The Tell - Tale Heart
True! I was and still am incredibly anxious; however, why do you think I am crazy? My sensibilities had not been destroyed, dulled, or blunted by the illness. The acute hearing perception stood out above all else. I heard everything that happened in the heavens and on earth. In hell, I heard a lot of stuff. So why am I crazy? Hearken! and take note of how sturdily—how serenely—I can recount the entire tale to you.
It's impossible to explain how the idea first came to me, but once it did, it followed me around all day and night. There was no object. There was no passion. I adored the elderly guy. He had never done me wrong. He had never insulted me. I had no wish to possess his gold. Yes, it was this, I believe it was his eye. One of his eyes had a film covering it and was a light blue color, like a vulture's eye. My blood would instantly turn cold whenever it touched me, so I gradually -- very gradually -- decided to kill the elderly man in order to permanently get rid of the eye.
Herein lies the key idea. You think I'm crazy. Madmen are ignorant. But you ought to have noticed me. You should have seen how carefully I moved forward, how cautiously, strategically, and deceitfully I started working! The entire week leading up to the elderly man's death was the kindest I had ever been to him. And every night, around midnight, I opened his door — oh, so delicately — by turning the lock. After creating a space large enough for my head, I inserted a dark lantern that was completely covered so that no light could escape, and then I pushed in my head. Oh, if you had seen how slyly I pushed it in, you would have chuckled! I moved it very, very slowly in order to avoid waking the elderly guy. It took me an hour to get my entire head inside the gap far enough to see him lying in his bed. Would a lunatic have been so clever as this, you ask? When I felt comfortable in the space, I carefully — oh, so carefully — undid the lantern until a single, slender ray dropped upon the vulture's eye. I did this because the lantern's hinges were creaking. Every morning as the sun came up, I entered the room fearlessly and spoke bravely to him, addressing him by name in a rousing voice and asking how he had spent the previous night. You can see that he would have had to be a very wise old man to guess that every night at exactly twelve, I peeked in on him as he slept.
On the eighth night, I was far more cautious than normal when I opened the door. The minute hand of a watch travels faster than mine did. I had never before felt how strong and cunning I really was until that night. I struggled to contain my emotions of victory. It's amazing to think that while I was opening the door, he wasn't even aware of my thoughts or actions. I actually laughed at the thought; perhaps he heard me because he abruptly shifted positions on the bed, appearing startled. You might now assume that I withdrew, but I didn't. Since the shutters were tightly fastened out of fear of robbers, his room was pitch-black, and I knew he couldn't see the door opening, I continued to force it open steadily, steadily.
When my thumb slid on the tin fastening as I had my head inside and was about to open the lantern, the elderly man jumped up from the bed and yelled, "Who's there?"
I remained silent and stood still. I did not move for an entire hour, and during that time, I did not hear him lay down. He was still listening while sitting up in bed, just as I had done every night while listening to the wall-mounted death watches.
I suddenly heard a faint moan, and I immediately recognized it as the groan of mortal fear. Oh no, it wasn't a groan of agony or grief; instead, it was the low, muffled sound that emerges from the depths of the spirit when overwhelmed by awe. The tone was one I was familiar with. It has frequently welled up from my own heart right at midnight, when everyone else was asleep, intensifying my distractions with its terrible echo. I claim to have a thorough understanding of it.
Despite my inner chuckle, I felt sorry for the old guy because I understood how he felt. Since the first faint murmur, when he turned in the bed, I knew he had been awake. Since then, his worries had grown on him. He had tried to think of them as causeless, but he was unsuccessful. He had been telling himself things like, "It's just the wind in the chimney, just a mouse moving across the floor, or just a cricket making a single chirp." Yes, he has been making these assumptions to console himself, but his efforts have been in vain. All in futile, as Death had surrounded the victim as he approached, stalking him with his ominous black shadow. He didn't see or hear my head in the room, but he was still able to sense its presence due to the melancholy influence of the unnoticed shadow.
