The Black Ca

Villa Macul Academia
English Department
Gema V. Rosales Calvo

THE BLACK CAT
(Edgar Allan Poe)

I’m not mad, and very surely I do not dream. But tomorrow I die, and today I
would unburthen my soul.
From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my soul. I was
especially fond of animals, and I had a great variety of pets. With these I spent most
of my time, and never wasso happy as when feeding and caressing them.
I married early, and I was happy to find in my wife a disposition congenial with
my own. We together had birds, goldfish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a
CAT.
This cat was remarkably large and beautiful, entirely black, and sagacious to an
astonishing degree. My wife was always reminding the ancient popular notion which
regarded allblack cats as witches.
Pluto, this was the cat’s name, was my favourite pet. But after some years, my
general temperament changed for the worse. I became violent, and started drinking.
My wife, and so my pets, suffered violent attacks from me, except Pluto, But when my
disease grew into me, even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.
One night, returning home, much intoxicated, Ifancied that the cat avoided
me. The fury of a demon possessed me. I knew myself no longer. I took from my
pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately
cut one of its eyes from the socket.
When the reason returned with the morning, I experienced a sentiment half
horror, half remorse for the crime I had been guilty.
I again drowned in wine all memoryof the action. In the meantime the cat
slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented a frightful appearance, but he
didn’t suffer any pain anymore. He went about the house as usual, but he fled in
extreme terror at my approach. First, I was very sorry, but this feeling soon gave place
to irritation and hate. So, one morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about his neck
and hungthe black cat to the limb of a tree. On the night of that day, I was aroused
from sleep by the cry of fire. The whole house was in flames. It was with a great
difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, escaped from that hell. The destruction
was complete.
Some days after the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had
fallen in. About this wall a dense crowd werecollected, examining it with eager
attention. The words “strange”,”singular”, and other similar expressions, excited my
curiosity. I approached and saw upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat
with a rope about the animal’s neck. I ran away horrified.
For months I couldn’t forget the phantasm of the cat. One night as I was sat,
half drunk, in a bar, my attention was suddenly drawn to someblack object, reposing
upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of rum. I looked with attention, and I
saw what that thing was; it was a black cat.
I approached the cat, and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat, a very
large one, fully as large as Pluto. But this cat had a large although indefinite mark of
white hair, covering nearly the whole region of the breast.
When Iprepared to go home, the animal followed me, and I permitted it to do
so. When the cat reached the house, it became immediately a great favourite with my
wife, but I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. I avoided the creature, and the
remembrance of my past cruelty prevented me from physically abusing it.

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Villa Macul Academia
English Department
Gema V. Rosales Calvo

What addedto my hatred of the beast was the discovery that, like Pluto, this
cat also had been deprived of one of its eyes. My wife then called my attention to the
character of the mark of white hair, the only visible difference between the strange
beast and the one I had destroyed. This mark grew little by little, until it was perfectly
recognisable. It was the image of the hideous GALLOWS!
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