🦇 6 Creepy Tales by Edgar Allan Poe - FULL AudioBook 🎧📖 | Greatest🌟AudioBooks

Story one of six creepy stories by Edgar alen Poe this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recording by Phil Shin The Telltale Heart true nervous very very dreadfully nervous I had been and am but why will you say that I am mad the disease had sharpened my senses not destroyed not dulled them above all was the sense of hearing acute I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth I heard many things in Hell how then am I mad harken and observe how healthily how calmly I can tell you the whole story it is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain but once conceived it haunted me day and night object there was none passion there was none I loved the old man he had never wronged me he had never given me insult for his gold I had no desire I think it was his eye yes it was this he had the eye of a vulture a pale blue eye with a film over it whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold and so by degrees very gradually I made up my mind to take the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye forever now this is the point you fancy me mad Mad Men know nothing but you should have seen me you should have seen how wisely I proceeded with what caution with what foresight with what dissimulation I went to work I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him and every night about midnight I turned the latch of his door and opened it oh so gently and and then when I had made an opening sufficient for my head I put in a dark Lantern all closed closed that no light Shone out and then I thrust in my head oh you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in I moved it slowly very very slowly so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep sleep it took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed ha would a mad man have been so wise as this and then when my head was well in the room I undid the lantern cautiously oh so cautiously cautiously for the hinges Creed I undid it just so much that a single thin Ray Fell upon the Vulture Eye and I did this for seven long nights every night just at midnight but I found the eye always closed and so it was impossible to do the work for it was not the old man who vexed me but his evil eye and every morning when the day broke I went boldly into the chamber and spoke courageously to him calling him by name in a hearty tone and inquiring how he had passed the night so you see he would have been a very profound old man indeed to suspect that every night just at 12 I looked in upon him while he slept upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door a watch's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers of my sagacity I could hardly contain my feelings of Triumph to think that there I was opening the door little by little and he not even to dream of my secret Deeds or thoughts I fairly chuckled at the idea and perhaps he heard me for he moved on the bed suddenly as if startled now you may think that I drew back but no his room was as black as pitch with a thick Darkness for the shutters were close fastened through fear of robbers and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door and I kept pushing it on steadily steadily I had my head in and was about to open the lantern when my thumb slipped upon the ttin fastening and they old man sprang up in bed crying out who's there I kept quite still and said nothing for a whole hour I did not move a muscle and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down he was still sitting up in the bed listening just as I have done night after night hearkening to the death watches in the wall presently I heard a slight groan and I knew it was the GR groan of mortal Terror it was not the groan of pain or of grief oh no it was the low stifled sound that rises from the bottom of the Soul when overcharged with awe I knew the sound well many a night just at midnight when all the world slept it has welled up from my own bosom deepening with its Dreadful Echo the Terrors that distracted me I say I knew it well I knew what the old man felt and pied him although I chuckled at heart I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise when he had turned in the bed his fears had been ever since growing upon him he had been trying to fancy them causeless but could not he had been saying to himself it is nothing but the wind in the chimney it is only a mouse crossing the floor or it is merely a cricket which has made a slight chirp yes he had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions but he had found all in vain all in vain because death in approaching him has stalked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim and it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel although he neither saw nor heard to feel to feel the presence of my head within the room when I had waited a long time very patiently without hearing him lie down I resolved to open a little a very very little crevice in the lantern so I opened it you cannot imagine how stealthily stealthily until at last a simple dim Ray like the thread of the spider shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the Vulture Eye it was open wide wide open and I grew Furious as I gazed upon it I saw it with perfect distinctness all a dull blue with a hideous Veil over it that chilled the very marrow of my bones but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person for I had directed The Ray as if by Instinct precisely upon the Damned spot and have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over acuteness of the sense now I say there came to my ears a low dull quick sound such as a watch makes when enveloped in Cotton I knew that sound well too it was the beating of the old man's heart it increased my Fury as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage but even yet I refrained and kept still I scarcely breathed I held the lantern motionless I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eye meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased it grew quicker and quicker and louder and louder every instant the old man's Terror must have been extreme it grew louder I say louder every moment do you mark me well I have told you that I am nervous so I am and now at the dead hour hour of the night amid the Dreadful Silence of that old house so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable Terror yet for some minutes longer I refrained and Stood Still but the beating grew louder louder I thought the heart must burst and now a new anxiety seized me the sound would be heard by a neighbor the old man's ey had come with a loud yell I threw open the Lantern and leaped into the room he shrieked once only once in an instant I dragged him to the floor and pulled a heavy bed over him I then smiled gay to find the deed so far done but for many minutes the heart beat on with a muffled sound this however did not vex me it could not be heard through the wall at length it ceased the old man was dead I removed the bed and examined the corpse yes he was stone stone dead I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes there was no pulsation he was stoned dead his eye would trouble me no more if you still think me mad you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body the night waned and I worked hastily but in silence first of all I dismembered the corpse I cut off the head and the arms and the legs I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber and deposited all between the scantlings I then replaced the boards so cleverly so cunning ly that no human eye not even his could have detected anything wrong there was nothing to wash out no stain of any kind no blood spot whatever I had been too wary for that a tub had caught all ha when I had made an end of these labors it was 4:00 still dark as midnight has the Bell down to the hour there came a knocking at the street door I went down to open it with a light heart for what had I now to fear there entered three men who introduced themselves with perfect suavity as officers of the police a shriek had been heard by a neighbor during the night suspicion of Foul Play had been aroused information had been lodged at the police office and they the officers had been deputed to search the premises I smiled for what had I to fear I bade the gentleman welcome the shriek I said was my own in a dream the old man I mentioned was absent in the country I took my visitors all over the house I B them search search well I led them at length to his chamber I showed them his treasures secure undisturbed in the enthusiasm of my confidence I brought Chairs into the room and desired them here to rest from their fatigues while I myself in the wild Audacity Of My Perfect Triumph placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim the officers were satisfied my manner had convinced them I was singularly at ease they sat while I answered cheerily they chatted of familiar things but air long I felt myself getting pale and wish them gone my head achd and I fancied a ringing in my ears but still they sat and still chatted the ringing became more distinct it continued and became more distinct I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling but it continued and gained definiteness until at length I found that the noise was not within my ears no doubt I now grew very pale but I talked more fluidly and with a heightened voice yet the sound increased and what could I do it was a low dull quick sound much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in Cotton I gasped for breath and yet the officers heard it not I talked more quickly more vehemently but the noise steadily increased I arose and argued about Trifles and a high key and with violent gesticulations but the noise steadily increased why would they not be gone I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides as if excited to Fury by the observations of the men but the noise steadily increased oh God what could I do I foamed I raved I swore I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting and gred it upon the boards but the noise arose overall and continually increased it grew louder louder louder and still the men chatted pleasantly and smiled was it possible they heard not oh mighty God no no they heard they suspected they knew that they were making a mockery of my horror this I thought and this I think but anything was better than this Agony anything was more tolerable than this derision I could bear those hypocritical Smiles no longer I felt that I must scream or die and now again hark louder louder louder louder villains I shrieked dissemble no more I admit the deed tear up the planks here here it is the beating of his Hideous Heart end of The Telltale Heart Story number two of six creepy stories by Edgar Alan Poe this LibriVox recording is in the public domain the mask of the Red Death the Red Death had long devastated the country no pestilence had ever been so fatal or so hideous blood was its Avatar and its seal the redness and the horror of blood there were sharp pains and sudden dizziness and then profuse bleeding at the pores with disolution the Scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim were the pest band which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow men and the whole seizure progress and termination of the disease were the incidents of half an hour but the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious when his dominions were half depopulated he summoned to his presence a thousand hail and light-hearted friends from among the knights and Dames of his court and with these retired to the Deep seclusion of one of his castellated abies this was an extensive and magnificent structure the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet August taste a strong and lofty wall girdled it in the wall had Gates of iron the courtiers having entered brought furnaces and Massy Hammers and welded the bolts they resolved to leave means neither of Ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of Despair or of frenzy from within the Abbey was amply provisioned with such precautions the courtiers might bid Defiance to Contagion the external world could take care of itself in the meantime it was Folly to grieve or to think the prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure there were buffoons there were improvisator there were ballet dancers there were musicians there was Beauty there was wine all these and security were within without was the Red Death it was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad that the Prince Prospero entertained His Thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence it was a voluptuous scene That masquerade But First Let Me Tell of the rooms in which it was held there were seven and Imperial Suite in many palaces however such Suites form a long and straight Vista while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded here the case was very different as might have been expected from the Duke's love of the bazaar the apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time there was a sharp turn at every 20 or 30 yards and at each turn a novel effect to the right right and left in the middle of each wall a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed Corridor which pursued the windings of The Suite these windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing Hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened that of the Eastern extremity was hung for example in blue and vividly blue were its Windows the second chain chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries and here the panes were purple the third was green throughout and so were the casements the fourth was furnished and lighted with orange the fifth with white the sixth with Violet the seventh apartment was closely shrouded in Black Velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and Down the Walls falling in heavy fos upon a carpet of the same material and Hue but in this chamber only the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations the paines here were Scarlet a deep blood color now in no one of the seven Apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the roof there was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of Chambers but in the corridors that followed the suite there stood opposed to each window a heavy tripod bearing a brazer of fire that projected its Rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room and thus were produced a multitude of gy and fantastic appearances but in the western or Black Chamber the effect of a fire light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood tinted pains was ghastly in the extreme and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all it was in this apartment also that there stood against the Western Wall a gigantic clock of Ebony its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull heavy monotonous clang and when the minute hand made the Circuit of the face and the hour was to be stricken there came from the Brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that at each lapse of an hour the musician of the orchestra were constrained to pause momentarily in their performance to hearken to the sound and thus the walers perforce seized their evolutions and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company and while the Chimes of the clock yet rang it was observed that the giddiest grew pale and the more agid and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation but when The Echoes had fully ceased a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and Folly and made whispering vowels each to the other that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion and then after the lapse of 60 minutes which embraced 3,6 100 seconds of the time that flies there came yet another chiming of the clock and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before but in spite of these things it was a gay and magnificent Revel the tastes of the Duke were peculiar he had a fine eye for colors and effects he disregarded the darara of mere fashion his plans were bold and fiery and his conceptions glowed with barbaric luster there are some who would have thought him mad his followers felt that he was not it was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was not he had directed in great part the movable embellishments of the seven Chambers upon occasion of this great fet and it was his own guiding taste which which had given character to the masqueraders be sure they were grotesque there were much glare and glitter and peany and fantasm much of what has been seen since in her Nani there were Arabesque figures with unsuited Limbs and appointments there were Delirious fancies such as the madman Fashions there was much of the beautiful much of the wanting much of the bizarre something of the terrible and not a little of that which might have excited disgust to and fro in the seven Chambers there stalked in fact a multitude of dreams and these the dreams red in and about taking Hue from the rooms and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps and Anon there came the e clock which stands in the Hall of the velvet and then for a moment all is still and all is silent save the voice of the clock the dreams are stiff Frozen as they stand but the Echoes of the chime die away they have endured but an instant and a light half subdued laughter floats after them as they depart and now again the music swells and the dreams live and W to and fro more merrily than ever taking Hue from the many tinted windows through which stream the Rays from the tripods but to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven there are now none of the masers who Venture for the night is waning away and there flows a Ruder light through the blood colored panes and the Blackness of the Sable drapery appalls and to him whose foot falls upon the stap carpet there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peel more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulge in the more remote gaties of the other apartments but these other apartments were densely crowded and in them beat feverously the heart of life and the Revel went whirling on until at L there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock and then the music ceased as I have told and the evolutions of the walers were quieted and there was an uneasy sensation of all things as before but now there were 12 Strokes to be sounded by the Bell of the clock and thus it happened perhaps that more of thought crept with more of time into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who reveled and thus too it happened perhaps that before the last Echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence there were many individuals in the crowd who had found Leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before and the Rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around there arose at length from the whole company a a buzz a murmur expressive of disappropriate and surprise then finally of Terror of horror and of disgust in an assembly of fantasms such as I have painted it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation in truth the Masquerade license of the night was nearly unlimited but the figure in question had out herited Herod and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum there are chords in the heart of the most Reckless which cannot be touched without emotion even with the utterly lost to whom life and death are equally justs there are matters of which no just can be made the whole company indeed seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the strange danger neither wit nor propriety existed the figure was tall and gaunt and shrouded from head to foot in the hilts of the Grave The Mask which concealed the Visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat and yet all this might have been endured if not pro moved by The Mad revelers around but the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death his vesture was dabbed in Blood and his broad brow with all the features of the face was besprinkled with the Scarlet horror when the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image which with a slow and solemn movement as if more fully to sustain his role stalked to and fro among the walers he was seen to be convulsed in the first moment with a strong shutter either of Terror or distaste but in the next his brow rened with rage Who Dares he demanded hely of the cers who stood near him who dares insult us with this Blasphemous mockery seize him and unmask that we may know whom we have to hang at Sunrise from the battlements it was in the Easter or blue chamber in which stood the Prince Prospero as he uttered these words they rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly for the prince was a bold and robust man and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand it was in the blue room where stood the prince with a group of Pale cers by his side at first as he spoke there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the Intruder who at the moment was also near at hand and now with deliberate and stately step May closer approach to the speaker but from a certain nameless awe with which the Mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party there were found none who put forth hand to see him so that unimpeded he passed within a yard of the prince's person and while the vast assembly as if with one impulse shrank from the center of the rooms to the walls he made his way uninterrupted but with the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first through the blue chamber to the purple through the purple to the green through the green to the orange through this again to the white and even then to the Violet a a decided movement had been made to arrest him it was then however that the Prince Prospero maddened with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice rushed hurriedly through the six Chambers while none followed him on account of a deadly Terror that had seized upon them all he bore a loft a drawn dagger and had approached in Rapid impetuosity to within 3 or 4 feet of the retreating figure when the latter having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer there was a sharp cry and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the Sable carpet upon which instantly afterwards fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero then summoning the wild courage of Despair a throng of the reelers at once threw themselves into the black apartment and seizing the mummer whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave camons and corpse-like mask which they hle with so violent a rudeness untenanted by any tangible form and now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death he had come like a thief in the night and one by one dropped the revelers in the blood bedewed Halls of their Revel and died each in the despairing posture of his fall and the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay and the Flames of the tripods expired and darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all end of the Mask of the Red Death Story number three of six creepy stories by po this LibriVox recording is in the public domain the black cat for the most wild yet most homely narrative which I'm about to pin 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 tomorrow I die and today I would un birn 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 baroes Hereafter perhaps some intellect may be found which will reduce my fantasm to the commonplace 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 position my tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the just 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 principles 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 poultry friendship and gossam or 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 goldfish 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 illusion 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 in temporate 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 use them for Pluto however I still retain sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him as I made no scruple of Mal treating 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 I knew myself no longer my original Soul seemed at once to take its flight from my body and a more than fish malevolence JY nurtured thrilled every fiber of my frame I took from my waist coat 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 pin 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 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 d 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 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 aund 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 sake only that urge 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 offense 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 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 then forward 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 the 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 bar relief upon the White surface the figure of a gigantic cat the impression was given with an accuracy truly marvelous 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 dream 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 someone 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 portrait 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 thess fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy for months I could not rid myself of the fantasm 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 Hogs heads of Jin or of rum which constituted the chief Furniture of the apartment I had been looking steadily at the top of this Hog's head 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 all though 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 from 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 long to destroy it with a blow I was yet withheld from doing so partly by a memory of my Farmer 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 meest Shimmer 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 this fanciful it had at length assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline it was not now the representation of an object that I shudder to name and for this above all I loath and dreaded and would have ridden 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 from me from me a man fashioned in the image of the high God so much of insufferable wo alas neither by day or by Night knew I the blessing of rest anymore 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 soul intimate 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 uplift ing an ax and forgetting in my wrath the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand I aimed to blow with 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 goated 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 forth with 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 destroy drawing them by fire at another I resolved to dig a gray 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 hole 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 a little trouble I relayed 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 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 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 I slept even with a 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 B 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 in to in 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 wrapped 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 fend no sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence then 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 exal 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 Tarling 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 end of the black cat story number four of six creepy stories by Edgar alen Poe this LibriVox recording is in the public domain The Raven Once Upon a Midnight dreary while I pondered weak and weary over many a quaint and curious volume of Forgotten lure while I nodded nearly napping suddenly there came a tapping as of someone gently wrapping wrapping at my chamber door is some visitor I muttered tapping at my chamber door only this and nothing more four ah distinctly I remember it was In The Bleak December and each separate dying Ember wrought its ghost upon the floor eagerly I wished the tomorrow vainly I had sought to borrow from my books cers of Sorrow sorrow for the Lost Lenor for the rare and radiant Maiden whom the angel's name Lenor nameless here forever more and the silken sad uncertain rustling up each purple curtain thrilled me filled me with fantastic Terrors never felt before so that now to still the beating of my heart I stood repeating to some visitor intreating entrance at my chamber door some late visitor intreating entrance at my chamber door this it is and nothing more presently my soul grew stronger hesitating then no longer sir said I or Madam truly your forgiveness I implore but the fact is I was napping and so gently you came wrapping and so faintly you came tapping tapping at my chamber door that I scarce was sure I heard you here I opened wide the door Darkness there and nothing more deep into that that Darkness peering long I stood there wondering fearing doubting Dreaming Dreams no martal ever dared to dream before but the silence was unbroken and the Stillness gave no token and the only word there spoken was the whispered word Lenor this I whispered and an echo murmured back the word Lenor merely this and nothing more back into the chamber turning all my soul within me burning soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before surely said I surely that is something at my window lce let me see then what there at is and this mystery explore let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore just the wind and nothing more open here I flung the shutter when with many a flirt and flutter in there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of your not the least oance made he not a minute stopped or stayed he but with mean of Lord or lady perched above my chamber door perched upon a bust of Palace just above my chamber door perched and sat and nothing more then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling by the grave and Stern decorum of the countenance at War though thy Crest be shorn and shaven thou I said art sure no Craven Gastly grim and ancient Raven wondering from the nightly Shore tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's platonian Shore quoth The Raven never more much I marveled this ungainly foul to hear discourse so plainly though its answer little meaning little relevancy bore for we cannot help agreeing that no living human being ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door with such name as never more but the raven sitting lonely on the Placid bust spoke only that one word as if his soul in that one word he did outpour nothing further then he uttered not a feather then he fluttered till I scarcely more than muttered other friends have flown before on the tomorrow he will leave me as my hopes have flown before then the bird said never more startled at the Stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken doubtless said I what it utters is its only stock in store caught from some unhappy Master whom unmerciful disaster followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore till the durges of his hope that Melancholy burden bore of never never more but the raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling straight I wheeled a cushion seat in front of bird and bust and door then upon the Velvet sinking I betook myself to linking fancy unto fancy thinking what this ominous bird of your what this Grim ungainly ghastly gaunt and ominous bird of your meant in croing never more this I sat engaged in in guessing but no syllable expressing to the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core this and more I sat divining with my head at ease reclining on the cushions velvet lining that the lamp light gloated ore but whose velvet Violet lining with the lampl gloating ore she shall press ah never more then me thought the air grew denser perfumed from an unseen sensor swung by seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor wretch I cried thy God has lent thee by these angels He has sent thee respite respite and depent thee from th memories of Lenor qua oh qua this kind neeny and forget this lost Lenor quote The Raven never more Prophet said I think of evil Prophet still of bird or devil whether tempter sent or whether Tempest tossed thee here assure desolate yet all undaunted on this desert land Enchanted on this home by horror haunted tell me truly I implore is there is there bomb in Gilead tell me tell me I implore quote The Raven never more Prophet said I thing of evil Prophet still if bird or Devil by that heaven that bends above us by that God we both adore tell this soul with sorrow Laden if within the distant Aiden it shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the Angels name Lenor collas our rare and radiant Maiden whom the angels named Lenor quote The Raven never more be that word our sign of parting bird or Fiend I Shri up starting get thee back into the tiest and the night's platonian Shore leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy Soul has spoken leave my loneliness unbroken quit the bust above my door take thy Beak from out my heart and take thy form from off my door quote The Raven never more and the Raven never flitting still is sitting still is sitting on the pet bust of Palace just above my chamber door and his eyes have all the seeming of a demons that is dreaming and the Lamplight or him streaming throws his shadow on the floor and my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor shall be lifted never more end of the Raven Story number five of six creepy stories by Edgar Ellen Poe this LibriVox recording is in the public domain The Cask of Amaro the Thousand injuries of fortunado I had borne as best I could but when he ventured upon insult I vowed Revenge you who know be well you who so well know the nature of my soul will not suppose however that I gave utterance to a threat at length I would be Avenged this was a point definitely subtle but the very definiteness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk I must not only punish but punish with impunity a wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser it is equally unredressed when the Avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong it must be understood that that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will I continued as was my want to smile in his face and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his imulation he had a weak point this Fortunato although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even feared he prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine few Italians have the true virtuoso spirit for the most part their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the time and opportunity to practice imposture upon the British and Austrian millionaires in painting and gimmer Fortunato like his countrymen was a quack but in the matter of old wines he was sincere in this respect I did not differ from him materially I was skillful in the Italian vintages myself and bought largely whenever I could it was about dusk one evening during the Supreme Madness of the Carnival season that I encountered my friend he accosted me with excessive warmth for he had been drinking much the man wore m ly he had on a tight fitting party striped dress and his head was surmounted by the conle cap and bells I was so pleased to see him that I thought I should never have done ringing his hand I said to him my dear Fortunato you are luckily met how remarkably well you are looking today but I have received a pipe of what passes for a monato and I have my my doubts how said he a monato a pipe impossible and in the middle of the carnival I have my doubts I replied and I was silly enough to pay the full a monato price without consulting you in the matter you were not to be found and I was fearful of losing a bargain a monato I have my doubts a monato and I must satisfy them aato as you are engaged I'm on my way to Lessie if anyone has a critical turn it is he he will tell me Lessie cannot tell a until y from Sherry and yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for your own come let us go with to your vaults my friend know I will not impose upon your good nature I perceive you have an engagement luchessi I have no engagement come my friend no it is not the engagement but the severe coal with which I perceive you are afflicted the vaults are insufferably damp they are encrusted with nighter let us go nevertheless the cold is merely nothing a mon to yato you have been imposed upon as for luchessi he cannot distinguish Sherry from a monato thus speaking Fortunato possessed himself of my arm putting on a mask of black silk and drawing a rore closely about my person I suffered him to hurry me to my Palazo there were no attendants at home they had absconded to make Mary in honor of the time I had told them that I should not return until the morning and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house these orders were sufficient I well knew to ensure their immediate disappearance one and all as soon as my back was turned I took from their sconces two flambo and giving one to Fortunato bowed him through several Suites of rooms to the archway that led into to the vaults I passed down a long and winding staircase requesting him to be cautious as he followed we came at length to the foot of the Descent and stood together on The Damp ground to the catacombs of the mantur the Gate of my friend was unsteady and the bells upon his cap jingled as he stroe the pipe said he it is farther on said I but obs observe the white web work which gleams from these Cavern walls he turned towards me and looked into my eyes with two filmy orbs that distilled the room of intoxication nighter he asked at length nighter I replied how long have you had that cough my poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes it is nothing he said at last come I said with decision we will go back your health is precious you are rich respected admired beloved you are happy as once I was you are a man to be missed for me it is no matter we will go back you will be ill and I cannot be responsible besides there is luchessi enough he said the cough is a mere nothing it will not kill me I shall not die of a cough true true I replied and indeed I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily but you should use all proper caution a draft of this medock will defend us from the damps here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long row of its fellows that lay upon the mold drink I said presenting him the wine he raised it to his lips with a Lear he paused and nodded to me familiarly while his Bells jingled I drink he said to the buried that Repose around us and I to your long life he again took my arm and we proceeded these vaults he he said are extensive the montessaurus I replied were a great and numerous family I forget your arms a huge human foot door in a field aor the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are embedded in the heel and the motto Nemo May impunes good he said the wine sparkled in his eyes and the Bells jingled my own fancy grew warm with the medock we had passed through walls of piled bones with casks and punchings intermingling into the innermost recesses of the Catacombs I paused again and this time I made bold to seize Fortunato by an arm above the elbow the nighter I said see it increases it hangs like moss upon the vaults we are below the River's bed the drops of moisture trickle among the bones come we will go back here it is too late your cough it is nothing he said let us go on but first another draft of the medok I broke and reached him a flagen of degrave he emptied it at a breath his eyes flashed with a fierce light he laughed and threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand I looked at him in surprise he repeated the movement a grotesque one you do not comprehend he said not I I replied then you are not of the Brotherhood how you are not of the Masons yes yes I said yes yes you impossible aason a Mason I replied A Sign he said it is this I answered producing a Trel from beneath the fos of my ralar you just he exclaimed recalling a few Paces but let us proceed to the Monti be it so I said replacing the tool beneath the cloak and again offering him my arm he leaned upon it heavily we continued our route in search of the amonti we passed passed through a range of low arches descended passed on and descending again arrived at a deep Crypt in which the foulness of the air caused our flambo rather to Glow than flame at the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less spacious its walls had been lined with human remains piled to the Vault overhead in the fashion of the great Catacombs of Paris three sides of this interior Crypt were still ornamented in this manner from the fourth the bones had been thrown down and lay promiscuously upon the Earth forming at one point a mound of some size within the wall thus exposed by the displacing of the bones we perceived a still interior recess in depth about 4T in width three in height 6 or seven it seemed to have been constructed for no special use in itself but formed merely the interval between two of the Colossal supports of the roof of the Catacombs and was backed by one of their circumscribing walls of solid Granite it was in vain that Fortunato uplifting his dull torch endeavored to pry into the depths of the recess its termination the feeble light did not enable us to see proceed I said herein is the Amant as for luchessi he is an ignoramus interrupted my friend as he stepped unsteadily forward while I followed immediately at his heels in an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche and finding his progress arrested by The Rock stood stupidly bewildered a moment more and I had fettered him to the Granite in its surface were two iron Staples distant from each other about 2 feet horizontally from one of these depended a short chain from the other a padlock throwing the lengths about his waist it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it he was too much astonished to resist withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess pass your hand I said over the wall you cannot help feeling the nighter in indeed it is very damp once more let me implore you to return no then I must positively leave you but I must first render you all the little attentions in my power the monato ejaculated my friend not yet recovered from his astonishment true I replied the Amato as I said these words I busied myself among the piles of Bones of which I have before spoken throwing them aside I soon uncovered a quantity of building stone and mortar with these materials and with the aid of my travel I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche I had scarcely laid the first teer of my masonry when I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great measure worn off the earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry from the depth of the recess it was not the Cry of a drunken man there was then a long and obstinate silence I laid the second tier and the third and the fourth and then I heard the Furious vibrations of the chain the noise lasted for several minutes during which that I might hearken to it with the more satis faction I seized my labors and sat down upon the bones when at last the clanking subsided I resumed the travel and finished without interruption the fifth the sixth and the seventh tier the wall was now nearly upon a level with my breast I again paused and holding the flambo over the Mason work through a few feeble Rays upon the figure Within a succession of loud and shrill screams bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form seemed to thrust me violently back for a brief moment I hesitated I trembled un sheathing my Rapier I began to grope with it about the recess but the thought of an instant reassured me I placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the Catacombs and felt satisfied I reapo the wall I replied to the yells of him who clamored I re-echoed I aided I surpassed them in volume and in strength I did this and the clamor grew still it was now midnight and my task was drawing to a close I had completed the eighth the ninth and the 10th tier I had finished a portion of the last and the 11th there remained but a single Stone to be fitted and plastered in I struggled with this weight I placed it partially in its destined position but now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the Harris upon my head it was succeeded by a sad voice which I had difficulty in recognizing as that of the noble Fortunato the voice said a very good joke indeed an excellent justest we will have many a rich laugh about it at The Palazo over our wine the Amato I said yes the Amant but is it not getting late will they not be awaiting us at the palaso the lady Fortunato and the rest let us be gone yes I said let us be G for the love of God montessor yes I said for the love of God but to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply I grew impatient I called aloud Fortunato no answer I called again Fortunato no answer still I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within there came forth in return only a jingling of the Bells my heart grew sick on account of the dampness of the Catacombs I hastened to make an end of my labor I forced the last Stone into its position I plastered it up against the new masonry I re-erected the old Rampart of bones for the half of a century No mortal has Disturbed them in re escat end of the cas of a Monti Story number six of six creepy stories by Edgar alen Poe this LibriVox recording is in the public domain ber D MI alatas ibben zat misery is manifold the wretchedness of Earth is multi overreaching the wide Horizon as the rainbow its Hues are as various as the Hues of that Arch as distinct too yet as intimately Blended overreaching the wide Horizon as the rainbow how is it that from beauty I have derived a type of un loveliness from the Covenant of Peace a simile of sorrow but as in ethics evil is a consequence of good so in fact out of joy is sorrow born either the memory of past Bliss is the anguish of today or are the agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been my baptismal name is igus that of my family I will not mention yet there are no Towers in the land more time honored than my gloomy gray hereditary Halls our line has been called a race of Visionaries and in many striking particulars in the character of the family mansion in the fresh esos of the chief Saloon in the tapestries of the dormitories in the chiseling of some buttresses in the Armory but more especially in the gallery of antique paintings in the fashion of the library chamber and lastly in the very peculiar nature of the library's contents there is more than sufficient evidence to Warrant the belief the Recollections of my earliest years are connected with that chamber and with its volumes of which latter I will say no more here died my mother herein was I born but it is mere idleness to say that I had not lived before that the soul has no previous existence you deny it let us not argue the matter convinced myself I seek not to convince there is however a remembrance of aerial forms of spiritual and meaning eyes of sounds musical yet sad a remembrance which will not be excluded a memory like a shadow vague variable indefinite unsteady and like a shadow too in the impossibility of my getting rid of it while the sunlight of my reason shall exist in that chamber was I born thus awaking from the long night of what seemed but was not none entity at once into the very regions of Fairyland into a palace of imagination into the wild dominions of monastic thought and erudition it is not singular that I gazed around me with a startled and Ardent eye that I loitered away my boyhood in books and dissipated my youth in Ry but it is singular that as years rolled away and the noon of manhood found me still in the Mansion of my fathers it is wonderful what stagnation there fell upon the Springs of my life wonderful how total an inversion took place in the character of my commonest thought the realities of the world affected me as visions and as Visions only while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became in turn not the material of my everyday existence but in very deed that existence utterly and solely in itself bise and I were cousins and we grew up together in my paternal Halls yet differently we grew I ill of health and buried in Gloom she agile graceful and overflowing with energy hers the ramble on the hillside mine the studies of of the cler I living within my own heart and addicted body and soul to the most intense and painful meditation she roaming carelessly through life with no thought of the Shadows in her path or the Silent Flight of the Raven winged hours ban I call upon her name Banes and from the gray ruins of memory a thousand tumultuous Rec rections are startled at the sound ah vividly is Her Image before me now as in the early days of her light-heartedness and joy oh gorgeous yet fantastic beauty oh Sil amid the shrubberies of arnheim oh NAD among its fountains and then then all is mystery and Terror and a tale which should not be told disease a fatal disease felt like the simoon upon her frame and even while I gazed upon her the spirit of change swept over her prvad her mind her habits and her character and in a manner the most subtle and terrible disturbing even the identity of her person alas the Destroyer came and went and the victim where is she I knew her not or knew her no longer as Banes among the numerous train of Melodies super inducted by that fatal and primary one which affected a revolution of so horrible a kind in the moral and physical being of my cousin may be mentioned as the most distressing and obstinate in its nature a species of epilepsy not unfrequently terminating in trance itself trance very nearly resembling positive dissolution and from which her manner of recovery was in most instances startlingly abrupt in the meantime my own disease for I have been told that I should call it by no other appalation my own disease then grew rapidly upon me and assumed finally a monomaniacal character of a novel and extraordinary form hourly and momently gaining and at length obtaining over me the most incomprehensible ascendancy this monomania if I must so term it consisted in a morbid irritability of those properties of the Mind in metaphysical science termed the attentive it is more than probable that I am not understood but I fear indeed that it is in no manner possible to convey to the mind of the merely General reader an adequate idea of that nervous intensity of Interest with which in my case the powers of meditation not to speak technically busied and buried themselves in the contemplation of even the most ordinary objects of the universe to Muse for long unwearied hours with my attention riveted to some frivolous device on the margin or in the typography of a book to become absorbed for the better part of a summer's day in a quaint Shadow falling a slant upon the tapestry or upon the floor to lose myself for an entire night in watching the steady flame of a lamp or the Embers of a fire to dream away whole days over the perfume of a flower to repeat monotonously some common word until the Sound by Dent of frequent repetition seized to convey any idea whatever to the mind to lose all sense of motion or physical existence by means of absolute bodily quesence long and obstinately persevered in such were a few of the most common and least pricious vagaries induced by a condition of the mental faculties noted indeed altogether unparalleled but certainly bidding Defiance to anything like analysis or explanation yet let me not be misapprehended the undue Earnest and morbid attention thus excited by objects in their own nature frivolous must not be confounded in character with that ruminating propensity common to all mankind and more especially indulged in by persons of ardent imagination it was not even as might be at First supposed an extreme condition or exaggeration of such propensity but primarily and essentially distinct and different in the one instance the dreamer or Enthusiast being interested by an object usually not frivolous imperceptibly loses sight of this object in a Wilderness of deductions and suggestions issuing there from until still at the conclusion of a Daydream often replete with luxury he finds the inetnum or first cause of his musings entirely vanished and forgotten in my case the primary object was invariably frivolous although assuming through the medium of my distempered vision a refracted and unreal importance few deductions if any were made and those few pertinent tenaciously returning in upon the original object as a center the meditations were never pleasurable and at the termination of the Ry the first cause so far from being out of sight had attained that supernaturally exaggerated interest which was the prevailing feature of the disease in a word the powers of mind more particularly exercised were with me as I have said before the attentive and are with the Daydreamer the speculative my books at this Epoch if they did not actually serve to irritate the disorder partook it will be perceived largely in their imaginative and inconsequential nature of the characteristic qualities of the disorder itself I well remember among others the Treatise of the noble Italian celus St Austin's great work the city of God and tertons dear Christi in which the paradoxical sentence morus impossib EST occupied my undivided time for many weeks of laborious and fruitless investigation thus it will appear that shaken from its balance only by trivial things my reason bore resemblance to that ocean CAG spoken of by tmy heeson which steadily resisted the attacks of human violence and the fiercer fury of the waters and the winds trembled only to the touch of the flower called aspel and although to a careless thinker it might appear a matter Beyond doubt that the alteration produced by her unhappy melody in the Mortal condition of Banes would afford me many objects for the exercise of that intense and abnormal meditation whose nature I have been at some trouble in explaining yet such was not in any degree the case in the Lucid intervals of my infirmity her Calamity indeed gave me pain pain and taking deeply to heart that Total Wreck of her fair and gentle life I did not fail to ponder frequently and bitterly upon the wonderwork means by which so strange a revolution had been so suddenly brought to pass but these Reflections partook not of the idiosyncrasy of my disease and were such as would have occurred under similar circumstances to the ordinary mass of mankind true to its own character my disorder reveled in the less important but more startling changes wrought in the physical frame of beran in the singular and most appalling Distortion of her personal identity during the brightest days of her unparalleled Beauty most surely I had never loved her in the strange anomaly of my existence feelings with me had never been of the heart and my passions always were of the Mind through the gray of the early morning among the trellist Shadows of the forest at Noonday and in the Silence of my library at night she had flitted by my eyes and I had seen her not as the living and breathing Banes but as the Banes of a dream not as a being of the earth earthy but as the abstraction of such a being not as a thing to admire but to analyze not as an object of love but as a theme of the most abstruse allthough dulsatory speculation and now now I shuddered in her presence and grew pale at her approach yet bitterly lamenting her fallen in desolate condition I called to mind that she had loved me long and in an evil moment I spoke to her of marriage and at length the period of our nuptuals was approaching when upon an afternoon in the winter of the year one of those unseasonably warm calm and Misty days which are the nurse of the beautiful houseon I sat and sat as I thought alone in the inner apartment of the library but uplifting my eyes I saw that Banes stood before me was it my own excited imagination or the Misty influence of the atmosphere or the uncertain Twilight of the chamber or the gray draperies which fell around her figure that caused in it so vacillating and indistinct and outline I could not tell she spoke no word and I not for whs would I have uttered a syllable and icy chill ran through my frame a sense of insufferable anxiety oppressed me a consuming curiosity pervaded my soul and sinking back upon the chair I remained for some time breathless and motionless with my eyes riveted upon her person alas its emaciation was excessive and not one vestage of the former being lurked in any single line of the Contour my burning glances at length fell upon the face the forehead was high and very pale and singularly Placid and the once Jetty hair fell partially over it and overshadowed the hollow temples with innumerable ringlets now of a vivid yellow and jarring discordantly in their fantastic character with The riging Melancholy of the countenance the eyes were lifeless and lusterless and seemingly pupiless and I shrank involuntarily from their glassy stare to the contemplation of the thin and shrunken lips they parted and in a smile of peculiar meaning the teeth of the changed panise disclos themselves slowly to my view would to God that I had never beheld them or that having done so I had died the shutting of a door Disturbed me and looking up I found that my cousin had departed from the chamber but from the disordered chamber of my brain had not Al last departed and would not be driven away the white and ghastly Spectra of the teeth not a speck on their surface not a shade of their enaml not an indenture in their edges but what that period of her smile has sufficed to Brand in upon my memory I saw them now even more unequivocally than I beheld them then the teeth the teeth they were here and there There and Everywhere and visibly and palpably before me long narrow and excessively white with the pale lips writhing about them as in the very moment of their first terrible development then came the full Fury of my monomania and I struggled in vain against its strange and irresistible influence in the multiplied objects of the external world I had no thoughts but for the teeth for these I longed with a frenzy desire all other matters and all different interests became absorbed in their single contemplation they they alone were present to the mental eye and they in their sole individuality became the essence of my mental life I held them in every light I turned them in every attitude I surveyed their characteristics I dwelt upon their peculiarities I pondered upon their conformation I mused upon the alteration in their nature I shuddered as I assigned to them in imagination a sensitive and sensient power and even when unassisted by the lips a capability of moral expression of mmis Sal it has been well said and more seriously believed day de day ah here was the idiotic thought that destroyed me de day ah therefore it was that I coveted them so madly I felt that their possession could alone ever restore me to peace in giving me back to reason and the evening closed in upon me thus and then the darkness came and tarried and went and the day again dawned and The Mists of a second night were now gathering around and still I sat Motionless in that solit AR room and still I sat buried in meditation and still the fantasma of the teeth maintained its terrible ascendancy as with the most Vivid hideous distinctness it floated about amid the changing Lights and Shadows of the chamber at length there broke in upon my dreams a cry as of horror and dismay and there onto after a pause succeeded the sound of troubled voices intermingled with many low moanings of sorrow or of pain I Rose from my seat and throwing open one of the doors of the library saw standing out in the antichamber a servant Maiden All in tears who told me that banice was no more she had been seized with epilepsy in the early morning and now at the closing in of the night the the grave was ready for its tenant and all the preparations for the burial were completed I found myself sitting in the library and again sitting there alone it seemed that I had newly awakened from a confused and exciting dream I knew that it was now midnight and I was well aware that since the setting of The Sun betan had been interred but of that Dre period which intervened I had no positive at least no definite comprehension yet its memory was replete with horror horror more horrible from being vague and Terror more terrible from ambiguity it was a fearful page in the record of my existence written all over with dim and hideous and unintelligible Recollections I strived to decipher them but in vain while ever and Anon like the spirit of a departed sound the shrill and piercing shriek of a female voice seemed to be ringing in my ears I had done a deed what was it I asked myself the question aloud and the whispering Echoes of the chamber answered me what was it on the table beside me burned a lamp and and near it lay a little box it was of no remarkable character and I had seen it frequently before for it was the property of the family physician but how it came there upon my table and why did I shudder in regarding it these things were in no manner to be accounted for and my eyes at length dropped to the open pages of a book and to a sentence underscored therein the words were the singular but simple ones of the poet eban zot sodales why then as I perused them did the hairs of my head erect themselves on end and the blood of my body become congealed within my veins there came a light tap at the library door and pale as the tenant of a tomb a menial entered upon tiptoe his looks were wild with Terror and he spoke to me in a voice tremulous Husky and very low what said he some broken sentences I heard he told of a wild cry disturbing The Silence of the night of the Gathering Together of the household of a search in the direction of the sound and then his tone grew thrillingly distinct as he whispered me of a violated grave of a disfigured body and shrouded yet still breathing still palpitating still alive he pointed to gourmets they were muddy and clotted with Gore I spoke not and he took me gently by the hand it was indented with the impress of human Nails he he directed my attention to some object against the wall I looked at it for some minutes it was a spade with a shriek I bounded to the table and grasped the box that lay upon it but I could not force it open and in my Tremor it slipped from my hands and fell heavily and burst into pieces and from it with a rattling sound there rolled out some instruments of dental surgery intermingled with 32 small white and ivory looking substances that were scattered to and fro about the floor end of Banes end of six creepy stories by Edgar Alan Poe these stories recorded by Phil Shen in Baton Rouge Louisiana in January of 2013

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Id: 52Rbp_s1h5o

Length: 120min 7sec (7207 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 11 2013