The Tell-Tale Heart

“And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense?”

“I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief --oh, no! --it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart.”

“Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen ME.”

“would a madman have been so wise as this?”

“I knew that soundwell too. It was the beating of the old man’s heart. Itincreased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates thesoldier into courage.”

“His eye was like the eye of a vulture, the eye of one of those terrible birds that watch and wait while an animal dies, and then fall upon the dead body and pull it to pieces to eat it.”

“So I am mad, you say? You should have seen how careful I was to put the body where no one could find it. First I cut off the head, then the arms and the legs. I was careful not to let a single drop of blood fall on the floor. I pulled up three of the boards that formed the floor, and put the pieces of the body there. Then I put the boards down again, care fully, so carefully that no human eye could see that they had been moved.”

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

“How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily—how calmly I can tell you the whole story.”

“The disease had sharpened my senses - not destroyed - not dulled them.”

“Madmen know nothing.”

“¿No os he dicho ya que lo que tomabais por locura no es sino un refinamiento de los sentidos?”

“Basta ya de fingir, malvados! -aullé-. ¡Confieso que lo maté! ¡Levanten esos tablones! ¡Ahí… ahí! ¡Donde está latiendo su horrible corazón!”

“Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily – how calmly I can tell you the whole story.”