married young and was happy that my wife felt the same way about pets, and she brought home many wonderful

animals.

We had birds, gold fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat.

This cat was a special animal, large and beautiful, all black and smart to an amazing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife (who was not superstitious at all) would joke about the popular ideas, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. She was never really serious about this.

Pluto, the cat’s name, was my favorite pet. I alone fed him, and he followed me wherever I went around the house. I even had trouble preventing him from following me through the streets when I left the house.

My friendship with the cat lasted for several years, during which my general attitude and character experienced a radical, extreme change for the worse.

I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more unfeeling to the feelings of others.

I suffered myself to use foul language to my loving wife, going as far as threatening her with violence.

My pets felt the change in my behavior. I not only neglected, but mistreated them.

For Pluto, however, I still retained enough respect and love to keep myself from maltreating him, but I made no attempt to stop mistreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog if they got in my way.

But my disease grew (as alcoholism usually does), and eventually even Pluto, who was

now getting old and irritable, began to experience the bad effects of my ill temper.

One night, returning home, drunk from one of my haunts around town, I believed that the cat avoided me. I grabbed him; when, in his fright at my violence, he bit me on my hand.

The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed to leave my body; and a fiendish, gin-nurtured malevolence [madness] filled me.

I took a pocket knife , opened it, grabbed the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from its socket!

I blush, I burn, I shudder to tell you about this terrible event.

When reason returned in the morning – when I had slept off my alcoholic stupor – I experienced the feelings of regret for the crime I had committed the night before; but it was a weak feeling, and my soul remained untouched.

Again I 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 looked frightful, 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.

At first, I felt bad that this cat, who once loved me, now hated me. But this feeling soon turned to irritation, then strange rebellion – one of Man’s most primitive, basic sentiments or feelings.

Indeed, who among us has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a terrible or a silly act for no other reason than because he knows he should not?

Don’t humans have a constant desire to do that which is forbidden?

This strange, perverse feeling finally overtook me.

I had an unbelievable desire of the soul to vex or annoy itself – to offer violence to its own nature – to do wrong for wrong’s sake.

This feeling is what urged me to finish the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending, innocent animal, my cat Pluto.

One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose around the cat’s neck and hung it to the limb of a tree;

-- hung it with 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 trouble;

-- hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin – a deadly sin that would so threaten 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.

I have a hard time establishing a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am telling a chain of facts – and hope I don’t leave out any information.

On the day of the fire (after the cat was hung), I visited the ruins [what was left over from the fire].

All but one inner wall had fallen.

This remaining wall was the wall by my headboard of my bed in my bedroom. Surprisingly, the fire hadn’t damaged this wall very much.

There were a lot of people standing around staring at a spot on this wall. I heard them say, “Strange!” and “Amazing!” and many other expressions.

Their comments made me curious so I wandered over to look..

I saw as I approached, as engraved upon the wall’s white surface, the picture of a gigantic cat with a rope around its neck

When I saw this, I thought it was a ghost – for what else could it be since my wonder and terror were extreme.

But after thinking about it for awhile, I remembered that the cat had been hung in a garden next to the house.

When the fire alarm rang, this garden had immediately filled with people who wanted to watch the excitement.

Someone in this crowd must have cut the cat down and thrown the dead cat into my bedroom’s open window to wake me up.

The falling of other walls must have smashed the victim of my cruelty (Pluto) into the freshly-spread plaster on the wall by my bed. I assume the lime from the plaster had mixed with the heat and ammonia from the dead animal to create the ghastly image on the wall.

Although I tried to reason through this scary event, it did not fail to make a deep impression upon my imagination. For months I could not delete the image from my mind, and during this time, I seemed to feel a bit of guilt.

In fact, I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal and to look around town for another cat similar to Pluto.

One night as I sat in a bar, half stupefied by liquor, I saw a black object, resting on the head of a large barrel of Gin or Rum. After staring at this image for a long time, I got up and walked over to it

and touched it.

It was a black cat – a very large one – as big as Pluto.

This cat looked similar to Pluto in every way but one. This cat had a large white splotch or mark of white on its chest.

Liking my attention, this cat arose, purred loudly, rubbed against my hand, and appeared delighted. This, then, was the very creature that I had been looking for. I offered to buy it from the pub’s owner, but he didn’t know to whom the cat belonged.

As I was leaving, the cat followed me home. At once, it became a favorite part of the

family, especially for my wife.

For me, I soon found myself disliking the cat which was the opposite of what I had expected.

It became obvious later that the reason for my disgust, and annoyance came from the fact that the cat liked me.

Slowly, these feelings grew into a bitter hatred.

I avoided the creature.

A feeling of shame and the memory of my former cruel deed, prevented me from physically abusing the cat.

I did not, for some weeks, strike, or otherwise violently abuse it; but gradually – very gradually – I came to look upon this animal with an unspeakable hatred, and to run silently from its hateful presence, as if from a terrible disease.

What added to my hatred of the beast, was the discovery, on the morning after I brought it home, that, like Pluto, it was also missing an eye.

My wife, being a sympathetic person, loved the cat all the more because of this fact. She had a humanity of feeling which had once been my special trait, and the source of many of my simplest and purest pleasures.

As I grew to hate this cat more, its love for me seemed to grow.

It constantly followed me everywhere. Whenever I sat, it would sit beneath my chair, or jump into my knees, rubbing me with its terrible caresses. If I got up to walk it would get between my feet and nearly trip me, or, use its long, sharp claws to climb up to my shoulder.

At such times, although I wanted to kill it, the memory of Pluto’s murder and especially my dread and fear of this new beast stopped me from doing so.

I don’t know how to describe my feelings of dread and fear. I am almost ashamed to tell that the terror and horror the cat inspired in me had increased because of something so small it’s hard to believe.

My wife had called my attention, more than once, to the white spot on this cat’s chest. This white spot had at first been unrecognizable; but, despite my denial, by slow degrees, it had taken on shape, like an outline.

This white spot had become a shape I fear to say – 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 think – of the GALLOWS! – oh, mournful and terrible instrument of Horror and of Crime – of Agony and of Death!

– oh, mournful and terrible instrument of Horror and of Crime – of Agony and

of Death

And now I was stretched beyond the wickedness of mere Humanity.

God! I could not rest or sleep, day or night! I awoke, every hour, from fearful nightmares, to find the hot breath of the thing [the cat] upon my face, and its heavy weight upon my heart!

With this terror, what was left of the good within me vanished. Most evil, dark thoughts became my only friends. The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind.

I suddenly and frequently had uncontrollable outbursts of anger and fury.

My uncomplaining wife was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.

One day, my wife went with me to our cellar to do some household chores.

The cat followed us down the stairs, and nearly tripped me, sending me into a madness.

Lifting my axe, I swung it toward the cat..

The blow would have been fatal, but my wife grabbed my arm.

My wife’s interference threw me into an even more furious rage!

I pulled my arm away from her grip and buried the axe into her brain.

She fell dead upon the spot without making a sound.

This hideous murder completed, I started the task of concealing the body.

I knew that I could not remove it from the house without the risk of being seen by the neighbors.

Many ideas entered my mind.

I thought of cutting the corpse into small pieces, and destroying them by fire.

Another idea, I decided to dig a grave for the corpse in the floor of the cellar.

I thought about throwing the corpse into the well in the yard

– about packing it in a box and mailing it.

Finally, I decided my best bet was to wall it up in the cellar.

The cellar was well built for such a purpose. Its walls were loosely made, and had recently been plastered with a rough plaster that was still wet.

In fact, in one of the walls there was a part that stuck out that could easily be used for my purpose. I could easily put the body in this space and wall it in, so that no eye could detect anything suspicious.

My thinking was right. Using a crow-bar, I easily dislodged the bricks, and propped the body into the space. Then I re-laid all the brick so the wall was once again complete. I prepared a plaster that could not be distinguished from the old, and with this very carefully went over the new brick-work.

When finished, I felt satisfied everything would be alright. The new cellar wall didn’t look like it had been changed at all. I cleaned up, picking up the trash. I looked around and said triumphantly to myself, “Here at least, then, my labor has not been in vain.”

My next step was to find the cat, the beast that had been the cause of so much wretchedness.

I had firmly decided to kill it.

If I had been able to find it at that moment, there would have been no doubt as to its fate.

It appeared, however, that the smart animal had been scared of my violence and had run away.

It is impossible to describe, or to imagine, the deep happy sense of relief which the disappearance of the hated creature caused in my mind.

The cat didn’t show up that night – and for one night I slept soundly – even with the burden of murder upon my soul!

The second and third day passed, and still my tormentor, the cat, did not show up.

Once again I breathed as a free-man. The monster, in fright and terror, had fled my home forever! I should look at it no more! My happiness was supreme!

The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me only a little.

A few questions had been asked, but I answered them with ease. A search for my wife had been started, but of course nothing was discovered.

I looked upon my future as secure.

Upon the fourth day of the murder, a group of police came to the house unexpectedly and began searching the house.

I was sure of myself and positive my wife’s body would not be found. I felt no embarrassment whatever.

The officers asked me to go with them as they searched. The looked everywhere, leaving no nook or corner unexplored.

At length, for the third or fourth time, they went into the cellar.

I was not scared at all, not a muscle quivered. My heart beat calmly as that of one who sleeps in innocence.

I walked the cellar from end to end. I folded my arms upon my chest and moved easily to and fro.

The police were thoroughly satisfied and prepared to leave.

My happiness was too strong to hold back and I burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph, to make the police doubly sure of my innocence.

“Gentlemen,” I said at last, as the policemen were walking up the steps, “I am glad I’ve convinced you of my innocence. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. By the way, gentlemen, this – this is a very well constructed house.”

(In my crazy desire to say something easily, I hardly knew what I said at all.)

I continued, “I may say an excellently well constructed house. These walls –-- are you going, gentleman? ---- these wall are solidly build and here, through my bravado, I tapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon the very place on the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of my wife.

But by God! No sooner had the echo of my blows sunk into silence than I was answered by a voice from within the wall!

– by a voice – a cry, at first muffled and loud, and

continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman – a

howl

– a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have come from hell, from the throats of the damned in their agony.

Of my own thoughts it is crazy to speak. Swooning, swaying, I staggered to the opposite wall.

For one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, still, in terror and awe.

In the next instant, a dozen strong arms were pulling at the wall.

It fell.

The dead body, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators.

Upon my dead wife’s head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose traitorous, informing, earsplitting voice had screamed of my deed to the police --

-- and forced me to the hangman.

I had walled the monster up within my wife’s tomb!

The End