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halfway-happyyy · 4 years ago

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The Girl

Friends, this piece is a bit naughty, so it’s under the cut. It’s also inspired by this ask:

How he has always possessed the ability to know exactly what she needs without vocalizing it.

How all he must do to see how badly her body yearns for his, is to press his lips to the warm nape of her neck.

How all she has to utter is, “I need you…”

It's late when he arrives home for the evening; the scent of damp pavement from a recent storm floats in on the breeze from the open front door, and she drops her head back for a moment to breathe it in. Dinner is already long but forgotten; a plate of walnut-crusted trout (his own catch from a few weeks ago), blue cheese and bacon brussel sprouts, and roast potatoes sits on a rack in the oven under an all-encompassing warm setting. The flame from a candle wavers in the spring draft beneath her gaze and she sighs contentedly when she hears him enter the kitchen.

He sidles up behind her, his deft fingertips brush the hair back from her shoulder blade as he begins massaging her shoulders. His ministrations are firm- bordering on painful, but she stays rooted to the spot because she knows she'll feel all the better for it in the end. “You're carrying a lot of tension kid,” He murmurs, lowly. “Everything alright?”

She turns in his arms to face him, then. Blueish-violet circles grace the delicate space of skin beneath his beautiful azure eyes, speaking volumes of how much time he's spent on a film set the last few weeks. She fights the urge to trace a fingertip along the deepened creases next to his eyes, and drags a bottom lip between her teeth. She’s managed to keep the feelings at bay most of the day, but now that he's finally home- warm and hard and utterly alive beneath her touch- she is rendered entirely powerless. “I crave you, Alex…” It exits her mouth more strangled and embarrassingly desperate than she wants it to, but luckily for her, it seems to get the point across.

A barely audible noise exits his parted lips before he offers her one last look, and makes for the living room. He doesn't beckon her to follow him but she does regardless, and watches him take a seat in the plush, burgundy chair adjacent to their bay window. Their home perches high above the city of Los Angeles, a myriad of lights twinkle before them like a starlight-woven tapestry. Alexander clears his throat and pats the top of his black, trouser-clad thigh. “Come here, and I'll see if I can give you what it is that you so desperately need…” She takes a seat atop his thigh; the soft material of his trousers is felt easily through the thread-bare cotton of her sundress. Levelling his piercing gaze with hers, he gives his head an almost imperceptible shake. “Now what's got you in such a state, hm?” He wraps an arm around her waist to secure her to his lap.

She swallows hard- opens her mouth to answer him but feels his fingertips on the soft skin of her knee and she shudders. They travel lazily up her thigh and he nods his head to encourage her forth.

“I had a dream about you last night. An inexplicably sexy one, and when I woke up this morning you had already left…”

Alexander clicks his tongue, pouting his pink lips up at her. “How unfair… will you share with me what your dream was about baby?”

A shadow falls over her features; she suddenly grows bashful and turns to bury her face in the hollow warmth of his neck.

A soft chuckle erupts from the base of his throat and he squeezes the tender skin of her inner thigh firmly and tries to press her on further. “Did I have my lips on you, gorgeous girl?”

She sucks her bottom lip between her teeth again and nods her head against him. “Yes…”

“Good girl. Did I make you feel good?”

She untucks her head from his neck to gaze at him, and he certainly doesn't miss the sudden burst of pink in her cheeks, or the way her heart thrums a little more wildly in her chest. “So good…” She whispers, earnestly.

She can feel his erection growing in the crotch of his trousers, how hard it swells beneath her thigh.

“And did you touch yourself at all today while I was gone?”

She shakes her head no, and it’s the honest truth.

His fingers travel farther up her thigh, and he groans when he notices her complete lack of panties. “Did you do this for me?”

And what she wants to say is, of course! But all she can manage is a meek nod of her head. He's close to the center of her hot, wet core now. One fingertip away from it, and the urge to grind down against him is overwhelming. He takes a deep breath and swipes the hardened pad of his fingertip over her slit, catches the moisture there and groans loudly at the notion of it. “So wet for me baby. Probably making a huge mess out of these pants, hm?” Her eyes fall shut as a desperate moan escapes her parted lips. Alexander sighs heavily at this and clicks his tongue. “This isn't going to work if your eyes are closed. You're going to be a good girl for me, and watch everything I'm about to do to you, hm?”

She concedes without fuss.

Alexander pushes two fingertips deep into her soaked cunt and leans in to take the velvet softness of her earlobe between his teeth. The fullness of his fingers inside of her, combined with the sensation of his stubble against her cheek; her earlobe as he gently suckles on it, has her trembling violently against him. He pulls away to blow a stream of cool air over her lobe, and admires the goosebumps that rise in patterns over her chest and neck. “How does this compare to your dream?” He smirks.

A breathless laugh escapes her lips and fans a lock of sandy blonde hair out of his eyes. “It doesn't.” She squirms above him as he begins to fuck her more aggressively. She resists the urge to close her eyes as her pleasure builds in her belly. “More,” She suddenly whimpers.

Alexander clicks his tongue, slows the movements of his fingers to an aching crawl. “I beg your pardon? Is that really any way to ask for what you want?”

She swallows hard and tries to grind herself against him, in dire need of more friction. “Please,” She whimpers breathlessly. “More please…”

Alexander hums against her. “I don't know if you can handle a third one, baby. I think it might just be too much for this sweet, little cunt of yours to take…”

“Please…” She whimpers again.

And he finally relents, pushing a third, thick digit into her hot, dripping wetness. His rhythm is lackadaisical at first; followed by a period of a sped-up tempo for a few seconds, with his long fingers hitting her spot every time. Her orgasm builds steadily in the pit of her tummy like a blaze gaining momentum. He can feel it in the way she clenches around him, can see it in the perspiration that blooms over every bare patch of skin on her body. And God, he wants her so bad…

“You're so close for me, sweet girl.” He purrs, softly. She nods her head; her gaze is utterly pleading and glassy and he simply assumes that this is just her looming orgasm taking its toll on her… but then the glass in her eyes turns to tears, which cascade down her flushed cheeks, and he fears for a moment, of coming apart on the spot. “Good girl…” He manages between groans, as he continues to fuck her without abandon. He has a strong hold on her, knows that if he loosens up even the slightest bit, that he'll lose her for good. “Let go for me sweet girl,” He whispers.

She tosses her head back as his words echo through her foggy brain. Her orgasm ripping through her, sending shockwaves of electric pleasure that exit her body in the form of ragged moans and breathless sobs. It takes her a while to recover from her high, but Alexander takes the extra time to wipe away the stray saltwater with the calloused pads of his thumbs. “I don’t think that's ever happened before…” she murmurs lowly, her voice utterly wrecked.

He wraps both of his arms around her protectively, grounding her damp, flushed frame to his, and rests his chin in the crook of her shoulder. The image of her coming apart beneath him plays on like a film in his mind, makes him even more dizzy with need for her than he already had been. He allows himself a deep, steadying breath, cuddling his face ever further into her. “I’m always learning something new about you, my beautiful girl.” A heavy, contented sigh follows in that statement's wake. “I have a feeling I be will until my last, rasping breath.” His brimming, unadulterated admiration for her causes her heart to swell with endless amounts of love.

#back (?) on my bullshit #i am in a MOOD today #go easy on me friends its been a while #alex sstuff #alexander skarsgard #alexander skarsgard x reader #alexander skarsgard drabble #alexander skarsgard smut #drabble #smut #writing

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athenadione · 4 years ago

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"Kissing on sofa, foreheads pressed together, breathy, soft tender" with damirae please <3<3<3

‘you are good’

This one was a bit more challenging, and definitely mushy. Thank you Vi for being my beta, and giving me some super helpful suggestions to wrap up this one-shot.

Hope you enjoy :) -AD

Pairing: DamiRae Words: 1,360 Rated: G with implied mature scenes

At first glance, one would think he’s gazing mindlessly at the television ahead, pondering just how stupid Shaggy can be to open that closet door. And he is, for a moment.

Of course the perpetrator is behind it, ax poised to strike. His brow twitches, distaste tugging at the corners of his mouth.

He must have hit a new low, resorting to watching Cartoon Network— though that was her show of choice and there’s nothing he will deny her; But how she’s able to watch this show and enjoy it is beyond him.

She’s not even watching it. It’s more background noise than anything else, but if she’s happy, then what else can he ask for? And he is too… for the most part.

By the time the whimsical chasing scene ensues his eyes are already glossing over again, hands fisting ever so lightly in his lap as persistent, deprecating thoughts swarm his mind.

Of all the things to obsess over, he wouldn’t have had the slightest notion it’d be over a flippant comment, but now he can’t stop.

“Are you kidding me? Almost everyone we fight has an identity crisis! How too far gone do you gotta be to not know killing people is wrong? Psychos.”

Ever since their debriefing this morning after Gar’s mindless jab, one ever-pressing question has been consuming him the entirety of the afternoon.

And even though Gar couldn’t have known how his words would have affected him, Damian had been surprised to feel the short pang in his chest that spoke of a deeper level of pain and insecurity. One that he realized just then that he hadn’t quite healed from.

Is he still in the midst of an identity crisis, after all this time? After all of his growth?

Logically, it makes sense that he would continue to… question himself. After all, he'd been groomed for successorship of the League from birth until he was ten years old, then tossed into a world of vigilantes with strict moral codes that went against everything he had previously learned.

He had thought he’d come to terms with it all. Especially after living at the monastery.

It’s true that he still finds himself withholding that final decapitating strike, and maybe more than once he’s considered how much more effective it would be if he didn’t. Justice, not vengeance. He doesn’t know how many times he’s held onto that mantra like a lifeline, especially after he nearly killed Dollmaker.

Is he really second guessing his rectitude? Surely I’ve established a clear sense of morality by now. I’m not too far gone, no matter what Gar says.

Something pokes at his thigh, pulling him from his thoughts, and he looks down to see a dainty barefoot pressed into his leg, toes wiggling enticingly. Despite his inner calamity, he can’t help the light smirk that plays at his lips. Cute isn’t a word anyone would hear spilling from his mouth, but if he ever had to describe her feet, that’s the word he’d choose.

His gaze flicks up a pale, slender leg, hovering there a moment, before moving on to the novel that’s now slack in her hands. Jane Eyre— of course. She’s always loved the classics. Continuing his quest up, he reaches pools of lavender— and to his chagrin he finds that they’re filled with mirth.

“You’re thinking up a literal storm cloud, habibi. You’re supposed to be relaxing.”

He gives her an affronted glare, though they both know he doesn’t really mean the anger behind it. Grasping the arch of her foot, he arches a brow while he begins to massage it absentmindedly, taking mental note of the soft moan that escapes her lips. “I’d never call watching that ridiculous show relaxing,” he cocks his head, gesturing towards the t.v., “It’s more infuriating than anything— and poor detective work if you ask me.”

Her lips quirk upwards. “It’s a cartoon, Damian. It’s not meant to be realistic, it’s meant to be funny. Relaxing.”

“Tt.”

She nudges him again. “So what’s wrong?”

He presses his lips together, taking care to keep his face emotionless. “Nothing.”

When she gives him an inscrutable look he scowls. Of course I had to fall in love with an empath.

He sighs when she doesn’t relent. Resisting the urge to fidget his leg, he tenses and finds a spot at the floor between his feet. Just ask her.

“Habibti, am I still… good?” he asks, too tentatively for his taste.

Raven’s brows draw together and she gives him a reflective, silent stare. He knows that she’s trying to get a read on his emotions, to string together the reason why he would ask such an aimless question.

It doesn’t take her long to figure it out, and her face softens only a few moments later. “Oh. This is about what Gar said earlier, isn’t it?”

He frowns and nods once, then turns back to the t.v. The next episode has begun to play, and the music of the theme song does nothing to deter him from the rolling wave of disparate emotions swelling up in his throat.

Arguably, he had a more traumatic upbringing than many of the villains they fought on a daily basis. What if he is still that person?? He can hear the voice. What if his carefully constructed restraint slips during a battle?

What if one day I don’t stop that final blow? What if I’ve just been pretending this whole time?

“Habibi.” Raven calls out to him and he turns his head once more as she moves, folding her book and placing it aside. “Come here,” she murmurs.

Her hand reaches out to him and he leans forward just as she shifts one foot underneath her to sit up comfortably on the couch. With a wave of her hand the volume on the t.v. turns to a mere whisper, and the other hand that’s reaching out to him finds the back of his neck, tugging him even closer to her. Then she rests her forehead directly against his, and his eyes flutter shut as his nose brushes against hers.

All of a sudden he’s enveloped in solace.

“You are good.” She whispers, lips ghosting over his own. “I would know. I can feel you, remember?”

He breathes in deep, catching the peppermint shampoo of her hair. Her thumb strokes the back of his neck soothingly and he relishes in the feeling, allowing her calming empathy to sweep through him.

It’s almost funny how quickly she grounds me, in just a few short words. She had said so much more though, in the way that she held him.

“I love you,” he whispers, smiling into the kiss that she presses against his lips. She responds in kind, humming into his mouth, “I love you too.”

This concern won’t ever go away completely, but at least I have her by my side to help me through it. Watch over me, habibti.

“I know of something else that we can do to help put your mind at ease.” Raven’s voice drops to a low, husky sound that sends his heart racing.

“Oh?” he asks, mildly amused when she pulls away from him to push at his chest, and the back of his head hits the arm of the couch with a light thud when he falls. She follows. The sight of her, hovering over him with parted lips and hooded eyes is nothing short of divine beauty. And she’s all mine. “As long as it has nothing to do with that halfwitted cartoon,” he says as an added quip.

“I’m thinking of a more… hands on approach.” The smirk she throws him makes him chuckle. That is, until she straddles his waist and rocks into him languidly. Then it dissolves into a groan of pleasure.

“Whatever you think is best habibti.”

She draws closer to him with a smile, and he reaches up to thread a hand through soft, silky locks.

His last coherent thought before she takes precedence over all his senses is that if this is his reward for being good, then he’ll do whatever it takes to never be bad again.

#damirae #damian wayne #damian x raven #raven #one shot prompts #I guess I hc that one of Raven’s fav shows is scooby doo? lol

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nightraventforest · 3 years ago

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The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe

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 to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified -- have tortured -- have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror -- to many they will seem less terrible than barroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place -- some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects. From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This 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, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat. This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point -- and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered. Pluto -- this was the cat's name -- was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets. Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general temperament and character -- through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance -- had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my 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 ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon me -- for what disease is like Alcohol ! -- and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish -- even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper. One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket ! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity. When reason returned with the morning -- when I had slept off the fumes of the night's debauch -- I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed. In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart -- one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself -- to offer violence to its own nature -- to do wrong for the wrong's sake only -- that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; -- hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; -- hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; -- hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin -- a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it -- if such a thing were possible -- even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God. On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were in flames. The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the conflagration. The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair. I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts -- and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the fire -- a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion of it with very minute and eager attention. The words "strange!" "singular!" and other similar expressions, excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous. There was a rope about the animal's neck. When I first beheld this apparition -- for I could scarcely regard it as less -- my wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd -- by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window, into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it. Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did not the less 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 seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal, and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented, for another pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply its place. One night as I sat, half stupified, in a den of more than infamy, my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or of Rum, which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking steadily at the top of this hogshead for some minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the object thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat -- a very large one -- fully as large as 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 of 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 it domesticated itself at 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 -- its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided 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 weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill use 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 added, no doubt, 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 pertinacity 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 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 chimæras 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 wo! 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 Night-Mare 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 merchandize, 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 rest 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 any thing suspicious. And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crow-bar 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 re-laid 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 brick-work. 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 care. 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 forebore to present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to describe, or to imagine, 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; aye, 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 I breathed as a freeman. 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 concealment, I felt no embarrassment whatever. The officers bade me accompany them in their search. They left no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for the third or 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 allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. By the bye, 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 phrenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom. But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend ! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into 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, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the dammed 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. It fell 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, sat 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!

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beyondthebizarre · 4 years ago

Text

The Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe

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.

This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point, and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered.

Pluto, this was the cat�s name, was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets.

Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general temperament and character, through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance, had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my 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 ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon me, for what disease is like Alcohol! and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish, even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.

One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.

When reason returned with the morning, when I had slept off the fumes of the night�s debauch, I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.

In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart, one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself, to offer violence to its own nature, to do wrong for the wrong�s sake only, that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree;, hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin, a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it, if such a thing wore possible, even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.

On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were in flames. The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the conflagration. The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair.

I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts, and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the fire, a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion of it with very minute and eager attention. The words �strange!� �singular!� and other similar expressions, excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous. There was a rope about the animal�s neck.

When I first beheld this apparition, for I could scarcely regard it as less, my wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd, by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window, into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it.

Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did not the less 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 seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal, and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented, for another pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply its place.

One night as I sat, half stupified, in a den of more than infamy, my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or of Rum, which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking steadily at the top of this hogshead for some minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the object thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat, a very large one, fully as large as 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 of 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 it domesticated itself at 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, its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided 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 weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill use 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 added, no doubt, 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 pertinacity 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 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 chimaeras 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 wo! 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 Night-Mare 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 merchandize, 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 any thing suspicious. And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crow-bar 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 re-laid 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 care. 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 forebore to present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to describe, or to imagine, 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; aye, 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 I breathed as a freeman. 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 concealment, I felt no embarrassment whatever. The officers bade me accompany them in their search. They left no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for the third or 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 allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. By the bye, 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 phrenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom.

But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend ! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into 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, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the dammed 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. It fell 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, sat 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!

#blog #podcast #beyond the bizarre #beyondthebizarre #horror #paranormal #supernatural #creepy #halloween #short story #edgar allen poe #black cats

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unsettlingshortstories · 3 years ago

Text

The Black Cat

Edgar Allen Poe (1845)

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.

This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point -- and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered.

Pluto -- this was the cat's name -- was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets.

Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general temperament and character -- through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance -- had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my 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 ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon me -- for what disease is like Alcohol ! -- and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish -- even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.

One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket ! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.

When reason returned with the morning -- when I had slept off the fumes of the night's debauch -- I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.

In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart -- one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself -- to offer violence to its own nature -- to do wrong for the wrong's sake only -- that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; -- hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; -- hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; -- hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin -- a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it -- if such a thing were possible -- even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.

I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts -- and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the fire -- a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion of it with very minute and eager attention. The words "strange!" "singular!" and other similar expressions, excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous. There was a rope about the animal's neck.

When I first beheld this apparition -- for I could scarcely regard it as less -- my wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd -- by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window, into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it.

One night as I sat, half stupified, in a den of more than infamy, my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or of Rum, which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking steadily at the top of this hogshead for some minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the object thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat -- a very large one -- fully as large as 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 of 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.

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 -- its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided 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 weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill use 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.

With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity 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 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 chimæras 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 wo! 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 Night-Mare 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.

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 merchandize, 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.

And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crow-bar 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 re-laid 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 brick-work. 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 care. 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 forebore to present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to describe, or to imagine, 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; aye, 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 I breathed as a freeman. 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.

"Gentlemen," I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, "I delight to have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. By the bye, 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 phrenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom.

But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend ! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into 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, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the dammed in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation.

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ltcol-laurens · 7 years ago

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Laurens-Hamilton letters

All this can be found here and this is just a list of quotes from letters between 1778 and 1782 between John Laurens and Alexander Hamilton at what could be hinting at a relationship between the two. I hope this is helpful.

First: ‘We have the Honour to be Sir Your most Obedt Servts A Hamilton John Laurens’ - They wrote a letter together that’s just cute.

From JL, 5th Dec 1778 ‘My Dear Hamilton...Adieu, my dear boy. I shall set out for camp tomorrow.’

The best letter of all time, From AH April 1779: ‘Cold in my professions, warm in {my} friendships, I wish my Dear Laurens, it m{ight} be in my power, by action rather than words, {to} convince you that I love you. I shall only tell you that ‘till you bade us Adieu, I hardly knew the value you had taught my heart to set upon you. Indeed, my friend, it was not well done. You know the opinion I entertain of mankind, and how much it is my desire to preserve myself free from particular attachments, and to keep my happiness independent on the caprice of others. You sh⟨ould⟩ not have taken advantage of my sensibility to ste⟨al⟩ into my affections without my consent. But as you have done it and as we are generally indulgent to those we love, I shall not scruple to pardon the fraud you have committed, on condition that for my sake, if not for your own, you will always continue to merit the partiality, which you have so artfully instilled into ⟨me⟩.’

From the same letter: ‘my Dear J’ - that’s cute.

From the same April 1779 letter: ‘ I anticipate by sympathy the pleasure you must feel from the sweet converse of your dearer self in the inclosed letters. I hope they may be recent. They were brought out of New York by General Thompson11 delivered to him there by a Mrs. Moore not long from England, soi-disante parente de Madame votre épouse. She speaks of a daughter of yours, well when she left England,12 perhaps ⟨– – –⟩. ‘ There’s an explanation for this: Hamilton was asked to deliver a letter from Martha Manning to Laurens so he found out that Laurens was not only married but also had a daughter. They’d already known each other for around a year and a half at that point.

Hamilton proceeds to seemingly ask John to find him a wife whilst he’s in South Carolina: ‘And Now my Dear as we are upon the subject of wife, I empower and command you to get me one in Carolina. Such a wife as I want will, I know, be difficult to be found, but if you succeed, it will be the stronger proof of your zeal and dexterity. Take her description—She must be young, handsome (I lay most stress upon a good shape) sensible (a little learning will do), well bred (but she must have an aversion to the word ton) chaste and tender (I am an enthusiast in my notions of fidelity and fondness) of some good nature, a great deal of generosity (she must neither love money nor scolding, for I dislike equally a termagent and an œconomist).’

However it was just an excuse to put in as many innuendos and that famous ‘nose’ line: ‘ If you should not readily meet with a lady that you think answers my description you can only advertise in the public papers and doub[t]less you will hear of many competitors for most of the qualifications required, who will be glad to become candidates for such a prize as I am. To excite their emulation, it will be necessary for you to give an account of the lover—his size, make, quality of mind and body, achievements, expectations, fortune, &c. In drawing my picture, you will no doubt be civil to your friend; mind you do justice to the length of my nose and don’t forget, that I ⟨– – – – –⟩. ‘ - The word ‘friend’ seems to be teasing about how far from friends they are which is further consolidated with the ‘nose’ and infamous scratched out words which I believe that mystery has been solved and it possibly says: ‘never spared you of pictures‘ so it now reads: ‘...mind you do justice to the length of my nose and don’t forget, that I never spared you of pictures.’ I think the pure fact that JCH felt the need to cross that out shows that he interpreted it as sexual because if he thought that they were just friends and it was, as Massey puts it, ‘bawdy humour’ then why would JCH feel the need to cross it out? Really John Church is just confirming what we already knew - that Hamilton and Laurens were M O R E T H A N F R I E N D S. And that’s from a 18/19th Century homophobe (most likely). Also JCH met his Alexander (I know he died soon into John’s life but still they met) so will understand his father more than any historian and is therefore one of the most reliable sources.

‘ NB You will be pleased to recollect in your negotiations that I have no invincible antipathy to the maidenly beauties & that I am willing to take the trouble of them upon myself.‘ - Hamilton underline ‘NB’ (nota bene/note well and the underlining of ‘maidenly beauties’ and ‘trouble’ seems to suggest some sort of sexual innuendo ... with Laurens. He could be possibly reminding Laurens of a similar experience they shared. ‘Maidenly beauties’ seems to be referring to inexperienced women or virginity. The phrase ‘maidenly’ seems to be feminine adjective however it’s more likely to be describing purity (e.g in the case of virginity). Let’s remember how Hamilton was once played down his attraction to Eliza in a letter to Laurens so why would he be talking about female virginity. Furthermore,with Hamilton already talking about his relationship with Laurens previously in this letter this quote holds a lot more implication that he was talking about his relationship with Laurens. Another interpretation of this could be that Hamilton just wants to remind Laurens that he’s not exclusively attracted to men (as Laurens most likely was) so it’s a way to possibly make Laurens jealous as Laurens (accidentally) made Hamilton. Additionally, the word ‘trouble’ could be interpreted as pregnancy and he’s saying that despite the ‘trouble’ of the feminine body (i.e pregnancy) he’s not immune to be sexually attracted to them. Also just think how Laurens’ personal experience with women and probably the first, or one of the first times, he had sex with a woman it resulted in pregnancy and his own mother died because of pregnancy.

Hamilton concludes with: ‘ Do I want a wife? No—I have plagues enough without desiring to add to the number that greatest of all; and if I were silly enough to do it, I should take care how I employ a proxy. ‘ So he calls marriage a plague and he explicitly states that he doesn’t want a wife.

‘Did I mean to show my wit?’ - ‘Wit’ = 18c for penis

From Laurens, 14th July 1779: ‘ Ternant will relate to you how many violent struggles I have had between duty and inclination—how much my heart was with you...’ And he ends with ‘yours ever John Laurens’ so pretty effusive for Laurens.

From Hamilton 11th September 1779. There’s a bit of a gap here which Hamilton actually talks about: ‘ I acknowlege but one letter from you, since you left us, of the 14th of July which just arrived in time to appease a violent conflict between my friendship and my pride. I have written you five or six letters since you left Philadelphia and I should have written you more had you made proper return. But like a jealous lover, when I thought you slighted my caresses, my affection was alarmed and my vanity piqued. I had almost resolved to lavish no more of them upon you and to reject you as an inconstant and an ungrateful ——.2 But you have now disarmed my resentment and by a single mark of attention made up the quarrel. You must at least allow me a large stock of good nature.‘ Most notable in this paragraph is Hamilton’s uses the phrase ‘jealous lover’. He ends on a more formal note: ‘Adieu Yrs most sincerely A Hamilton’

From Laurens 12th December 1779: ‘Present my Respects and Love to our excellent General and the family; may you enjoy all the pleasure moral and physical which you promise yourself in winter quarters; and be as happy as you deserve.Yours ever John Laurens’

From Laurens 18th December 1779, Laurens uses the phrase: ‘ χαλου χαι αγαθου’ which is Greek ‘kalos kai agathos’ and cannot be translated directly into English and it has various meanings discussed by @john-laurens here who does a great job of explaining what it means. He ends on ‘My Love as usual. Adieu John Laurens.’

From Hamilton 8th January 1780:

Laurens used ‘dear boy’ several times e.g. here compared to a letter to his wife: ‘...and say dear Girl...’ so he used to same term to describe his affection towards his wife to describe his affection towards Hamilton.

From Hamilton to Laurens 30th March 1780: ‘Adieu my Dear; I am sure you will exert yourself to save your country; but do not unnecessarily risk one of its most valuable sons. Take as much care of yourself as you ought for the public sake and for the sake of Yr. Affectionate A. Hamilton.’

From Hamilton to Laurens 30th June 1780: ‘ Have you not heard that I am on the point of becoming a benedict? I confess my sins. I am guilty. Next fall completes my doom.‘ I might be looking too much into this but it sounds like he’s trying to assure Laurens (who was a POW at this point) that he hasn’t completely forgotten about him and it’s a strange way to put it if he’s truly happy about the wedding: ‘Next fall completes my doom’. Hamilton goes on to say (about Eliza): ‘ She is a good hearted girl who I am sure will never play the termagant; though not a genius she has good sense enough to be agreeable, and though not a beauty, she has fine black eyes—is rather handsome and has every other requisite of the exterior to make a lover happy.‘ This doesn’t sound like he holds the highest opinion of Eliza which contrasts to how he wrote in letters to Eliza, for example: ‘ My good, my tender, my fond, my excellent Betsy, Adieu.‘, ‘my angel’, ‘ I kiss you a thousand times‘ and ‘ I shall be miserable if I do not hear once a week from you and my precious infant. You both grow dearer to me every day. I would give the world for a kiss from either of you.’ (Bear in mind the last few quotes are after Laurens died) so either he’s making Eliza seem worse than she is to Laurens as they have a thing between them and Laurens wasn’t having the easiest time being a POW as the Americans had just suffered a defeat in South Carolina, he’s exaggerating his feelings to Eliza or a bit of both.

H to L, 12th Sept 1780: ‘my Laurens’ (bit possessive gee!) and ‘I hate Congress—I hate the army—I hate the world—I hate myself. The whole is a mass of fools and knaves; I could almost except you and Meade. Adieu A Hamilton’ He’s in that I-hate-everything-in-the-world-except-Laurens-mood - I think we’ve all been there to be honest. I think this is the letter where Hamilton had just been denied a position in the south with Laurens although I could be wrong. He finishes with ‘My ravings are for your own bosom.’ So basically he misses his boy.

H to L, 16th September 1780: H asks L to do something for his sake: ‘ for my sake’, ‘ In spite of Schuylers black eyes, I have still a part for the public and another for you; so your impatience to have me married is misplaced; a strange cure by the way, as if after matrimony I was to be less devoted than I am now.‘ God there’s so much to say about this. Firstly, Laurens believes that marriage is a ‘cure’ and that raises the question of a ‘cure’ for what exactly? It also shows how Laurens views Hamilton’s feelings towards him because bisexuality and human sexuality in general wasn’t understood as well as it is now so Laurens believes that Hamilton can’t love Eliza and him simultaneously and Hamilton seems to have a better understanding of sexuality, or at least of his own feelings towards Laurens, so he says ‘as if matrimony I was to be less devoted than I am now’ I could be wrong but that sounds like ‘Even when I’m married I’ll still have these feelings for you.’ Then we get to the end of this letter where Hamilton seemingly invites Laurens to a threesome on his wedding night, but Laurens was stuck in Pennsylvania: ‘I wish you were at liberty to transgress the bounds of Pensylvania. I would invite you after the fall to Albany to be witness to the final consummation. My Mistress is a good girl, and already loves you because I have told her you are a clever fellow and my friend; but mind, she loves you a l’americaine not a la françoise.‘ It makes me think about how Hamilton goes around talking about how great Laurens is - someone he could’ve been romantically involved with - to his future wife Eliza. Also the Founders Archive website puts the words and phrases I put in italics in italics on the website so I guess Hamilton underlined them so he really wanted Laurens to see the ‘final consummation’ and the other parts that are all quite suggestive. ‘She loves you a l’americaine not a la françoise’ means how French people are more open with their sexuality and Americans are more prudish and sexually reserved so Eliza wouldn’t be down for a threesome on her wedding night with two guys which seems reasonable to me.

Interestingly there are a few more letters from Hamilton that are less romantic and more military as his first child Philip had just been born and there could’ve been a possible rekindling between Laurens and Kinloch although it seems unlikely. I just think something must’ve happened from the threesome thing to being strictly professional.

Then in July 1782 Laurens wrote a letter that apart from a few things such as this and talking about his black regiment etc doesn’t seem to be of much significance until you realise that on the bottom of the founders archive page here it says that there is at least a paragraph missing from that letter because it has no ending to the letter. However there is a printed extract of a letter that Laurens wrote to Hamilton but there is no date JCH just put ‘Hamilton replied on the 15th August’ and it finishes: ‘ Adieu, my dear friend; while circumstances place so great a distance between us, I entreat you not to withdraw the consolation of your letters. You know the unalterable sentiments of your affectionate Laurens.’ which as we can see from above is quite romantic coming from Laurens and he ended a similar way to his ending to Martha his wife.

Then we get to the final letter from Hamilton to Laurens 15th August 1782: ‘ Quit your sword my friend, put on the toga, come to Congress. We know each others sentiments, our views are the same: we have fought side by side to make America free, let us hand in hand struggle to make her happy.’ and it ends ‘Yrs for ever A Hamilton’ which he used a variation of in his last letter to Eliza before he died. I don’t know about anyone else but to me that letter has a definite air of finality as if Hamilton just knows that his friend is going to go ahead and get himself killed which is terribly heartbreaking.

#long post #historic lams #lams #laurens x hamilton #laurens #hamilton

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coralshort · 7 years ago

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I had a very busy end of summer pulling together the giant annual fundraiser Witch Rave successfully after a dramatic spooky lightening storm! This year’s event was co-organized this year with best friends and artists: Alex Tsoli, Jean P’ark, Orion Twinkle and Winnie SuperHova. Together with the community we again miraculously raised thousands to provide an opportunity for many talented artists to participate in Murmurs. Thank you to the almost 1,000 people who came out to support this fundraiser. Murmurs was the first queer sound art residency in the world. With organizers and BetOnest director Yoav Adamoni – we were 31 that filled the art hotel! The largest event ever in the space and ColorBlock joined us for a big party making it the funnest party of 2018 at the new residency space.

The amazing artists who participated in the residency were:

Pêdra Costa

Ze Royale

Henry Wilde

NeoNeoneo Hülcker

Hannah Levin

Lyd AD.

Gee

Zinzi Buchanan aka Zi Ro Buch

Lady Gaby

Mikatsiu Høres

Lori Elisabeth

Luiza Moraes

Gambletron

Johnny Forever

Miriam Schickler

Vincent aka Consumer-Refund

Lulu

Aisha Sasha John

Lydia Miligkou

Antigoni Tsagkaropoulou

Maa Yaa

Alex Alvina Chamberland

Caitlin Fischer

Sherry Ostpovitch

Vera Hofmann

Sophie W. Pagliai

Here are some photos from the beautiful Murmurs residency:

—————————————————————————————————————————————–Two weeks later my partner Ryan Backer and I took the train to Amsterdam and biked around a lot in all sorts of weather. We went to the Art Deco Sauna to warm up and relax which was incredible! Then I curated Genderclear at Transcreen.

This is one of my favourite bills of my life. It was carefully juried by friends Angel Ka, Anna Helme, Nabeela Vega, Raven Davis, Russell Louder and Ryan Patrick Backer.

Jespa Jacob Smith, Anakin Tora,Brettley Kai and Wyatt Riot were in attendance which was such a total delight. This program was funded by Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa

Video artists on the bill: Jespa Jacob Smith, Justin Shoulder & Bhenji Ra, SATURN, Mitch Mitchell, Erum Khan, Anakin Tora, JJ Levine , Brettley Kai and Wyatt Riot, Namita Aavriti, Thirza Cuthand, Buzz Slutsky, Kinga and Winnie Superhova, Max Rocha, Kübra Varol, Isaiah Lawrence, Lene Ricarda Vollhardt and Luce Delire and HYENAZ

After trip the next weekend this Ryan Backer and I had an ecosexual commitment ceremony/ ritual in the light rain in a forest led by my platonic wyfe performance artist and porn star Sadie Lune. This event took place at Quecke with our 20 closest Berlin friends in attendance followed by a giant feast.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–While gardening at the Tauenblau estate in October, I got to spend some time back at BetOnest with some great artists from New York, Glasgow, Montreal and Philly that I have had the joy to work with before: Hannah Levin, Ben Owns, Nash Glynn, Stephanie Creaghan and Evie Snax! Also I got to meet and listen to inspiring stories from Yoshiko Chuma for my first time.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

I worked at the Berlin Porn Film Festival in October 10 hours a day again running the Spektrum Venue with Alex Tsoli for almost a week. I curated the last of the Berlin Series of 2017 called FEAST on loop in the lobby of the Spektrum – art science community. Many of the artists were here for the festival Theo Meow, Candy Flip, Lori Elisabeth, Cybee Bloss and AORTA films which was exciting.

FEAST An experimental short film curation on loop Coral serves up the best in food porn mixed in with a sprinkling of high art for you to devour. These hedonistic video artists gorge on fruit, picnics, bodies, hot dogs, cakes, candy, and last but not least gallons of milk. Get some food to go and come sit at the Spektrum to spend some quality time chewing and swallowing these beautiful and visceral videos in between screenings. Headphones will be provided for this sumptuous overindulgence. A generous helping of thanks to Zachary Hutchinson, Cybee Bloss, Anna Luisa Petrisko, Nabeela Vega and Ryan Backer for ideas and support with this curation. This delicious experience is free of charge!

Kailey Bryan and Pepa Chan Eat Your Heart Out .56 Over four hours they feed each other a seven course meal. Gestures range from smirking and silly to hurtful and aggressive. Attentiveness gives way to laziness; resentment builds. As carelessness action becomes malicious, the performers feel the weight of their own callousness. Tenderness re-emerges. With each bite they contend with their impulses and suffer the emotional consequences of their actions. Sometimes we hurt each other out of ignorance. Silly, attentive, callous, malicious, and sorrowful, this durational performance is a quiet but high-octane emotional ride. World Premiere

D.S. Chapman Mending 4.01 Through a reflective performance, the artist alludes to the reparative nature of transitioning their body. Confronted with a subtle, visual break with reality, the viewer is asked to navigate and mitigate their relationship to the perceived trauma that has been done and is being subsequently undone in the video. European Premiere

Claire Arctander Feeding Time 2.25 Feeding Time is a pithy, sexy video that feels raw but is ultimately G-rated. The artist plays an intentionally ambiguous role – is she top or bottom, commanding or commanded? European Premiere

Asaf Aharonson, Chih Ying, Josephine Beckers, Kasia Wolinska, Konstantine,Martin Hansen Asia Tickler: on fruits and phantasy 3.26 Human and fruit relations enjoy a long and entangled history with notions of the erotic, from ancient Greek hedonisms to subliminally suggestive works of European art from the Middle Ages to twentieth century performance art. Most honourably, fruit nourishes our bodies. Asia Tickler draws attention to the tactile limits of human bodies with fruit, exploring pleasure in various encounters of absurdist ‘waste’. European premiere

Yoshie Sakai Come one eat all 4.54 In the video piece Come One, Eat All (2007), I concoct my own cultural icon as an animated “adult-girl” doll child, whose only objective is to endlessly and tirelessly eat fast food (McDonald’s French fries and Kentucky Fried Chicken) and junk food (Lay’s potato chips, powdered donuts, chocolate bars, and M&Ms) at a frenetic pace, as moving images of amusement park rides sped up considerably cause a mesmerizing and nauseating sensation for the viewer. Along with the creepy soundtrack “Carnival of Souls” by Combustible Edison and screaming noises from the people on the rides, I attempt to convey the vicious cycle of dizzying consumption and the irrepressible nature of overindulgence unnaturally forced upon us by the marketplace. European Premiere

Devyn Manibo Sediment 002 5.34 Part of a series of durational, visual, and textural experiments which uses rice to explore the materiality of grief, memory, and accumulation World Premiere

Nabeela Vega Thahab-Papaya 3.33 Part of an ongoing project: “Visiting Thahab” Visiting Thahab investigates the identity of a Muslim American femme in the post 9/11 diaspora. It takes forms that are performative, collaborative, generous, vulnerable, and exquisitely beautiful. World Premiere

LAZY MOM Hungry Hungry Hot Dog 2.34 Based on the children’s book “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” this stop motion animation features a ravenous sausage wiggling its way through junk food on a coming-of-age journey. European Premiere

Glitter Hangover Rub 1.29 Glitter Hangover, acoustic Peaches cover band, presents their debut music video, Rub. We are frivolous, camp, and queer. Our work is about subversive pleasure and building temporary communities. It’s low-tech, DIY and offers space for revelry. German Premiere

Sister Mantos Last Night (Mirror Mirror Remix) 3.23 Video directed and edited by David Riley Photography by Benjamin Gallardo Set design by R. Kelsey Hall Shrimp headgear by Andytoad

Meow Meow Calamares 3.43 Slimy octopus dream sequence. Remember: You always eat the ones you love. Starring Candy Flip, camera by Theo Meow

Star Kim (aka Cho Mihee, aka Kimura Byol, aka Nathalie Lemoine) 2017-bap-bob Gender fluid made of bap (cooked rice) juice… bibiming (mixing) bap for bob … who is gender fluid. 1.40 World Premiere

Natalie Valencia Gluttony 1.26 World Premiere

Jacqueline Mary and Violette Dentata Girl with the Most Cake 1.13 Two femmes get wild with cake.

Cybee Bloss Squirt 30 seconds World Premiere

Sarah Hill and Hayley Morgenstern Eat THAT! Poison Apple 9.24 In Hayley Morgenstein’s performance of Snow White’s poison scene, she feasts instead of sleeps, gluttonously eating not one but several apples. My version of Snow White gorges herself on Poison Apples, gnashing and gnawing them into pieces, obliterating her potential destruction, letting apple pieces and juices stream out of her mouth, rendered defective, void of power. This gesture activates my own feminist refusal to be saved; to reject the position of having-to-be-saved, or participate in the heteronormative economy of “saving” European Premiere

AORTA films MILLK BURLESQUE 4.03 In MILLK BURLESQUE, Parts Authority, Erykah Ohms, and Ginny Woolf ceremonially edge us towards The OH Files’ climatic money shot. Honoring their cyborg sexualities with the consumption of MILLK (a white viscus substance used to fuel their post-human transition) the three begin to bend time with their erotic power, letting the wet, white viscosity flow freely forward, splashing down their bodies and dripping from their mouths. World Premiere

TOTAL 50.22

My performance work Guardian was in a book called Desire Change and in a talk. Photo by Lisa Graves. This image was taken at a contemporary art lecture at Concordia University in Montreal by Heather Davis. photo Christeen Francis.

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In new news Future Visions is in the Queer Arts Festival this June! And we are looking for new submissions if you or someone you know would like to make a minute future prediction by video and upload it to Vimeo or Youtube.

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Here is my newest submission call for this year’s 5 brand new video and performance art curations. Please check out the fb event here. I am curating with and alongside wonderful organizations and people again this year!

Over the holidays I paid all the artists from last year who screened in the Berlin series I curated – 115 international video artists! I have transferred all the grant money out to these talented individuals. Thank you for being part of this epic project and to the Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa for this amazing funding for all of us.

For my relaxed New Year’s Resolution I will be creating a video performance series with trees and plants. I wish to take some sacred time to be more still and intimate with and in nature. Follow me on instagram to enjoy this video series shot by myself and close friends. I am going back to my performance art roots and building on ecosexual and earth art projects from the past that I created in the United States between 2011-2015.

Venice, Berlin, Amsterdam! I had a very busy end of summer pulling together the giant annual fundraiser Witch Rave…

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46ten · 7 years ago

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Alexander Hamilton on marriage, Part 3

I have previously posted an overview of AH's marriage ideals, followed by a focus on the time period 1777-spring 1780. Here, I'll focus on AH's letters in the summer and fall of 1780, during which time he was engaged to Elizabeth Schuyler. My focus here is not so much on the AH-ES relationship itself, but on what can be gleaned about AH's thoughts on marriage from the letters he composes to her.

I'd be remiss if I didn't comment on some biographers' interpretations of AH's marriage: that it was a cynical endeavor designed to improve his social station and ensure financial stability. I think more recent work has called this into question to the point that this interpretation is slowly being abandoned, although work integrating the Hamiltons' marriage, 18th century companionate marriage, the role of marriage in that society, Hamilton's views of honor, and further examination into Hamilton’s personal life still needs to be done. My posts are really drafts, or works-in-progress, in that area, that I hope to further flesh out as I'm able. I also feel the need to state that I don't intend to erase ES's voice on marriage, but as most of the letters we have from her that speak to her marriage are from after AH's death (with a few very notable exceptions I’ll discuss later), they aren't my focus right now.

In the letters that we have from the time period July-October 1780, AH reveals himself to be deeply concerned with ES and their love, writing at times that he can think of nothing else. He expresses love, longing, eagerness to be reunited with her, and his insecurity. For those who have read all of the AH-ES courtship letters, the quotes below are probably very familiar. But I copy them here because I think they are necessary to try to get at AH's thoughts as he approaches his December 1780 marriage to ES.

From these letters, what can we glean about the qualities that AH wanted in his marriage?

First, let's look at the qualities he seems to value in ES. He praises her for the following (I've tried to keep his original language as much as possible): innocent simplicity and frankness, beauty of person and mind, having unpretending good sense, good nature affability and vivacity, sweetness and charms, and the sweet softness and delicacy of your mind and manners. She is gentle and tender. He likes that she is sensible, and appreciates her candor. In a letter to MS, he praises her as unmercifully handsome and lacking in pretty affectations, vanity, and ostentation. To Laurens, he praises ES again for practical matters, and he notes his sexual interest in her.

These descriptions put emphasis on ES's value to him as a life partner - she's honest, sensible, good natured, and loving. She doesn't value vanity - which may be of concern given his financial situation. There is plenty in the letters that also expresses his sexual attraction and tenderness for her (and the delight he feels in her tenderness for him), but it's interesting that AH, in describing her, praises her especially for her practical qualities, or rather virtues. He may also be signaling that his interest in her is not driven solely by lust or infatuation, but by a mature and thoughtful evaluation of the kind of partner she will be for him. AH admits to "having moments when I feel a disposition to make a more perfect discovery of your temper, and character" 3Sept1780 and sends her questions designed to uncover these qualities. Considering that they are engaged about two months after her arrival in Morristown, he may have seen this as a way of also indicating to her his own suitability as a partner: he's a practical and mature man who has thought carefully about their prospective union to arrive at the conclusion that, "I think we know each other well enough to understand each other’s feelings, and to be sure our affection will not only last but be progressive" 13Oct1780.

I'm going to break this down into somewhat clumsy and debatable categories that are often used in the ideals of marriage in that time period.

Social/religious function of marriage

I have ever since you gave me leave to do it, considered loved and cherished you as my own; but the prospect of your being so by those sacred ties which society has established and heaven approves has something delightful in it....How often have I have with Eloisa exclaimed against those forms which I now revere as calculated to knit our union together by new and stronger bands....A sincere passion takes pleasure in multiplying the ties by which it is held to its object. .. With transport will my heart answer to the question, will you take this woman to be thy wedded wife? 27Oct1780

This is a the strongest statement we have, in this period, about AH's belief in marriage, in its social and religious function. He speaks of it as "sacred ties" for society (this line of thinking will be confirmed in a future post with an AH quote), that he now "reveres" marriage, and he notes that it will further and more strongly tie them together, which he views with "pleasure." He ends with an emotional statement of his feelings when he takes his wedding vows.

Life-long attachment

I alleviate the pain of absence by looking forward to that delightful period which gives us to each other forever; and my imagination serves up such a feast of pleasure as almost makes me forget the deprivation I now experience. 6July1780

The lovely partner of my life. 6July1780

[L]et our hearts melt in a prayer to be soon united, never more to be separated. Aug1780

In the quotes above, AH indicates that he expects their union to be life-long. Although the standard of the age, this probably wasn't a simple notion for him - his mother had two unsuccessful romantic partnerships. Nor was divorce an impossibility for ES, given her own station, although she would have likely not had custody of their children.

Shared goals

I know too you have so much of the Portia in you, that you will not be out done in this line by any of your sex, and that if you saw me inclined to quit the service of your country, you would dissuade me from it. I have promised you, you recollect, to conform to your wishes, and I persist in this intention. Aug1780

An indifference to property enters into my character too much, and what affects me now as my Betsey is concerned in it, I should have laughed at or not thought of at all a year ago. But I have thoroughly examined my own heart. Beloved by you, I can be happy in any situation, and can struggle with every embarrassment of fortune with patience and firmness. I cannot however forbear entreating you to realize our union on the dark side and satisfy, without deceiving yourself, how far your affection for me can make you happy in a privation of those elegancies to which you have been accustomed. If fortune should smile upon us, it will do us no harm to have been prepared for adversity; if she frowns upon us, by being prepared, we shall encounter it without the chagrin of disappointment. Aug1780

For after all the proofs I have of your tenderness and readiness to share every kind of fortune with me it is a presumptuous diffidence of your heart to propose the examination I did. 3Sept1780

[B]ut I want to know, whether you would prefer my receiving the nuptial benediction in my uniform or in a different habit. It will be just as you please; so consult your whim and what you think most consistent with propriety. If you mean to follow our plan of being secretly married, the scruple ought to appear entirely your own, and you should begin to give hints of it. …5Oct1780

These quotes on quite different matters indicates that AH sees their relationship as a partnership in which they both have opinions, and ES is expected to offer input into matters that affect them both.

Affection

So far My Dear Betsey as the tenderest affection can compensate for other inconveniences in making your estimate, you cannot give too large a credit for this article. My heart overflows with every thing for you, that admiration, esteem and love can inspire. I would this moment give the world to be near you only to kiss your sweet hand. Believe what I say to be truth and imagine what are my feelings when I say it. Aug 1790

I have no time to indulge my heart by dwelling on those assurances which it delights to be ever giving you of its admiration, of its esteem of its love. My life shall be a continued proof of the unbounded affection of your [remainder missing] 31July1780

Self-love will never per⟨mit⟩ me to be unkind to you; for are not y⟨ou the dearest⟩ part of myself? 31Aug1780

I entreat you my lovely girl to believe that my tenderness for you every day increases and that no time or circumstances can abate it. 25Sept1780

You cannot conceive my avidity for everything that would endear me more to you... 2Oct1780

[I write you so often] to indulge myself and to comply with that restless propensity of mind, which will not allow me to be happy when I am not doing something in which you are concerned. This may seem a very idle disposition in a philosopher and a soldier...and goes on to use Achilles as an example of devotion to a woman, for he had liked to have sacrificed Greece and his glory to his passion for a female captive. 15Oct1780

I feel it is essential to my happiness that the period should arrive when all my moments will be softened, enlivened, and blessed by your company. I almost pine after peace. Then, if ever I suffer you to be out of my sight, it will be an unwilling sacrifice to decorum. 27Oct1780

Prepare my charming bride to crown your lover with every thing that is tender, kind, passionate and endearing in your sex. He will bring you a heart fraught with all a fond woman can wish. 27Oct1780

Here, AH expounds on the importance of affection in their relationship. Indeed, based on his numerous statements about it, it seems of utmost importance to him that their relationship be loving, tender, and marked by deep affection.

Obedience

I know you will be ready to justify her conduct and to tell me the ill treatment she received was enough to make any girl of spirit act in the same manner. But I will one day cure you of these refractory notions about the right of resistance, (of which I foresee you will be apt to make a very dangerous application), and teach you the great advantage and absolute necessity of implicit obedience. Aug1780

When I come to Albany, I shall find means to take satisfaction for your neglect. You recollect the mode I threatened to punish you in for all your delinquen[c]ies. 8Aug1780

[Y]et [husbands] still retain the power of happiness and misery; and if you are prudent you will not trust the felicity of your future life to one in whom you have not good reason for implicit confidence. 13Oct1780

It's difficult to tell, without knowing the mode of punishment, if AH is joking in the middle quote. All of the quotes note that husbands have the "power" to decide what is judicious. But it's also notable that he's warning her of this before their marriage, and in last quote, asking her to again evaluate his suitability.

Mutual satisfaction

Tis not the vanity of excelling others, but the desire of pleasing my Betsey that dictates these wishes. In her eyes I should wish to be the first the most amiable the most accomplished of my sex; but I will make up all I want in love. 2Oct1780

For your own part, your business now is to study “the way to keep him”—which is said to be much the most difficult task of the two; though in your case I verily believe it will be an easy one, and that to succeed effectually you will only have to wish it sincerely. May I only be as successful in pleasing you, and may you be as happy as I shall ever wish to make you. 5Oct1780

Take more care of my happiness, for there is nothing your Hamilton would not do to promote yours. 13Oct1780

As with shared goals, AH places emphasis on the importance of ES's personal happiness to him, and indicates that their happiness is to be mutual.

Honor

Could I forgive Arnold for sacrificing his honor reputation and duty I could not forgive him for acting a part that must have forfeited the esteem of so fine a woman....Indeed my angelic Betsey, I would not for the world do any thing that would hazard your esteem. 'Tis to me a jewel of inestimable price & I think you may rely I shall never make you blush. 25Sept1780

The forfeiture of ES's esteem will again make an appearance in AH's very last letter to her. This quote seems to speak to the importance that ES see him as a gentleman.

Erotic attachment

A spirit entering into bliss, heaven opening upon all its faculties, cannot long more ardently for the enjoyment, than I do my darling Betsey, to taste the heaven that awaits me in your bosom. Is my language too strong? It is a feeble picture of my feelings—no words can tell you how much I love and how much I long—you will only know it when wrapt in each others arms we give and take those delicious caresses which love inspires and marriage sanctifies. 5Oct1780

AH is not only sexual attracted to her, but he believes in, and looks forward to, the blessings of marriage sanctifying their sexual activity.

Before finishing here, I’ll note that AH also began developing relationships with other members of the Schuyler family in 1780 to whom he'd also enjoy a life-long closeness. CS is in Morristown for the spring on 1780; AH and MS meet and seem to develop a fond and joking correspondence, and PS was frequently with AH during the campaign in the summer and fall and became a correspondent on more than military matters. As he writes ES, "Mention me affectionately to your Mother and to Peggy. Tell all the family I love them" [27Oct1780]. As he refers to his own father as "our father" and CS as "mama", AH demonstrates that their marriage also includes considering each other's families as their own.

I will do a separate post on the 16Sept1780 letter to Laurens, as it seems to get a lot of attention. I will also move on to discuss AH's thoughts on marriage from the 1781-1804 period using specific quotes, and the Reynolds pamphlet.

#Alexander Hamilton #Elizabeth Schuyler #marriage

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tell--me--a--story · 7 years ago

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▬ T H E B L A C K C A T ▬

EDGAR ALLAN POE

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 to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified — have tortured — have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror — to many they will seem less terrible than baroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place — some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects. From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiar of character grew with my growth, and in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had birds, gold fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat.This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point — and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered. Pluto — this was the cat’s name — was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets. Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general temperament and character — through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance — had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my At length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon me — for what disease is like Alcohol! — and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish — even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper. One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity. When reason returned with the morning — when I had slept off the fumes of the night’s debauch — I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed. In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart — one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself — to offer violence to its own nature — to do wrong for the wrong’s sake only — that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; — hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; — hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; — hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin — a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it — if such a thing were possible — even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God. On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were in flames. The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the conflagration. The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair. I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts — and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the fire — a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion of it with every minute and eager attention. The words “strange!” “singular!” and other similar expressions, excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous. There was a rope about the animal’s neck. When I first beheld this apparition — for I could scarcely regard it as less — my wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd — by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window, into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, had then with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, accomplished the portraiture as I saw it. Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my conscience, for the startling fact ‘just detailed, it did not the less fall to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and, during this period, there came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal, and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented, for another pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply its place. One night as I sat, half stupefied, in a den of more than infamy, my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or of Rum, which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking steadily at the top of this hogshead for some minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the object thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat — a very large one — fully as large as 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 of 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 it domesticated itself at 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 — its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided 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 weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill use 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 added, no doubt, 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 pertinacity 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 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 it at 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 chimaeras 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 wo! 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 Night-Mare 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 merchandize, 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 rest 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 crow-bar 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 re-laid 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 brick-work. 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 care. 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 forebore to present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to describe, or to imagine, 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; aye, 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 I breathed 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 concealment, I felt no embarrassment whatever. The officers bade me accompany them in their search. They left no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for the third or 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 allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. By the bye, 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 phrenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom.But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into 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, such as 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 tolling at the wall. It fell 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, sat 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! published by : Books@Adelaide

#tell me a story #the black cat #Edgar Allan Poe #mystery and terror

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