TRUE! – nervous – very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; butwhy will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses –not destroyed – not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearingacute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard manythings in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how health-ily – how calmly I can tell you the whole story.It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but onceconceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passionthere was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He hadnever 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 filmover 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, andthus rid myself of the eye forever.Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. Butyou should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded–with what caution –with what foresight –with what dissimulation Iwent to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the wholeweek before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned thelatch of his door and opened it –oh so gently! And then, when I hadmade an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, allclosed, closed, so that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head.
