John Bartine's Watch - A story by a physician
"The exact time? Good God! my friend, why do you insist? One would
think--but what does it matter; it is easily bedtime--isn't that near
enough? But, here, if you must set your watch, take mine and see for
yourself."
With that he detached his watch--a tremendously heavy, old-fashioned
one--from the chain, and handed it to me; then turned away, and
walking across the room to a shelf of books, began an examination of
their backs. His agitation and evident distress surprised me; they
appeared reasonless. Having set my watch by his, I stepped over to
where he stood and said, "Thank you."
As he took his timepiece and reattached it to the guard I observed
that his hands were unsteady. With a tact upon which I greatly
prided myself, I sauntered carelessly to the sideboard and took some
brandy and water; then, begging his pardon for my thoughtlessness,
asked him to have some and went back to my seat by the fire, leaving
him to help himself, as was our custom. He did so and presently
joined me at the hearth, as tranquil as ever.
This odd little incident occurred in my apartment, where John Bartine
was passing an evening. We had dined together at the club, had come
home in a cab and--in short, everything had been done in the most
prosaic way; and why John Bartine should break in upon the natural
and established order of things to make himself spectacular with a
display of emotion, apparently for his own entertainment, I could
nowise understand. The more I thought of it, while his brilliant
conversational gifts were commending themselves to my inattention,
the more curious I grew, and of course had no difficulty in
persuading myself that my curiosity was friendly solicitude. That is
the disguise that curiosity usually assumes to evade resentment. So
I ruined one of the finest sentences of his disregarded monologue by
cutting it short without ceremony.
"John Bartine," I said, "you must try to forgive me if I am wrong,
but with the light that I have at present I cannot concede your right
to go all to pieces when asked the time o' night. I cannot admit
that it is proper to experience a mysterious reluctance to look your
own watch in the face and to cherish in my presence, without
explanation, painful emotions which are denied to me, and which are
none of my business."
To this ridiculous speech Bartine made no immediate reply, but sat
looking gravely into the fire. Fearing that I had offended I was
about to apologize and beg him to think no more about the matter,
when looking me calmly in the eyes he said:
"My dear fellow, the levity of your manner does not at all disguise
the hideous impudence of your demand; but happily I had already
decided to tell you what you wish to know, and no manifestation of
your unworthiness to hear it shall alter my decision. Be good enough
to give me your attention and you shall hear all about the matter.
"This watch," he said, "had been in my family for three generations
before it fell to me. Its original owner, for whom it was made, was
my great-grandfather, Bramwell Olcott Bartine, a wealthy planter of
Colonial Virginia, and as stanch a Tory as ever lay awake nights
contriving new kinds of maledictions for the head of Mr. Washington,
and new methods of aiding and abetting good King George. One day
this worthy gentleman had the deep misfortune to perform for his
cause a service of capital importance which was not recognized as
legitimate by those who suffered its disadvantages. It does not
matter what it was, but among its minor consequences was my excellent
ancestor's arrest one night in his own house by a party of Mr.
Washington's rebels. He was permitted to say farewell to his weeping
family, and was then marched away into the darkness which swallowed
him up forever. Not the slenderest clew to his fate was ever found.
After the war the most diligent inquiry and the offer of large
rewards failed to turn up any of his captors or any fact concerning
his disappearance. He had disappeared, and that was all."
Something in Bartine's manner that was not in his words--I hardly
knew what it was--prompted me to ask:
"What is your view of the matter--of the justice of it?"
"My view of it," he flamed out, bringing his clenched hand down upon
the table as if he had been in a public house dicing with
blackguards--"my view of it is that it was a characteristically
dastardly assassination by that damned traitor, Washington, and his
ragamuffin rebels!"
For some minutes nothing was said: Bartine was recovering his
temper, and I waited. Then I said:
"Was that all?"
"No--there was something else. A few weeks after my great-
grandfather's arrest his watch was found lying on the porch at the
front door of his dwelling. It was wrapped in a sheet of letter
paper bearing the name of Rupert Bartine, his only son, my
grandfather. I am wearing that watch."
Bartine paused. His usually restless black eyes were staring fixedly
into the grate, a point of red light in each, reflected from the
glowing coals. He seemed to have forgotten me. A sudden threshing
of the branches of a tree outside one of the windows, and almost at
the same instant a rattle of rain against the glass, recalled him to
a sense of his surroundings. A storm had risen, heralded by a single
gust of wind, and in a few moments the steady plash of the water on
the pavement was distinctly heard. I hardly know why I relate this
incident; it seemed somehow to have a certain significance and
relevancy which I am unable now to discern. It at least added an
element of seriousness, almost solemnity. Bartine resumed:
"I have a singular feeling toward this watch--a kind of affection for
it; I like to have it about me, though partly from its weight, and
partly for a reason I shall now explain, I seldom carry it. The
reason is this: Every evening when I have it with me I feel an
unaccountable desire to open and consult it, even if I can think of
no reason for wishing to know the time. But if I yield to it, the
moment my eyes rest upon the dial I am filled with a mysterious
apprehension--a sense of imminent calamity. And this is the more
insupportable the nearer it is to eleven o'clock--by this watch, no
matter what the actual hour may be. After the hands have registered
eleven the desire to look is gone; I am entirely indifferent. Then I
can consult the thing as often as I like, with no more emotion than
you feel in looking at your own. Naturally I have trained myself not
to look at that watch in the evening before eleven; nothing could
induce me. Your insistence this evening upset me a trifle. I felt
very much as I suppose an opium-eater might feel if his yearning for
his special and particular kind of hell were re-enforced by
opportunity and advice.
"Now that is my story, and I have told it in the interest of your
trumpery science; but if on any evening hereafter you observe me
wearing this damnable watch, and you have the thoughtfulness to ask
me the hour, I shall beg leave to put you to the inconvenience of
being knocked down."
His humor did not amuse me. I could see that in relating his
delusion he was again somewhat disturbed. His concluding smile was
positively ghastly, and his eyes had resumed something more than
their old restlessness; they shifted hither and thither about the
room with apparent aimlessness and I fancied had taken on a wild
expression, such as is sometimes observed in cases of dementia.
Perhaps this was my own imagination, but at any rate I was now
persuaded that my friend was afflicted with a most singular and
interesting monomania. Without, I trust, any abatement of my
affectionate solicitude for him as a friend, I began to regard him as
a patient, rich in possibilities of profitable study. Why not? Had
he not described his delusion in the interest of science? Ah, poor
fellow, he was doing more for science than he knew: not only his
story but himself was in evidence. I should cure him if I could, of
course, but first I should make a little experiment in psychology--
nay, the experiment itself might be a step in his restoration.
"That is very frank and friendly of you, Bartine," I said cordially,
"and I'm rather proud of your confidence. It is all very odd,
certainly. Do you mind showing me the watch?"
He detached it from his waistcoat, chain and all, and passed it to me
without a word. The case was of gold, very thick and strong, and
singularly engraved. After closely examining the dial and observing
that it was nearly twelve o'clock, I opened it at the back and was
interested to observe an inner case of ivory, upon which was painted
a miniature portrait in that exquisite and delicate manner which was
in vogue during the eighteenth century.
"Why, bless my soul!" I exclaimed, feeling a sharp artistic delight--
"how under the sun did you get that done? I thought miniature
painting on ivory was a lost art."
"That," he replied, gravely smiling, "is not I; it is my excellent
great-grandfather, the late Bramwell Olcott Bartine, Esquire, of
Virginia. He was younger then than later--about my age, in fact. It
is said to resemble me; do you think so?"
"Resemble you? I should say so! Barring the costume, which I
supposed you to have assumed out of compliment to the art--or for
vraisemblance, so to say--and the no mustache, that portrait is you
in every feature, line, and expression."
No more was said at that time. Bartine took a book from the table
and began reading. I heard outside the incessant plash of the rain
in the street. There were occasional hurried footfalls on the
sidewalks; and once a slower, heavier tread seemed to cease at my
door--a policeman, I thought, seeking shelter in the doorway. The
boughs of the trees tapped significantly on the window panes, as if
asking for admittance. I remember it all through these years and
years of a wiser, graver life.
Seeing myself unobserved, I took the old-fashioned key that dangled
from the chain and quickly turned back the hands of the watch a full
hour; then, closing the case, I handed Bartine his property and saw
him replace it on his person.
"I think you said," I began, with assumed carelessness, "that after
eleven the sight of the dial no longer affects you. As it is now
nearly twelve"--looking at my own timepiece--"perhaps, if you don't
resent my pursuit of proof, you will look at it now."
He smiled good-humoredly, pulled out the watch again, opened it, and
instantly sprang to his feet with a cry that Heaven has not had the
mercy to permit me to forget! His eyes, their blackness strikingly
intensified by the pallor of his face, were fixed upon the watch,
which he clutched in both hands. For some time he remained in that
attitude without uttering another sound; then, in a voice that I
should not have recognized as his, he said:
"Damn you! it is two minutes to eleven!"
I was not unprepared for some such outbreak, and without rising
replied, calmly enough:
"I beg your pardon; I must have misread your watch in setting my own
by it."
He shut the case with a sharp snap and put the watch in his pocket.
He looked at me and made an attempt to smile, but his lower lip
quivered and he seemed unable to close his mouth. His hands, also,
were shaking, and he thrust them, clenched, into the pockets of his
sack-coat. The courageous spirit was manifestly endeavoring to
subdue the coward body. The effort was too great; he began to sway
from side to side, as from vertigo, and before I could spring from my
chair to support him his knees gave way and he pitched awkwardly
forward and fell upon his face. I sprang to assist him to rise; but
when John Bartine rises we shall all rise.
The post-mortem examination disclosed nothing; every organ was normal
and sound. But when the body had been prepared for burial a faint
dark circle was seen to have developed around the neck; at least I
was so assured by several persons who said they saw it, but of my own
knowledge I cannot say if that was true.
Nor can I set limitations to the law of heredity. I do not know that
in the spiritual world a sentiment or emotion may not survive the
heart that held it, and seek expression in a kindred life, ages
removed. Surely, if I were to guess at the fate of Bramwell Olcott
Bartine, I should guess that he was hanged at eleven o'clock in the
evening, and that he had been allowed several hours in which to
prepare for the change.
As to John Bartine, my friend, my patient for five minutes, and--
Heaven forgive me!--my victim for eternity, there is no more to say.
He is buried, and his watch with him--I saw to that. May God rest
his soul in Paradise, and the soul of his Virginian ancestor, if,
indeed, they are two souls.
-THE END-
Ambrose Bierce's short story: John Bartine's watch - A story by a physician
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