 The Tale, Tale, Heart by Edgar Allan Poe. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by ZZ Turner. The Tale, Tale, Heart by Edgar Allan Poe. True, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous, I had been and am. But why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not doled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad? Harken 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, there was none. Passion, there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye. Yes, it was this. He had the eye of a vulture. A pale blue eye with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold, and so by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever. Now this is the point. You fancy me mad? Mad men know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded, with what caution, with what foresight, with what dissimilation I went to work. I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it. Oh, so gently. And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in. I moved it slowly, very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! What a madman have been so wise as this! And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously. Oh, so cautiously, cautiously for the hinges creaked. I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights, every night just at midnight, but I found the eye always closed. And so it was impossible to do the work, for it was not the old man who vexed me but his evil eye. And every morning when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone and inquiring how he is past the night. So, you see, he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept. Upon the eighth night, I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers of my sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was opening the door little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts, I fairly chuckled at the idea, and perhaps he heard me, for he moved on the bed suddenly as if startled. Now, you may think that I drew back, but no. His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness, for the shutters were close fastened through fear of robbers. And so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily. I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern when my thumb slipped upon the tin faceting, and the old man sprang up in bed crying out, Who's there? I kept quiet still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed listening, just as I have done night after night, harkening to the death watches and the wall. Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief. Oh no! It was the low, stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening with its dreadful echo the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself, it is nothing but the wind in the chimney, it is only a mouse crossing the floor, or it is merely a cricket, which is made a single chirp. Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions, but he had found all in vain, all in vain because death and approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim, and it was the mournful influence of unperceived shadow that caused him to feel, although he neither saw nor heard to feel the presence of my head within the room. When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little, a very, very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it. You cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily, until at length a simple dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye. It was open, wide, wide open, and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness, all a dull blue with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones. But I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person, for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot. And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense? Now, I say there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury as the beating of a drum stimulates a soldier into courage. But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eye. Meantime, the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker and louder and louder every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme. It grew louder, I say, louder every moment. Do you mark me well? I have told you that I am nervous. So I am. And now, at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet for some minutes longer, I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder. I thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety sees me. The sound would be heard by a neighbor. The old man's hour had come. With the loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once, once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor and pulled the heavy bed over him. Ben smiled gaily to find the deed so far done. But for many minutes, the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me. It would not be heard through the wall. At length is ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more. If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body. The night waned and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of all, I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs. I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly that no human eye, not even his, could have detected anything wrong. There was nothing to wash out, no stain of any kind, no blood spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had caught all. When I had made an end of these labours, it was four o'clock, still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, I came knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a light heart for what had I now to fear? There entered three men who introduced themselves with perfect suavity as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbour during the night. Suspicion, a foul play had been aroused. Information had been lodged at the police office and they, the officers, had been deputed to search the premises. I smiled for what had I to fear. I bade the gentleman welcome. The shriek I said was my own and a dream. The old man I mentioned was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search, search well. I led them at length to his chamber. I showed them his treasures, secure and disturbed. And the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the room and desired them here to rest from their fatigues. While I myself in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim. The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them I was singularly at ease. They sat and while I answered cheerily they chatted of familiar things. But ere long I felt myself getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached and I fancied a ringing in my ears. But still they sat and still chatted. The ringing became more distinct. It continued and became more distinct. I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling but it continued and gained definiteness until at length I found that the noise was not within my ears. No doubt I now grew very pale but I talked more fluently and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased and what could I do? It was a low dull quick sound. Much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly, more vehemently, but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles and a high key and with violent gesticulations. But the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides as I've excited to fury by the observations of the men. But the noise steadily increased. Oh God, what could I do? I foamed, I raved, I swore. I swung the chair upon which I'd been sitting and grated it upon the boards. But the noise arose overall and continually increased. It grew louder, louder, louder. And still the men chatted pleasantly and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God, no, no, they heard. They suspected, they knew. They were making a mockery of my horror. This I thought and this I think. But anything was better than this agony. Anything was more tolerable than this derision. I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer. I felt that I must scream or die. And now again hark, louder, louder, louder, louder. Villains, I shrieked, dissemble no more. I admit the deed, tear up the planks here, here. It is the beating of his hideous heart. End of The Tale, Tale, Heart. The Terrible Old Man by H. P. Lovecraft. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Terrible Old Man by H. P. Lovecraft. It was the design of Angelo Ricci and Joe Chanick and Manuel Silva to call on The Terrible Old Man. This old man dwells all alone in a very ancient house on Water Street near the sea and is reputed to be both exceedingly rich and exceedingly feeble, which forms a situation very attractive to men of the profession of messers Ricci, Chanick, and Silva, for that profession was nothing less dignified than robbery. The inhabitants of Kingsport say and think many things about The Terrible Old Man, which generally keep him safe from the attention of gentlemen like Ricci and his colleagues, despite the almost certain fact that he hides a fortune of indefinite magnitude somewhere about his musty and venerable abode. He is, in truth, a very strange person, believed to have been a captain of East India clipperships in his day. So old no one can remember when he was young and so taciturn that few know his real name. Among the knurled trees in the front yard of his aged and neglected place he maintains a strange collection of large stones, oddly grouped and painted so that they resemble the idols in some obscure eastern temple. This collection frightens away most of the small boys who love to taunt The Terrible Old Man about his long white hair and beard, or to break the small-pained windows of his dwelling with wicked missiles. But there are other things which frighten the older and more curious folk who sometimes steal up to the house to peer in through the dusty pains. These folks say that on a table in a bare room on the ground floor are many peculiar bottles. In each, a small piece of lead suspended pendulum-wise from a string, and they say that the Terrible Old Man talks to these bottles, addressing them by such names as Jack, Scarface, Long Tom, Spanish Joe, Peters, and Mate Ellis, and that whenever he speaks to a bottle, the little lead pendulum within makes certain definite vibrations as if in answer. Those who have watched the tall, lean, Terrible Old Man in these peculiar conversations do not watch him again, but Angelo Ricci and Joe Chanick and Manuel Silva were not of Kingsport blood. They were of that new and heterogeneous alien stock which lies outside the charmed circle of New England life and traditions, and they saw in The Terrible Old Man merely a tottering, almost helpless greybeard who could not walk without the aid of his knotted cane and whose thin, weak hands shook pitifully. They were really quite sorry in their way for the lonely, unpopular old fellow whom everybody shunned and at whom all the dogs barked singularly. But business is business, and to a robber whose soul is in his profession, there is a lure and a challenge about a very old and very feeble man who has no account at the bank, and who pays for his few necessities at the village store with Spanish gold and silver minted two centuries ago. Messers Ricci, Chanick, and Silva selected the night of April 11th for their call. Mr. Ricci and Mr. Silva were to interview the poor old gentleman, whilst Mr. Chanick waited for them in their presumably metallic burden with a covered motor car in Ship Street by the gate in the tall rear wall of their host's grounds. Desire to avoid needless explanations in case of unexpected police intrusions prompted these plans for a quiet and unauthenticious departure. As pre-arranged, the three adventurers started out separately in order to prevent any evil-minded suspicions afterward. Messers Ricci and Silva met in Water Street by the old man's front gate. And though they did not like the way the moon shone down upon the painted stones through the budding branches of the gnarled trees, they had more important things to think about than mere idle superstition. They feared it might be unpleasant work making the old man loquacious regarding his hoarded gold and silver. For aged sea captains are notably stubborn and perverse. Still, he was very old and very feeble, and there were two visitors. Messers Ricci and Silva were experienced in the art of making unwilling persons valuable, and the screams of a weak and exceptionally venerable man can be easily muffled. So, they moved up to the one-layed window and heard the terrible old man talking childishly to his bottles with pendulums. Then they donned masks and knocked politely at the weather-stained oaken door. The waiting seemed very long to Mr. Chanak as he fidgeted relentlessly in the covered motorcar by the terrible old man's back gate in Ship Street. He was more than ordinarily tender-hearted, and he did not like the hideous screams he had heard in the ancient house just after the hour appointed for the deed. Had he not told his colleagues to be as gentle as possible with the pathetic old sea captain? Very nervously, he watched that narrow oaken gate in the high-end ivy-clad stone wall. Recently, he consulted his watch and wondered at the delay. Had the old man died before revealing where his treasure was hidden and had a thorough search become necessary? Mr. Chanak did not like to wait so long in the dark in such a place. Then he sensed a soft tread or tapping on the walk inside the gate, heard a gentle thumbling at the rusty latch, and saw the narrow, heavy door swing inward. And in the pallid glow of the single dim streetlamp, he strained his eyes to see what his colleagues had brought out of that sinister house which loomed so close behind. But when he looked, he did not see what he had expected. For his colleagues were not there at all, but only the terrible old man leaning quietly on his knotted cane and smiling hideously. Mr. Chanak had never before noticed the color of that man's eyes. Now he saw that they were yellow. Little things make considerable excitement in little towns, which is the reason that Kingsport people talked all that spring and summer about the three unidentifiable bodies, horribly slashed as with many cutlasses, and horribly mangled as by the tread of many cruel bootheels which the tide washed in. And some people even spoke of things as trivial as the deserted motor car found in Ship Street, or certain especially in human cries, probably of a stray animal or migratory bird, heard in the night by wakeful citizens. But in this idle village gossip, the terrible old man took no interest at all. He was by nature reserved, and when one is aged and feeble, one's reserve is doubly strong. Besides, so ancient a sea captain must have witnessed scores of things much more stirring in the far-off days of his unremembered youth. End of The Terrible Old Man The Tree by H.P. Lovecraft This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. On a verdant slope of Mount Menelaus in Arcadia, there stands an olive grove about the ruins of Avila. Close by is a tomb, once beautiful with the sublimest sculptures, but now fallen into as great decay as the house. At one end of that tomb, its curious roots displacing the time-stained blocks of Panhelec marble, grows an unnaturally large olive tree of oddly repellent shape. So like to some grotesque man, or death-distorted body of a man, that the countryfolk fear to pass it at night when the moon shines faintly through the crooked boughs. Mount Menelaus is a chosen haunt of dreaded pan, whose queer companions are many, and simple swains believe that the tree must have some hideous kinship to these weird panisi. But an old beekeeper who lives in the neighboring cottage told me a different story. Many years ago, when the hillside villa was new and resplendent, there dwelt within it the two sculptors Kaelos and Mucides. From Lydia to Neapolis, the beauty of their work was praised, and none dared say that the one excelled the other in skill. The hermes of Kaelos stood in a marble shrine in Corinth, and the palace of Mucides surmounted a pillar in Athens near the Parthenon. All men paid homage to Kaelos and Mucides, and marveled that no shadow of artistic jealousy cooled the warmth of their brotherly friendship. But though Kaelos and Mucides dwelt in unbroken harmony, their natures were not alike. Whilst Mucides reveled by night amidst the urban gayities of Tegia, Seos would remain at home, stealing away from the sight of his slaves into the cool recesses of the olive grove. There he would meditate upon the visions that filled his mind, and there devised the forms of beauty which later became immortal in breathing marble. Idolfolk indeed said that Kaelos conversed with the spirits of the grove, and that his statues were but images of the fawns and dryads he met there, for he patterned his work after no living model. So famous were Kaelos and Mucides, that none wondered when the tyrant of Syracuse sent them to deputies to speak of the costly statue of Tish which he had planned for his city. Of great size and cunning workmanship the statue must be, for it was to form a wonder of nations and a goal of travelers. Exalted beyond thought would be he whose work should gain acceptance, and for this honour Kaelos and Mucides were invited to compete. Their brotherly love was well known, and the crafty tyrants surmised that each, instead of concealing his work from the other, would offer aid and advice, this charity producing two images of unheard of beauty, the lovelier of which would eclipse even the dreams of poets. With joy the sculptors hailed the tyrant's offer, so then the days that followed their slaves heard the ceaseless blows of chisels. Not from each other did Kaelos and Mucides conceal their work, but the sight was for them alone. Saving theirs, no eyes beheld the two divine figures, released by skillful blows from the rough blocks that imprisoned them since the world began. At night, as of yore, Mucides sought the banquet halls of Tigia, whilst Kaelos wandered alone in the olive grove. But as time passed men observed a want of gaiety in the once sparkling Mucides. It was strange, they said amongst themselves, that depression should thus seize one with so great a chance to win art's loftiest reward. Many months passed, yet in the sour face of Mucides came nothing of the sharp expectancy which the situation should arouse. Then one day Mucides spoke of the illness of Kaelos, after which none marveled again at his sadness, since the sculptor's attachment was known to be deep and sacred. Subsequently many went to visit Kaelos, and indeed noticed the pallor of his face. But there was about him a happy serenity which made his glance more magical than the glance of Mucides, who was clearly distracted with anxiety and who pushed aside all the slaves in his eagerness to feed and wait upon his friend with his own hands. Hidden behind heavy curtains stood the two unfinished figures of Tish, little touched of late by the sick man and his faithful attendant. As Kaelos grew inexplicably weaker and weaker, despite the ministrations of puzzled physicians and of his assiduous friend, he desired to be carried off into the grove which he so loved. There he would ask to be left alone, as if wishing to speak with unseen things. Mucides ever granted his requests, though his eyes filled with visible tears at the thought that Kaelos should care more for the fawns and the dry-eds than for him. At last the engineer and Kaelos discoursed of things beyond this life. Mucides, weeping, promised him a sepulcher more lovely than the tomb of Mausolus, but Kaelos spayed him speak no more of marble glories. Only one wish now haunted the mind of the dying man, that twigs from certain olive trees in the grove be buried by his resting place, close to his head. And one night, sitting alone in the darkness of the olive grove, Kaelos died. Beautiful beyond words was the marble sepulcher which stricken Mucides carved for his beloved friend. None but Kaelos himself could have fashioned such bas-reliefs, wherein were displayed all the splendors of Elysium. Nor did Mucides fail to bury close to Kaelos's head the olive twigs from the grove. As the first violence of Mucides' grief gave place to resignation, he labored with diligence upon his figure of Tish. All honor was now his, since the tyrant of Syracuse would have the work of non-save him or Kaelos. His task proved event for his emotion, and he toiled more steadily each day, shunning the gayities he once had relished. Meanwhile his evenings were spent beside the tomb of his friend, where a young olive tree had sprung up near the sleeper's head. So swift was the growth of this tree, and so strange was its form, that all who beheld it exclaimed in surprise, and Mucides seemed at once fascinated and repelled. Three years after the death of Kaelos, Mucides dispatched a messenger to the tyrant, and it was whispered in the Agorat Tegia that the mighty statue was finished. By this time the tree by the tomb had attained amazing proportions, exceeding all other trees of its kind, and sending out a singularly heavy branch above the apartment in which Mucides labored. As many visitors came to view the prodigious tree as to admire the art of the sculptor, so that Mucides was seldom alone, but he did not mind his multitude of guests. Indeed, he seemed to dread being alone now that his absorbing work was done. The bleak mountain wind, sighing through the olive grove in the tomb tree, had an uncanny way of forming vaguely articulate sounds. The sky was dark on the evening that the tyrant's emissaries came to Tegia. It was definitely known that they had come to bear away the great image of Tish and bring eternal honor to Mucides, so their reception by the proxonoi was of great warmth. As the night wore on, a violent storm of wind broke over the crest of Menelaus, and the men from far Syracuse were glad that they rested snugly in the town. They talked of their illustrious tyrant, and of the splendor of his capital, and exalted in the glory of the statue which Mucides had wrought for him. And then the man of Tegia spoke of the goodness of Mucides, and of his heavy grief for his friend, and how not even the coming laurels of art could console him in the absence of Calos, who might have worn those laurels instead. Of the tree which grew by the tomb near the head of Calos, they also spoke, and both the Syracusans and the Arcadians prayed to Iolos. In the sunshine of the morning, the proxonoi led the tyrant's messengers up the slope to the abode of the sculptor, but the night wind had done strange things. Slaves' cries ascended from a scene of desolation, and no more amidst the olive grove rose the gleaming colonnades of that vast hall wherein Mucides had dreamed and toiled. Lone and shaken mourned the humble courts and the lower walls, for upon the sumptuous greater parry's style had fallen squarely the heavy overhanging bow of the strange new tree, reducing the stately poem in marble with odd completeness to a mound of unsightly ruins. Strangers and Tegians stood aghast, looking from the wreckage to the great sinister tree whose aspect was so weirdly human and whose roots reached so queerly into the sculptured sepulcher of Calos, and their fear and dismay increased when they searched the fallen apartment, for of the gentle Mucides and of the marvelously fashioned image of Tish, no trace could be discovered. Amidst such stupendous ruin only chaos dwelt, and the representatives of the two cities left disappointed. Cerecusans that they had no statue to bear home, Tegians that they had no artist to crown. However, the Cerecusans obtained after a while a very splendid statue in Athens, and the Tegians consoled themselves by erecting in the agra a marble temple commemorating the gifts, virtues, and brotherly piety of Mucides. But the olive grove still stands, as does the tree growing over the tomb of Calos. And the old beekeeper told me that sometimes the boughs whisper to one another in the night wind, saying over again, oida, oida, I know, I know, end of the tree.