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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
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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 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]