When my senses returned to me in the morning - when I had slept off the effects of the alcohol - I experienced feelings half of horror, and half of remorse for my terrible act, but these feelings were somewhat weak, and my soul remained untouched by them. I again began to drink, and soon, all my memory of that horrific action was drowned.
In the meantime, the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye looked very frightful, but he no longer appeared to be in any pain. He went about the house as usual, but, as might be expected, he fled in extreme terror whenever I approached him. I had enough of my old heart in me to as to be at first saddened by his dislike of me, but this feeling gradually gave place to irritation. This is when the primitive impulses inside my heart began to take over. Who has not - a hundred times - found himself committing a wrong or evil action for no other reason than because he knows he should not? It was this violent need inside me, to do wrong for wrong's sake that urged me to continue and complete the harm I was about to inflict on the poor animal. .
One morning, in cold blood, I slipped a rope around its neck and hung from a brach of a tree - hung it with tears streaming from my eyes, and with remorse in my heart - hung it because I knew it had loved me and had never done me any wrong, and because I knew that by doing this I was committing a deadly sin that would haunt my soul forever.
On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was awakened from my sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains above my bed were in flames. The whole house was burning. It was with great difficulty that my wife, out servant, and I managed to escape with our lives. Our house was completely destroyed. My entire wealth had been burned up, and from that day on, I gave my self up to hopelessness.
I am not superstitious enough to attempt to make a connection between the hanging of the cat, and the fire, but I am detailing a list of facts, and I do not wish to leave any of them out.
