I am not mad, and I am going to prove it. The illness sharpened my senses; it did not dull them.
I have heard things in heaven and on earth. I have heard things in hell, and I hear things in this room now. How could I be mad?
Listen to me. I will tell you how it happened, exactly, in order.
I lived with the old man, and I loved him. He never harmed me, he never insulted me, and I did not want his money.
It was because of his eye. One of his eyes was like a vulture’s: pale blue, filmed over, and the pupil never moved when it looked at anything.
When that eye fell on me, the blood froze in me, so I had to be rid of it, so that it would never look at me again.
Do not think I was angry. I was not angry, only calm, very calm, and that calm worked in me for seven nights.
Every midnight I took the lamp, opened his door, and looked in at him through the gap.
At first it did not work. The old man slept, and his eye was closed, so I could not see what I had come for.
On the eighth night I was more careful than before: my hand was on the latch before the clock struck twelve.
The lamplight fell on his face through a hair-thin gap, and then I saw it: the eye was open, and it was looking at me.
My heart drummed, but I was not afraid. My body did not move, my foot did not move, not one finger.
For a whole hour I stood there, motionless. The old man sat up, asked something into the dark, and waited for an answer that did not come.
Then he groaned, not from pain, but because he knew there was someone in the room.
I waited a long time, and there was no hurry, because the lamplight stood exactly on his eye.
Then I pressed the mattress down to the floor and lay on it. It was over at once, and it did not take long.
The old man did not move again, and the bed did not so much as shift under me.
I got up and looked at him: he was dead. My face was at the floor, and I looked for a long time at the eye I would never have to see again.
I felt no guilt, only relief. Below, between the floorboards, was its place, and I put it there.
At dawn three men knocked. They were policemen, called by a neighbour who had heard shouting.
I had not shouted, and I told them so. The sound he had heard was the old man’s, once, in the middle of the night.
I let them in, smiling. I asked about their work, and I set the chairs down exactly over the boards.
I talked with them about the night, the neighbours and the city, and all the while I thought how neatly I had worked.
Then I heard something that was not there. A soft, slow drumming, like fingers tapping under a table.
I thought my ears were playing tricks on me, so I spoke louder. The sound grew louder too.
I moved to the other end of the room, but the policemen heard nothing.
The sound came out of the boards, and it was getting faster. I could not keep from listening to it.
The policemen sat calmly and talked about their own affairs. They did not notice that the floor of the room was full of that sound.
I could not bear it any longer. I stood up and told them to pretend I was not there at all; I was not lying, I was shouting.
“Tear up the boards! It is there! It is his heart!”
The policemen raised their heads, and by then they heard it too.
It was not his heart. It was mine.
