The black cat 埃德加·爱伦·坡 （自译版）（1）

最荒唐，但也最平常的故事将由我的钢笔写下。
我不期望，也不恳求你的相信。
可能我是真的疯了也说不定。在这种情况下，我的判断力都拒绝相信它们的存在。
但我没有疯，并且一定不是在做梦。
我明天就要死了，所以今天总要净化自己的灵魂。
我打算简单明了，并且不带意见地将这件个人事件公之于众。
就是这件可怕、痛苦的事把我给毁了。
我不会尝试去详细地说明它们。
或许对大多数人来说，它们不比巴洛克式的作品糟糕。但对我而言，它们的一丝气息都让我恐惧战栗。
或许此后的智者能找到一种合理的说法将我那所谓的幻象还原为一件平常的小事。冷静、符合逻辑，远没有我这么激动地察觉到事情的真相。
但在这种情况下，我只能充满敬畏地叙述这或许只是一连串普通的自然因果所推动而成的故事。
……………………
For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not—and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified— have tortured—have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror—to many they will seem less terrible than barroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place—some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.