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- A Coward
A Coward
Guy de Maupassant
Society called him
Handsome Signoles. His name was Viscount Gontran-Joseph de Signoles.
An orphan, and possessed
of an adequate income, he cut a dash, as the saying is. He had a good figure
and a good carriage, a sufficient flow of words to pass for wit, a certain
natural grace, an air of nobility and pride, a gallant moustache and an
eloquent eye, attributes which women like.
He was in demand in
drawing-rooms, sought after for valses, and in men he inspired that smiling
hostility which is reserved for vital and attractive rivals. He had been
suspected of several love-affairs of a sort calculated to create a good opinion
of a youngster. He lived a happy, care-free life, in the most complete
well-being of body and mind. He was known to be a fine swordsman and a still
finer shot with the pistol.
"When I come to
fight a duel," he would say, "I shall choose pistols. With that
weapon, I'm sure of killing my man."
One evening, he went to
the theatre with two ladies, quite young, friends of his, whose husbands were
also of the party, and after the performance he invited them to take ices at
Tortoni's.
They had been sitting
there for a few minutes when he noticed a gentleman at a neighbouring table
staring obstinately at one of the ladies of the party. She seemed embarrassed
and ill at ease, and bent her head. At last she said to her husband:
"There's a man
staring at me. I don't know him; do you?"
The husband, who had
seen nothing, raised his eyes, but declared:
"No, not in the
least."
Half smiling, half in
anger, she replied:
"It's very
annoying; the creature's spoiling my ice."
Her husband shrugged his
shoulders.
"Deuce take him,
don't appear to notice it. If we had to deal with all the discourteous people
one meets, we'd never have done with them."
But the Viscount had
risen abruptly. He could not permit this stranger to spoil an ice of his
giving. It was to him that the insult was addressed, since it was at his
invitation and on his account that his friends had come to the cafe. The affair
was no business of anyone but himself.
He went up to the man
and said:
"You have a way of
looking at those ladies, sir, which I cannot stomach. Please be so good as to
set a limit to your persistence."
"You hold your
tongue," replied the other.
"Take care,
sir," retorted the Viscount, clenching his teeth;" you'll force me to
overstep the bounds of common politeness."
The gentleman replied
with a single word, a vile word which rang across the cafe from one end to the
other, and, like the release of a spring, jerked every person present into an
abrupt movement. All those with their backs towards him turned round, all the
rest raised their heads; three waiters spun round on their heels like tops; the
two ladies behind the counter started, then the whole upper half of their
bodies twisted round, as though they were a couple of automata worked by the
same handle.
There was a profound
silence. Then suddenly a sharp noise resounded in the air. The Viscount had
boxed his adversary's ears. Every one rose to intervene. Cards were exchanged.
Back in his home, the
Viscount walked for several minutes up and down his room with long quick
strides. He was too excited to think. A solitary idea dominated his mind:
"a duel"; but as yet the idea stirred in him no emotion of any kind.
He had done what he was compelled to do; he had shown himself to be what he
ought to be. People would talk of it, would approve of him, congratulate him.
He repeated aloud, speaking as a man speaks in severe mental distress:
"What a hound the
fellow is!"
Then he sat down and
began to reflect. In the morning he must find seconds. Whom should he choose?
He searched his mind for the most important and celebrated names of his
acquaintance. At last he decided on the Marquis de la Tour-Noire and Colonel Bourdin,
an aristocrat and a soldier; they would do excellently. Their names would look
well in the papers. He realised that he was thirsty, and drank three glasses of
water one after the other; then he began to walk up and down again. He felt
full of energy. If he played the gallant, showed himself determined, insisted
on the most strict and dangerous arrangements, demanded a serious duel, a
thoroughly serious duel, a positively terrible duel, his adversary would
probably retire an apologist.
He took up once more the
card which he had taken from his pocket and thrown down upon the table, and
read it again as he had read it before, in the cafe, at a glance, and in the
cab, by the light of each gas-lamp, on his way home.
"Georges Lamil, 51
rue Moncey." Nothing more.
He examined the grouped
letters; they seemed to him mysterious, full of confused meaning. Georges
Lamil? Who was this man? What did he do? Why had he looked at the woman in that
way? Was it not revolting that a stranger, an unknown man, could thus disturb a
man's life, without warning, just because he chose to fix his insolent eyes
upon a woman? Again the Viscount repeated aloud:
"What a
hound!"
Then he remained
standing stock-still, lost in thought, his eyes still fixed upon the card. A
fury against this scrap of paper awoke in him, a fury of hatred in which was
mingled a queer sensation of uneasiness. This sort of thing was so stupid! He
took up an open knife which lay close at hand and thrust it through the middle
of the printed name, as though he had stabbed a man.
So he must fight. Should
he choose swords or pistols?--for he regarded himself as the insulted party.
With swords there would be less risk, but with pistols there was a chance that
his adversary might withdraw. It is very rare that a duel with swords is fatal,
for mutual prudence is apt to restrain combatants from engaging at sufficiently
close quarters for a point to penetrate deeply. With pistols he ran a grave
risk of death; but he might also extricate himself from the affair with all the
honours of the situation and without actually coming to a meeting.
"I must be
firm," he said. "He will take fright."
The sound of his voice
set him trembling, and he looked round. He felt very nervous. He drank another
glass of water, then began to undress for bed.
As soon as he was in
bed, he blew out the light and closed his eyes.
"I've the whole of
to-morrow," he thought, "in which to set my affairs in order. I'd
better sleep now, so that I shall be quite calm."
He was very warm in the
blankets, but he could not manage to compose himself to sleep. He turned this
way and that, lay for five minutes upon his back, turned on to his left side,
then rolled over on to his right.
He was still thirsty. He
got up to get a drink. A feeling of uneasiness crept over him:
"Is it possible
that I'm afraid?"
Why did his heart beat
madly at each familiar sound in his room? When the clock was about to strike,
the faint squeak of the rising spring made him start; so shaken he was that for
several seconds afterwards he had to open his mouth to get his breath.
He began to reason with
himself on the possibility of his being afraid.
"Shall I be
afraid?"
No, of course he would
not be afraid, since he was resolved to see the matter through, and had duly
made up his mind to fight and not to tremble. But he felt so profoundly
distressed that he wondered:
"Can a man be
afraid in spite of himself?"
He was attacked by this
doubt, this uneasiness, this terror; suppose a force more powerful than
himself, masterful, irresistible, overcame him, what would happen? Yes, what
might not happen? Assuredly he would go to the place of the meeting, since he
was quite ready to go. But supposing he trembled? Supposing he fainted? He
thought of the scene, of his reputation, his good name.
There came upon him a
strange need to get up and look at himself in the mirror. He relit his candle.
When he saw his face reflected in the polished glass, he scarcely recognised
it, it seemed to him as though he had never yet seen himself. His eyes looked
to him enormous; and he was pale; yes, without doubt he was pale, very pale.
He remained standing in
front of the mirror. He put out his tongue, as though to ascertain the state of
his health, and abruptly the thought struck him like a bullet:
"The day after
to-morrow, at this very hour, I may be dead."
His heart began again
its furious beating.
"The day after
to-morrow, at this very hour, I may be dead. This person facing me, this me I
see in the mirror, will be no more. Why, here I am, I look at myself, I feel
myself alive, and in twenty-four hours I shall be lying in that bed, dead, my
eyes closed, cold, inanimate, vanished."
He turned back towards
the bed, and distinctly saw himself lying on his back in the very sheets he had
just left. He had the hollow face of a corpse, his hands had the slackness of
hands that will never make another movement.
At that he was afraid of
his bed, and, to get rid of the sight of it, went into the smoking-room.
Mechanically he picked up a cigar, lit it, and began to walk up and down again.
He was cold; he went to the bell to wake his valet; but he stopped, even as he
raised his hand to the rope.
"He will see that I
am afraid."
He did not ring; he lit
the fire. His hands shook a little, with a nervous tremor, whenever they
touched anything. His brain whirled, his troubled thoughts became elusive,
transitory, and gloomy; his mind suffered all the effects of intoxication, as
though he were actually drunk.
Over and over again he
thought:
"What shall I do?
What is to become of me?"
His whole body trembled,
seized with a jerky shuddering; he got up and, going to the window, drew back
the curtains.
Dawn was at hand, a
summer dawn. The rosy sky touched the town, its roofs and walls, with its own
hue. A broad descending ray, like the caress of the rising sun, enveloped the
awakened world; and with the light, hope--a gay, swift, fierce hope--filled the
Viscount's heart! Was he mad, that he had allowed himself to be struck down by
fear, before anything was settled even, before his seconds had seen those of
this Georges Lamil, before he knew whether he was going to fight?
He washed, dressed, and
walked out with a firm step.
He repeated to himself,
as he walked:
"I must be
energetic, very energetic. I must prove that I am not afraid."
His seconds, the Marquis
and the Colonel, placed themselves at his disposal, and after hearty handshakes
discussed the conditions.
"You are anxious
for a serious duel? " asked the Colonel.
"Yes, a very
serious one," replied the Viscount.
"You still insist
on pistols?" said the Marquis.
"Yes."
"You will leave us
free to arrange the rest?"
In a dry, jerky voice
the Viscount stated:
"Twenty paces; at
the signal, raising the arm, and not lowering it. Exchange of shots till one is
seriously wounded."
"They are excellent
conditions," declared the Colonel in a tone of satisfaction. "You
shoot well, you have every chance."
They departed. The
Viscount went home to wait for them. His agitation, momentarily quietened, was
now growing minute by minute. He felt a strange shivering, a ceaseless
vibration, down his arms, down his legs, in his chest; he could not keep still
in one place, neither seated nor standing. There was not the least moistening
of saliva in his mouth, and at every instant he made a violent movement of his
tongue, as though to prevent it sticking to his palate.
He was eager to have
breakfast, but could not eat. Then the idea came to him to drink in order to
give himself courage, and he sent for a decanter of rum, of which he swallowed
six liqueur glasses full one after the other.
A burning warmth flooded
through his body, followed immediately by a sudden dizziness of the mind and
spirit.
"Now I know what to
do," he thought. "Now it is all right."
But by the end of an
hour he had emptied the decanter, and his state of agitation had once more
become intolerable. He was conscious of a wild need to roll on the ground, to
scream, to bite. Night was falling.
The ringing of a bell
gave him such a shock that he had not strength to rise and welcome his seconds.
He did not even dare to
speak to them, to say "Good evening" to them, to utter a single word,
for fear they guessed the whole thing by the alteration in his voice.
"Everything is
arranged in accordance with the conditions you fixed," observed the
Colonel. "At first your adversary claimed the privileges of the insulted
party, but he yielded almost at once, and has accepted everything. His seconds
are two military men."
"Thank you,"
said the Viscount.
"Pardon us,"
interposed the Marquis, "if we merely come in and leave again immediately,
but we have a thousand things to see to. We must have a good doctor, since the
combat is not to end until a serious wound is inflicted, and you know that
pistol bullets are no laughing-matter. We must appoint the ground, near a house
to which we may carry the wounded man if necessary, etc. In fact, we shall be
occupied for two or three hours arranging all that there is to arrange."
"Thank you,"
said the Viscount a second time.
"You are all
right?" asked the Colonel. "You are calm?"
"Yes, quite calm,
thank you."
The two men retired.
When he realised that he
was once more alone, he thought that he was going mad. His servant had lit the
lamps, and he sat down at the table to write letters. After tracing, at the
head of a sheet: "This is my will," he rose shivering and walked
away, feeling incapable of connecting two ideas, of taking a resolution, of
making any decision whatever.
So he was going to
fight! He could no longer avoid it. Then what was the matter with him? He
wished to fight, he had absolutely decided upon this plan of action and taken
his resolve, and he now felt clearly, in spite of every effort of mind and
forcing of will, that he could not retain even the strength necessary to get
him to the place of meeting. He tried to picture the duel, his own attitude and
the bearing of his adversary.
From time to time his
teeth chattered in his mouth with a slight clicking noise. He tried to read,
and took down Chateauvillard's code of duelling. Then he wondered:
"Does my adversary
go to shooting-galleries? Is he well known? Is he classified anywhere? How can
I find out?"
He bethought himself of
Baron Vaux's book on marksmen with the pistol, and ran through it from end to
end. Georges Lamil was not mentioned in it. Yet if the man were not a good
shot, he would surely not have promptly agreed to that dangerous weapon and
those fatal conditions?
He opened, in passing, a
case by Gastinne Renette standing on a small table, and took out one of the
pistols, then placed himself as though to shoot and raised his arm. But he was
trembling from head to foot and the barrel moved in every direction.
At that, he said to
himself:
"It's impossible. I
cannot fight in this state."
He looked at the end of
the barrel, at the little, black, deep hole that spits death; he thought of the
disgrace, of the whispers at the club, of the laughter in drawing-rooms, of the
contempt of women, of the allusions in the papers, of the insults which cowards
would fling at him.
He was still looking at
the weapon, and, raising the hammer, caught a glimpse of a cap gleaming beneath
it like a tiny red flame. By good fortune or forgetfulness, the pistol had been
left loaded. At the knowledge, he was filled with a confused inexplicable sense
of joy.
If, when face to face
with the other man, he did not show a proper gallantry and calm, he would be
lost for ever. He would be sullied, branded with a mark of infamy, hounded out
of society. And he would not be able to achieve that calm, that swaggering
poise; he knew it, he felt it. Yet he was brave, since he wanted to fight I ...
He was brave, since....
The thought which
hovered in him did not even fulfil itself in his mind; but, opening his mouth
wide, he thrust in the barrel of his pistol with savage gesture until it
reached his throat, and pressed on the trigger.
When his valet ran in,
at the sound of the report, he found him lying dead upon his back. A shower of
blood had splashed the white paper on the table, and made a great red mark
beneath these four words:
"This is my
will."
2. A
Haunted House
Virginia Woolf
Whatever hour you woke
there was a door shutting. From room to room they went, hand in hand, lifting
here, opening there, making sure--a ghostly couple.
"Here we left
it," she said. And he added, "Oh, but here tool" "It's upstairs,"
she murmured. "And in the garden," he whispered. "Quietly,"
they said, "or we shall wake them."
But it wasn't that you
woke us. Oh, no. "They're looking for it; they're drawing the
curtain," one might say, and so read on a page or two. "Now they've
found it,' one would be certain, stopping the pencil on the margin. And then,
tired of reading, one might rise and see for oneself, the house all empty, the
doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with content and the hum of
the threshing machine sounding from the farm. "What did I come in here
for? What did I want to find?" My hands were empty. "Perhaps its
upstairs then?" The apples were in the loft. And so down again, the garden
still as ever, only the book had slipped into the grass.
But they had found it in
the drawing room. Not that one could ever see them. The windowpanes reflected
apples, reflected roses; all the leaves were green in the glass. If they moved
in the drawing room, the apple only turned its yellow side. Yet, the moment after,
if the door was opened, spread about the floor, hung upon the walls, pendant
from the ceiling--what? My hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the
carpet; from the deepest wells of silence the wood pigeon drew its bubble of
sound. "Safe, safe, safe" the pulse of the house beat softly.
"The treasure buried; the room . . ." the pulse stopped short. Oh,
was that the buried treasure?
A moment later the light
had faded. Out in the garden then? But the trees spun darkness for a wandering
beam of sun. So fine, so rare, coolly sunk beneath the surface the beam I
sought always burned behind the glass. Death was the glass; death was between
us, coming to the woman first, hundreds of years ago, leaving the house,
sealing all the windows; the rooms were darkened. He left it, left her, went
North, went East, saw the stars turned in the Southern sky; sought the house,
found it dropped beneath the Downs. "Safe, safe, safe," the pulse of
the house beat gladly. 'The Treasure yours."
The wind roars up the
avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill
wildly in the rain. But the beam of the lamp falls straight from the window.
The candle burns stiff and still. Wandering through the house, opening the
windows, whispering not to wake us, the ghostly couple seek their joy.
"Here we
slept," she says. And he adds, "Kisses without number."
"Waking in the morning--" "Silver between the trees--"
"Upstairs--" 'In the garden--" "When summer came--"
'In winter snowtime--" "The doors go shutting far in the distance,
gently knocking like the pulse of a heart.
Nearer they come, cease
at the doorway. The wind falls, the rain slides silver down the glass. Our eyes
darken, we hear no steps beside us; we see no lady spread her ghostly cloak.
His hands shield the lantern. "Look," he breathes. "Sound
asleep. Love upon their lips."
Stooping, holding their
silver lamp above us, long they look and deeply. Long they pause. The wind
drives straightly; the flame stoops slightly. Wild beams of moonlight cross
both floor and wall, and, meeting, stain the faces bent; the faces pondering;
the faces that search the sleepers and seek their hidden joy.
"Safe, safe,
safe," the heart of the house beats proudly. "Long years--" he
sighs. "Again you found me." "Here," she murmurs,
"sleeping; in the garden reading; laughing, rolling apples in the loft.
Here we left our treasure--" Stooping, their light lifts the lids upon my
eyes. "Safe! safe! safe!" the pulse of the house beats wildly.
Waking, I cry "Oh, is this your buried treasure? The light in the
heart."
3. The
Black Cat
Edgar Allan 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 thanbarroques. 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 inbas 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 theammonia 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!
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