But I am detailing a chain of facts—and wish not to
leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day succeeding
the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception,
had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment
wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the
house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The
plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of
the fire—a fact which I attributed to its having been recently
spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and
many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion of
it with very minute and eager attention. The words
“strange!” “singular!” and other similar expressions, excited
my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas-relief
upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The
impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous.
There was a rope about the animal’s neck.
When I first beheld this apparition—for I could scarcely
regard it as less—my wonder and my terror were extreme.
But at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I
remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the
house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had been
immediately filled by the crowd—by some one of whom the
animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through
an open window, into my chamber. This had probably been
done with the view of arousing me from sleep. The falling of
other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the
substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which,
with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, had then
accomplished the portraiture as I saw it.
Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not
altogether to my conscience, for the startling fact just
detailed, it did not the less fail to make a deep impression
upon my fancy. For months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and, during this period, there came back
into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed, but was not,
remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal, and
to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now
habitually frequented, for another pet of the same species,
and of somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply
its place.