You are not going to believe this story. But it is a true story, as true as I sit here writing it—as true as I will die in the morning. Yes, this story ends with my end, with my death tomorrow.
I have always been a kind and loving person—everyone will tell you this. They will also tell you that I have always loved animals more than anything. When I was a little boy, my family always had many different animals round the house. As I grew up, I spent most of my time with them.
I married when I was very young, and I was happy to find that my wife loved all of our animal friends as much as I did. We had all sorts of birds, goldfish, a fine dog, and a cat.
The cat was a very large and beautiful animal. He was black, black all over, and very intelligent. He was so intelligent that my wife often laughed about what some people believe; some people believe that all black cats are evil, enemies in a cat's body.
Pluto—this was the cat's name—was my favourite. It was always I who gave him his food, and he followed me everywhere. For years, he and I lived happily together, the best of friends.
But during those years I was slowly changing. It was that evil enemy of Man called Drink who was changing me. I grew more and more selfish. I was often suddenly angry about unimportant things. I began to use bad language, most of all with my wife. I even hit her sometimes. And by that time, I was often doing horrible things to our animals. I hit all of them—but never Pluto. But my illness was getting worse—oh yes, drink is an illness! Soon I began to hurt my dear Pluto too.
I remember that night very well. I came home late, full of drink again. I could not understand why Pluto was not pleased to see me. The cat was staying away from me. I caught him and picked him up, holding him strongly. He was afraid of me and bit my hand.
Suddenly, I was not myself any more. Someone else was in my body: someone evil, and mad with drink! I took my knife from my pocket, held the poor animal by his neck and cut out one of his eyes.
The next morning, my mind was full of pain and horror when I woke up. I was deeply sorry. But drink soon helped me to forget.
Slowly the cat got better. There was now only an ugly dry hole where the eye once was. He began to go round the house as usual again. He never came near me now, of course, and he ran away when I went too close.
I knew he didn't love me any more. At first I was sad. Then, slowly, I started to feel angry, and I did another terrible thing . . .
I had to do it—I could not stop myself. I did it with a terrible sadness in my heart—because I knew it was evil. And that was why I did it—yes! I did it because I knew it was evil. What did I do? I caught the cat and hung him by his neck from a tree until he was dead.
That night I woke up suddenly—my bed was on fire. I heard people outside shouting, 'Fire! Fire!' Our house was burning! I, my wife and our servant were lucky to escape. We stood and watched as the house burned down to the ground.
There was nothing left of the building the next morning. All the walls fell down during the night, except one - a wall in the middle of the house. I realized why this wall did not burn: because there was new plaster on it. The plaster was still quite wet.
I was surprised to see a crowd of people next to the wall. They were talking, and seemed to be quite excited. I went closer and looked over their shoulders. I saw a black shape in the new white plaster. It was the shape of a large cat, hanging by its neck.
I looked at the shape with complete horror. Several minutes passed before I could think clearly again. I had to know why it was there.
I remembered hanging the cat in the garden of the house next door. During the fire the garden was full of people. Probably, someone cut the dead cat from the tree and threw it through the window—to try and wake me. The falling walls pressed the animal's body into the fresh plaster. The cat burned completely, leaving the black shape in the new plaster. Yes, I was sure that was what happened.
But I could not forget that black shape for months. I even saw it in my dreams. I began to feel sad about losing the animal. So I began to look for another one. I looked mostly in the poor parts of our town where I went drinking. I searched for another black cat, of the same size and type as Pluto.
One night, as I sat in a dark and dirty drinking-house, I noticed a black object on top of a cupboard, near some bottles of wine. I was surprised when I saw it. 'I looked at those bottles a few minutes ago,' I thought, 'and I am sure that object was not there before . . .'
I got up, and went to see what it was. I put my hand up, touched it, and found that it was a black cat - a very large one, as large as Pluto. He looked like Pluto too - in every way but one: Pluto did not have a white hair anywhere on his body; this cat had a large white shape on his front.
He got up when I touched him, and pressed the side of his head against my hand several times. He liked me. This was the animal I was looking for! He continued to be very friendly and later, when I left, he followed me into the street. He came all the way home with me— we now had another house - and came inside. He immediately jumped up on to the most comfortable chair and went to sleep. He stayed with us, of course. He loved both of us and very soon he became my wife's favourite animal.