Then I heard a noise, and I knew it was the sound of human terror. He was still sitting up in the bed listening - just as I have done, night after night. During that time, I did not hear him lie down. I did not move a muscle for a whole hour. The old man sat up in bed, crying out 'Whos there?' I had my head in and was about to open the lantern, when my finger slid on a piece of metal and made a noise. On the eighth night, I was more than usually careful in opening the door. And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern just so much that a single thin ray of light fell upon the vulture eye.Īnd this I did for seven long nights - but I found the eye always closed and so it was impossible to do the work for it was not the old man who was a problem for me, but his Evil Eye. I moved it slowly, very slowly, so that I might not interfere with the old mans sleep. And every night, late at night, I turned the lock of his door and opened it – oh, so gently! And then, when I had made an opening big enough for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed that no light shone out, and then I stuck in my head. I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. You should have seen how wisely and carefully I went to work! Whenever it fell on me, my blood ran cold and so - very slowly - I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and free myself of the eye forever. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! He had the eye of a bird, a vulture - a pale blue eye, with a film over it. It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain. How, then, am I mad? Observe how healthily - how calmly I can tell you the whole story. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth.

True! Nervous - very, very nervous I had been and am! But why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses - not destroyed them.Ībove all was the sense of hearing. Today we present the short story 'The Tell-Tale Heart' by Edgar Allan Poe.

The tell tale heart about