The Tell-Tale Heart, Video by Annette Jung

Nervous. Very dreadfully nervous I had been. But why would you say that I am mad? And observe how healthily how calmly I can tell you the whole story. It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain. But once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object it is not. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. I think it was his. I. Yes. It was this. He had the eye of a vulture. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold. And so, by degrees, I made up my mind. Your cake for life of your own. You fancy me mad. Mad men know nothing. But you should have seen me. With what dissimulation I went to work. Every night about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it. You would have loved to see how cunningly I proceeded. Would a madman have been so wise as this? But I found the eye always closed. And so it was impossible to do the work. What was not the old man who vexed me. But his evil eye. Then, one night, I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. Perhaps he heard me. Now you may think that I drew back, but no. His rule. Was black as pitch with a thick darkness. And so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door. Who is there? He cried out. It was the groan of mortal terror. Listen. A beating of the old man's heart. And now a new anxiety sees me. The sound would be heard by a neighbor. The old man's all I had to come. He was stoned. Stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more. You still think me, man. You will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body. A shriek had been heard by a neighbor during the night. Suspicion of foul play had been aroused. What had I to fear? The shriek, I said, was my own in a bad dream. The old man I mentioned was absent. In the country, I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search well. I led them at length to his chamber. And desired them here to rest from their fatigues. While I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seed upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim. My manner had convinced them, I was singularly at ease. They sat and chatted familiar things. But he longed. I felt myself getting paid. And wished them gone. I arose and argued about trifles in a high key and with violent gesticulations. Why wouldn't it not be gone? Oh God. What could I do? I knew I ran. I swore. Was it possible they heard nothing. Almighty God. No, no racist. They knew indeed they knew. They were making a mockery of my horror. This, I thought. But anything was better than this agony. Anything was more tolerable than this derision. I felt I must scream on die. I shrieked. It is the PG of this hideous heart.