But my disease grew upon me—for what disease is
like Alcohol!—and at length even Pluto, who was now
becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish—even
Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.
One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one
of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my
presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he
inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The
fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no
longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight
from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, ginnurtured,
thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took from my
waistcoat-pocket a penknife, opened it, grasped the poor
beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from
the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the
damnable atrocity.
When reason returned with the morning—when I had
slept off the fumes of the night’s debauch—I experienced a
sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of
which I had been guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and
equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again
plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory
of the deed.
In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of
the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but
he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the
house as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme
terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as
to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a
creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling soon
gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and
irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS.