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Файл:Mystery Greats (original mystery and crime stories). Учебное пособие
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11
Edgar Allan Poe
1809–1849
The saddest and the strangest figure in American literary history is that of Edgar
Allan Poe. Few writers have lived a life so full of struggle and disappointment, and
none have lived and died more completely out of sympathy with their times. His life
has been made the subject of minute and prolonged investigation, yet there are still
periods in his history that have not been satisfactorily cleared up. And the widest
differences of opinion have existed as to his place and his achievements. But there
are few today who will not readily concede to him a place among the foremost writers of America, whether in prose or in verse, and there do not want those who account him one of the two or three writers of indisputable genius that America has
produced.
Poe was born at Boston, 19 January, 1809, the son of actor parents of small
means and of romantic proclivities. Before the end of his third year he was left an
orphan, his mother dying in wretched poverty at Richmond, Virginia, 8 December,
1811, and his father a few weeks later. He was promptly taken under the protection
of a prosperous tobacco exporter of Richmond, John Allan, in whose family he
lived. In the summer of 1815 he went with his foster-father to England, and for the
next five year he lived in London, attending first a boarding school. On his return to
Richmond in the summer of 1820, Poe entered an academy.
The year 1826 Poe spent as a student at the University of Virginia. At the end of
the year, however, because of his having accumulated gambling debts of some twenty-five hundred dollars, he was withdrawn from college; and with the beginning of
the next year he was placed by his adoptive father in his counting-house in Richmond. But he had small leaning that way; besides, he had been disappointed in a
12
love-affair, having become engaged before going to college to Miss Sarah Elmira
Royster, of Richmond, who, in consequence of a misunderstanding, had jilted him in
his absence and had betrothed herself to another. Smarting under this disappointment and completely out of sympathy with the life marked out for him by his fosterfather, Poe now determined to run away; and at some time in March, 1827, he left
Richmond for parts unknown. In May he appeared at Boston, and there, 26 May, he
was mustered into the army of the United States. In the spring or summer of 1827 he
brought out at Boston his first volume of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems, a collection of ten fugitive pieces, all brief save one, and all plainly imitative either of
Byron or of Moore.
In April 1829, Poe was discharged from the army, a substitute having been provided, and efforts were made to obtain for him an appointment to West Point. In December 1829 he had published at Baltimore a second volume of poems, made up
largely of his earlier pieces revised, but containing his long poem Al Aaraaf, the
most ambitious and the most promising of his earlier productions. In April 1831 a
third volume of his poems appeared, containing some of the best work that he ever
did, but in a state much inferior to that in which he ultimately left it.
During the ensuing four years Poe seems to have made his home in Baltimore,
though it is impossible to trace his history with complete certainty throughout this
period. Much of his time, no doubt, was given to his prose tales, five of which appeared in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier, in 1832, and a sixth–for which he won
a prize of a hundred dollars–in the Baltimore Saturday Visitor in October, 1833; and
he also worked at intervals during these years on a play, Politian, which, though
published in part, was never completed.
In the summer of 1835, Poe went to Richmond to assist in the editing of The
Southern Literary Messenger. In May, 1836, relying on his suddenly acquired prosperity, he married. His wife was Virginia Clemm, a child of thirteen and the daughter of a paternal aunt, in whose home he had lived for a time in Baltimore.
The next six years (1838–1844) he spent in Philadelphia, working as associate
editor in several magazines. During his later years in Philadelphia, moreover, his
weakness for drink had grown on him, and he had as a result lost many of his
friends; his wife, too, frail from childhood, had become an invalid in 1841 or in
1842; and so, early in 1844, the poet concluded to seek a new field.
At the end of January 1845 appeared in the New York Evening Mirror, on which
he had held a minor editorial position for several months, The Raven; and he became
at once the most talked of man of letters in America. In the summer he published a
new volume of his tales, and in the fall, a collected edition of his poems, The Raven
and Other Poems.
Early in 1847 the poet‟s wife died, and throughout the year, as indeed during the
preceding year, the family suffered keenly from the pinch of poverty. The year 1848
saw the culmination of two unhappy love-affairs–first, with Mrs. Shew, who had
nursed the poet through a spell of illness following the death of his wife, and then
13
with Mrs. Whitman, the Rhode Island poetess; and this year also witnessed the publication of his Eureka, a philosophical disquisition on the origin and composition of
the universe.
The year 1849 opened auspiciously for the poet, during the first half he wrote at
least one new tale, and several new poems, including the lines For Annie, Eldorado,
a revised and much enlarged version of The Bells, and the last of his poems, Annabel Lee. In the summer of 1849 he went to Richmond, where he renewed his addresses to the sweetheart of his boyhood, Miss Royster, now the widow Mrs. Shelton and wealthy, and they became engaged for a second time. Late in September Poe
left Richmond for the North, intending to bring his mother-in-law, who remained
loyal to him throughout the years, to the South for the marriage; but at Baltimore he
was induced to break a temperance pledge that he had made in the summer, and as a
result he fell into excesses from the effects of which he died 7 October, 1849. He
lies buried in the churchyard of Westminster Presbyterian Church, Baltimore.
14
THE BLACK CAT
By Edgar Allan Poe
Part I
FOR the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I nei-
1
ther 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 unburthen1 my soul. My immediate
purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly2, 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 expound3 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 perceive4, in the circumstances I detail with
awe5, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.
From my infancy I was noted for the docility6 and humanity of my disposition7.
2
My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous8 as to make me the jest9 of my
companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged10 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 cherished11 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 uncongeni-
3
al12 with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity
of procuring13 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 sa-
4
gacious 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 disguise14. 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.
5Pluto – 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.
15
Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my gener-
6
al 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 scruple15
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 peevish16 – even Pluto began to experience the effects of
my ill temper.
7 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 inflicted17 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 fiendish18 malevolence19,
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 shudder20, while I pen the damnable
atrocity.
When reason returned with the morning – when I had slept off the fumes of the
8
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 feeble21 and equivocal feeling,
and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged22 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,
9
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, fled23 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 PERVERSENESS24. 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
16
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 jeopardize25 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
10
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 conflagration26. The destruction was complete. My entire
worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward27 to despair.
11I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity28. 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 was 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 has 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 apparition29 – for I could scarcely regard it as less – my
12
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
17
pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply
its place.
13One 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.
18
Vocabulary
1.
unburden **verb [transitive]
unburden yourself
to tell someone about your problems so that you feel less worried about
2.
succinct adjective FORMAL
– succinctly adverb
expressed in a very short but clear way:a succinct set of instructions
3.
expound verb [intransitive or transitive] VERY FORMAL
expound on/upon
to explain something or express your opinion about it in detail
4.
perceive verb [transitive]
1 [often passive] to understand or think about something in a particular
way: perceive someone/something as something/ perceive someone/something to be something
a perceived advantage/need/threat (=one that people think is real):
The most important problem is the perceived threat to public health.
2 FORMAL to notice or realize something:
He quickly perceived the truth.
perceive that: The doctor had perceived that something was troubling
her.
5.
Awe noun [uncount]
in awe /be/stand in awe of someone
a feeling of great respect and admiration, often combined with fear.
6.
docile adjective
docility noun [uncount]
well-behaved, quiet, and easy to control
Ann was a shy docile child.
7.
disposition noun
1 [singular] the way that someone normally thinks and behaves, that
shows what type of person they are:
He is not known for having a warm and friendly disposition.
of a nervous disposition:
This film is not suitable for viewers of a nervous disposition.
2 [singular] a tendency to behave in a certain way:
a disposition towards criminal behaviour
have/show a disposition to do something
8.
conspicuous adjective
1 very noticeable or easy to see, especially because of being unusual or
different:
She might have felt less conspicuous if there had been other women there
too.
19
– opposite INCONSPICUOUS
2 FORMAL very great: used for emphasizing how good or bad something is:
a conspicuous success/failure
9.
jest noun [count] OLD-FASHIONED
a JOKE
in jest OLD-FASHIONED
if you say something in jest, you do not mean it seriously
10.
indulge verb [intransitive or transitive]
to allow yourself to have or do something that you enjoy
11.
cherish verb [transitive]
1 to keep something pleasant in your mind for a long time
2 to look after someone or something because you love them very much
3 to think that something is very important and to wish to keep it
12.
uncongenial adjective FORMAL
unfriendly or unpleasant
13.
procure verb FORMAL[transitive]
to obtain something, especially with effort or difficulty
14.
disguise noun [count or uncount]
something that hides what something really is, especially by making it
seem better than it is:His cheerful manner is a disguise that hides the
pain.
in disguise: The more artistic films are dismissed as 'pornography in disguise'.
15.
scruple noun [count usually plural]
a moral principle that prevents you from doing something you think is
bad
She had no scruples about eavesdropping on conversations.
16.
peevish adjective
easily annoyed, especially by things that are not important
17.
inflict verb [transitive]
to cause something unpleasant to happen
18.
fiendish adjective
1 a fiendish plan or idea is very clever but cruel
2 a fiendish problem or question is very difficult to solve or deal with
3 very evil:
a fiendish grin
19.
malevolent adjective
showing that you want to do something bad to someone:
a malevolent look/smile
– malevolence noun [uncount]
– malevolently adverb
20
20.
shudder verb [intransitive]
if you shudder, your body suddenly shakes, for example because you
suddenly feel cold or frightened
21.
feeble adjective
1 physically weak, especially because you are old or ill
2 not strong enough to be seen or heard clearly:
a feeble light/voice
3 not good enough to achieve the intended result:
22.
plunge verb [intransitive or transitive]
to move quickly in an uncontrolled way, or to make someone or something move in this way
23.
flee (past tense and past participle fled / B fled /) verb [intransitive or
transitive]
to escape from a dangerous situation or place very quickly:
Earthquake victims have been forced to flee their homes.
Police caught up with one of the gang, but the other three fled.
24.
perverse adjective
perversely adverb
perverseness noun [uncount]
determined to behave in an unreasonable way, especially by doing the
opposite of what is expected or wanted
25.
jeopardize verb [transitive]
to risk damaging or destroying something important
26.
conflagration noun [count] FORMAL
1 a very large fire that causes a lot of damage
2 a situation in which there is a lot of violence or destruction
27.
thenceforward adverb LITERARY
starting from a particular period of time
28.
atrocity noun [count or uncount]
a cruel and violent act, often in a war
29.
apparition noun [count]
1 FORMAL a strange image or creature that someone sees
2 HUMOROUS someone who looks very strange or unusual
Phrasal verbs, collocations, idioms and word combinations
1.
Procure v
Procure something for someone/something: She asked him to procure
visas for her family.
Procure someone something: He had endeavoured to procure them some
assistance with their luggage.
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