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-stupefied 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
favourite 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 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 chimeras 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!--O, 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 woe! 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 nightmare 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 ax, 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 ax 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 neighbours. 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 merchandise, 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 rest 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 anything suspicious.
And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crowbar 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 relaid 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 brick-work. When I had
finished I felt satisfied that all was all 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 last, then, my labour 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 forbore 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 by, 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 frenzy 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
damned 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.
EDGAR ALLAN POE.
MADAME JOLICOEUR'S CAT
Being somewhat of an age, and a widow of dignity--the late Monsieur
Jolicoeur has held the responsible position under Government of
Ingénieur des Ponts et Chaussées--yet being also of a provocatively
fresh plumpness, and a Marseillaise, it was of necessity that Madame
Veuve Jolicoeur, on being left lonely in the world save for the
companionship of her adored Shah de Perse, should entertain expectations
of the future that were antipodal and antagonistic: on the one hand, of
an austere life suitable to a widow of a reasonable maturity and of an
assured position; on the other hand, of a life, not austere, suitable to
a widow still of a provocatively fresh plumpness and by birth a
Marseillaise.
Had Madame Jolicoeur possessed a severe temperament and a resolute
mind--possessions inherently improbable, in view of her birthplace--she
would have made her choice between these equally possible futures with a
promptness and with a finality that would have left nothing at loose
ends. So endowed, she would have emphasized her not excessive age by a
slightly excessive gravity of dress and of deportment; and would have
adorned it, and her dignified widowhood, by becoming dévote: and
thereafter, clinging with a modest ostentation only to her piety, would
have radiated, as time made its marches, an always increasingly
exemplary grace. But as Madame Jolicoeur did not possess a
temperament that even bordered on severity, and as her mind was a sort
that made itself up in at least twenty different directions in a single
moment--as she was, in short, an entirely typical and therefore an
entirely delightful Provençale--the situation was so much too much for
her that, by the process of formulating a great variety of
irreconcilable conclusions, she left everything at loose ends by not
making any choice at all.
In effect, she simply stood attendant upon what the future had in store
for her: and meanwhile avowedly clung only, in default of piety, to her
adored Shah de Perse--to whom was given, as she declared in disconsolate
negligence of her still provocatively fresh plumpness, all of the
bestowable affection that remained in the devastated recesses of her
withered heart.
To preclude any possibility of compromising misunderstanding, it is but
just to Madame Jolicoeur to explain at once that the personage thus in
receipt of the contingent remainder of her blighted affections--far from
being, as his name would suggest, an Oriental potentate temporarily
domiciled in Marseille to whom she had taken something more than a
passing fancy--was a Persian superb black cat; and a cat of such rare
excellencies of character and of acquirements as fully to deserve all of
the affection that any heart of the right sort--withered, or
otherwise--was disposed to bestow upon him.
Cats of his perfect beauty, of his perfect grace, possibly might be
found, Madame Jolicoeur grudgingly admitted, in the Persian royal
catteries; but nowhere else in the Orient, and nowhere at all in the
Occident, she declared with an energetic conviction, possibly could
there be found a cat who even approached him in intellectual
development, in wealth of interesting accomplishments, and, above all,
in natural sweetness of disposition--a sweetness so marked that even
under extreme provocation he never had been known to thrust out an angry
paw. This is not to say that the Shah de Perse was a characterless cat,
a lymphatic nonentity. On occasion--usually in connection with food that
was distasteful to him--he could have his resentments; but they were
manifested always with a dignified restraint. His nearest approach to
ill-mannered abruptness was to bat with a contemptuous paw the offending
morsel from his plate; which brusque act he followed by fixing upon the
bestower of unworthy food a coldly, but always politely, contemptuous
stare. Ordinarily, however, his displeasure--in the matter of unsuitable
food, or in other matters--was exhibited by no more overt action than
his retirement to a corner--he had his choices in corners, governed by
the intensity of his feelings--and there seating himself with his back
turned scornfully to an offending world. Even in his kindliest corner,
on such occasions, the expression of his scornful back was as a whole
volume of wingéd words!
But the rare little cat tantrums of the Shah de Perse--if to his so
gentle excesses may be applied so strong a term--were but as sun-spots
on the effulgence of his otherwise constant amiability. His regnant
desires, by which his worthy little life was governed, were to love and
to please. He was the most cuddlesome cat, Madame Jolicoeur
unhesitatingly asserted, that ever had lived; and he had a purr--softly
thunderous and winningly affectionate--that was in keeping with his
cuddlesome ways. When, of his own volition, he would jump into her
abundant lap and go to burrowing with his little soft round head beneath
her soft round elbows, the while gurglingly purring forth his love for
her, Madame Jolicoeur, quite justifiably, at times was moved to tears.
Equally was his sweet nature exhibited in his always eager willingness
to show off his little train of cat accomplishments. He would give his
paw with a courteous grace to any lady or gentleman--he drew the caste
line rigidly--who asked for it. For his mistress, he would spring to a
considerable height and clutch with his two soft paws--never by any
mistake scratching--her outstretched wrist, and so would remain
suspended while he delicately nibbled from between her fingers her
edible offering. For her, he would make an almost painfully real
pretence of being a dead cat: extending himself upon the rug with an
exaggeratedly death-like rigidity--and so remaining until her command to
be alive again brought him briskly to rub himself, rising on his hind
legs and purring mellowly, against her comfortable knees.
All of these interesting tricks, with various others that may be passed
over, he would perform with a lively zest whenever set at them by a mere
word of prompting; but his most notable trick was a game in which he
engaged with his mistress not at word of command, but--such was his
intelligence--simply upon her setting the signal for it. The signal was
a close-fitting white cap--to be quite frank, a night-cap--that she
tied upon her head when it was desired that the game should be played.
It was of the game that Madame Jolicoeur should assume her cap with an
air of detachment and aloofness: as though no such entity as the Shah de
Perse existed, and with an insisted-upon disregard of the fact that he
was watching her alertly with his great golden eyes. Equally was it of
the game that the Shah de Perse should affect--save for his alert
watching--a like disregard of the doings of Madame Jolicoeur: usually
by an ostentatious pretence of washing his upraised hind leg, or by a
like pretence of scrubbing his ears. These conventions duly having been
observed, Madame Jolicoeur would seat herself in her especial
easy-chair, above the relatively high back of which her night-capped
head a little rose. Being so seated, always with the air of aloofness
and detachment, she would take a book from the table and make a show of
becoming absorbed in its contents. Matters being thus advanced, the Shah
de Perse would make a show of becoming absorbed in searchings for an
imaginary mouse--but so would conduct his fictitious quest for that
supposititious animal as eventually to achieve for himself a strategic
position close behind Madame Jolicoeur's chair. Then, dramatically,
the pleasing end of the game would come: as the Shah de Perse--leaping
with the distinguishing grace and lightness of his Persian race--would
flash upward and "surprise" Madame Jolicoeur by crowning her
white-capped head with his small black person, all a-shake with
triumphant purrs! It was a charming little comedy--and so well
understood by the Shah de Perse that he never ventured to essay it
under other, and more intimate, conditions of night-cap use; even as he
never failed to engage in it with spirit when his white lure properly
was set for him above the back of Madame Jolicoeur's chair. It was as
though to the Shah de Perse the white night-cap of Madame Jolicoeur,
displayed in accordance with the rules of the game, were an oriflamme:
akin to, but in minor points differing from, the helmet of Navarre.
Being such a cat, it will be perceived that Madame Jolicoeur had
reason in her avowed intention to bestow upon him all of the bestowable
affection remnant in her withered heart's devastated recesses; and,
equally, that she would not be wholly desolate, having such a cat to
comfort her, while standing impartially attendant upon the decrees of
fate.
* * * * *
To assert that any woman not conspicuously old and quite conspicuously
of a fresh plumpness could be left in any city isolate, save for a cat's
company, while the fates were spinning new threads for her, would be to
put a severe strain upon credulity. To make that assertion specifically
of Madame Jolicoeur, and specifically--of all cities in the world!--of
Marseille, would be to strain credulity fairly to the breaking point. On
the other hand, to assert that Madame Jolicoeur, in defence of her
isolation, was disposed to plant machine-guns in the doorway of her
dwelling--a house of modest elegance on the Pavé d'Amour, at the
crossing of the Rue Bausset--would be to go too far. Nor indeed--aside
from the fact that the presence of such engines of destruction would
not have been tolerated by the other residents of the quietly
respectable Pavé d'Amour--was Madame Jolicoeur herself, as has been
intimated, temperamentally inclined to go to such lengths as
machine-guns in maintenance of her somewhat waveringly desired privacy
in a merely cat-enlivened solitude.
Between these widely separated extremes of conjectural possibility lay
the mediate truth of the matter: which truth--thus resembling precious
gold in its valueless rock matrix--lay embedded in, and was to be
extracted from, the irresponsible utterances of the double row of
loosely hung tongues, always at hot wagging, ranged along the two sides
of the Rue Bausset.
Madame Jouval, a milliner of repute--delivering herself with the
generosity due to a good customer from whom an order for a trousseau was
a not unremote possibility, yet with the acumen perfected by her
professional experiences--summed her views of the situation, in talk
with Madame Vic, proprietor of the Vic bakery, in these words: "It is of
the convenances, and equally is it of her own melancholy necessities,
that this poor Madame retires for a season to sorrow in a suitable
seclusion in the company of her sympathetic cat. Only in such retreat
can she give vent fitly to her desolating grief. But after storm comes
sunshine: and I am happily assured by her less despairing appearance,
and by the new mourning that I have been making for her, that even now,
from the bottomless depth of her affliction, she looks beyond the
storm."