The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings

by Edgar Allan Poe

very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses—not destroyed—not dulled them.

I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?

He had the eye of a vulture—a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees—very gradually—I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him.

Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief—oh, no!—it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe.

I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart.

increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.

placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation.

If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body.

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.

Un dessein si funeste, S'il n'est digne d'Atrée, est digne de Thyeste.