THE BLACK CAT

By

Edgar Allan Poe

Translated by Charles Baudelaire into French

Translated—again—by Emily Shevenock into English

Compare! A very strange and yet very familiar story that I shall put into rest by writing; I do not expect or solicit for any belief.  Really, I’d be crazy to expect so in the case where my very senses reject their own testimony.  However, I am not crazy — and very likely I do not merely dream.  But tomorrow I die, and now I wish to unburden my soul.  My immediate purpose is to place before everyone, plainly, succinctly, and without objection, a series of normal domestic events.  In their consequences, these events have terrified me — tortured me — destroyed me. However, I am not trying to elucidate them. For me, the events presented nothing but horror: Many people will see them as less terrible than baroque. Later perhaps, there will be an intellectual mind that reduces my ghostly state to the commonplace — some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, who will find in the circumstances I am recounting in terror, an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.

            In my childhood, I was noted for the docility and humanity of my character.  My tenderness of heart was so pronounced that it made me the vulnerable toy of my friends.  I was particularly crazy about animals, and my parents had allowed me to possess a wide variety of favorites.  I spent almost all of my time with them, and was never so happy as when I nourished and caressed them. This peculiarity of my character remained as I grew, and when I became a man, I made it one of my principle sources of delight. For those who have devoted affection to a faithful and sagacious dog, I do not need to explain the nature or intensity of the derived pleasures.  There is a disinterested love of a beast, in this self-sacrifice something directly at the heart of those who have had the frequent occasion to observe the sick friendship gauzed over the fidelity of naturel man. 

I married early, and I was happy to find my wife’s disposition sympathetic to mine. Seeing my fondness for favorite pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring species of the most agreeable kind.  We had birds, golden fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and un chat. The latter was a remarkably strong and beautiful animaux, entirely black, and a wonderful shrewdness. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife’s heart was little penetrated by superstition, and she made frequent allusions to the ancient popular belief that black cats appeared as witches’ fancy dresses. It was not that she was quite serieuse on the point, —

and, if I mention the thing, it is simply because it comes back, at this moment, to memory.

Pluto – that was the cat’s name— was my favorite, my friend.  I alone fed him, and he followed me in the house everywhere I went. It was with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me in the streets. 

Our friendship survived several years — during which all of my character and temperament, — was via operation of the demon. Intemperance, I blush to confess — suffered an alteration, radical in its terribleness. I became day by day more dreary, more irritable, more careless with the feelings of others. I allowed myself to employ brutal language against my wife.  At last, I even inflicted personal violence. My poor favorites, certainly, felt the change of my character.  Not only did I neglect them, but I was abusive towards them. As for Pluto, however, I still had sufficient consideration for him, which prevented me from bullying him, while I felt little scruple in abusing the rabbits, monkeys, and even the dog, when by mistake or with friendship, they crossed my path. But my illness increasingly overwhelmed me —what evil is comparable to alcohol? — And finally Pluto himself, who was now old and had naturally become somewhat moody — Pluto himself began to experience the effects of my wicked character.

            One night, at the ending of one of my habitual haunts in the outskirts, I came to the house very drunk, I imagined the cat avoided my presence.  I entered —but he, afraid of my violence, gave my hand a slight wound with his teeth. A rage of the demon suddenly seized me. I am not quite sure, my original soul seemed suddenly to fly out of my body, hyper-diabolical wickedness, saturated of gin, penetrated every fiber of my being. I pulled a penknife out of my waistcoat pocket, I opened it; I took the poor beast by the throat, and, deliberately, I made one of his eyes tear from its socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder by writing this damnable atrocity!

            When reason returned with the morning, — that I had that vat of vapors in the night’s debauchery —  I felt a feeling half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime for which I was guilty; but it was mostly a weak and ambiguous feeling, and my soul did not suffer. I plunged back into excess, and soon I drowned all memory of the action in wine.

            However, the cat heals slowly.  The socket of his lost eye, it is real, a frightful appearance, but he seemed henceforth to suffer more. He went about in the house as usual; but as expected, he fled in extreme terror at my approach. I still had some of my old heart to feel afflicted by the obvious antipathy from the creature who had once loved me so.  But this feeling soon gave way to irritation. And so appeared, irrevocably and as my final fall, the mind of PERVERSITY.  This philosophy of spirit is completely ignored.  However, my soul also exists, I think that the perversity is at the primitive impulses of the human heart — one of the indivisible primary faculties, or feelings, which give direction to the character of man.  Who is not caught surprised a hundred times committing a foolish or vile action, the only reason because he knew he would not commit?  Have we not perpetual inclination, despite the excellence of our judgment, to violate the Law, merely because we understand that it is the Law? This mind of perversity, I say became the cause of my final rout. This is ardent desire, impenetrable at the soul to torture itself — To violate his own nature — to do evil for the love of evil’s sake alone — pushing me to continue and finally to consummate the ordeal I had inflicted on the harmless beast.  One morning in cold blood, I slipped a noose around his neck, and hung it from the branch of a tree — I hung it with tears in my eyes — I had bitterest remorse in the heart — I hung it because I knew I was like him, and because I felt to hang it, because I knew that by doing so I committed a sin — one mortal sin which compromised my immortal soul, to this pointed position — if such a thing is possible — even dealing beyond the infinite mercy of a Very-Terrible and Very-Merciful God.

            In the night after that day the cruel action was committed, I was drawn from my sleep by the cry of “Fire!” The curtains of my bed were in flames. The entire house blazed. It was not without great difficulty that we escaped the fire — my wife, a servant, and me. The destruction was complete.  All my wealth was swallowed up, and I abandoned myself to despair.

            I do not seek to establish a cause and effect link between the disaster and the atrocity, I am above the feebleness. But I realize a chain of facts — and I do not want to neglect a single coil.  The day after the fire, I visited the ruins.  The walls had fallen, with one exception, and that exception was found to be an interior wall, a little thick, located in about the middle of the house, and against which rested my headboard.  The masonry here, mostly, had withstood the action of the flame— I attributed this to its recently new refurbishing.  Around this wall, a state of a dense crowd, and several people seemed to examine a particular portion with careful and keen attention. Their words: Strange! Odd! and other similar expressions; excited my curiosity. I went up, and I saw, similar to white surfaced bas-relief sculptures, the figure of a gigantic cat.  The image was rendered with truly marvelous accuracy. There was a rope around the neck of the animal.

            First of all, in seeing this apparition — because I could hardly consider it as only an apparition — my astonishment and terror were extreme. But, finally, a reflection came to my aid.  The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house.  With cries of alarm, the garden immediately filled with a crowd, and the animal had to be detached from the tree by someone, and thrown into my room through an open window. This had been done, no doubt, in order to tear me from sleep.  The fall of the other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly applied plaster; the lime of the wall, combined with the flames and the ammonia from the carcass, thus had orchestrated the image as I now saw.

            Although my reason was lightly satisfied, if not quite my conscience, compared to the surprising fact I just told, it did not leave a profound impression on my imagination. For a number of months, I could not get rid of the ghostly cat, and during this period a half-feeling came into my soul, which seemed to be, yet was not remorse.  When I went up to deplore the loss of the animal, and look around me, in the despicable shadiness I now regularly frequented, another favorite of the same species and a little pressed figure like a fellow creature replacing him.

            One night, as I sat half amazed, in my infamous likeness, my attention was suddenly drawn to a black object, resting on the top of a huge barrel of rum or gin that had become the main furniture of the room. For a few minutes, I stared at the top of the barrel, and what surprised me now, is that there was not yet an overview of the object located above.  I approached, and I touched it with my hand.  It was the black cat — a very large cat — sized just as Pluto, resembling absolutely, except for one point. Pluto had not a white hair on the entire body; this off-portrait had a large white splash, undecided in shape, almost covering the entire region of the chest.

            I hardly touched him; he rose suddenly purring heavy, rubbed against my hand, and appeared enchanted with my attention. It was this real creature I quested. I offered any knowing of its owner so I might buy him; but the man was not vindicated— did not know— had never seen him before.

                        I continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to return to my house, the animal proved to accompany me. I allowed him to do so, stooping from time to time, stroking him and walking. When we arrived at home, he finds himself comfortable, and immediately became a friend of my wife.

For my part, I felt an elevation nearing; an antipathy against him.  It was exactly the opposite of what I had hoped; but— I do not know how or why this happened— his obvious affection for me almost disgusted and tired me. In slow degrees these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose in bitter hatred.  I avoided the creature; a certain sense of shame and the memory of the first act of cruelty prevented me from abusing him.  For a few weeks, I refrain from beating the cat or violently bullying, but gradually, — I came to consider an unspeakable horror, and to silently flee its odious presence, like the wind of the black plague. 

Adding to my hatred against the animal was the discovery that I made the morning after I brought him home, where, like Pluto, it was also deprived of one eye.  This circumstance, however, took the most expense with my wife, who, as I have already said, possessed a high degree of tender feeling which had once been my characteristic feature, and the frequent source of my most simple and pure pleasures. Nevertheless, the condition of the cat increased my aversion against him. It followed my footsteps with an obstinacy that would be difficult for the reader to comprehend.  Every time I sat down, he snuggled under my chair, or he jumped on my knees, covering me with its terrible caresses. If I arose to walk, he thrust into my legs, and almost threw me to the ground, or well, with an acute pressing of his long claws into my clothes, climbed up my chest this way. In these moments, though I desired to kill with a good shot, I was prevented in part by the memory of my first crime, but mainly — I immediately confess — a real terror of the beast.

            This terror was not absolute terror of physical harm, — and yet I would be very hard pressed to define it otherwise.  I am almost ashamed to admit— yes, like a criminal cell, I am almost ashamed to admit that the terror and horror inspired by the animal had been heightened by one of the most perfect designed chimeras possible to conceive.  More than once my wife had called attention to the nature of the white spot I mentioned, and it constituted the sole visible difference between the strange beast and the one I had killed.  The reader will recall that this mark, although large, was originally an asymmetrical form, but slowly, by degrees — by some imperceptible degree, and my reason considered it imagined, it has long ago taken a rigorous sharp contour. It was now the image of an object that I shudder to name— it was this particular that made me in horror and disgust take the monster, and would have pressed me to act, if I dare— it was now, I say, a hideous image — a sinister thing— an image of the GALLOWS! – oh! gloomy and terrible machine! machine of Horror and Crime— of Agony and Death!

            And, now, I was very miserable beyond any possible misery of Humanity. A brute beast— I had destroyed the brother with contempt — one brute beast caused me— for me, a man shaped in the image of a Very High God —  one great and intolerable misfortune! Alas! I did not know bliss any longer, not day or night! During the day, the creature would not leave me for a moment, and during the night, every moment, when I left my indescribable anguished dreams, it was to feel the warm breath and vast weight of the thing upon my face— an incarnation of a nightmare that I was powerless to shake— eternal it laid on my heart!

            Under the pressure of such torment, the little good that remained in me died.  Evil thoughts became my sole companion— all worsened, and became darker.  Out of the sadness of my usual mood grew a hatred of all things and all of humanity, but my wife never complained, alas! It was she, my usual scapegoat, patient and suffering, that frequent eruptions of my indomitable fury were abandoned on her in my blindness.

            One day she accompanied me on a domestic task in the cellar of the old building where our poverty had driven us to live.  The cat followed me down the steep steps of the staircase, and, I tumbled nearly head first, exasperated to madness.  Raising an ax, and the stench of forgetful rage until now had held my hand, I sent the animal a blow that would have been fatal if it had gone as I wanted; but this blow was arrested by the hand of my wife.  This intervention spurred me into a demonic rage; I threw my arm out of the grip, and shoved my ax in the skull.  She fell dead on the spot without uttering a groan.

            This horrible murder accomplished, I immediately began a very deliberate plan to hide body.  I realized I could not make it disappear from the house, either in the day or by night, without the risk of being seen by the neighbors.  Several plans crossed my mind. One thought was the idea to cut the body in small pieces, and destroy it by fire.  Then I resolved to dig a pit in the floor of the cellar—like the way monks of the middle ages, they say, killed their victims. 

The cellar was well disposed to such a purpose.  The walls were carelessly constructed, and the entire extent of them had recently been coated in a plaster that moisture from the atmosphere had prevented from hardening.  Moreover, in one of the walls, there was a disease caused by a chimney protruding a false or species of hearth, which had been filled like masonry, and generated to look as the rest of the cellar.  I had no idea it was easy to move the bricks at this place, to introduce the body into the wall, and make the wall reappear the same way, so that no eye would discover anything suspicious there. 

And I was not disappointed in my calculation.  With the aide of pincers, I very easily dislodged the bricks, and, having very carefully applied the body against the inner wall, supported it in this position until I restored all the masonry to its original state without too much trouble.  Myself—I prepared the mortar, sand, and coating with all imaginable precautions, I prepared this crackle so it was not distinguishable from the ancient, and I covered the new brickwork very carefully.    When I finished,  everything was perfect, and to my satisfaction.  The wall presented no trace of it having been deranged.  I removed all of the rubble with the utmost care, I virtually peeled away the soil.  I looked triumphantly around and told myself: Here, at least, my pain has not been lost!

My first impulse was to look for the beast which had been the cause of this great misfortune, and finally, I firmly resolved to put it to death.  If I could have met him at that moment, his destiny was clear; but it seemed that the crafty animal had been warned by the violence of my recent anger, and he took care not to appear under the atmosphere of the current mood. It is impossible to describe or imagine the deepness, the sensation of relief that the absence of the detestable creature determined on my heart.  It was not present all night— and so it was the first good night— since the introduction of the body in the house—I slept quietly, yes, I slept with the weight of murder on my soul!

The second and third day passed, and still my tormentor did not come.  Once again I breathed as a free man.  The monster, in his terror, had left the place forever! The worm was ever gone!  My happiness was supreme!  The crime of my evil action worried me very little.  Someone had done a survey of species, but she was cheaply satisfied.  The search had been ordered—but of course there was nothing discovered.  I watched my congratulations come assuredly.

On the fourth day after the assassination, a group of police arrived unexpectedly at the house, and proceeded again with a rigorous investigation of the premises.  Confident, nevertheless, of the impenetrability of the wall cache, I did not feel nervous.  The officers made me accompany them in their search.  They did not leave any corner or angle unexplored.  At the end, for the third or fourth time, they descended into the cellar.  Not a muscle in me was startled.  My heart beat peacefully, like a man who sleeps in innocence.  I walked the cellar from one end to the other, I crossed my arms over my chest, walking around with the ease.  The police were fully satisfied and were preparing to decamp.  The jubilation in my heart was too strong to be repressed.  I burned at least to say a word, just a word in a way of triumph, and to double their conviction of my convinced innocence.

--Gentleman— I said at the end— as the troupe went back downstairs—

 I am delighted to have your suspicions soothed.  I wish you all good health and a little more courtesy.  By the way, gentleman, here— here’s a house singularly well and obvious (in my furious desire to say something in a deliberate air, I hardly knew what I debated) :  I can say that this is a beautifully constructed house.  These walls— do you leave gentleman?— these walls are solid brick!

            And here, by a frantic bravado, I rapped heavily with a cane that I had a hand just on the brickwork, behind which stood the corpse and wife of my heart.

            Ah! At least God protected me and delivered me from the claws of the Archdemon!  Hardly had the echo of my aims fallen into silence, and a voice answered me from the depths of the grave!  A complaint, at first veiled and broken, sobbing like a child, then, soon, a swelling, prolonged cry, continuous, quite abnormal and anti-human—a howl—yelp, half-horror, half-triumph—as it can only go up from Hell—a terrible harmony springing from both throats damned in the torture of demons rejoicing in damnation.

            You say my thoughts, they would be folly.  I felt faint, and I staggered against the opposite wall.  For a moment; the officers placed there on the steps stood motionless, stunned by terror.  After a moment, a dozen strong arms were bent on the wall. It fell free onto the room.  The body, already greatly dilapidated and filthy with grime of blood, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators.  On its head, with red face and a dilated, single blazing eye, was perched the hideous beast whose craft had induced the assassination, and whose voice told the booked executioner.   I was the mature monster in the grave!