The loss of it he felt so keenly that he knew he could never bring himself to risk sprouting that kind of intimacy with another man again.
He was not sure which was the greater loss, his past or his potential future.
2) The scent of the strong shag warmed in the bowl of the oily clay. They say that scent is the strongest stimulus of memory, and Watson knows that that is true as there were times when he caught a whiff of the same blend, and his heart leapt in joy merely to crash down when he turned to find a complete stranger familiar only in the same abysmal palate for foul tobaccos and impressive constitution to tolerate the same.
retrospect, he wonders if any of those strangers were related to the old bookseller, but he tells himself that even Holmes could never be that callous.
3) Those moments when Holmes uncoiled and lay open and vulnerable just for him. Watson cannot remember whole interludes now, only fragments as a peek through a stereoscope—the quiver of a hand as it stroked his chest; the expression of rapt abandon as Holmes waged war with opposing needs to control and to climax, unsure on which side his allegiance lay; the humble odour rising from the curls of Holmes's hair that intoxicated in a way no brandy ever could; the nonsensical things Holmes whispered in those moments when even the greatest men and minds become little more than slavish agents of their glands.
Even
before Meiringen Watson had resigned himself that
these interludes
were now a part of their past. That
was
not the loss that made him ache. The
keenest
pain was that no one but him would ever know, and if it lived on in his
head
alone, how was that any different from a dream or a fantasy...or the
baseless ravings
of a madman, at that?
Worse still, if the remnants should fade further, or die with him, who
was to
say it ever happened at all?
There was not nearly enough tenderness and beauty in this world to
dispose of
any such experiences so cavalierly.
He
wished
he could tell Mary and validate the memories through her, for she was
his best
friend then. But
he wouldn't, for she
had genteelly declined to see what he thinks must have
been—what must be—evident
to all of greater
Now
that
Holmes is back he vows that he will remember every touch, every word,
every movement
that they make and he will play it over and over in his head until it
is more
real than any casual conversation he should have in the street. 4)
Mendelssohn played exquisitely for an audience of one as, outside their
walls, 5)
The
excitement. Sometimes Watson feared he would die of boredom between the
daily
barrage of patients outside his home and the mundane banality within.
Then he
remembered that their cases took root not in Holmes himself, but
existed all
around them only waiting to be uncovered for the truth of what they
were. An image of
Holmes would drop unbidden into
his mind and coalesce into a lecture until his ears would virtually
ring with
the old amiable chastisement for giving up so easily and once again
failing to
observe.
If one day that should make him seem the madman, so be it. Watson has often thought
it is the mad who
have the happier role in life.
It
would
never do to dishonour Holmes's methods that way—not with him
hovering so
insistent and clear in his mind. So
instead of dwelling on what he no longer had, Watson would settle
himself with
pen and paper and begin to write.
He
shows
those recounts to Holmes now, and although the predictable critique
from
Holmes's tongue is harsh because he cannot help but be that way, the
language
from Holmes's body is not because when it is just the two of them he
cannot
help that either. With
an overflowing
heart, Watson begins to pen what will become the "Adventure of the
Empty
House", and he realises that the excitement is back again.