My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. 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. This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure.
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. 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.
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. One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence.
I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed. 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.
Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. It was with great difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the conflagration.
There was a rope about the animal’s neck. 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 continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go home, the animal evinced a disposition to accompany me.
When it reached the house ( #inleo, #hive #cent #vibes ) it domesticated itself at once, and became immediately a great favorite with my wife. 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. 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.
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. 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. 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.
The wall did not present the slightest appearance of having been disturbed. My heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from end to end. The glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained.
( #Vibes ) 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.