I WILL NOW TELL YOU the story of the gold watch. It was a large chronometer, brand-new, and attached to an elegant chain. Luís Negreiros was quite right to be astonished when he saw the watch in his house, a watch that didn’t belong to him, and couldn’t possibly be his wife’s, either. An optical illusion? No. There it lay on the bedside table, looking at him, perhaps as amazed as he was by the place and the situation.
Clarinha was not in the bedroom when Luís Negreiros entered. She was still in the parlor, leafing through a novel, and she barely responded to the kiss with which he greeted her when he arrived. Clarinha was a pretty young woman, although somewhat pale, or perhaps she was pretty precisely because she was pale. She lounged languidly on the sofa, her book open, her eyes on the book, but only her eyes, because I’m not sure her thoughts were also on the book, but, rather, elsewhere. In any case, she seemed equally indifferent to her husband and the watch.
Luís Negreiros picked up the watch with a look on his face I do not even dare to describe. Neither the watch nor the chain were his, nor did they belong to anyone he knew. It was a riddle. Luís Negreiros liked riddles and was thought to be an intrepid solver of riddles; but he liked the kind you find in almanacs or in newspapers. He didn’t like physical or chronometrical riddles, especially not ones without any clues.
For this and other obvious reasons, the reader will understand why Clarinha’s husband flung himself down in a chair, angrily tore at his hair, stamped his foot, and threw the watch and chain down on the table. Once this first outburst of rage was over, he again picked up the fateful object and examined it once more. He folded his arms and thought about the matter, scrutinized all his memories, and, at last, concluded that, without some explanation from Clarinha, any action he took would be either useless or precipitate.
He went to find her.
Clarinha was just turning a page in her book with the calm, indifferent air of someone who is not puzzling over any chronometrical riddles. Luís Negreiros stared at her, his eyes like two shining daggers.
“What’s wrong?” she asked in what everyone agreed was her usual soft, gentle voice.
Luís Negreiros did not answer, but continued to stare at her; then he walked twice around the room, running his fingers through his hair, and again she asked:
“What’s wrong?”
Luís stopped in front of her.
“What’s this?” he demanded, taking the fateful watch from his pocket and dangling it before her. “What’s this?” he repeated in a voice like thunder.
Clarinha bit her lip and said nothing. Luís Negreiros stood for some time with the watch in his hand and his eyes fixed on his wife, who, in turn, had her eyes fixed on her book. There was a deep silence. Luís Negreiros was the first to break that silence, angrily hurling the watch to the floor and saying to his wife:
“Come on, tell me whose it is.”
Clarinha slowly raised her eyes to him, only to lower them again, murmuring:
“I don’t know.”
Luís Negreiros made a gesture as if he wanted to strangle her, but held back. She got to her feet, picked up the watch, and placed it on a small table. Unable to contain himself any longer, he walked over to her and grabbed her wrists, saying:
“So, wretch, you won’t answer me, you won’t explain this enigma.”
Clarinha winced, and Luís Negreiros immediately released his grip on her wrists. In different circumstances, he would probably have fallen at her feet and begged forgiveness for having hurt her. Just then, this didn’t even occur to him; he abandoned her in the middle of the parlor and recommenced his frantic pacing, stopping now and then as if he were pondering some possible tragic denouement.
Clarinha left the room.
Shortly afterward, a slave came in to announce that supper was on the table.
“Where’s the mistress?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
Luís Negreiros went looking for his wife and found her in a room set aside for sewing; she was sitting on a low chair, sobbing, her head in her hands. When she heard the sound of the door closing, she looked up, and he saw that her cheeks were wet with tears. This was an even worse situation for him than the one in the parlor. He could not bear to see a woman cry, still less his own wife. He was about to kiss away her tears, but stopped himself, went over to her, pulled up a chair, and sat down opposite her.
“As you can see, I’m quite calm now,” he said, “just answer my question with your usual frankness. I’m not accusing you or suspecting you of anything. I simply want to know where that watch came from. Did your father leave it here?”
“No.”
“So where did it come from?”
“Oh, don’t ask me!” cried Clarinha. “I don’t know how that watch ended up there. I don’t know whose it is . . . Leave me alone.”
“This is too much!” roared Luís Negreiros, springing to his feet and sending the chair crashing to the floor.
Clarinha shuddered and stayed where she was. The situation was becoming more and more serious; Luís Negreiros was again pacing up and down, growing increasingly agitated and wild-eyed, apparently ready to hurl himself on his poor wife. She was sitting with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, staring at the wall. Almost a quarter of an hour passed. Luís Negreiros was about to ask the same question when he heard his father-in-law’s booming voice coming up the steps:
“Senhor Luís, where the devil have you got to?”
“It’s your father!” said Luís Negreiros. “I’ll speak to you later.”
He left the sewing room and went to welcome his father-in-law, who was already installed in the parlor, repeatedly tossing his hat up in the air, at great risk to sundry vases and to the candelabra.
“Were the two of you asleep?” asked Senhor Meireles, throwing down his hat and mopping his brow with a large red handkerchief.
“No, we were talking . . .”
“Talking?” said Meireles, adding to himself: “Quarreling more like.”
“We were just about to have supper,” said Luís Negreiros. “Will you join us?”
“That’s why I came,” said Meireles. “I’m having supper here today and tomorrow too. I wasn’t invited, but no matter.”
“Not invited?”
“Isn’t it your birthday tomorrow?”
“Yes, that’s right . . .”
There was no apparent reason why, having said these words in the gloomiest of voices, Luís Negreiros should then repeat them, this time in an unnaturally cheerful tone:
“Yes, that’s right!”
Meireles was just about to leave the room and hang his hat on a hatstand in the hallway, but, instead, he turned and stared in alarm at his son-in-law, on whose face he saw a look of frank, sudden, inexplicable joy.
“The fellow’s mad!” he muttered.
“Let’s have supper,” roared Luís Negreiros, going inside, while Meireles, continuing down the hallway, made his way to the dining room.
Luís Negreiros went to fetch his wife, who was still in the sewing room, and he found her tidying her hair in front of a mirror.
“Thank you,” he said.
She looked at him, surprised.
“Thank you,” Luís Negreiros said again. “Thank you and please forgive me.”
He then tried to embrace her, but she proudly rebuffed him and went off to the dining room.
“Quite right too,” he murmured.
Shortly afterward, all three were sitting around the dining table, and when the soup was served, it was, inevitably, stone-cold. Meireles was about to launch into a diatribe about negligent servants, when Luís Negreiros confessed that it was all his fault that supper had been on the table for so long. This declaration only slightly changed the topic of conversation, which then became a lament about the horror of the warmed-up supper, echoing Boileau’s words: un dîner réchauffé ne valut jamais rien.
Meireles was a cheerful, jovial fellow, although possibly rather too flippant for a man his age, but he was, nonetheless, an interesting character. Luís Negreiros was very fond of him, and his affection was requited in a fatherly, friendly way, an affection that was all the more sincere considering that Meireles had only given him his daughter in marriage after much delay and some reluctance. They were courting for nearly four years, with Clarinha’s father taking more than two years to consider and resolve the matter of marriage. Finally, he gave his consent, swayed, he said, more by his daughter’s tears than by his son-in-law’s fine qualities.
What lay behind that long hesitation were Luís Negreiros’s rather loose ways, not that he had indulged in these during their courtship, but he had before and might do so afterward. Meireles was the first to admit that he himself had been a far from exemplary husband, which is why he felt he should give his daughter a better husband than he had been. Luís Negreiros gave the lie to all his father-in-law’s fears; the impetuous lion of his youth became a meek little lamb. Friendship blossomed between father-in-law and son-in-law, and Clarinha became one of the most envied young women in the city.
And Luís Negreiros deserved even more credit for this, because he did not lack for temptations. Sometimes the devil would get into one of his friends, who would invite Luís out to relive the old days. Luís Negreiros would always say that now he had found a safe harbor, he had no wish to risk setting sail again on the high seas.
Clarinha loved her husband dearly and was the sweetest, gentlest creature to breathe the Rio air of her day. There was never the slightest disagreement between them; the clear conjugal sky was always the same and looked set to stay that way. What evil fate had blown in that first dark cloud?
During supper, Clarinha said not a word, or only very occasionally, and then only briefly and abruptly.
“They’ve obviously quarreled,” thought Meireles when he saw his daughter’s stubborn silence. “Or perhaps she’s just sulking, because he seems happy enough.”
Luís Negreiros was indeed all gratitude, politeness, and sweet words to his wife, who would not even look at him. He inwardly cursed his father-in-law, longing to be left alone with his wife so that she could give him a full and final account of events that would restore peace between them. Clarinha did not appear to share this wish; she ate little and once or twice uttered a heartfelt sigh.
It was clear that, however hard they tried, supper could not be as it was on other evenings. Meireles felt particularly uncomfortable, not because he feared there was some serious problem, for he was of the belief that without the odd quarrel one could not truly appreciate happiness, just as one needs a storm to fully appreciate fine weather. Nevertheless, it always upset him to see his daughter sad.
When coffee was served, Meireles suggested that they all go to the theater. Luís Negreiros greeted the idea with enthusiasm. Clarinha refused point-blank.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with you today, Clarinha,” said her father somewhat irritably. “Your husband seems perfectly cheerful, but you seem depressed and worried. Whatever’s wrong?”
Clarinha did not answer, and, not knowing what to say, Luís Negreiros started making little balls out of the innards of what remained of a bread roll. Meireles shrugged.
“Well, you’ll just have to sort it out between you,” he said. “And even though tomorrow is a special day, if you’re both still in this same strange mood, you won’t see hide nor hair of me.”
“Oh, but you must come—” Luís Negreiros began, only to be interrupted by his wife bursting into tears.
The supper ended on that sad, distressing note. Meireles asked his son-in-law to tell him what was going on, and Luís Negreiros promised that he would do so on a more opportune occasion.
Shortly afterward, Meireles left, saying again that if they were in the same odd mood the following day, he would not be back, and that if there was one thing worse than a cold or warmed-up supper, it was one that gave you indigestion. This axiom was just as good as Boileau’s, but no one paid it any attention.
Clarinha went to her room, and her husband joined her as soon as he had shown his father-in-law to the door. He found her sitting on the bed, sobbing, a pillow pressed to her face. Luís Negreiros knelt before her and took one of her hands.
“Clarinha,” he said, “forgive me. I understand now. If your father hadn’t mentioned coming to supper tomorrow, it would never have occurred to me that the watch was your birthday present to me.”
I will not even attempt to describe the proud, indignant look on the young woman’s face when she sprang to her feet on hearing these words. Luís Negreiros stared at her, uncomprehending. She said nothing, but stormed out of the room, leaving her poor husband more confused than ever.
“What is this enigma?” Luís Negreiros was asking himself. “If it wasn’t a birthday present, then what other explanation can there be for that watch?”
The situation was the same now as it had been before supper. Luís Negreiros determined that he would find out the truth that night. He thought it best, however, to give the matter mature consideration before reaching any firm conclusion. With this in mind, he went to his study, and there went over everything that had happened since he came home. He coolly weighed up every word, every incident, and tried to recall the changing expressions on his wife’s face during the evening. The look of indignation and revulsion when, in the sewing room, he had tried to embrace her, that counted in her favor; but the way she had bitten her lip when he showed her the watch, her tears at the supper table, and, more than anything else, her silence as to where the wretched object had come from, all those things counted against her.
After much thought, Luís Negreiros tended toward the saddest and most deplorable of hypotheses. An evil idea began to drill its way into his mind, so deeply that, in a matter of moments, it had him entirely in its grasp. When the occasion called for it, Luís Negreiros could be very quick to anger. He uttered a few dark threats, then left his study and went to find his wife. Clarinha had gone back to her room. The door stood ajar. It was nine o’clock. The room was only dimly lit by a small lamp. She was again sitting on the bed, but not crying now; she kept her eyes fixed on the floor. She did not even look up when she heard her husband come in.
There was a moment’s silence.
Luís Negreiros was the first to speak.
“Clarinha,” he said, “this is very serious. Will you answer the question I’ve been asking you all evening?”
She did not reply.
“Think carefully, Clarinha,” he went on. “Your life could be at stake.”
She shrugged.
A dark cloud seemed to pass before Luís Negreiros’s eyes, and he grabbed his wife by the throat and roared:
“Answer, you devil, or you’ll die!”
“Wait!” she said.
“Kill me,” she said, “but read this first. When this letter was delivered to your office, you had already left; at least that was what the messenger told me.”
Luís Negreiros took the letter, went over to the lamp, and was astonished to read these words:
My dear young master,
I know that tomorrow is your birthday, and so I’m sending you this small gift.
Nanny
And so ends the story of the gold watch.