Black Cat story
By
saleena1230
For the most wild, but most homely narrative I am about to pen, I did not expect nor ask belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect, in a case where my very senses in their own evidence. But I'm not crazy - and certainly I have no dream. But tomorrow I die, and today I would my soul unburthen. My first goal is to qualify for the world, clearly, concisely and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified - have tortured - have destroyed me. But I will. not try to explain them. For me, they have presented little but Horror - to many they will seem less terrible than barroques. Then, perhaps, some intellect to find to reduce my phantasm to the common-place - some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, what, where to take 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 character. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to give me the jokes of my companions. I was particularly fond of animals, and was spoiled by my parents with a wide variety of pets. With this I have most of my time, and was never so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew with my. growth, and in my manhood, I derived from one of my main sources of pleasure. For those who cherish an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly have been the difficulty of explaining the nature or intensity of the gratification thus be deduced. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has a regular opportunity for the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere human testing.
I married early, and was glad to find my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. Observing my love for pets, she lost no opportunity of buying from the most pleasant kind. We had birds, gold fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey and a cat.
The 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 reference to the ancient popular notion that all black cats are seen as witches in disguise. Not that they ever seriously at this point - and I mention the case for no better reason than that it happens, but now, to remember.
Pluto - this was the cats name - was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he followed me everywhere I went home. It was even. with difficulty I could to dissuade him chasing me through the streets.
Our friendship lasted, in this way for several years, during which my general temperament and character - through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance - had (I blush to confess to) a radical change for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered himself to violent language to use to my wife. Finally, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my character. I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Pluto, but I retained sufficient regard to restrain me mistreat him, because I made no scruple of abusing the rabbits, the monkey, dog or even if accidentally, or through affection, they came in the way. But my disease grew upon me - for what disease is like Alcohol! - And finally, even Pluto, which are now old, and therefore a bit peevish - even Pluto began the consequences of my bad mood to experience.
One evening, back home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town. I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I grabbed him when in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound on my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew I was not. My original soul seemed, at once, in order to take flight from my body and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, enthusiastically every fiber of my frame. I have my vest-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of his eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder,. while I pen the damnable atrocity.
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When reason returned with the morning - when I slept off the fumes of the night fornication - I experienced a feeling half of horror, half of remorse for the crime of which I was guilty, but it was on his best a weak 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 connection of the lost eye presented, it is true, a terrible appearance, but he no longer seemed to be no pain. He left home as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror in my approach. I had so many of my old heart left, as at first saddened by this evident dislike on the part of a creature that was once so loved me. But that feeling soon gave way to irritation. And then, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of perverseness. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. But I'm not 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 that they are such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my last fall. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to get VEX - to offer violence to his own nature - the wrong thing for the wrong reasons only - that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted on the innocent brute. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose around his neck and hung on the branch of a tree - hung it with the tears from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse in my heart - hung it because I knew that had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason. offense - hung it because I knew that doing this I was committing a sin - a deadly sin that so jeopardize my immortal soul to places - if such a thing wore possible - even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Merciful and most terrible God.
On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was awakened 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 I, our escape from the blaze. The devastation was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself now to despair.
I am above the weakness of looking for a series of cause and effect to establish, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am where a chain of facts - and not want to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day following 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 in 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 her that recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many people seemed to be examining a particular portion of the very small and enthusiastic attention. The words "strange!" "Singular!" and other similar expressions, excited my curiosity. I went and saw, as if carved in bas-relief on the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvelous. There was a cable over the neck animals.
When I first saw this apparition - for I could hardly see it as less - my wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length reflection came. my help. The cat, I remembered, was hung in a garden beside the house. After the alarm of fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd - by someone from whom the animal must be cut from the tree and thrown, through an open. window in my room. This was probably 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 ammonia from the carcass, had then succeeded in creating a portrait as I saw it.
Although I direct my good reason, especially if not on my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, but not the less not a deep impression on my imagination. For. months I could not rid myself of the illusion of the cat, and in this period, came back into my spirit a half-feeling that seemed, but was not, remorse. I even went as far to the loss of the animal regret, and look about me, among the vile haunts which now usually I visited for another pet of the same species, and somewhat similar appearance, which is in place to deliver.
One evening as I sat, half stupified, in a den of more than shame, my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, resting on the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or Rum, which constituted the main furniture of the apartment. I had steadily to the top of this hogshead few minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not seen the object before them. I approached it, and hit him with my hand. It was a black cat - a very large - fully as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto had no white hair on any part of his body, but this cat had a large but indefinite of the white spot that almost the entire area of %u200B%u200Bthe breast. When I touched him, he immediately arose, purred loudly, rubbed against my hand, and seemed very happy with my post. This was the creature that I was looking. I at once offered to buy it from the landlord, but this person made no claim to it - knew nothing of it - never seen before.
I continued my caresses, and when I prepared to go home, the animal evinced a tendency to accompany me. I permitted. to do that, occasionally stooping and patting it as I went. To achieve the internal IT domesticated itself at once, and immediately became a big favorite with my wife.
As for me, I soon found a dislike to arise in me. This was exactly the opposite of what I expected, but - I do not know how or why it was - its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and angry. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided the creature, a sense of shame, and the remembrance of my former deed of cruelty, preventing me from physically abusing. I have not, for a few weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill, but gradually - very gradually - I came to them looking with unutterable loathing, and to flee silently from its odious presence, as 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, which, like Pluto, it was also deprived of one of his eyes. That fact, however, only loved it to my wife, who, as I have said, to possess 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, but his love for myself seemed to increase. It followed my footsteps with a tenacity that it would be difficult for the reader to understand. As I sat, it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon my knees, that with me are disgusting caresses. If I was running would come between my feet and stuff. nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress, clamber, in this way, on my chest. At such moments, although I longed to destroy it with a bang, I still remember to do, partly by a memory of my former crime, but - let me confess at once - by absolute fear of the beast.
This fear was not really a fear of physical harm - and I'd be at a loss how otherwise to define it. I'm almost ashamed to own - yes, even in these cell criminals, I'm almost ashamed to own - that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me, was reinforced by one of the smallest chimeras it would be possible to conceive. My wife had called my attention, more than once, the character of the mark of white hair, which I have spoken, and that the only visible difference between the strange beast and the ones I had were destroyed. The reader will recall that the mark, although large, was originally very indefinite, but by slow degrees - degrees nearly imperceptible, and which. a long time my Reason difficult to reject as fanciful - it had, at length, assumed a rigorous clarity of outline. It was now the representation of an object that I shudder to name - and for this, above all, I loathed and feared, and I would have to break free of the monster had I dared - it was now, I say, the image of a terrible - a terrible thing - the gallows! - Oh, mournful and terrible engine of Horror and 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! nor by day. nor by night knew I the blessing of Rest any more! During the first the creature left me no moment alone, and the last I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, the hot breath of the thing on my face, and his enormous weight - a. incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off - the task forever in my heart!
Under the pressure of torments such as these, the weak 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 the sudden, frequent and uncontrollable outbursts of anger which I now blindly myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas leave! was the most common and most of the patient from the patient.
One day she accompanied me on some domestic message, in the basement of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The cat followed me up the steep stairs, and nearly throwing me headlong, irritated me to madness. Uplifting an ax, and forgetting, in my wrath, the childish fear which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow on 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. Inspired by the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm. from her grasp and buried the ax in her brains. She fell dead on the spot without a groan.
This hideous murder accomplished, I myself immediately, and with full deliberation, the task of hiding the body. I knew I could not remove from the house, either by day or by night, without the risk of being perceived by the neighbors. Many projects in my mind. At one period I thought of cutting the body into tiny fragments, and destroying them by fire. On another, I decided to dig a grave in the floor of the basement. Again, I deliberated about casting it into the well on the property - some packed in a box, as merchandise, with the usual arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the house. Eventually I got what I consider a much better tool than one of these. I decided to go to the wall in the cellar - as the monks of the medieval walled be included to their victims.
For use as this the cellar well adapted. The walls were loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered with a rough plaster, making the humidity of the atmosphere had prevented from hardening. In addition, in one of the walls with a projection, caused by an incorrect or chimney stove, which had been filled and to appear to the red of the cellar. I have no doubt that I could easily lift the stones at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole as before, so that no eye could detect anything suspicious. And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crowbar I easy detachment of the bricks, after carefully deposited the body against the inner I placed in that position, while with very little effort reconstructed I, the entire structure as originally was. After obtaining mortar, sand, and hair, with every 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 finished, I felt satisfied that it was good. The wall is not present at least looks to be disturbed. The mess on the floor was picked up with the smallest concern. I looked around triumphantly, and said to myself - "Here at least, then, my labor has not been in vain."
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My next step was to search for the beast that was the cause of much misery, because I had, at length, determined to kill it. Had I been able to meet it at the moment, there can be no doubt about his fate, but it appeared that the crafty animal had been alarmed by 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 that the absence of the hated animals caused in my bosom. It did not make its appearance during the night - and thus for one night at least, since its introduction in the house, I actually slept quietly and, yes, even slept with the burden of murder upon my soul!
The second and third day passed and still my tormentor came not. Once again I breathed as a free man. The monster, in terror, had fled the building forever! I see it no more! My happiness was supreme! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some questions were few, but this was quickly answered. Even a search was instituted - but of course nothing was to be discovered. I looked at my future happiness and security.
On the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police came, very unexpectedly, into the house, and went back to strict investigation into the building to make. Safe, but 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. Finally, for the third or fourth time, they descended to the basement. I quivered not a muscle. My heart hit calm as those of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from beginning to end. I hit my arms on my lap, and roamed easily to and fro. The police were thoroughly satisfied and prepared to leave. The glee at my heart was too strong to be blocked. I burned to say if. just a word, by way of triumph, and make double sure their assurance of my guiltlessness.
"Gentlemen," I said finally, if the party up the stairs, "I delight to have removed your suspicions I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy by the bye, gentlemen, this - ... Is this a very good built house. "[In the rabid desire to say something easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all.] -" I can tell an excellent well constructed house These walls are you going, gentlemen - these walls are solidly put together; . " And here, through the mere phrenzy of bravado, I knocked heavily with a stick which I held in my hand, that very part of the brickwork behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom.
But may God to 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 the grave! - With a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into a long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman - a howl - a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, but as might have arisen from hell, jointly from the throats of the dammed in their pain and the demons that exult in the damnation.
From my own mind it. is folly to speak. Swoon, I staggered to the opposite wall. For a moment the party on the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the following, a dozen strong arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already dilapidated and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. On his head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose height voice that I had sent the executioner. I had walled the monster in the grave!
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Black Cat story
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