Which lines from this excerpt indicate that the narrator has been drinking? the black cat by edgar allan poe (excerpt) one night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, i fancied that the cat avoided my presence. i seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. the fury of a demon instantly possessed me. 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 fibre of my frame.