[slow dramatic music] [gentle music] - [Officer] Careful there, Carey.

- [Carey] Sorry, sir.

- [Officer] We don't want to be moving anything until the boys are finished.

- [Carey] No, sir.

[slow melancholy music] - True.

Nervous.

Very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am.

How, then, am I mad?

The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them.

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, can you say I am mad?

Hearken and observe how healthily, how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

- [Officer] Gently there, you heard the sergeant.

- It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.

Object, there was none.

Passion, there was none.

I loved the old man.

He had never wronged me.

He had never given me insult.

For his gold I had no desire.

I think it was his eye, yes, it was this.

He had the eye of a vulture, a pale blue eye with a film over it.

Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold.

And so by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

Now this is the point.

You fancy me mad.

Madmen know nothing.

But you should have seen me.

You should have seen how wisely I proceeded, with what caution, with what foresight, with what dissimulation I went to work.

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

And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it oh so gently.

And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head.

[slow dramatic music] Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in.

I moved it slowly, very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep.

It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed.

[laughs] Would a madman have been so wise as this?

And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously, oh so cautiously, cautiously, for the hinges creaked, I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye.

And this I did for seven long nights, every night just at midnight.

But I found the eye always closed.

And so it was impossible to do the work for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his evil eye.

And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he has passed the night.

So you see he would have been a very profound old man indeed to suspect that every night, just at 12, I looked in upon him while he slept.

Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door.

A watch's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine.

Never before that night did I feel the extent of my own powers, of my sagacity.

I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph.

To think that there I was, opening the door little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds and thoughts.

[laughs] I fairly chuckled at the idea, and perhaps he heard me, for he moved on the bed suddenly as if startled.

Now you may think that I drew back, but no.

His room was as black as pitch with thick darkness, and so I knew that he could not see the door opening.

And so I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily.

[slow dramatic music] I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening and the old man sprang up in bed, crying out, "Who's there?"

- Who's there?

- I kept quite still and said nothing.

For a whole hour I did not move a muscle.

And in the meantime I did not hear him lie down.

He was still sitting up in bed, listening, just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall.

Presently I heard a slight groan and I knew that it was the groan of mortal terror.

It was not a groan of pain or of grief.

Oh, no, 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 before midnight when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me.

- Inspector.

- I say I knew it well.

I knew what the old man felt, and I pitied him.

I knew that he had been lying there awake ever since that first slight noise when he turned in the bed.

His fears had been growing in upon him ever since.

He'd been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not.

He had been saying to himself, "Oh, it's, only the wind in the chimney.

"It's but a mouse crossing the floor."

Or, "It is a cricket which has made a single chirp."

Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions, but he had found all in vain.

All in vain because death in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim.

[slow melancholy music] And it was the mournful influence of this unperceived shadow that caused him to feel, although he neither saw nor heard, but to feel the presence of my head within the room.

When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little, a very, very little crevice in the lantern.

So I opened it, you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily, until at length a simple dim ray, like the thread of a spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye.

It was open, wide, wide open, and I grew furious as I gazed upon it.

I saw it with perfect distinctness, all a dull blue with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones.

But I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person, for I had directed the ray as if by instinct precisely upon the damned spot.

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

And now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton.

I knew that sound well, too.

It was the beating of the old man's heart.

[heart beating] It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.

But even yet I refrained, stood still.

I scarcely breathed.

I held the lantern motionless.

I tried as steadily as I could maintain the ray upon the eye.

Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased.

It grew quicker and quicker and louder and louder every instant.

The old man's terror must have been extreme.

It grew louder, louder, and louder, and louder every moment.

Do you mark me well that I have told you that I am nervous, so I am.

[heart beating] [slow dramatic music] And now at this dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror.

[heart beating] [slow dramatic music] But even yet, I refrained for many moments and stood still.

And yet the beating of the heart grew louder, and louder, and louder yet.

I thought the heart must burst.

And then a new anxiety seized me, the sound would be heard by a neighbor.

The old man's hour had come.

[yells] With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern, I leapt into the room.

He shrieked once, once only.

In an instant I dragged him to the floor.

I pulled the heavy bed down upon him.

Smiled, I smiled gaily having found the deed so far done.

But for many minutes, the heart, it beat on with a muffled sound.

This, however, did not vex me for I knew that it could not be heard through the wall.

And at length it ceased.

The old man was dead.

I removed the bed, I examined the corpse.

Yes, he was stone, stone dead.

I placed my hand upon the heart, held it there many moments.

No pulsation.

He was stone dead.

His eye would trouble me no more.

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

The night waned, but I worked hastily and in silence.

[slow dramatic music] First of all I dismembered the corpse.

I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.

Then I took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber and deposited all between the scantlings.

Then I replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye, not even his, could have detected anything wrong.

There was nothing to wash out, no stain of any kind, no blood-spot whatever.

[laughs] I had been too wary for that.

[laughs] A tub had caught it all.

[laughs] When I had made an end to these labors, it was four o'clock, still dark as midnight.

[bell tolling] As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking- [door knocking] down at the street door.

I, I went down to open it with a light heart, for what had I now to fear?

[man humming] [door knocking] [man humming] There entered three men who introduced themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police.

A shriek had been heard by a neighbor during the night.

Suspicion of foul play had been aroused.

Information had been lodged at the police office, and they, the officers, had been deputed to search the premises.

I smiled, for what had I now to fear?

I bade the gentlemen welcome.

The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream.

The old man was absent in the country.

I took my visitors all over the house.

I bade them search, search well.

I led them, at length, to his chamber.

I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed.

In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the room.

[laughs] I desired them to sit here and rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.

The officers were satisfied.

My manner had convinced them.

I was singularly at ease.

They sat, and while I answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things.

But, ere long, I fancied myself getting pale and I wished them gone.

My head ached.

[noise throbbing] I fancied a ringing in my ears.

Still they sat, still chatted.

The ringing became more distinct.

It continued and became more distinct.

I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling, but it continued and gained definiteness, until, at length, I found that the noise was not within my ears.

No doubt I now grew very pale.

I talked more fluently and with a heightened voice.

The sound increased.

What could I do?

It was a low, dull, quick sound, much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton.

[slow dramatic music] [noise throbbing] I gasped for breath, and yet the officers heard it not.

I talked more quickly, more vehemently, but the noise steadily increased.

I arose.

I argued about trifles in a high key and with violent gesticulations, but the noise steadily increased.

Why would they not be gone?

I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of these men.

Yet the noise steadily increased.

Oh God, what could I do?

I foamed, I raved, I swore.

I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting and grated it upon the boards, but still the noise arose overall and continually increased.

It grew louder, louder, louder.

And still the men chatted pleasantly and smiled.

Was it possible that they heard not?

Almighty God, no, no.

They heard.

They knew, they suspected.

They were making a mockery of my horror.

This I thought, this I think.

But anything was better than this agony.

Anything was more tolerable than this derision.

I, I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer!

I felt that I must scream or die.

And now again, hark, louder, louder, louder, louder!

"Villains," I shrieked, "dissemble no more.

"I admit the deed.

"Here, tear up the planks.

"Here, here!

"It is the beating of his hideous heart!"

[slow dramatic music] [heart beating] [slow melancholy music] [slow melancholy music continues]