The Tell-Tale Heart

have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over acuteness of the senses?

Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in!

. Madmen know nothing.

would a madman have been so wise as this?

All in vain; because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim.

But anything was better than this agony!

The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more.

All in vain; because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim

it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye.

to the death watches in the wall.