Read Online In the Shadow of the Master by Edgar Allan Poe, Michael Connelly - Free Book Online
Authors: Edgar Allan Poe, Michael Connelly
Tags: Fiction, General, thriller, Mystery & Detective, Horror, Short Stories, Horror Tales; American, Literary Collections
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it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon my knees, covering me with its loathsome caresses. If I arose to walk it would get between my feet and thus nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress, clamber, in this manner, to my breast. At such times, although I 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 how otherwise to define it. I am almost ashamed to own-yes, even in this felon’s cell, I am almost ashamed to own- that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me, had been heightened by one of the 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!-oh, mournful and terrible engine of Horror and of Crime-of Agony and of Death!
And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity. And
a brute beast
-whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed-
a brute beast
to work out 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 any more! 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 sole 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 abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas, was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.
One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness. 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. But this blow 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
dread
of the beast.
This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil-and yet I should be at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am almost ashamed to own-yes, even in this felon’s cell, I am almost ashamed to own- that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me, had been heightened by one of the 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!-oh, mournful and terrible engine of Horror and of Crime-of Agony and of Death!
And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity. And
a brute beast
-whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed-
a brute beast
to work out 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 any more! 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 sole 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 abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas, was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.
One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness. 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. But this blow 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
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