The Tell-Tale Heart
Storyboard Text
- True! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous... but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses... not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. How, then, am I mad? How calmly I can tell you the whole story.
- “If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body... First of all I dismembered the corpse… I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye — not even his — could have detected any thing wrong. There was nothing to wash out — no stain of any kind — no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had caught all...”
- “It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night… I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that 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 for ever.”
- “...For a whole hour I did not move a muscle... He was still sitting up in the bed listening… the vulture eye. It was open — wide, wide open — and I grew furious as I gazed upon it."
- "And now 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... sound… It was the beating of the old man’s heart… It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder… He shrieked once — once only... I then smiled gaily, to find the deed... done... The old man was dead… Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart... There was no pulsation… His eye would trouble me no more.""
- “I fancied a ringing in my ears...I found that the noise was not within my ears. No doubt I now grew very pale… Why would they not be gone?… the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder... And still the men chatted pleasantly... Was it possible they heard not?... no, no! They heard!... they knew! — they were making a mockery of my horror!…”
- Villains! Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! — tear up the planks! — here, here! — it is the beating of his hideous heart!
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