THE TELL-TALE HEART by E. A. Poe

Nervous, very nervous I was and I am. Nervous, but not crazy. Above all was the sense of hearing everything. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. How am I crazy, then? Observe how I tell the story very calmly.

I didn’t hate the old man. I didn’t want his gold. He never did anything bad to me, he never insulted me. So it’s difficult to say in which moment I started thinking of taking his life. I think it was his eye. His eye was like a vulture’s. It made me feel bad. I wanted to get rid of it forever.

I treated the old man very good for the whole week before I killed him. Every night, at midnight, I opened his door slowly and entered my head to see the old man. It took one hour to introduce only my head, very wisely, because I didn’t want the old man to wake up. Do you think a crazy man can be so intelligent?

When my head was inside, I switched a lantern on to see the vulture’s eye. I did this during seven nights, but the eye was always closed, so I couldn’t do the work, because it wasn’t the man who bothered me, but his eye. In the morning I always spoke to him very kindly again and asking him how he passed the night.

Upon the eighth night, at midnight, I opened his door again very very carefully. I entered my head in and I made a noise with the lantern that the old man heard. He woke up crying “Who is there?” I didn’t move for a whole hour and the man didn’t sleep again, he stayed listening. Then I decided to switch the lantern on and I saw his vulture’s eye. That made me feel furious.

I told you before that I could hear everything. I started hearing the old man’s heart. That made me feel more furious. And I heard it louder and louder like the beating of a drum. It was so loud that any neighbor could listen to it, so I decided that the time of the old man arrived. I entered in the room and threw the old man on the floor, pulling his bed over him. I smiled but the heart beat on for some minutes until the old man died. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was dead. His eye would trouble me no more.

If you still think I’m crazy, let me show you how I finished my work.

First I cut off the head, the arms and the legs. I buried all under the wooden floor. Everything was clean. There wasn’t any stain or blood spot anywhere. I did it very intelligently. Nobody could ever notice anything, no eye, -not even his! - could detect anything.

When I finished my work it was 4 o’clock in the morning. Suddenly somebody knocked at the door. There were 4 policemen saying that a neighbor heard a noise. I had nothing to fear about, I wasn’t nervous.

Gently I said the noise was made by me during a dream. I showed them the entire house, even the old man’s room. Then I offered them a seat to rest and I placed my own chair where the corpse lied.

We were chatting very kindly, about familiar things, for a while. But then I started to feel anxious, I had a terrible headache, but I talked very slowly.

There was a noise, it didn’t come from my ears, it came from somewhere. I started to get very pale and the sound became louder. Then I started to talk more and quick. I wanted the policemen to go. And the sound became even louder. I spoke to them with violent gesticulation, and the sound continued. Why don’t they go? Oh, my God! I stood up and talk quickly, making noise. But the sound grew louder and louder. How couldn’t they hear it? And still they chatted calmly. Oh, no, they knew everything and they laughed at me. They heard the noise, oh my God, they suspected. And the noise getting louder! Louder! Louder! I couldn´t wait more! I had to shout or die! Now or never! Louder! Louder! Louder!

Villains! Stop it! I admit the murder! Here, right here it is the beating of his heart!