Dans Il Noir (Cask of Amontillado II)

I awoke from my slumber with such a terrible chill. "Spirits be-gone!" said I as an unconcious gesture to reassure myself that my voice could command the haunts in these walls. The plague-some whispers of the wind through rattaling barren tree limbs seemed to further hieghten my current agitation. Gritting my teeth, I arose slowly into my robe and bid adieu to my slumbering wife with a soft peck to her forehead. I took some time lighting the lantern, what with the conspiritorial breezes blowing against me from every direction, as I tried to harbor the wick from mother nature's icy breath. "Ah, alas," I thought as the flame jumped and danced upon the tip of the wick. I stumbled foreward, though my guts wrenched with ill boding.

My bare feet, reddened and numb, froze with every step on the stone floor. Cautiously, made I my way down barren halls and empty chambers, down through the kitchen doorway to the Cat-a-Combs. The dark murky night hung thick there. There before me, a pool of blackness sapped all the light from my lantern. My eyes percieved nothingness. "What trickery is this?" I loudly whispered in anger and surprise. Hesitantly, I lifted the lantern in hand and thrust it through the hellish threshold to my elbows length. Now having been an occupant of this estate since my birth, I knew every remote detail of my home. This, however, was no detail known to myself, or my ancestors. The lantern, as well as my forearm, was swallowed in the murky darkness as deep as my soul, and was no longer visible to my eyes.

Any of my servants or family would have turned and fled at such a sight, I would have as well but felt a calling pushing me foreward. I knew I must proceed and did so. Blind as Luchesi is bland, I headed into the gloomy pool. I felt my way through wet and mossy stones down to the chamber at the base of the steps. My fingers darted across cobbles and mortar, searching for the torches I knew to be ornamenting the walls. My hand finally found purchase and clasped around the sconce; I dragged it from its web-covered rusty clamp, scattering spiders and other such loathsome creatures about. "Pray I to you, blood of my blood, let this shedlight in such a dark and dire time. Help me father, and his father before, let us men continue onward as such with knowledge of what's before, 'stead of clamoring around like a dog with Cat-er-Acts." My prayers answered, though deep down I knew they they would be, the torch caught ablaze from the fire dancing upon the wick. Tired and unsure, I slumped down upon a stone bench against the wall to ponder. There at my feet was the lantern. A flame danced across its wick, and yet, I must admit this eluded my natural reasoning; there was no light shedding from it. Strange magics were at work here. My spirit shudder and quaked as I sat back and breathed in deep exhausted breath.

Gathering my courage around me, I stood on quivering legs and follwed down the eerie darkened tunnels slowly. I felt the cool brushings of spirits soaring past my exposed flesh, causing my spine to shiver in a manner as such that my father always used to remark that some one had just walked over his grave. Deeper and deeper into the bowels of the chamber I strode, gasping for air that I could not taste over the musty humid taste of rotti flesh and organs. Littered around me in a crevice and cracks, on cobble stone floor lay the bony remains of my ancestors. My progression was slow, having to wind and twist along the path to avoid ravenous rats clambering around like fevered carrion ducking into the dark shadows of the walls to hide from the light of my torch. Every once in a while, I would see the worm like tail slithering out of sight, and I wounld hear the sounds of tiny clawed feet scraping against stone.

As I progressed through the bowels of the cave, I could hear a clamouring ahead of me. The sound was the dull thumping of metal clashing on stone, and the plaguesome jingling of tiny ornamental bells.

"What madness is this?" thought I, as I kept my pace, treading deeper still. I followed the muffled noise to a wall that had been errected some years ago. I stood to it with my ear flat against and could hear the ungracious moan of the haunt that plagued my Villa.

"Spirits," shouted I at the cobble wall, "Why must thou annoy me to my grave?" Stepping foreward again, I listened for reply.

"And who are you to ask, sir?" replied the grated translucent voice of the spirit to me.

"Why, I am head of this house, owner of these chambers, that's who!" I exclaimed in anger and annoyance.

So you are Montresor?" the spirit inquired softly.

"Yes I am he!"

"If you are He, who must I be buried here in your chamber?"

I heard a small meek cough and the jingling of bells and a sound that still chills my soul. It was the sound of bone scraping against bone.

"I am Montresor himself, spirit. I am owner of this cellar and the spirits on the racks. You plague some haunt, I do not wish to own, so be-gone!"

"Here I am in the burial space of the great Montresor. My bones lay upon the spot where Montresor's belong in death... Am I not Montresor, imposter?"

"You spirit, are not I. How dare you say you are the great Montresor! How dare you invoke my name in such a blasphemous manner? You have desecrated my name, and the name of my family. Be-gone devil-some shade, you will not tempt me into damnation!"

"So you assume you are not already damned? the great Montresor spends his nights arguing with cobbles and shades rather than sleeping in his glorious bed with his warm wife. I say damn you, for you are as damned as they come treachorous fiend."

"Why say you such insults spirit? I have done nothing to you, why do you insult me so?"

"I do not insult you, rather curse you to the pitt of Hades. To suffer in an eternity in the confines of a dark lifeless cage as I have been suffering these past years."

A mad fit of anger welled within my rapidly beating bosom; I picked up a rusted trowel from the stone floor and began to thrust and jab it at the mortar, slowly chipping it away. My labors yielded little fruit though, as a single stone fell inward after my rage had subsided.

Inside, was a chasm of darkness. I could not see, even the light of the torch seemed to disipate into the darkened niche. The smell, aye, the smell was the strong pugnent perfume of death.

"Say my name!" yelled the shade again in its grainy voice, Say my name!"

"Father?" asked I to the shade, "Have you been Mis-buried?"

"I am not thou's father nor any forefather or kin by blood, I am who you are."

"Am I Mis-given, do I know you shade? Are you some ghost come back to haunt me for some childhood prank played by myself at a younger age?"

"Oh how you have hit the mark, Master Montresor, yet blindly so like a child striking at the pinatas during the spring carnival. How is it Montresor that you have forgotten me?"

"You jest and riddle and I tire easily in my old age, shade, you may wail all you like, but I tire and shall now retire to my bed chambers and my slumbering wife..."

"Your slumbering wife!..." the shade interrupted angrily, "She is not your slumbering wife."

"I am tired shade, this gloomy and humid night has tired me and taxed my faith quite extensively. I must sleep. I go to retire, night to you shade and mayhap I shall see you another time."

"You shall go no where," commanded the shade to me.

My legs quivered, and I fell to cold stone in such a terrible fright. Something in that voice reminded me so of my missing friend Fortunato. Fortunado, whose wife I had betrothed and wed after a years time of his unexplained absence. I whispered softly in the small opening, "Fortunato?"

"Is that who I am to be, old friend? I thought you to be Fortunato. You sleep with his wife, own all his riches, his reputation, you have become blessed. Are you not the great Fortunato, making me lowly Montresor?"

"I am...I am..." I stop and hesitate. This shade having thoroughly boggled my already tampered thoughts. Am I Fortunato? I questioned myself. The more I thought about the query, the darker the chamber became.

Still on knees, I raised my hands clasped in prayer, Begging god to shed light to that which I did not seem to know.

In answer, a chilling wind, damp and spirited from the airs itself, danced and whirled around me. My visible breath fell to the floor like icicles and shattered. The flame upon the torch danced wildly but finally lost it's fighting spirit, and extinguished before my astonished eyes. I was covered in utter and complete darkness. I yelled out, pleading to God, "No God, no not now!" I could hear the wild splashings of the tiny feet of the rats, as they ran and danced through tiny puddles of water towards my exhausted prone body, to feast upon my sinew and muscle. I felt tiny pin pricks, as various pairs of teeth pierced my cold exposed skin, drawing blood, then softly lapping tongues flicked over my goose-bumped flesh, devouring every drop. The matted caked fur covered my face, my arms, my legs, and lastly the rest of my tired old frame, and held me pinned as they bit and ate more and more of me. I tried to scream out, but one scurried into my mouth, choking off the sounds of my resistance. My stomache turned in revulsion, as my tongue tasted the dour taste of death on its matted scraggly fur. My bowels twisted in a not, and I wretched upon myself as those tiny claws dug the back of my throat soar.

In the darkness, I could hear the shade's evil merriment at my disposition. I could hear those little bells jingling as he danced and writhed in glee, and he spoke one last time before leaving me completely alone and Godless, "It does not matter who you are, for you are damned for killing me. Damned to exist in a cage of your own making. You shall fear the day you are found out, Friend. You shall look over your shoulder in fear, listen to every whisper, every laugh, and wonder if it is about you. You will be your own jailer, mark my words, Damned!"

I awoke from my slumber with such a terrible chill. I felt my heart clenching as my life slowly slipped from my grasps. I knew this was my dying time. I knew my wife would soon find the remains when they wen to the Cat-a_combs to bury me. I would be found out finally after this long half century.

"Spirits be-gone!" said I as an unconcious gesture to reasure myself that my voice could command the haunts in my heart and these walls that have caged me. Griiting my teeth, I slowly pecked my wifes forehead waking her from her slumber. With tears streaming down my eyes... I took one last time to tell her the truth before I the great Montresor took leave of her to die, and be forever caged in the darkness of a casket in death.

Epilogue (Exerpts from Poe's Cask of Ammontillado)

THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. AT LENGTH I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled -- but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.

There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make merry in honour of the time. I had told them that I should not return until the morning and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate disappearance , one and all, as soon as my back was turned.

I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick -- on account of the dampness of the catacombs. I hastened to make an end of my labour. I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I reerected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them.

In pace requiescat!

Forgive my wife...