named Pluto. This cat is especially fond of the narrator and vice versa. Their mutual friendship lasts for several years until the narrator becomes an alcoholic. One night, after coming home completely intoxicated, he believes the cat to be avoiding him. When he tries to seize it, the panicked cat bites the narrator, and in a fit of drunken rage he seizes the animal, pulls a pen-knife from his pocket, and deliberately gouges out the cat's eye. From that moment on, the cat flees in terror at his master's approach. At first, the narrator is remorseful and regrets his cruelty. "But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of perverseness." In another fit of drunken fury, the narrator takes the cat out in the garden one morning and ties a noose around its neck, hanging it from a tree where it dies. That very night his house mysteriously catches fire, forcing the narrator, his wife and their servant to flee the premises. The next day, the narrator returns to the ruins of his home to find, imprinted on the single wall that survived the fire, the apparition of a gigantic cat with a rope around the animal's neck. Though initially disturbed, the narrator gradually determines a logical explanation for it; someone outside had cut the cat from the tree and thrown its corpse into the bedroom to awaken him during the fire. The narrator begins to miss Pluto and hate himself for his actions, feeling guilty. Some time later, he finds a similar cat in a tavern, being the same size and color as the original and even missing an eye; the only difference is a large white patch on the cat's chest. The narrator takes it home, but soon begins to fear and loathe the cat, as it amplifies his guilty conscience. After some time, the white patch of fur begins to take shape and, much to the narrator's horror, forms the shape of the gallows. This terrifies and angers him more, and he avoids the cat whenever possible. Then, one day when the narrator and his wife are visiting the cellar in their new home, the cat gets under its master's feet and nearly trips him down the stairs. The infuriated narrator attempts to kill the cat with an axe but is stopped by his