d, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree;--hung it with tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart;--hung it because I knew it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no offence;--hung it because I knew that in doing so I was committing a sin--a deadly sin that would jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it--if such a thing were possible--even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God. (Poe, "The Black Cat" 225) Again, Poe employs language which can send a traditional moralist howling about the wages of sin. But catch the subjunctive, "if such a thing were possible." Poe makes it clear, even in this extreme set of circumstances, that he does not believe it possible to be beyond the reach of God. In Eureka we saw why. In that work, Poe portrayed God as manifest in the works of his own creation. We saw him further declare that all things of the universe contain "the germ of their inevitable annihilation." Speaking through his narrators," Poe illustrates perversity as the "germ" of annihilation as it resides in the human psyche. But, for now, let us return to the story and witness perversity wreak its havoc. The night of the day he hanged Pluto, a fire swept through the narrator's house. He, his wife, and the servant escaped, but the conflagration completely destroyed the house; yet one wall had not fallen in. Upon visiting the ruin, the narrator witnessed in the standing wall, "as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat...There was a rope about the animal's neck." (Poe 66) The image of the cat detailed in what had been a freshly plastered wall profoundly affected the fancies of the narrator. As if to atone for his actions, the narrator begins a search to adopt a similar cat, which he finally locates "in a den of more than infamy...reposing on the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, o...
