Montresor begins by telling us that Fortunato had "injured" him, that is, hurt him a "thousand" times, and that he was magnanimous enough to overlook them:
The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could,
but when Fortunato added insult to injury, Montresor decided to take his revenge by killing him:
but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.
But from what he confesses to us we get an insight into into his real character: He is a determined person who will extract the most from his act of revenge by making Fortunato experience the same pain and humiliation that he had experienced. Montresor is a shrewd and scheming person who will secretly and silently carry out his revenge without arousing any one's suspicion, because as he tells us revenge is revenge only if he escapes unpunished:
AT LENGTH I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled -- but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.
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