英语短篇小说欣赏：Black Cat（上）
FOR the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, Ineither 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 to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen 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 baroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect
may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place --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. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the
jest 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 peculiar of
character grew with my growth, and in my manhood, I derived from it one of my
principal 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 paltry friendship and
gossamer 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, gold
fish, 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
allusion 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 intemperate language to my 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-used them. For
Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from
maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating 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 knew myself no longer. My original
soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish
malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took from my
waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat,
and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I
shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.
When reason returned with the morning --when I had slept off the fumes of
the night's debauch --I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse,
for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and
equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess,
and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.
In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye
presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to
suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but, as might be expected,
fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as to
be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had
once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came,
as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this
spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives,
than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart
--one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction
to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing
a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should
not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to
violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This
spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this
unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself --to offer violence to its own
nature --to do wrong for the wrong's sake only --that urged me to continue and
finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One
morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb
of a tree; --hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the
bitterest remorse at my heart; --hung it because I knew that it had loved me,
and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; --hung it because I
knew that in so doing I was committing a sin --a deadly sin that would so
jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it --if such a thing 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 thenceforward to
despair.
I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and
effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of
facts --and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day
succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had
fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which
stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my
bed. The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the fire
--a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread. About this wall
a dense crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a
particular portion of it with every minute and eager attention. The words
"strange!" "singular!" and other similar expressions, excited my curiosity. I
approached and saw, as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the
figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly
marvellous. 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. 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, had then with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass,
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 fall 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.
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