This is a revoked recording. All revoked recordings are in public domain. For more information or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit revoked.org. This recorded by Vivian Chen, March 2008, in Guangzhou, China. The fact indicates of Murciel Valdema, from Tale of Mystery and Imagination, by Edgar Allan Paul. Of course, I should not pretend to consider any matter for wonder, that the extraordinary case of Murciel Valdema has excited discussion. It would have been a miracle, had it not, especially under the circumstances, through the desire of all parties concerned, to keep the affair from the public, at least for the present. Or until we had further opportunities for investigation, through our endeavors to affect this. A doubled or exaggerated account made its way into society, and became the source of many unpleasant misrepresentations, and very naturally, all great deal or disbelief. It is now rendered nothing three that I give the facts. As far as I comprehend them myself, they are succinctly this. My attention for the past three years had been repeatedly drawn to the subject of mesmerism. And about nine months ago, it occurred to me quite suddenly that in the series of experiments made here the two, there had been a very remarkable and most unaccountable omission. No person had as yet been mesmerized in articulate motives. It remained to be seen, first, in such condition, there existed in the patient any susceptibility to the magnetic inference. Secondly, whether if any existed, it was impaired or increased by the condition. Thirdly, to what extent, or for how long, appeared, the encroachments of death might be arrested by the process. There were other points to be explained, but this most excited my curiosity. The last in special, from the immensely important character of its consequences. In looking around me for some subject by whose means I might test this particular, I was brought to think of my friend, Monsieur Ernest Waldma, the well-known compiler of the Bibliotheca Francica, and author under the Naudepune of Israel Max, of the Polish versions of Warranty and Galgantoy. Monsieur Waldma, who has resided principally a horror New York since the year 1839, is or was particularly noticeable for the extreme spareness of his person. His lower limbs must resemble those of John Randolph, and also for the whiteness of his whiskers, in violent contrast with the blackness of his hair. The latter, in consequence, being very generally mistaken for a week. His temperament was mockery nervous, and rendering a good subject for mass marriage is deramant. On two or three occasions, I had put him to sleep with little decoy tea, but was disappointed in other results which his particular constitution had naturally led me to anticipate. His will was at no period positively or thoroughly under my control, and in regard to Korean volumes. I could accomplish with him nothing to be relied upon. I always attributed my failure at this point to the disordered stay of his health. For some month previous to my becoming acquainted with him, his physicians had declined in a confirmed fetus. It was his custom, indeed, to speak kindly of his approaching dissolution, as of a matter neither to be avoided nor regretted. When the ideas to which I have eluded first occurred to me, it was across very naturally that I should think of Versio Valdema. I knew the study for those few of the men to wear to apprehend any scoopers from him, and he has no relatives in America who would be likely to interfere. I spoke to him frankly upon the subject, and to my surprise, his interest seemed vivid excited. I say to my surprise, for although he had always eluded his person freely to my experiments, he had never before given me any tokens of sympathy with who I did. His disease was of that character, which would emit a exact correlation in respect to the epoch of his determination in death. And it was finally arranged between us that he would sing for me about 24 hours before the period announced by his physicians as that of his disease. It is now rather more than seven months since I received from Versio Valdema himself the suck-droid node. My dear P, you may as well come now. D and F are great that I cannot hold out beyond tomorrow's mid-mind, and I think they have hit the try very nearly. Valdema. I received this node within an hour after it was returned, and in 15 minutes more I was in the dying man's chamber. I had not seen him for 10 days, and was appalled by the fearful alteration which the brave interval had brought in him. His face wore a leather heel, the eyes were utterly lustrous, and the emancipation was so extreme that the skin had broken through by the cheekbones. His expectation was excessive. The pose was fairly perceivable. He retained, nevertheless, in a very remarkable member, both in his mental power and a certain degree of physical strength. He spoke with distinctness to some palliative medicine without aid, and when I entered the room was occupied in penciling memoranda in a pocketbook. He was plucked up in the back by perils. Daughter D and F were in attendance. After pressing Valdema's hand, I took this gentleman aside and obtained from them a minor cold of the patient's condition. The left lung had been for 80 months in a semi-orcist or catalyzonist state, and was of course totally useless for all purposes of vitality. The right in its upper portion was also pottery if not thoroughly ossified while the lower region was merely a mess of pulverine typicals running one into another. Several extensive perforations existed, and at one point permanent obtusion to the reps has taken place. This appearance in the right lobe were all comparatively recent date. The ossification had preceded with very unusual rapidity. No sign of it had been discovered a month before, and the orchid run had only been observed during the three previous days. Independently of the physios, the patient was suspected of ossiozone of the urethra, but on this point the ossis symptom rendered an exact diagnosis impossible. It was the opinion of both physicians that Murciel Valdema who died about midnight on the morrow Sunday. It was then 7 o'clock on Saturday evening. On quitting the imbalist's bedside to hold conversation with myself, Dr. D. N. F. had been taking a final farewell. It had not been their attention to return, but at my request they agreed to looking upon the patient about 10 the next night. When they had gone, I spoke freely with Murciel Valdema on the subject of his approaching dissolution, as well as more particularly of the experiment proposed. He still professed himself quite brilliant and even anxious to have it done, and urged me to come and seek at once. A male and a female nurse were in attendance, but I did not feel myself altogether at liberty to engage in a task of this character with no more reliable witness than these people. In case of certain accident, might prove, I therefore postponed operations until about 8 the next night when the arrival of medical students with whom I had some acquaintance. Mr. Theodore L. relived me from further embarrassment. It had been my desire originally to wait for the physicians, but I was induced to proceed first by the urgent entreaties of Murciel Valdema, and secondly by my commission that I had not a moment to lose, as he was evidently sinking fast. Mr. L. was so kind as to assist to my desire that he would take notes of all that occurred, and it is from his memoranda that what I now have to relate is, for the most part, either condensed or copy-vervating. It wanted about five minutes or eight when, taking the patient's hand, I begged him to stay as distinctly as he could, to Mr. L. whether he, Murciel Valdema, was entirely willing that I should make the experiment of mesmerizing him in his then connection. He replied feebly yet quite audibly, Yes, I wish to be mesmerized, adding immediately outward. I fear you have deferred too long. While he spoke thus, I commenced the passage which I had already found most effectual in stealing him. He was evidently influenced with the first lateral stroke of my hand across his forehead. But although I exerted all my powers, no further perceptible effect was induced until some minutes after 10 o'clock, when Dr. D. N. F. called, according to appointment, I explained to them, in a few words, what I desired, and as then opposed no objection, saying that the patient was already in death agony, I proceeded without hesitation, exchanging, however, the lateral passes for downward wounds and directing my gaze entirely into the right eye of the sufferer. This time his pulse was imperceptible, and his breathing was statorious, and at intervals of a minute. This condition was nearly unheard for a quarter an hour. At the expiration of this period, however, unnatural although a very deep sigh escaped from the bosom of the dying man, and the statorious breathing ceased. That is to say, his statoriousness was no longer apparent. The intervals were undiminished. The patient's extremities were of an icy coldness. A five minutes before 11, I perceived unequivocal signs of the magnetic influence. The glassy roll of the eye was changed for the expression of uneasy inward examination, which is never seen except in cases of sleep waking, and which is quite impossible to mistake. With a few rapid lateral passes, I made the least quiver, as in recipient's sleep, and with a few more, I closed them all together. I was not satisfied, however, with this, but continued the manipulations vigorously, and with the fullest exertion of the wheel, until I had completely stiffened the limbs of the slumberer. After placing them in a seemingly easy position, the legs were at full length, the arms were nearly sore, and reposed on the back with a moderate distance from the loins. The hair was very slightly elevated. When I had accomplished this, it was fully denied, and I was requesting the gentleman present to examine the martial vodermas condition. After a few experiments, they omitted him to be a perfect state of mesmeric chance. The curiosity on both the physicians was greatly excited. Dr. D resolved at once to remain with the patient all night, while Dr. F took leave with the promise to return at daybreak. Mr. L and the nurses remained. We left martial vodermas entirely undisturbed until about 3 o'clock in the morning. When I opposed him and found him in precisely the same condition as when Dr. F went away, that is to say, he lay in the same position. The pose was imperceptible. The breathing was gentle, scarcely noticeable, and led through the application of a milo to the lips. The eyes were closed naturally, and the limbs were as rigid and as cold as marble. Still, the general appearance was not that of death. As I approached Mr. Vodermas, I made a kind of help effect to influence his right hand into pursuit of my all. As I passed the leather journey to and fro about his person, in such an environment with this patient, I had never perfectly succeeded before, and a surgery. I had little thought of succeeding now. But to my astonishment, his arm very relatively, although feebly, followed every direction I assigned with my, I determined to hazard a few words of compensation. Mr. Vodermas, I said, Are you asleep? He made no answer. But I precede a chamber about the lips, and was thus induced to repeat the question again and again. At his third repetition, his whole frame was agitated by a very slight shivering. The eyelids uncrossed themselves so far as to display a wide line of a ball. The lips moved sluggishly, and from between them, in a barely audible whisper, issued the words, Yes, asleep now. Do not wake me. Let me die so. Here I fell the limbs and fired them as rigid as ever. The right arm, as before, obeyed the direction of my hand. I questioned the sleep-waker again. Do you still feel pain in the breast, Mr. Vodermas? The answer now was immediate, but even less audible than before. I did not think it advisable to disturb him further just then, and nothing more was said or done until the arrival of Dr. F, who came a little before sunrise, and expressed unbounded astonishment at finding the patient still alive. After feeling the pulse and applied a mellow to the lips, he requested me to speak to the sleep-waker again. I did so, saying, Mr. Vodermas, do you still asleep? As before, some minutes elapsed, here a reply was made, and during the interval, the dying man seemed to be collecting his energies to speak. At my fourth repetition of the question, he said very friendly, almost in all debris, Yes, still asleep. It is now the opinion, or rather the wish, of the physicians that Mr. Vodermas should have suffered to remain undisturbed in his present apparently tranquil condition, and your death should supervise, and this, it was generally agreed, must take place within a few minutes. I concluded, however, to speak to him once more, and merely repeated my previous question. While I spoke, there come a marked change over the countenance of the sleep-waker. The eyes rolled themselves slowly open, the pupils disappearing outwardly. The skin generally assumed a cadastral heel, resembling not so much parchment as white paper, and the circular headache spa, or which, here the two, had been strongly defied in the central of each cheek, went out at once. I use this expression, because the suddenness of that departure put me in mind of nothing so much as the extinguishment of a candle by a puff of breath. The upper lip at the same time went itself away from the teeth, which it had previously covered completely while the lower jaw fought with an audible drink, leaving the mouth widely extended, and disclosing in a forebill of the swollen and blackened tongue. I presume that no member of the party then pleasant had been unconstant to the deathbed horrors, but so hideous beyond concession was the appearance of Mercy of Valdema at this moment, that there was a general swing came back from the region of the bed. I now feel that I have reached a point of this narrative at which every reader will be startled into positive disbelief. It is my business, however, simply to proceed. There was no longer the faint sign of vitality in Mercy of Valdema, and concluding him to be dead, we were consigning him to the Church of the Nurses. When a strong vibratory motion was observable in the time, this continued for perhaps one minute. At the expiration of this period, that issued from the distented and motionless jaws of voice, such as it would be madly in me to attempt describing. There are indeed two or three epithets which might be considered as applicable to it in part. I may say, for example, that the soul was harsh, or broken, or hollow, but the hideous whole was indescribable for the simple reason that no similar souls have ever jarred upon the year of humanity. There were two particulars, nevertheless, which I thought then, and still think, might be fairly best stated as characteristic of the intonation, as well as adapted to confer some idea or its unearthly particular arity. In the first place, the voice seemed to reach our ears, at least mine, from a vast distance, or from some deep cavern within the earth. In the second place, it impressed me, I fear indeed that it would be impossible to make myself comprehended, as jewellery or groutiness matters impressed the sense of touch. I have spoken both of sound and of voice. I mean to say that the sound was long or distinct, or even wonderfully, threateningly distinct, slabification. Monsieur Valdema spoke, obviously, in reply to the question I had propounded to him a few minutes before. I had asked him, it will be remembered, if he is still slapped. Now he said, yeah, been sleeping, and now, now I am. No person present even affected to deny, or attempted to repress, the unauthorable shuddering horror which these few words thus altered, without word calculated to confer. Mr. L, the student, swarmed. My own impressions, I would not pretend to render intelligible to the reader. For nearly an hour, we visit ourselves silently without the utterance of a word. In endeavors of revive Mr. L, when he came to himself, we addressed ourselves again to an investigation of Monsieur Valdema's condition. It remained in all aspects as I have last described it with the sections that the mural no longer afforded evidence of respiration, unattend to jaw-blood from the arms field. I should mention too that this limb was no further subject to my will. I endeavored in vain to make it follow the direction of my hand. The only real indication indeed of the mesmeric inference was now found in the vibratory movement of the tongue. Whenever I addressed Monsieur Valdema a question, he seemed to be making an effect to reply but had no longer sufficient volition. To inquire put to him by any other person than myself, he seemed utterly insensible. Although I endeavored to place each member of the company in mesmeric rapport with him, I believe that I have related all that is necessary to an understanding of the sleep-wickers state at this epoch. Other nurses were procured, and at 10 o'clock, I left the house in company with two physicians and Mr. L. In the afternoon, we all called again to see the patient. His condition remained precisely the same. We had now some discussion as to the propriety and feasibility of awakening him, but we had little difficulty in agreeing that no good purpose would be served by doing so. It was evident that so far death, or what is usually turned death, had been arrested by the mesmeric process. It seemed clear to us all that to awaken Monsieur Valdema would have been nearly to ensure his instant or at least his speedy disruption. From this period until the close of last week, an interval of nearly seven months, we continued to make daily calls at Monsieur Valdema's house, accompanied now and then by medical or other friends. All this time the sleep-wickers remained exactly as I have last described him. The nurses' attention were continued. It was on Friday last that we finally resolved to make the experiment of awakening or attempting to awaken him, and it is the perhaps unfortunate result of this latter experiment which has given rise to so much discussion in private circles, to so much of what I cannot help thinking unwarranted popular feeling. For the purpose of relieving Monsieur Valdema from the mesmeric trace, I made use of the customary passes. These four times were unsuccessful. The first indication of reviving was afforded by a parcel design of the iris. It was observed as especially remarkable that this lowering of the pupil was accompanied by the profile of a yellowish eye-craw flown beneath the lips of a pangent and highly offensive older. It was now suggested that I should attempt to influence the patient's arm as hearedful. I made the attempt and failed. Dr. F then intimated a desire to help me put a question. I did so as follows. Monsieur Valdema, can you explain to us what are your feelings or wishes now? There was an instant return of the hectic circles on the chips. The tongue crevalled or rather rolled violently in the mouth, although the jaws and the lips remained rigid as before. And in length, the same hearedish voice which I have already described broke forth. For God's sake, Quake, Quake, Quake, put me to sleep. Oh Quake, wake me. Quake, I say to you that I am I was thoroughly unnerved and for an instant remained undecided what to do. At first, I made an endeavor to recompose the patient but failing in this through-total abeyance of the will. I retraced my step and as endlessly struggled to awaken him. In this attempt, I soon thought that I should be successful or at least I shouldn't fancy that my success would be complete and I'm sure that all in the room were prepared to see the patient awaken. For what really occurred, however, it is quite impossible that any human being could ever be prepared. As I repeatedly made the mesmeric paces aiming exaggerations of damn as Rosary rusted from the tank and not from the lips of the sufferer, his whole fringe it won't within the space of a single minute or less, shrunk, crumbled as Rosary rooted away beneath my hands. Upon the bed, before the whole company, there lay a nearly liquid nest of loathsome or detestable pure gestures. End of the story. The Eye of Apollo by G.K. Chesterton. This is a livervox recording. All livervox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit livervox.org. The Eye of Apollo by G.K. Chesterton. That singular smoky sparkle at once a confusion and a transparency which is the strange secret of the Thames was changing more and more from its gray to its glittering extreme as the sun climbed to the zenith over Westminster and two men crossed Westminster Bridge. One man was very tall and the other very short. They might even have been fantastically compared to the arrogant clock tower of Parliament and the humbler humped shoulders of the Abbey. For the short man was in clerical dress. The official description of the tall man was M. Hercule Flambeau, private detective, and he was going to his new offices in a new pile of flats facing the Abbey entrance. The official description of the short man was the reverend J. Brown, attached to St. Francis Saviors Church, Camberwell, and he was coming from a Camberwell deathbed to see the new offices of his friend. The building was American in its sky scraping altitude and American also in the oiled elaboration of its machinery of telephones and lifts. But it was barely finished and still under saft. Only three tenants had moved in. The office just above Flambeau was occupied as also was the office just below him. The two floors above that and the three floors below were entirely bare. But the first glance the new tower of flats caught something much more arresting. Save for a few relics of scaffolding, the one glaring object was erected outside the office just above Flambeau's. It was an enormous guilt effigy of the human eye, surrounded with rays of gold and taking up as much room as two or three of the office windows. What on earth is that? asked Father Brown and stood still. Oh, a new religion said Flambeau laughing. One of those new religions that forgive your sins by saying you never had any. Rather like Christian science, I should think. The fact is that a fellow calling himself Calon, I don't know what his name is except that it can't be that, has taken the flight just above me. I have two ladies hyperators underneath me and this enthusiastic old humbug on top. He calls himself the new priest of Apollo and he worships the sun. Let him look out said Father Brown. The sun was the cruelest of all the gods. But what does that monstrous eye mean? As I understand it, it is a theory of theirs, answered Flambeau, that a man can endure anything if his mind is quite steady. The two great symbols are the sun and the open eye. For they say that if a man were really healthy, he could stare at the sun. If a man were really healthy, said Father Brown, he would not bother to stare at it. Well, that's all I can tell you about the new religion went on Flambeau carelessly. It claims of course that it can cure all physical diseases. Can it cure the one spiritual disease? asked Father Brown with a serious curiosity. And what is the one spiritual disease? asked Flambeau smiling. Oh, thinking one is quite well, said his friend. Flambeau was more interested in the quiet little office below him than in the Flambeauian temple above. He was a lucid southerner, incapable of conceiving himself as anything but a Catholic or an atheist. And new religions of a bright and pallid sort were not much in his line. But humanity was always in his line, especially when it was good looking. Moreover, the ladies downstairs were characters in their way. The office was kept by two sisters, both slight and dark, one of them tall and striking. She had a dark, eager and aquiline profile, and was one of those women whom one always thinks of in profile as of the clean cut edge of some weapon. She seemed to cleave her way through life. She had eyes of a startling brilliancy, but it was the brilliancy of steel rather than of diamonds. And her straight slim figure was a shade too stiff for its grace. Her younger sister was like her shortened shadow, a little grayer, paler and more insignificant. They both wore a business like black with little masculine cuffs and collars. There are thousands of such curt, strenuous ladies in the offices of London, but the interest of these lay rather in their real than their apparent position. For Pauline Stacey of the Elder was actually the heiress of a crest and half a county, as well as great wealth. She had been brought up in castles and gardens before a frigid fierceness peculiar to the modern woman had driven her to what she considered a harsher and a higher existence. She had not indeed surrendered her money, in that there would have been a romantic or a monkish abandon quite alien to her masterful utilitarianism. She held her wealth, she would say, for use upon practical social objects. Part of it she had put into her business, the nucleus of a model typewriting and pouring. Part of it was distributed in various leagues and causes for the advancement of such work among women. How far Joan, her sister and partner, shared this slightly prosaic idealism no one could be very sure. But she followed her leader with a dog-like affection, which was somehow more attractive with his touch of tragedy than the hard, high spirits of the Elder. For Pauline Stacey had nothing to say to tragedy. She was understood to deny its existence. Her rigid rapidity and cold impatience had amused Flambeau very much on the first occasion of his entering the flats. He had lingered outside the lift and the entrance hall waiting for the lift boy, who generally conducts strangers to the various floors. But this bright-eyed falcon of a girl had openly refused to endure such official delay. She said sharply that she knew all about the lift and was not dependent on boys or men either. Though her flat was only three floors above, she managed in the few seconds of assent to give Flambeau a great many of her fundamental views in an offhand manner. They were to the general effect that she was a modern working woman who loved modern working machinery. Her bright black eyes blazed with abstract anger against those who were buke, mechanic, science, and asked for the return of romance. Everyone she said ought to be able to manage machines, just as she could manage the lift. She seemed almost to resent the fact of Flambeau opening the lift door for her, and that gentleman went up to his own apartment smiling with somewhat mingled feelings at the memory of such spitfire self-dependence. She certainly had a temper and a snappy, practical sort. The gestures of her thin, elegant hands were abrupt or even destructive. Once Flambeau entered her office on some typewriting business and found she had just flung a pair of spectacles belonging to her sister into the middle of the floor and stamped on them. She was already in the rapids of an ethical tirade about the sickly medical notions and the morbid admission of weakness implied in such an apparatus. She dared her sister to bring such artificial, unhealthy rubbish into the place again. Flambeau asked if she was expected to wear wooden legs or false hair or glass eyes, and as she spoke her eyes sparkled like the terrible crystal. Flambeau, quite bewildered with his fanaticism, could not refrain from asking Miss Pauline, with direct French logic, why a pair of spectacles was a more morbid sign of weakness than a lift and why, if science might help us in one effort, it might not help us in the other. That is so different, said Pauline Stacey loftily. Batteries and motors and all those things are marks of the force of man. Yes, Mr. Flambeau and the force of woman, too. We shall take our turn at these great engines that devour distance and defy time. That is high and splendid. That is really science. But these nasty props and plasters that doctors sell at life, they are just badges of poultrynery. Doctors stick on legs and arms as if we were born cripples and six slaves. But I was freeborn, Mr. Flambeau. People only think they need these things because they have been trained in fear instead of being trained in power and courage. Doctors say the silly nurses tell children not to stare at the sun and so they can't do it without blinking. But why among the stars should there be one star that I may not see? The sun is not my master and I will open my eyes and stare at him whenever I choose. Your eyes, said Flambeau with a foreign bow, will dazzle the sun. He took pleasure in complimenting this strange stiff beauty partly because it threw her a little off her balance. But as he went upstairs to his floor he continued to himself so she has got into the hands of that conjurer upstairs with his golden eye. For little as he knew or cared about the new religion of Kailan he had heard of his special notion about sun gazing. He soon discovered that the spiritual bond between the floors above and below him was close and increasing. The man who called himself Kailan was a magnificent creature, worthy in a physical sense to be pontiff of Apollo. Flambeau and very much better looking with a golden beard, strong blue eyes and a mane flung back like a lion. In structure he was the blond beast of Nietzsche but all this animal beauty was heightened, brightened and softened by genuine intellect and spirituality. If he looked like one of the great Saxon kings he looked like one of the kings that were also saints. And this despite the cockney incongruity of his surroundings the fact that he had an office halfway up a building in Victoria Street that the clerk placed youth in cuffs and collars sat in the outer room between him and the corridor that his name was on a brass plate and the guilt emblem of his creed hung above his street like the advertisement of an oculus. All this vulgarity could not take away from the man called Kailan the vivid oppression and inspiration that came from his soul and body. When all was said a man in the presence of this quack did feel in the presence of a great man even in the loose jacket suit of linen that he wore as a workshop dress in his office he was a fascinating and formidable figure. And when robed in the white vestments and crowned with a golden circulate in which he daily slew to the sun he really looked so splendid that the laughter of the street people sometimes died suddenly on their lips. For three times in the day the new sun worshiper went out on his little balcony in the face of all Westminster to say some litany to his shining lord. Once at daybreak once at sunset and once at the shock of noon. And it was while the shock of noon still shook faintly from the towers of parliament and parish church that Father Brown, the friend of Flambeau first looked up and saw the white priest of Apollo. Flambeau had seen quite enough of these daily salutations of Phoebus and plunged into the porch of the tall building without even looking for his clerical friend to follow. But Father Brown whether from a professional interest in ritual or a strong individual interest in tomfoolery stopped and stared up at the balcony of the sun worshiper just as he might have stopped and stared up at a pungent Judy. Kailon the prophet was already erect with Argent garments and uplifted hands and the sound of his strangely penetrating voice could be heard all the way down the busy street uttering his solar litany. He was already in the middle of it his eyes were fixed upon the flaming disc. It is doubtful if he saw anything or anyone on this earth it is substantially certain that he did not see a stunted, round-faced priest who in the crowd below looked at him with blinking eyes. That was perhaps the most starling difference between even these two far-divided men. Father Brown could not look at anything without blinking but the priest of Apollo could look on the blaze at noon without a quiver of the eyelid.  Oh fountain that flows quietly in that secret spot that is called space. White father of all white unwirried things white flames and white flowers and white peaks father who are more innocent than all thy most innocent and quiet children primal purity into the piece of which a rush and crash like the reversed rush of a rocket was cloven with a strident and incessant yelling five people rushed into the gate of the mansions as three people rushed out and for an instant they all deafened each other the sense of some utterly abrupt horror seen for a moment to fill half the street with bad news bad news that was all the worse because no one knew what it was. Two figures remained still after the crash of commotion, the fair priest of Apollo on the balcony above and the ugly priest of Christ below him. At last the tall figure and titanic energy of Flambeau appeared in the doorway of the mansions and dominated the little mob. Talking at the top of his voice like a fog horn he told somebody or anybody to go for a surgeon and as he turned back into the dark and frowned entrance his friend Father Brown dipped in frequently after him. Even as he ducked and dived through the crowd he could still hear the magnificent melody and monotony of the solar priest still calling on the happy god who is the friend of fountains and flowers. Father Brown found Flambeau and some six other people standing around in closed space into which the lift commonly descended but the lift had not descended. Something else had descended something that ought to have come by a lift. For the last four minutes Flambeau had looked down on it had seen the brained and bleeding figure of that beautiful woman who denied the existence of tragedy. He had never had the slightest doubt that it was Pauline Stacey and though he had sent for a doctor he had not the slightest doubt that she was dead. He could not remember for certain whether he had liked her or disliked her. There was so much both to like and dislike but she had been a person to him and the unbearable pathos of details and the habit stabbed him with all the small daggers of bereavement. He remembered her pretty face and the frigish speeches with a sudden secret vividness which is all the bitterness of death. In an instant like a bolt from the blue like a thunderbolt from nowhere that beautiful and defiant body had been dashed down the open well of the lift to death at the bottom. Was it suicide? With so insolent and optimist it seemed impossible. Was it murder? But who was there in those hardly inhabited flats to murder anybody? In a rush of raucous words which he meant to be strong and suddenly found weak he asked where was that fellow Calon? A voice habitually heavy, quiet and full assured him that Calon for the last 15 minutes had been a way up on his balcony worshiping his god. When Flambeau heard the voice and felt the hand of Father Brown he turned his swarthy face and said abruptly if he has been up there all the time who can have done it? Perhaps said the other we might go upstairs and find out we have half an hour before the police will move leaving the body of the slain heiress in charge of the surgeons Flambeau dashed up the stairs to the typewriting office found it utterly empty and then dashed up to his own having entered that he abruptly returned with a new and white face to his friend her sister he said with an unpleasant seriousness seems to have gone out for a walk Father Brown mounted or she may have gone up to the office of that son man he said if I were you I should just verify that and then let us all talk it over in your office. No he added suddenly as if remembering something shall I ever get over that stupidity of mine? Of course in their office downstairs Flambeau stared but he followed the little father downstairs to the empty flat of the stasis that impenetrable pastor took a large red leather chair in the very entrance from which he could not see the stairs and landings and waited he did not wait very long in about four minutes three figures descended the stairs alike only in their solemnity the first was Joan Stacy the sister of the dead woman evidently she had been upstairs in the temporary temple of Apollo the second was the priest of Apollo himself his would be finished sweeping down the empty stairs and utter magnificence something in his white robes beard and parted hair had the look of Doors Christ leaving the praetorium the third was Flambeau black-browed and somewhat bewildered Miss Joan Stacy dark with a drawn face and hair prematurely touched with gray walked straight to her own desk and set out her papers with a practical flap to mere action rallied everyone else to sanity if Miss Joan Stacy was a criminal she was a cool one Father Brown regarded her for some time with an odd little smile and then without taking his eyes off her addressed himself to somebody else Prophet he said presumably addressing Kailan I wish you would tell me a lot about your religion I shall be proud to do it said Kailan inclining his still crowned head but I'm not sure that I understand why it's like this said Father Brown in his frankly doubtful way we are taught that if a man has really bad first principles that must be partly his fault but for all that we can make some difference between a man who insults his quite clear conscience and a man with a conscience more or less clouded with sophistries now do you really think that murder is wrong at all is this an accusation asked Kailan very quietly no answer Brown equally gently is the speech for the defense in the long and startled stillness of the room the prophet of Apollo slowly rose and really it was like the rising of the sun he filled that room with his light and life in such a manner that a man felt he could as easily have filled Salisbury Plain his robe form seemed to hang the whole room with classic draperies his epic gesture seemed to extend it into grander perspectives till the little black figure of the modern cleric seemed to be a fault and an intrusion around black blot upon some splendor of Hellas we meet at last Caiaphas said the prophet your church and mine are the only realities on this earth I adore the sun and you the darkening of the sun you are the priest of the dying and I of the living god your present work of suspicion and slander is worthy of your coat and creed all your church is but a black police you are only spies and detectives seeking to tear from men confessions of guilt whether by treachery or torture you would convict men of crime I would convict them of innocence you would convince them of sin I would convince them of virtue reader of the books of evil one more word before I blow away your baseless nightmares forever not even faintly could you understand how little I care whether you would convict me or no the things you call disgrace the horrible hanging are to me no more than an ogre and a child's toybook to a man once grown up you said you were offering the speech for the defense I care so little for the cloud land of this life that I will offer you the speech for the prosecution there is but one thing that can be said against me in this matter and I will say it myself the woman that is dead was my love and my bride not after such manner as your tin chapels call but by a law pure and sterner than you will ever understand she and I walked another world from yours and trod palaces of crystal well you were plotting through tunnels and corridors of brick well I know that policemen, theological and otherwise always fancy that where there has been love there must soon be hatred so there you have the first point made for the prosecution but the second point is stronger I do not grudge at you not only is it true that Pauline loved me but it is also true that this very morning before she died she wrote at that table a will leaving me and my new church half a million come where are the handcuffs do you suppose I care what foolish things you do with me? penal servitude will only be like waiting for her at a wayside station the gallows will only be going to her in a headlong car he spoke with the brain shaking authority orator and flambeau and Joan Stacy stared at him in amazed admiration father brown's face seemed to express nothing but extreme distress he looked at the ground with one wrinkle of pain across his forehead the prophet of the sun leaned easily against the mantlepiece and resumed in a few words I have put before you the whole case against me the only possible case against me in fewer words still I will blow it to pieces so that not a trace of it remains as to whether I have committed this crime the truth is in one sentence I could not have committed this crime Pauline Stacy fell from this floor to the ground at five minutes past twelve a hundred people will go into the witness box and say that I was standing out upon the balcony of my own rooms above from just before the stroke of noon to a quarter past the usual period of my public prayers my clerk a respectable youth from Clapham with no sort of connection with me will swear that he sat in my outer office all the morning and that no communication passed through he will swear that I arrived a full ten minutes before the hour fifteen minutes before any whisper of the accident and that I did not leave the office or the balcony all that time no one ever had so complete an alibi I could subpoena half Westminster I think you had better put the handcuffs away again the case is at an end but last of all that no breath of this idiotic suspicion remain in the air I will tell you all you want to know I believe I do know how my unhappy friend came by her death you can if you choose blame me for it or my faith and philosophy at least but you certainly cannot lock me up it is well known to all students of the higher truths that certain adepts and illuminati have in history attained the power of levitation that is being self sustained upon the empty air it is but a part of that general conquest of matter which is the main element in our occult wisdom poor Pauline was of an impulsive and ambitious temper I think to tell the truth she thought herself somewhat deeper in the mysteries than she was and she is often said to me as we went down in the lift together that if ones will were strong enough one could float down as harmlessly as a feather I believe that in some ecstasy of noble thoughts she attempted the miracle her will or faith must have failed her at the crucial instant and the lower law of matter had its horrible revenge there is the whole story gentlemen very sad and as you think very presumptuous and wicked but certainly not criminal or in any way connected with me in the short hand of the police courts you had better call it suicide I shall always call it heroic failure for the advance of science and the slow scaling of heaven it was the first time flambeau had ever seen father brown vanquished he still sat looking at the ground with a painful and corrugated brow as if in shame it was impossible to avoid the feeling which the prophets winged words had fanned that here was a sullen professional suspecter of men overwhelmed by a prouder and pure spirit of natural lurity and help at last he said if in bodily distress well that is so sir you need to do no more than take the testamentary paper you spoke of and go I wonder where the poor lady left it it will be over there on her desk by the door I think said Kailan with that massive innocence of manner that seemed to have quit him holy she told me especially she would write it this morning and I actually saw her writing as I went up in the lift to my own room was her door open then asked the priest with his eye on the corner of the matting yes said Kailan calmly ah it has been open ever since said the other and resumed his silent study of the mat there is a paper over here said the grim Miss Joan in a somewhat singular voice she had passed over to her sister's desk by the doorway and was holding a sheet of blue fools cap in her hand there was a sour smile on her face that seemed unfit for such a scene or occasion and flambeau looked at her brow Kailan the prophet stood away from the paper with that loyal unconsciousness that had carried him through but flambeau took it out of the lady's hand and read it with the utmost amazement it did indeed begin in the formal manner of a will but after the words I give and bequeath all of which I die possessed the writing of Brooke we stopped with a set of scratches and there was no trace of the name of any legatee flambeau in wonder handed this truncated testament to his clerical friend who glanced at it and silently gave it to the priest of the sun an instant afterwards that pontiff and his splendid sweeping draperies had crossed the room in two great strides and it was towering over Joan Stacy his blue eyes standing from his head what monkey tricks have you been playing here he cried that's not all Pauline wrote they were startled to hear him speaking quite a new voice with a Yankee shrillness in it all his grandeur and good English had fallen from him like a cloak that is the only thing on her desk said Joan and confronted him steadily with the same smile of ill favor of a sudden the man broke out into blasphemies and cataracts of incredulous words there was something shocking about the dropping of his mask it was like a man's real face falling off see here he cried in broad American when he was breathless with cursing I may be an adventurer but I guess you're a murderess yes gentlemen here's your death explained without any levitation the poor girl was writing a will in my favor her cursed sister comes in struggles for the pen drags her to the well and throws her down before she can finish it sakes I reckon we want the handcuffs after all as you have truly remarked replied Joan with ugly calm your clerk is a very respectable young man who knows the nature of an oath and he will swear in any court that I was up in your office arranging some typewriting work for five minutes before and five minutes after my sister fell Mr. Flambeau will tell you that he found me there there was a silence why then cried Flambeau Pauline was alone when she fell and it was suicide she was alone when she fell said Father Brown but it was not suicide then how did she die asked Flambeau impatiently she was murdered but she was alone objected to the detective she was murdered when she was all alone answered the priest all the rest stared at him but he remained sitting in the same old dejected attitude with a wrinkle in his round forehead and an appearance of impersonal shame and sorrow his voice was colorless and sad what I want to know cried Calon with an oath is when the police are coming for this bloody and wicked sister she's killed her flesh and blood she's robbed me of half a million that was just as sacredly mine as come come prophet interrupted Flambeau with a kind of sneer remember that all this world is a cloud land the hierophant of the sun god made an effort to climb back on his pedestal it is not the mere money he cried though that would equip the cause throughout the world it is also my beloved ones wishes to Pauline all this was holy in Pauline's eyes Father Brown suddenly sprang erect so that his chair fell over flat behind him he was deathly pale and he seemed fired with a hope his eyes shone that's the way to begin in Pauline's eyes the tall prophet retreated before the tiny priest in an almost mad disorder what do you mean how dare you he cried repeatedly in Pauline's eyes repeated the priest his own shining more and more go on in God's name go on the foulest crime the fiends ever prompted feels lighter after confession and I implore you to confess go on go on in Pauline's eyes I know you devil-thundered Klan struggling like a giant in bonds who are you you cursed spy to weave your spider's webs around me and peep and peer let me go shall I stop him asked Flambeau bounding towards the exit for Klan had already thrown the door wide open no let him pass said Father Brown with a strange deep sigh that seemed to come from the depths of the universe let Cain pass by for he belongs to God there was a long drawn silence in the room which was to Flambeau's fierce wits one long agony of interrogation Miss Joan Stacey very coolly tidied up the papers on her desk Father said Flambeau at last it is my duty not my curiosity only it is my duty to find out if I can who committed the crime which crime asked Father Brown the one we are dealing with of course replied his impatient friend we are dealing with two crimes said Brown crimes of very different weight and by very different criminals Miss Joan Stacey having collected and put away her papers proceeded to lock up her drawer Father Brown went on noticing her as little as she noticed him the two crimes he observed were committed against the same weakness of the same person in a struggle for her money the author of the larger crime found himself thwarted by the smaller crime the author of the smaller crime got the money oh don't go on like a lecturer grown Flambeau put it in a few words I can put it in one word answered his friend Miss Joan Stacey skewered her business-like black hat onto her head with a business-like black frown before a little mirror and as the conversation proceeded took her handbag and umbrella in an unhurried style and left the room the truth is one word and a short one said Father Brown Pauline Stacey was blind blind repeated Flambeau and rose slowly to his whole huge stature she was subject to it by blood Brown proceeded her sister would have started eyeglasses if Pauline would have let her but it was her special philosophy or fad that one must not encourage such diseases by yielding to them she would not admit the cloud or she tried to dispel it by will so her eyes got worse and worse with straining but the worst strain was to come with this precious prophet or whatever he calls himself who taught her to stare at the hot sun with the naked eye it was called accepting Apollo oh if these new pagans would only be old pagans they would be a little wiser the old pagans knew that mere naked nature worship must have a cruel side they knew that the eye of Apollo can blast and blind there was a pause and the priest went on in a gentle and even broken voice that devil deliberately made her blind there is no doubt that he deliberately killed her through her blindness the very simplicity of the crime is sickening you know he and she went up and down in those lifts without official help you know also how smoothly and silently the lifts slide Cailan brought the lift to the girl's landing and saw her through the open door writing in her slow, sightless way the will she had promised him he called out to her cheerfully and she was ready for her and she was to come out when she was ready then he pressed the button and shot soundlessly up to his own floor walked through his own office out onto his own balcony and was safely praying before the crowded street when the poor girl having finished her work grand galey out to where lover and lift were to receive her and stepped don't cried flambeau he ought to have got half a million father in the colorless voice in which he talked of such horrors but that went smash it went smash because there happened to be another person who also wanted the money and who also knew the secret about poor pauline's sight there was one thing about that will which i think nobody noticed although it was unfinished and without signature the other miss stacey and some servant of hers had already signed it as witnesses jone had signed first saying pauline could finish it later with a typical feminine contempt for legal forms therefore jone wanted her sister to sign the will without real witnesses why? i thought of the blindness and felt sure she had wanted pauline to sign in solitude because she had not wanted her to sign at all people like the stacey's always used fountain pens but this was specially natural to pauline by habit and her strong will and memory she could still write almost as well as she saw but she could not tell when her pen needed dipping therefore her fountain pens were carefully filled by her sister all except this fountain pen this was carefully not filled by her sister the remains of the ink held out for a few lines and then failed altogether and the profit lost 500,000 pounds and committed one of the most brutal and brilliant murders in human history for nothing flambeau went to the open door and heard the official police ascending the stairs he turned and said he must have followed everything devilish close to have traced the crime to calon in 10 minutes father brown gave a sort of start father brown gave a sort of start oh to him he said no i had to follow rather close to find out about miss jone in the fountain pen but i knew calon was the criminal before i came into the front door you must be joking cried flambeau i'm quite serious answered the priest i tell you i knew he had done it even before i knew what he had done but why these pagan stoics said father brown reflectively always fail by their strength there came a crash and a scream down the street and the priest of apollo did not start or look around i did not know what it was but i knew that he was expecting it end of the eye of apollo by gk chesterton the oval portrait this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org recording by rouse snelson the oval portrait by edgar allen poll the chateau into which my valet had ventured to make forcible entrance rather than permit me in my desperately wounded condition to pass a night in the open air was one of those piles of commingled gloom and grandeur which have so long frowned among the apennine, not less in fact than in the fancy of mrs. radcliffe to all appearance it had been temporarily and very lately abandoned we established ourselves in one of the smallest and least sumptuously furnished apartments it lay in a remote turret of the building its decorations were rich yet tattered and antique its walls were hung with tapestry and bedecked with manifold and multi-form ormorial trophies together with an unusually great number of very spirited modern paintings in frames of rich golden arabesque in these paintings which depended from the walls not only in their main surfaces but in very many nooks which the bizarre architecture of the chateau rendered necessary in these paintings my incipient delirium perhaps had caused me to take deep interest so that I bade Pedro to close the heavy shutters of the room since it was already night to light the tongues of a tall candelabrum which stood by the head of my bed and to throw open far and wide the fringed curtains of black velvet which enveloped the bed itself I wished all this done that I might resign myself to sleep at least alternately to the contemplation of these pictures and the perusal of a small volume which had been found upon the pillow and which purported to criticize and describe them long, long I read and devoutly, devotedly I gazed rapidly and gloriously the hours flew by and the deep midnight came the position of the candelabrum displeased me and with difficulty rather than disturb my slumbering ballet I placed it so as to throw its rays more fully upon the book but the action produced an effect altogether unanticipated the rays of the numerous candles, for there were many now fell within a niche of the room which had hitherto been thrown into deep shade by one of the bed posts I thus saw in vivid light a picture all unnoticed before it was the portrait of a young girl just ripening into womanhood I glanced at the painting hurriedly and then closed my eyes why I did this was not at first apparent even to my own perception but while my lids remained thus shut I ran over in my mind my reason for so shutting them it was an impulsive movement to gain time for thought to make sure that my vision had not deceived me to calm and subdue my fancy for a more sober and more certain gaze in a very few moments I again looked fixedly at the painting but I now saw a ride I could not and would not doubt for the first flashing of the candles upon that canvas had seemed to dissipate the dreamy stupor which was stealing over my senses and to startle me at once into waking life the portrait I have already said was that of a young girl it was a mere head and shoulders done what is technically termed a vignette manner much in the style of the favorite heads of sully the arms the bosom and even the ends of the radiant hair melted imperceptibly into the vague yet deep shadow which formed the background of the whole the frame was oval richly gilded and filigreed in morasque as a thing of art nothing could be more admirable than the painting itself but it could have been neither the execution of the work nor the immortal beauty of the countenance which had so suddenly and so vehemently moved me least of all could it have been that my fancy shaken from its half slumber had mistaken the head for that of a living person I saw at once that the peculiarities of the design of the vignetting and of the frame must have instantly dispelled such idea must have prevented even its momentary entertainment thinking earnestly upon these points I remained for an hour perhaps half sitting half reclining with my vision riveted upon the portrait at length satisfied with the true secret of its effect I fell back within the bed I had found the spell of the picture in an absolute life-likeliness of expression which at first startlingly finally confounded subdued and appalled me with deep and reverent awe I replaced the candelabrum in its former position the cause of my deep agitation being best shut from my view I sought eagerly the volume which discussed the paintings and their histories turning to the number which I there read the bag and quaint words which follow she was a maiden of rarest beauty and not more lovely than full of glee and evil was the hour when she saw and loved and wedded the painter he passionate studious austere and having already a bride in his art she a maiden of rarest beauty and not more lovely than full of glee all she liked and smiled and frolics him as the young fawn loving and cherishing all things hating only the art which was her rival dreading only the palette and brushes and other untoward instruments which deprived her of the countenance of her lover it was thus a terrible thing for this lady to hear the painter speak of his desire to portray even his young bride but she was humble and obedient for many weeks in the dark high turret chamber where the light dripped upon the pale canvas only from overhead but he the painter took glory in his work which went on from hour to hour and from day to day and he was a passionate and wild and moody man who became lost in reveries so that he would not see that the light which fell so ghastly in that lone turret withered the health and the spirits of his bride who pined visibly to all but him yet she smiled on and still on uncomplainingly because she saw that the painter who had high renown took a fervent and burning pleasure in his task and wrought day and night to depict her who so loved him yet who grew daily more dispirited and weak and ensouce some who beheld the portrait spoke of its resemblance in low words as of a mighty marble and a proof not less of the power of the painter than of his deep love for her whom he depicted so surpassingly well but at length as the labour drew nearer to its conclusion there were admitted none into the turret for the painter had grown wild with the ardour of his work and turned his eyes from canvas even to regard the countenance of his wife and he would not see that the tints which he spread upon the canvas were drawn from the cheeks of her who sat beside him and when many weeks had passed and but little remained to do save one brush upon the mouth and one tint upon the eye the spirit of the lady again flickered up as the flame within the socket of the lamp and then the brush was given and then the tint was placed and for one moment the painter stood entranced before the work which he had wrought but in the next while he yet gazed he grew tremulous and very pallid and aghast and crying with a loud voice this is indeed life itself turned suddenly to regard his beloved she was dead end of the oval portrait Recording by Ralph Snelson Spring with Utah The Black Cat by Edgar Allan 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 Ralph Snelson The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe for the most for the most wild yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen 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 unburden 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 and to many they will seem less terrible than Baroque hereafter perhaps some intellect will 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 peculiarity 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, 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 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 in temperance had I blushed to confess it 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 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 they'll use them for Pluto, however, I still retained my current 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 souls seemed at once to take its flight from my body more than fiendish malevolence gin nurtured thrilled every fiber 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 I debauched 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 the memory of the deed in the meantime the cat slowly recovered the socket of the lost I presented it is true 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 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 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 betterest 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 thence 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 feeling 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 very minute and eager attention the words strange singular and other similar expressions excited my curiosity I approached and saw as if graven in boss on the white surface the figure of a gigantic cat the impression was given with an accuracy truly marvelous there was a rope about the animals neck when I first beheld this apparition for I could scarcely regarded 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 with the flames the ammonia from the carcass had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it although I thus readily accounted to my reason if not all together to my conscience for the startling fact just detailed it did not the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy for months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat and during this period there came back into my spirit a half sentiment that's seen not remorse I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal and to look about me among the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented for another pet of the same species and of somewhat similar appearance with which to supply its place one night as I sat half stupefied in a den of more than infamy my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object one of the immense hogs heads of gin or of rum which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment I had been looking steadily at the top of this hog shed for some minutes and what now caused me surprised was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the object there upon I approached it and touched it with my hand it was a black cat a very large one Pluto and closely resembling him in every respect but one Pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of his body but this cat had a large although indefinite splotch of white covering nearly the whole region of the breast upon my touching him he immediately arose purred loudly rubbed against my hand and appeared delighted with my notice this then was the very creature 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 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 it's evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed by slow degrees these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred I started 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 weak strike or otherwise violently eluse 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 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 pertinent sea 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 it between my feet and thus nearly throw me down or fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress clamor in this manner to my breast at such times although I longed to destroy it with a blow I was yet withheld from so doing partly by a memory of my former crime but chiefly let me confess it at once by absolute dread of the beast this dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil and yet I should be at a loss otherwise to define it I am almost ashamed to own yes even in this felon's cell I am almost ashamed to own that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me had been heightened by one of the merest chimeras it would be possible to conceive my wife had called my attention more than once to the character of the mark of white hair of which I have spoken and which constituted the sole visible difference between the strange beast and the one I had destroyed the reader will remember that this mark although large had been originally very indefinite but by slow degrees degrees nearly imperceptible and which for a long time my reason struggled to reject as fanciful it had at length assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline it was now the representation of an object that I shudder to name and for this above all I loathed and dreaded and would have rid myself of the monster had I dared it was now I say the image of a hideous of a ghastly thing of the gallows all mournful and terrible engine of horror and of crime of agony and of death and now as I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere humanity and a brute beast whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed a brute beast to work out for me for me a man fashioned in the image of the high god so much of insufferable woe alas neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of rest 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 intimates the darkest and most evil of thoughts the moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind while from the sudden frequent and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandon myself my uncomplaining wife alas was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers one day she accompanied me upon some household errand of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit the cat followed me down the steep stairs and nearly throwing me headlong exasperated me to madness uplifting an axe and forgetting in my wrath the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand I aimed a blow at the animal which of course would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished I was arrested by the hand of my wife goaded by the interference into a rage more than demoniacal I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain she fell dead upon the spot without a groan this hideous murder accomplished I set myself forthwith and with entire deliberation to the task of concealing the body I knew that I could not remove it from the house either by day or by night without the risk of being observed by the neighbors many projects entered my mind at one period I thought of cutting the corpse into minute fragments and destroying them by fire at another I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar again I deliberated about casting it in the well in the yard about packing it in a box as if merchandise with the usual arrangements and so getting a porter to take it from the house finally I hit upon what I considered a far better expedient than either of these I determined to wall it up in the cellar as the monks of the middle ages are recorded to have walled up their victims for a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted its walls were loosely constructed and had lately been plastered throughout with a rough plaster which the dampness of the atmosphere had prevented from hardening moreover in one of the walls was a projection caused by a false chimney or fireplace that had been filled up and made to resemble the red of the cellar I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point insert the corpse and wall the whole up as before so that no eye could detect anything suspicious and in this calculation I was not deceived by means of a crowbar I easily dislodged the bricks and having carefully deposited the body against the inner wall I propped it in that position while with little trouble I 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 brickwork 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 tear 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 for bore to present itself in my present mood it is impossible to describe in 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 the burden of murder upon my soul the second and the third day passed and still my tormentor came not once again to breathe as a free man 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 a concealment I felt no embarrassment whatever the officers bade me accompany them in their search they left no nook nor corner unexplored at length for the third fourth time they descended into the cellar I quivered not in a muscle my heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence I walked the cellar from end to end I folded my arms upon my bosom and roamed easily to and fro the police were thoroughly satisfied and prepared to depart the glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained I burned to say if but one word by way of triumph and to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness gentlemen I said at last as the party ascended the steps I delight to have elade 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 brickwork behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom but may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the arch and fiend no sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into the silence than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb by a cry at first muffled and broken like the sobbing of a child and then quickly swelling into one long loud and continuous scream utterly anomalous and inhuman a howl, a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph might have arisen only out of hell conjointly from the throats of the damned in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation of my own thoughts it is folly to speak swooning I staggered to the opposite wall for one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless through extremity of terror and of awe in the next a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall 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 set 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 Recording by Ralph Snelson