Quote The Raven Nevermore { Short Stories I Love}2011

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door - Only this, and nothing more."



Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore - For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore - Nameless here for evermore.



And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating, "'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door - Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; - This it is, and nothing more."



Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, "Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you"- here I opened wide the door; - Darkness there, and nothing more.



Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?" This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!" - Merely this, and nothing more.



Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. "Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice: Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore - Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; - 'Tis the wind and nothing more."



Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore; Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door - Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door - Perched, and sat, and nothing more.



Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore. "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven, Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore - Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."



Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaning- little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door - Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, With such name as "Nevermore."



But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing further then he uttered- not a feather then he fluttered - Till I scarcely more than muttered, "other friends have flown before - On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before." Then the bird said, "Nevermore."



Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore - Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of 'Never - nevermore'."



But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door; Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore - What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking "Nevermore."



This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core; This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er, But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er, She shall press, ah, nevermore!



Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor. "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he hath sent thee Respite - respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore:Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."



"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! - Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted - On this home by horror haunted- tell me truly, I implore - Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."



"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil - prophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore - Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore - Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore." Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."



"Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend," I shrieked, upstarting - "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."



And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted - nevermore! 

Enjoy this MasterPiece By Edgar Allen Poen
{IF THIS ISN'T THE WHOLE STORY I'M SORRY BUT THIS IS ALL I COULD FIND}
and on that note Enjoy this Twiztid Tell, Called The Black Cat By Edgar Allen 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 .

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 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 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 - 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 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 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
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!

Sorry for the Double Post, Please look past it for this topic as
Edgar Allen Poe is my favorite Short story Writer and I will be posting
more
THE TELL-TALE HEART
by Edgar Allan Poe
1843

TRUE!
--nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why
will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses --not
destroyed --not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I
heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in
hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily --how
calmly I can tell you the whole story.

It is impossible to say
how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me
day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved
the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For
his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He
had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it.
Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very
gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus
rid myself of the eye forever.

Now this is the point. You fancy
me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should
have seen how wisely I proceeded --with what caution --with what
foresight --with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder
to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every
night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it
--oh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my
head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, that no light shone
out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how
cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly --very, very slowly, so
that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to
place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he
lay upon his bed. Ha! would a madman have been so wise as this, And
then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern
cautiously-oh, so cautiously --cautiously (for the hinges creaked) --I
undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye.
And this I did for seven long nights --every night just at midnight
--but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the
work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. And
every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and
spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and
inquiring how he has passed the night. So you see he would have been a
very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at
twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.

Upon the eighth
night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch's
minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never before that night
had I felt the extent of my own powers --of my sagacity. I could
scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was,
opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my
secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he
heard me; for he moved on the bed suddenly, as if startled. Now you may
think that I drew back --but no. His room was as black as pitch with the
thick darkness, (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of
robbers,) and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door,
and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily.

I had my head in,
and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin
fastening, and the old man sprang up in bed, crying out --"Who's there?"

I
kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a
muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still
sitting up in the bed listening; --just as I have done, night after
night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall.

Presently I
heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It
was not a groan of pain or of grief --oh, no! --it was the low stifled
sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe.
I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the
world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its
dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I
knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at
heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight
noise, when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since
growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could
not. He had been saying to himself --"It is nothing but the wind in the
chimney --it is only a mouse crossing the floor," or "It is merely a
cricket which has made a single chirp." Yes, he had been trying to
comfort himself with these suppositions: but he had found all in vain.
All in vain; because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his
black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the
mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel
--although he neither saw nor heard --to feel the presence of my head
within the room.

When I had waited a long time, very patiently,
without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little --a very, very
little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it --you cannot imagine how
stealthily, stealthily --until, at length a simple dim ray, like the
thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the
vulture eye.

It was open --wide, wide open --and I grew furious
as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness --all a dull
blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my
bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person: for
I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned
spot.

And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness
is but over-acuteness of the sense? --now, I say, there came to my ears a
low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton.
I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart.
It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier
into courage.

But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely
breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could
maintain the ray upon the eve. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart
increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every
instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I
say, louder every moment! --do you mark me well I have told you that I
am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the
dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited
me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained
and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the
heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me --the sound would be
heard by a neighbour! The old man's hour had come! With a loud yell, I
threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once --once
only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy
bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done. But,
for many minutes, the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however,
did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall. At length it
ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined the corpse.
Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held
it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His
eve would trouble me no more.

If still you think me mad, you will
think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the
concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in
silence. First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and
the arms and the legs.

I then took up three planks from the
flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings. I
then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye
--not even his --could have detected any thing wrong. There was nothing
to wash out --no stain of any kind --no blood-spot whatever. I had been
too wary for that. A tub had caught all --ha! ha!

When I had made
an end of these labors, it was four o'clock --still dark as midnight.
As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I
went down to open it with a light heart, --for what had I now to fear?
There entered three men, who introduced themselves, with perfect
suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a
neighbour during the night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused;
information had been lodged at the police office, and they (the
officers) had been deputed to search the premises.

I smiled,
--for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I
said, was my own in a dream. The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the
country. I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search
--search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I showed them his
treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I
brought chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from their
fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph,
placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse
of the victim.

The officers were satisfied. My manner had
convinced them. I was singularly at ease. They sat, and while I answered
cheerily, they chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself
getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a
ringing in my ears: but still they sat and still chatted. The ringing
became more distinct: --It continued and became more distinct: I talked
more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained
definiteness --until, at length, I found that the noise was not within
my ears.

No doubt I now grew very pale; --but I talked more
fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased --and
what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound --much such a sound as a
watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath --and yet the
officers heard it not. I talked more quickly --more vehemently; but the
noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high
key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased.
Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy
strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men --but the
noise steadily increased. Oh God! what could I do? I foamed --I raved
--I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated
it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually
increased. It grew louder --louder --louder! And still the men chatted
pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God!
--no, no! They heard! --they suspected! --they knew! --they were making a
mockery of my horror!-this I thought, and this I think. But anything
was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this
derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I
must scream or die! and now --again! --hark! louder! louder! louder!
louder!

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the
deed! --tear up the planks! here, here! --It is the beating of his
hideous heart!"

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