Nightwood: Watchman, What of the Night? Summary & Analysis

At about 3:00 a.m. Nora makes an unannounced trip to Matthew’s rooms. When she knocks, he says to come in without asking who’s there. The first thing she notices is that the room is small and cluttered: there are medical instruments all over the place, but also bottles of rouge and makeup, women’s clothing, and an abdominal brace. Matthew is on his bed wearing a wig, a nightdress, and a lot of makeup. Seeing that it’s her, Matthew yanks the wig off and pulls his covers up. Nora says she wants him to tell her about the night but is a little remorseful that she came into his rooms after he let his guard down enough to dress himself up. Matthew says she can ask him about anything, but she doesn’t question him. To herself, Nora notes that there’s no reason for Matthew not to wear a dress in his room.

Matthew, irritated because he was expecting someone else, asks Nora if she’s ever thought about the night. She says she has, but it does no good to think about something she knows little about. Matthew asks if Nora has ever thought about the difference between night and day. She tells him she always thought people just went to sleep or acted more naturally at night, but now she believes the night does something to a person’s identity. Matthew confirms this, saying people lose control of their identities even when they’re asleep. Matthew explains that the nights of the present age and in Paris are different from the nights of past ages or other cities. In fact, the rest of the world wishes it had French nights. Nora says she never thought of night as a life because she never lived it. She asks, “why did she?”

Matthew says he’s talking about French nights and explains that they’re different because the French keep both night and day in their minds all the time until they seem to meld together. There are some things that can only be really seen with “the back of the head,” which people fear. Many people, Nora and Matthew included, are full of misery and have their own names for it. People like that should look around and doubt everything because they have a word for misery, but not how it’s made. Matthew notes that the night is hard to understand but urges Nora to think about it all day long in order to make a path for an understanding of it to come into her. Otherwise, it will crush her heart all at once.

Nora asks what she should do. Matthew suggests she be like the Frenchman who puts a coin in the collection box for the poor at night so that he’ll have it to spend the next morning. Matthew goes on to say that Americans split up the night and day because they don’t like mystery or indignities; the result is crime. For many, the thought of nights makes their days a torment. Nora says she’ll never be able to understand “her,” and it will always make her miserable. Matthew notes that things look different—perhaps scarier—by night than they do by day. Nora says she’s frightened and begs Matthew to tell her what it is in “her” that makes “her” act the way she does. Matthew becomes exasperated and asks for his smelling salts.

Matthew notes that some of the worst atrocities and tragedies happen during the night. In this way, the dead are responsible for some of the evil of the night, but love and sleep are responsible for the rest. Sleep is an unknown world in which a person might do anything, such as a husband falling asleep with his wife but dreaming of other women. Sleep leads into the unknown, which is what scares people who choose instead to go out to the bars at night. Matthew then explains that lovers fear the night because it’s where their beloveds go to find company with other people. The beloved is only forgiven for the infidelity because their sleep is so heavy. Although people say that what a person doesn’t see, they can’t mourn, night and sleep still inspire suspicion; people look to sleepers for secrets they’ll never find.

 “Night people” never bury their dead, but their wakeful partners carry both the beloved’s dead and their own living everywhere. Matthew goes on to say that people try to wash away their sins in various ways, but they only manage to make them more noticeable. Nora asks how Matthew can stand it if he’s right. Matthew calls her a hag and asks her to pardon his voice, which was nicer before he lost his kidney during the war. Matthew says if he could do it all over again, he’d rather be the girl who follows behind the army. Matthew asks if it’s his fault that he’s had a past life and has been called back into another. In another life, Matthew thinks he was a beautiful girl who spent her night with sailors on the dock. He believes he’s “turned up this time as [he] shouldn’t have been.”

Matthew says that no matter what else he’s doing, he’d rather be knitting, having children, and making dinner for a husband. He mourns the fact that he can’t even have the comfortable home he dreams of and talks about a discussion he had with another group of men about the best place to pick up handsome men. Nora asks what she’s supposed to do. In reply, Matthew asks her if she’s ever thought about the other women who share her position, waiting for their partners to return at night, which makes Nora cry. Matthew rhetorically asks if he knows his “Sodomites” and what it’s like to love one as a woman. Some of them find that the person who loves them is “[un]able to exist.” Matthew explains that people who live in the night struggle to exist during the day—they seem out of place in the light.

Matthew says that this isn’t everything about the night—there’s so much more, but he can’t explain it all. He assures Nora that a person’s unique evil has an end, and in old age many people are so feeble that they forget the strong passions they had in their youth. He tells Nora to remember that. Nora asks him what will happen to “her.” Matthew doesn’t immediately answer but talks about death until Nora interrupts to try to repeat the question. Matthew tells her to wait because he’s going to tell her about the night that Nora’s most curious about. Matthew says he’s arrived at the subject of Jenny, who yearns to have other people’s property and measures the worth of objects by how much their owners prize them. For this reason, Jenny wanted Robin. 

Nora asks what Jenny is like. Matthew says that Jenny is small, nervous, and tries to “collect[]” her destiny. Jenny believes her primary destiny is love, but because she’s a collector, the best love she can have is someone else’s. Matthew repeats that he’s coming to the night Nora is most interested in—the night Jenny met Robin. Matthew says he was at the opera and spotted Jenny there; more importantly, Jenny spotted Robin. Matthew watched Jenny and Robin at the opera, thinking about Nora and how the three would inevitably become entangled with one another, like fighting deer who get their antlers crossed and die that way. Matthew recognized that Jenny was looking for trouble because she knew this was her last chance to do something; soon she’d be too old. Matthew felt bad for Jenny, so he did as she asked and introduced her to Robin.

Matthew notes that he couldn’t have made things much worse because Robin had met so many people, and Nora agrees. Returning to the story, Matthew says that when the opera ended Jenny went trotting after Robin and him, asking them to have dinner at her house. They agreed—Matthew notes that most people will betray a friend for a good meal and whiskey—and this led to the ride they took that night. Matthew describes their route, which took them along the very street where Nora and Robin’s house was. Matthew says he knew Jenny was doing something terrible and suddenly became grateful that he didn’t want anything in the world that he couldn’t get cheap; he wasn’t even jealous of Jenny’s valuables.

Matthew says that when the carriages pulled up, Robin was the first one out of the house but had Jenny chasing and calling after her. In the carriage, Matthew thought to himself that everything a person does seems decent when they begin to forget (which happens in life), and then it seems good when the person becomes forgotten (which happens in death). As they drove, Matthew mourned for his spirit and the spirits of people like him, including those who hadn’t been born. Matthew thought to himself that he’d do anything for them, but nothing for Jenny. Still, Matthew decided that he’d forgive Jenny if she were dying. When Matthew looked up, Robin was bleeding, Jenny was shaking, and the other people in the carriage were frightened. Watching the struggle, Matthew knew Nora would leave Robin one day, but even if they were buried far apart a dog would find them both.