Hi and welcome back to Nighty Night, bedtime stories to keep you awake. I'm your host, Rabiachaudhri. And in this week's episode,

we revisit the master, Edgar Allan Poe, with a story that might not be as familiar to many of you, but with themes that will chill you to the bone.

The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe.

The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe.

Al-M Poe. For the most wild yet most homely narrative which I'm about to pen, I neither 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 tomorrow I die, and today I would unburden my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world plainly, succinctly, 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 expound them.

To me they have presented little but horror.

To many, they will seem less terrible than Baroque.

Hereafter, perhaps some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the commonplace, some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession

of very natural causes and effects. From my infancy I was noted for the desility and humanity of my disposition.

My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions.

I was especially fond of animals and was indulged 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 cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly

be at the trouble of explaining the nature, the intensity of the gratification thus derivable.

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