Can Such Things Be? · Chapter
John Bartine's Watch explained
The narrator recounts an evening with John Bartine, who becomes inexplicably agitated when asked for the time.
What happens
The narrator recounts an evening with John Bartine, who becomes inexplicably agitated when asked for the time. Bartine eventually reveals the story of his ancestral watch, which once belonged to his great-grandfather Bramwell Olcott Bartine, a Tory who was arrested by American rebels during the Revolutionary War and never seen again. The watch was later found on the family porch. John Bartine describes a compulsive urge to look at the watch in the evening, especially near eleven o'clock, which fills him with a sense of imminent calamity. The narrator, viewing Bartine's behavior as a monomania, decides to conduct a psychological experiment. The story ends with Bartine dead and buried with his watch, and the narrator expressing guilt over his role in the tragedy.
Themes in this chapter
Fate and Inevitability
The watch's mysterious compulsion and the sense of imminent calamity at eleven o'clock suggest an inescapable fate tied to the ancestor's death.
Guilt and Retribution
The narrator's experiment leads to Bartine's death, and the narrator expresses guilt, feeling he has become his friend's 'victim for eternity.'
The Uncanny and the Grotesque
The watch's ability to induce irrational fear and the supernatural connection across generations create an uncanny atmosphere.
Characters to notice
- John Bartine
The narrator's friend who becomes distressed when asked for the time and reveals the dark history of his ancestral watch.
- Bramwell Olcott Bartine
John Bartine's great-grandfather, a Colonial Virginia Tory who was arrested by American rebels and disappeared.
- Rupert Bartine
John Bartine's grandfather, the son of Bramwell Olcott Bartine, whose name was found on the paper wrapping the watch.
Key passages
“My view of it is that it was a characteristically dastardly assassination by that damned traitor, Washington, and his ragamuffin rebels!”
John Bartine angrily asserts that his great-grandfather was murdered by George Washington and the American rebels.
Bartine expresses his family's bitter view of the Revolutionary War.
“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.”
Bartine describes an irresistible urge to look at the watch each evening, which is followed by a feeling of impending disaster.
This reveals the watch's supernatural influence over Bartine.
“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 narrator confirms that John Bartine was buried with the watch, and prays for the souls of both Bartine and his ancestor.
The ending suggests the narrator's guilt and the possibility that the souls are somehow connected.