“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.