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  her 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. Phrenology finds no place for it among  

its organs. 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 jeopardise my immortal soul as  

to place it — if such a thing were 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  had been 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  chimæras 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