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of the good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole
intimates--the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of
my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind;
while, from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury
to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas!
was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.
One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the cellar
of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The cat
followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong,
exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an axe, and forgetting, in my
wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a
blow at the animal which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal
had it descended as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of
my wife. Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal,
I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She
fell dead upon the spot, without a groan.
This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with
entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I knew that I
could not remove it from the house, either by day or by night, without
the risk of being observed by the neighbors. Many projects entered
my mind. At one period I thought of cutting the corpse into minute
fragments, and destroying them by fire. At another, I resolved to dig
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