15 POINTS! Refer to Explorations in Literature for a complete version of this story.

Which quotation from "The Black Cat" best supports the inference that the narrator feels he deserves to be punished for his cruelty?

A.) “I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fiber of my frame.“

B.)“The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness.”

C.) “With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase..”

D.) “...I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin…even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.”