tell tale heart screenplay

copyright 2005

savage run digital media, llc

TRUE!   I am nervous… dreadfully nervous… I was then and I am now.

 

But why will you say that I am mad?

 

The disease had sharpened my senses; not destroyed or dulled them.

 

My sense of hearing was most acute.

 

I heard all things in the heavens and in the earth

 

I heard many things in hell.

 

How then am I mad?

 

Observe how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

 

 

It is impossible to say how the idea first entered my brain; once I thought of it, it haunted me day and night.

 

I loved the old man.   He had never wronged me.

 

For his gold I had no desire.

 

I think it was his eye!   Yes it was this!

 

He had the eye of a vulture—a pale blue eye, with a film over it.   Whenever he looked at me my blood ran cold and so I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

 

I know you fancy me mad but I also know that madman know nothing.

 

You should have seen how wisely I proceeded, with what foresight I went to work!

 

I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him.

 

Every night about midnight , I turned the latch of his door and opened it, gently.   And then, after making an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern – all closed so no light shone out!   And then I thrust in my head…. You would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in… I moved it slowly so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep.   It took me an hour to put my whole inside the opening enough that I could see him as he lay upon his bed.

 

I undid the lantern cautiously (cautiously, the hinges creaked); I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye.

 

I did this for seven long nights—every night at midnight but I found the eye always closed and so it was impossible to do the work: it was not the old man who vexed me.   It was his Evil Eye.

 

Every morning I went boldly back to his house and spoke courageously to him.   “Did you sleep okay?”   So you see he would have been a very profound old man indeed to suspect that every night, exactly at 12… that I looked in upon him as he slept.

 

On the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door.   A watch's minute hand moves faster than did mine.

 

Never before that night had I felt the extent of my powers, of my wisdom.   I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph.   Here I was and he had no idea…

 

He heard me!!!   He moved on the bed, suddenly as if startled… now, you might think I'd draw back but no…. his room was black….I knew he could not see the door, I kept pushing it in, steadily, steadily.  

 

I had my head in.   I was about to open the lantern when my thumb slipped upon the tin latch.   The old man sprung up in bed and cried out:   ‘who's there?!”

 

For a whole hour I did not move a muscle…. I did not hear him lie down… he was sitting up in the bed, listening… listening just as I have done, night after night, listening to the death wails inside the walls.

 

I heard a slight groan and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror.   It was not a groan of pain or of grief.   It was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when over charged with awe.   I knew the sound well.   I knew what the old man felt and I pitied him, although I chuckled at heart.   He had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise.   His fears had been growing ever since.   He had been whispering to himself, “it is nothing, the wind in the chimney… it is nothing, a mouse crossing the floor… it is nothing, a single chirp of a cricket…..”   Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself but he had found it all in vain…. All in vain because Death was stalking the old man.

 

After I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down I resolved to open a tiny, tiny crevice in the lantern…. So I opened it, you cannot imagine how stealthily, until, finally a simple dim ray shot out from the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye.

 

It was open—wide, wide open; I grew furious as I gazed upon the eye.   I saw it perfectly: a dull blue, with a hideous film over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or the rest of him… just the hideous eye, as if I had directed the ray of light by instinct, precisely upon that damned spot.

 

I've told you that what you mistake for madness is but over development of the senses?   Good, then you'll understand when I say there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound—like a watch makes when enveloped in cotton.   I knew that sound well too.   It was the beating of the old man's heart.   It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.

 

I refrained and kept still.   I hardly breathed.   I held the lantern motionless.   I tried to maintain the ray upon the eye.   Meanwhile the hellish tattoo of the heart increased.   It grew quicker and quicker and louder and louder every passing instant.   The old man's terror must have been extreme!!!

 

The heart grew louder, I say, louder every moment—do you hear me well?   I told you I was nervous, so I am.

 

And now, at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror.    For some minutes longer I refrained and stood still.   But the beating grew louder, louder.   I thought his heart was going to burst!   Now a new anxiety seized me, a neighbor was going to hear the beating of the old man's heart…. The old man's hour had come.   With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room.

 

He shrieked once—only once; I dragged him to the floor and wrapped him inside his bed, smothering him good.   I smiled, seeing the deed was done.   But for many minutes the heart beat on with a muffled sound.   This did not bother me as I knew it would not be heard thru the wall.   Finally it ceased.   The old man was dead.   I removed the bed and examined the corpse; yes, he was stone, stone dead.  

 

His eye would trouble me no more.

 

If you still think me mad you won't after I describe the wise precautions I took for concealment of the body.   The night waned and I worked hastily, but in silence.

 

First of all, I dismembered the corpse.   I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.

 

Then I took up three planks from the flooring and of the chamber and deposited everything between the scantlings.   I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly that no human eye—not even the old man's eye could have detected anything wrong.   There was nothing to wash , no stain of any kind—no blood spot whatsoever.   I had been too wary for that.   A tub had caught it all --   ha ha !

 

By the time I was done with the old man's corpse, it was four o' clock—still dark as midnight .   As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door.   I went down to open the door with a light heart—for what had I now to fear?

 

Three men entered, police officers.   A scream had been heard by a neighbor; a suspicious type of scream.   The neighbor called the station and, well, here we are….

 

I smiled.   For what had I to fear?   Welcome gentlemen, I said to them.

The scream was mine.   I was having an awful dream.   The old man?   The old man had gone to the country for the weekend.   I took my vistors all over the house.   Search well… after awhile, I led them to his room.   I showed them his treaures , all undisturbed.   I am sure he will be back for these sorts of things, I told them.   I was so enthusiastically confident that I brought some chairs into the room, so they could rest; they were probably tired.

 

In a show of wild audacity, I placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of my victim.

 

The officers were satisfied, my demeanor had convinced them.   I was at ease.

 

They sat and while I answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things.

 

BUT then I felt myself growing pale and I started to wish them gone.

 

My head ached and I noticed a ringing in my hears —but still they sat and still chatted.   The ringing became more distinct—it continued and became more distinct: I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definiteness—until, finally, I found that the noise was not within my ears….

 

I now grew very pale, I am sure.   But I talked more fluently and with a heightened voice.

 

Yet the sound increased—and what could I do?   It was a low dull quick sound—much like a sound a watch makes when enveloped in cotton.   I gasped for breath—yet the officers did not hear any of it.

 

I talked more quickly, more vehemently but the noise steadily increased.   I stood up and argued about trifles—in a high key and with violent gesticulations…. But the noise steadily increased.

 

Why would they not be gone?   I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides… but the noise steadily increased.   Oh god what could I do?! I foamed and I raved—I swore!

 

I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and I grated it upon the boards but the noise over it all and continually increased.   It grew louder—louder—louder!

 

And still the men chatted pleasantly and smiled.

 

Was it possible they did not hear it?   Almighty god!   No!   no !   They heard—they suspected!—they knew!—they were making a mockery of my horror!

 

Anything was better than this agony!!!

 

Anything was more tolerable than this abuse!!!

 

I could no longer bear those hypocritical smiles no longer!   I felt that I must scream or die!  

 

“Villains!”   I shrieked, “ lie to me no more!!! I admit the deed!—tear up the planks!   Here, here! – it is the beating of his hideous heart!!!!”