The Tell-Tale Heart1971

[first lines]

The Murderer:
[narrating] I feel I must unburden my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly and without comment all the events. And their consequences have terrified, have tortured, have destroyed my whole being. My original soul seemed to take flight from my body. A sense of insufferable misery pervaded my soul. True, nervous - very dreadfully nervous I had been. But why will you say I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. I heard all things in the heaven and on the earth. I heard many things in hell. Why then am I mad? Observe how healthfully, how calmly, I can tell you the whole story. I was never kinder to the old man then the whole week before I killed him.