Tell Tale Heart – Edgar Allen Poe

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 dulled them. how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but it haunted me day and night. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! He had the eye of a vulture. So I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

Every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it --oh so gently! 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.

Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in bed, crying out --"Who's there?"

I kept quite still and said nothing. When I had waited a long time, I resolved to open a very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it --until a dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot out from  the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye.

It was wide open --and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness --with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in 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.

But even yet I refrained and kept still. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and louder every instant! I thought the heart must burst. The old man's hour had come! With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once --once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. But, for many minutes, the heart beat on with a muffled sound. The old man was dead. His eye would trouble me no more.

If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer. I took for the concealment of the body. 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 cunningly, that no human eye --not even his --could have detected anything wrong.

When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o'clock --still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door. There entered three men, who introduced themselves, as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbour during the night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused;

I smiled, --for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search --search well. I brought chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues. I 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, and while I answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things.

No doubt I now grew very pale; --but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased --and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound. I gasped for breath --and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly --more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, 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 grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all. And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? They heard! --they suspected! --they knew! --they were making a mockery of my horror! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and now --again! --hark! 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!"

(Condensed version by Farrell Jackson)

-THE END-

Here's a dark tale for Halloween 2020 by DrC, Farrell Jackson and Edgar Allen Poe. It's based on the short story by Edgar Allen Poe called Tell Tale Heart.

Credits: DrC - Music. Farrell Jackson - Reading and condensed story line.