My entire
      worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself
      thenceforward to despair. I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of
      cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. 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 were
      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 _bas 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 apparition—for I could scarcely regard
      it as less—my 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
      pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with
      which to supply its place. One night as I sat, half stupefied, 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. I continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go home, the
      animal evinced a disposition to accompany me. I permitted it to
      do so; occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. When
      it reached the house it domesticated itself at once, and became
      immediately a great favorite with my wife. For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. This was just the reverse of what I had anticipated; but—I know
      not how or why it was—its evident fondness for myself rather
      disgusted and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust
      and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided the
      creature; a certain sense of shame, and the remembrance of my
      former deed of cruelty, preventing me from physically abusing it. I did not, for some weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill use
      it; but gradually—very gradually—I came to look upon it with
      unutterable loathing, and to flee silently from its odious
      presence, as from the breath of a pestilence. What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the
      discovery, on the morning after I brought it home, that, like
      Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes. This
      circumstance, however, only endeared it to my wife, who, as I
      have already said, possessed, in a high degree, that humanity of
      feeling which had once been my distinguishing trait, and the
      source of many of my simplest and purest pleasures. With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself
      seemed to increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity
      which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend. Whenever I sat, it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon
      my knees, covering me with its loathsome caresses. If I arose to
      walk it would get between my feet and thus nearly throw me down,
      or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress, clamber, in
      this manner, to my breast. At such times, although I longed to
      destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing, partly
      by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly—let me confess it at
      once—by absolute dread of the beast. This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil—and yet I
      should be at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am almost
      ashamed to own—yes, even in this felon’s cell, I am almost
      ashamed to own—that the terror and horror with which the animal
      inspired me, had been heightened by one of the merest chimaeras
      it would be possible to conceive. My wife had called my
      attention, more than once, to the character of the mark of white
      hair, of which I have spoken, and which constituted the sole
      visible difference between the strange beast and the one I had
      destroyed. The reader will remember that this mark, although
      large, had been originally very indefinite; but, by slow
      degrees—degrees nearly imperceptible, and which for a long time
      my reason struggled to reject as fanciful—it had, at length,
      assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline.