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It was an autumnal morning, cold, and cloudy. Holmes had just finished his breakfast, and he was now lying on the sofa of our sitting-room, reading the morning newspapers. His last case was over, and his energy was again decaying, mournfully and inexorably.
My admiration, my care, and my… love for him had become so evident to both of us in the last few months that I could hardly avoid speaking without showing my feelings for him. Even in my written stories, anyone attentive enough could read the real nature of my interest in Holmes. And he, who could understand the reason of my most insignificant movements, was undoubtedly aware of my devotion to him.
From the beginning, I had noticed his pleasure when I truly expressed my admiration for his intellectual capabilities, and the fondness for him that it implied. That fondness was soon after reciprocal, it was a fact. He liked having me close to him through his authoritarian and rather selfish manner. These certainties, and the confidence I had in his deductive skills, gave me boldness enough to express in words my concern that day.
“Holmes,” I asked for his attention, “do you really think we can go on with this indefinitely, without changes, the whole life?” That was it. I said it, calmly, fixing my eyes in his steadily.
“¿Why not?” was his answer. He did not look surprised at my question. Certainly, he knew what I was talking about, and he looked disposed to be honest with me.
“Because I don’t know how long I shall be able to bear it. I don’t want to be insistent, I shall speak no more about it after this. But I need to make things clear.”
“Haven’t I made it clear enough to you yet, indirectly?” He answered me, cold and distant, as was usual with him when he was out of humour. “I can’t see what you’re expecting. I have never shown myself uncertain, and I can’t see either what have made you talk about it, either.”
“And what does it mean? What must I understand? That there is no possibility… because you don’t want it, or because it’s impossible?” I asked, conscious of how unclear the question was. His answer could not satisfy me.
“Because it’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want it. I renounced all this when I chose my profession. Watson, please, don’t think any more about it.”
And that was all. What can I understand about his answer? What was the reason of his negative? Was it moral prejudice, or a simple personal compromise? Did it mean that, apart from this compromise, there was nothing to prevent him from being closer to me?
“I can wait until you decide to retire.”
“Of course you can. But there will be no guarantee in that.”
“It’s me, then?” His last words, and the way of they were said, had wounded me more than the jezail bullets had. In that very moment, all my boldness, and all my resolution to be calm, what I had succeded in, seemed to be defeated by this simple statement. “I see. It’s me, then.” I got up, determined to lock myself in my bedroom, unable to keep my serenity.
“Watson!” I turned back. He seemed to doubt a moment. “It’s not you. Believe me, please. I have decided it so. But if sometime, for any reason, I had to break my promise…” I saw how uncertain he was how he would finish. He didn’t know how he was going to say it. I could have stopped him from telling me, for I knew what he was going to say. But, after all the time we had kept silent, and before all the silence that was to come, I let him continue. These words were all that he would give me. I needed to hear them.
“What?”
“I wouldn’t contemplate any other possibility… if I had to break my promise.”