Heartbeat Of Madness

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We read Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart and follow a mind that confuses precision for sanity, stalking an old man to silence a single eye. The heartbeat builds from whisper to roar, and we watch control snap into confession.

• unreliable claims of sanity and sharpened senses
• fixation on the vulture eye and narrowing of empathy
• seven nights of ritual and false calm
• the eighth night, the heartbeat, and the kill
• dismemberment and concealment under the floor
• the police visit as performance of control
• sound as guilt made physical and public confession

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Transcript

Welcome And Story Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello. Are you tired? You will be. This is Ron Reed's boring book. Today we're reading The Tell 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 dulled 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? Hearken 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. Madmen know nothing, but you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded with that what caution with what foresight, with what disimulation 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 offer opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, that no light shone. Out. 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 would a madman had been so wise as this and then when my head as well as was well in the room I did 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 passed the night. So you see he would have been very 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 the opening and opening the door. I watched his 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 did 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 closed, 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 fastening, and the old man sprang up in bed crying, Who's that? I kept quiet 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, hearkening to the death watches in 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 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 has made a single chip. Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions, but he had found all in vain. All in vain, because death in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the 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 a spider, shot out the crevice and fell upon the vulture eye. It was open, wide open, and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness. A dull, all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones. I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person, for I had directed the ray as if by instincts precisely upon the damned spot. And I have and have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over acuteness of the senses? 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 too 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 to 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 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 seized me. The sound will be heard by a neighbor. The old man's hour had come. With a 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. I then smiled gaily to find the dead so far done, deed so far done. But for many minutes the heart beat on the muffled on with the 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 it 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 you still 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, 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 board 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 far too wary for that. A tub had caught it all. Haha. When I had made an end of these labors it was four o'clock, still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour there came a knocking at the street door. I went to open it with a light heart, for what had I now to fear? There entered three men who introduced themselves with perfect suvity as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbor during the night, suspicion of foul play had been aroused, information had been lodged at the police office, and they, the officers, had been disputed to search the premises. I smiled, for what had I to fear? I bade the gentleman welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in 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 treasure, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my confidence I caught the chairs, 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, cheerily, they chatted of familiar things, but ere long I found myself getting pale and wished them gone. My headache, I fancied a ringing in my ears, but 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, such as 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 in a high key and with violent gesticulations, but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I placed I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men, but the noise steadily increased. Oh God, what could I do? I foamed, I raged, raved, I swore. I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting and grated upon it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder, louder, louder. Still the men chatted pleasantly and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God, oh 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 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, hear, hear. It is the beating of his hideous heart. This has been Ron Reed's Boring Books. Edgar Allan Poe, The Telltale Heart. If you enjoyed this podcast and a few of my others, please like, subscribe, share, do all those things. Tell someone who desperately needs this in their life. Goodbye.