Tell Tale Heart

FAMOUS SHORT STORIES

The

Telltale Heart

and Other Short Stories by Edgar Allan Poe

retold by Helen Sillett and Jerry Stemach Don Johnston Incorporated Volo, Illinois

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The Telltale Heart

Part One

It’s true! I am nervous as I tell you this. But I have always been a nervous person. Am I insane? A madman? Never!

You may think that I am mad, but I can promise you that I am not. The disease did not destroy my sense of touch, or my senses of sight and hearing. If anything, the disease only made my senses

Part 1

The Telltale Heart

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sharper. I hear all things in heaven and on the earth. I can even hear things from hell. How then, can you think of me as some kind of madman? My head is clear, and I understand what I am doing. Listen to how calmly I can tell you the story of what happened to me. I cannot be sure how the idea first entered my brain, but once it was in my mind, the idea haunted me day and night. I never had any interest in the old man’s riches, so it was not about his gold. I did not hate him either. In fact, I loved the old man. He had never wronged me in any way, never given me any insult. No, he had done nothing to deserve what I did to him. If you asked me to name a single cause of what happened that night, I would tell you it was his eye. Yes, it was this! One of the old man’s eyes was like the eye of a vulture — a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever that eye fell upon me, my blood ran cold.

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Famous Short Stories

And so it was, little by little, that I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and rid myself of his hideous eye forever. I know you think that I am a madman, but madmen act foolishly. A madman would have rushed in without a plan and tripped himself up with some silly mistake. I proceeded carefully, making sure at every step that the old man suspected nothing. I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. “Good morning! I trust that you slept...