The Cask of Amontillado
by Edgar Allan Poe(1846)
“The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.”
One great work, every day
by Edgar Allan Poe(1846)
“The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.”
Edgar Allan Poe(1846)
Montresor lures Fortunato into the catacombs with the promise of rare wine and walls him up alive. Poe tells this in first person, fifty years after the crime, and Montresor feels no guilt. The descent into the vaults is slow, detailed, terrifying. The carnival masks; the nitre on the walls; the chain, the trowel, the bricks: every detail precise. The story is brief, perfect in its horror. Fortunato's last sounds echo behind the wall. Poe wrote many tales of revenge. None is colder. In pace requiescat. He has rested in peace for fifty years. Montresor sleeps well.