Hello and welcome back everybody to Practicing English.
Here I am again and today I'm going to read you a B2 level story or part of a story.
I'm doing B2 today and I'll do B1 tomorrow.
So this is a story that a lot of people will have heard of.
I'm going to take some stories which are classics and adapt them for B1 and B2.
And this one is going to be adapted to B2 level.
And it is the famous story by Edgar Allan Poe.
And the story is The Black Cat.
It is in the genre of horror, a horror story.
It's a short story.
I'm going to read part one today and part two will follow next week.
OK, so I'm going to do the same with B1 tomorrow as well.
I'll tell you about that tomorrow.
Hello and welcome to Practicing English.
My name is Mike Bilbre and these are podcasts for students of English at B1 or B2 levels.
For transcripts, please go to practicingenglish.com.
Would you like to see my books for learning B1 and B2 level English?
Then go to the show notes at your podcast app, and just below today's lesson you'll see a link to Amazon and there you'll be able to read about my new B1 book and my B2 book.
Check it out today.
First of all, just to give you some background information on the author.
He was born in Boston in 1809.
1809, we say.
Edgar Allan Poe's father left home when he was still a child.
He abandoned the household and his mother died while he was still a child.
He was raised by John Allen, who was a wealthy businessman.
He was adopted, in other words.
After a brief time at the University of Virginia and where he didn't do very well, and also a failed time at West Point, always being in debt, which means that he always owed money.
He was always poor.
But then Poe took up writing as a career and he lived in Baltimore.
And he married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clem, in 1836.
He gained fame for dark tales, such as the one that I'm going to read you today, The Black Cat.
But he always lived in poverty, which means he was always very poor.
Following his wife's death in 1847, Poe suffered from depression and alcoholism.
And he died in 1849 at the age of 40 under mysterious circumstances in Baltimore.
What I'm going to do.
First of all, It's longer than the stories that I've been reading to you recently.
And therefore, I cannot go through the story again to revise all the language that's in there.
But what I have done is to adapt this to B2.
And you'll be able to read the full text on my website, practisingenglish.com, podcast 289.
And you'll see the B2 vocabulary in bold.
I can't go through all that in this podcast.
What I'm going to do is to pick out 10 words from the story for you to listen to.
And I'll give you the meanings of these words.
And then afterwards, there'll be a quick test on those 10 words.
All right.
So the words are.
Foolish is the first one.
So the word a fool is a B1 word, which is really an idiot.
A fool is somebody who does stupid things.
So the adjective of fool, the B2 level adjective is foolish, ending in I-S-H.
And we do use it.
It's quite a literary word, but we do use it in everyday speech.
It was very foolish of you to go out with all that money in your wallet.
You could have had it stolen.
It was very foolish.
My next one is deeply.
And so this is just an adverb and it's an emphatic adverb.
Now, in the story, you'll hear that he says that he loved animals deeply.
It is used quite often with the verb to love.
To love someone very deeply means to love them very much.
My next one is affection, and affection means that you like something or somebody, and it's often used with the verb have, so to have great affection for somebody.
You can say i have great affection for that person, i like that person very much.
My fourth word is another adverb, so another emphatic word, and we can use this with adjectives, so the word is remarkably so that comes from the adjective remarkable and remarkably just gives the adjective more emphasis.
In the story you'll hear that the cat was completely black and remarkably clever, really clever, very clever.
My next one is disguise.
And disguise means something that we put on usually often clothes so that we look like somebody who we are not.
It's often used with the preposition in, so to go to a party in disguise, for example.
We call that type of party a fancy dress party, to go in disguise.
My next one is bad-tempered.
So bad-tempered means that you are always in a bad mood, that you are not happy, fed up, angry to be bad-tempered.
Listen for the use of that word in the story.
So it's an adjective to be bad tempered.
My next one is a verb and it is to hesitate, to hesitate.
And that means that you stop usually before you do something.
Before I crossed the road today, I hesitated because I suddenly saw a bus coming towards me.
I hesitated.
I stopped.
Listen for the context of that word in the story.
The next one is a word which Poe uses quite a lot in his stories, these horror stories, which is the word shame.
And shame is what we feel when we do something wrong, something bad, something morally wrong.
We know we shouldn't do it.
And afterwards we feel bad about it.
We feel shame.
Okay, so that's a noun.
There is also the adjective shameful, a shameful thing to do.
My next one is a phrasal verb, is to wear off.
Now, this is usually when something is affecting us, and after a while that feeling sensation disappears little by little.
It wears off.
So, for example, if we've hurt ourself, we've fallen over playing football, going for a run in the park, we fell over and we have a lot of pain.
We hurt our leg, for example.
As time goes by, the pain wears off.
But how does Edgar Allan Poe use that phrasal verb in this part of the story?
And that takes me to the last word for today, which you'll hear in the story.
And it is to drive.
Oh, to drive, to drive a car.
Well, not exactly.
It's used in a figurative way, which means it's not literal.
You're not driving a car.
It is used often with a pronoun, for example, to drive me, to drive you to a situation.
So, for example, playing that music in your bedroom all the time, it drives me mad.
It drives me mad.
It means that it is causing me to go crazy playing that loud music.
Drive, drove, driven.
Right, those are my ten words.
Let's get on with the story.
The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe, the most strange yet also ordinary story that I am about to write.
I do not expect belief, nor do I ask for it.
To tell you the truth, I would be foolish to expect any, especially in a situation where my own senses seem to deny what they have seen.
Still, I am not mad, and I am certainly not dreaming.
Tomorrow I will die, and today I want to free my soul from this heavy weight.
My purpose is simple.
I wish to place before the world in a clear, brief and honest way a series of common household events.
These events have frightened, tortured and destroyed me.
I will not attempt to explain them deeply.
To me, they have been full of horror.
To others, they may seem less terrible or even strangely ordinary.
Perhaps one day a calmer and more logical mind will explain what I now see as terrifying and discover only a natural connection between cause and effect.
From my early childhood, I was known for my gentle and obedient nature.
My kindness was so visible that my companions often made fun of me.
I loved animals deeply and my parents gave me many pets.
I spent most of my time caring for them and felt happiest when I was feeding and touching them.
This part of my character grew as I grew and as an adult it became one of my greatest sources of pleasure.
Anyone who has loved a loyal and intelligent dog will understand the strong satisfaction that comes from such affection.
There is something deeply moving in the unselfish love of an animal, especially for someone who has experienced the weakness and unreliable friendship of people.
I married at an early age and was pleased to discover that my wife shared my interests.
Seeing my love for animals, she took every opportunity to bring home pets of the most pleasant kind.
We owned birds, goldfish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey and a cat.
This cat was unusually large and very beautiful, completely black and remarkably clever.
When, speaking of its intelligence, my wife said, who was slightly superstitious by nature, often mentioned the old belief that black cats were witches in disguise.
She never truly believed this and I mention it only because it later returned to my memory.
The cat's name was Pluto and he was my closest companion.
I was the only one who fed him, and he followed me wherever I went in the house.
It was difficult to stop him from following me, even into the street.
For several years we lived in this way.
During this time however, my personality and behaviour began to change, mainly because of the alcohol.
I admit this with shame.
Day by day, I became more bad-tempered.
Events would fill me with anger, and I felt less concerned about the feelings of others.
I spoke to my wife in severe and cruel language, and eventually...
I even became physically violent towards her.
Naturally, my pets also suffered from this change.
I ignored them and often treated them badly.
Still, I kept enough affection for Pluto to stop myself from hurting him, even though I did not hesitate to harm the rabbits, the monkey or even the dog when they crossed my path.
But my illness grew stronger, and no disease is as powerful as alcohol addiction.
Eventually, even Pluto, now old and sometimes irritable, felt the effects of my bad temper.
One night after returning home very drunk, I imagined that the cat was avoiding me.
I grabbed him and in fear he bit my hand.
At that moment I became violent and out of control.
I felt as though I had left my body and been replaced by something of terrible cruelty.
I took a small knife from my pocket and took the cat by the neck and cut out one of its eyes.
Even now I feel deep shame and horror as I write these words.
The next morning, when the effects of the alcohol had worn off, I felt a mix of fear and regret for what I had done.
However, this feeling was weak and soon disappeared.
My heart remained unchanged.
I returned to drinking and soon forgot the criminal act completely.
Meanwhile, the cat slowly recovered.
The empty eye socket looked terrifying.
But he no longer seemed to be in pain.
He moved around the house as usual, but ran away in extreme fear whenever I came near.
At first this hurt me, as the animal had once loved me deeply.
But my sadness soon turned into annoyance.
And then something worse followed.
This was when I became perverse.
The strange human desire to do wrong simply because it is wrong.
Philosophy does not fully explain this feeling.
Yet I am certain it exists in every human heart.
Who has not at some point done something stupid or cruel simply because they knew they should not?
We often break rules not to achieve anything for ourselves, but out of a desire to challenge them.
This feeling pushed me towards my final destruction.
It drove me to continue hurting an animal that had done me no harm.
One morning, while completely calm, I placed a rope around the cat's neck and hung it from a tree.
I cried while doing it, filled with bitter regrets, knowing the cat had loved me and never hurt me.
I also knew I was committing a serious moral crime that would endanger my soul.
Right, that is the end of the first half of The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe.
So here's the first word.
I'm just going to read the sentence from the story and leave a space.
You'll hear a bleep.
And then you can say the word which is missing at the end of the sentence.
I'll also give you a synonym as well, just to help you.
Number one.
To tell the truth, I would be... To expect anyone to believe me.
Meaning stupid.
Foolish.
Number two.
I loved animals... And my parents gave me many pets.
Meaning very, very much.
Deeply.
Number three.
Anyone who has loved a loyal and intelligent dog will understand the strong satisfaction that comes from such Meaning liking something or somebody very much.
Affection.
Number four.
This cat was unusually large and very beautiful, completely black and clever, meaning extremely.
Remarkably.
Number five.
My wife often mentioned the old belief that black cats were witches in nature, meaning to put clothes on or something on so that people do not recognize you.
In disguise.
Number six.
Day by day, I became more.
Events would fill me with anger, feeling upset and annoyed. bad-tempered.
7.
I kept enough affection for Pluto to stop myself from hurting him, even though I did not to harm the rabbits, the monkey or even the dog.
Meaning not to wait a moment Hesitate.
In this case, not hesitate.
Number eight.
Even now, I feel deep and horror as I write these words.
Meaning, feel bad because you've done something terrible.
Shame.
Number nine.
The next morning, when the effects of alcohol had... Meaning, become less, very much less.
Worn off, from the verb to wear off.
Number 10.
This feeling pushed me towards my final destruction.
It me to continue hurting an animal that had done me no harm so the meaning is it made me do it drove it drove me right those are the 10 words the little test i hope you've learned some new words today i'll be back Tomorrow with a B1 recording and another story.
And this story, The Black Cat, will continue next week.
Have a very pleasant and horror-free evening.
Goodbye for now.
