The Snake and The Rabbit

The thought of this makes me cry all over again. My friend with the iron clad constitution fell apart. That powerful, logical mind was overcome, undone.

Long after the last mourner went home, Holmes stayed at the grave side. I sat in the shadows for a long time watching him. I could not abandon him now in his hour of need. Finally, after the dew of night had wet the ground, he called to me. I joined him on the bench where he sat staring at her grave. When he spoke, his voice was so broken that my stomach ached; “all is not right with the world Watson. A black cloud hangs over head. I have lost my cornerstone. Though we had not spoken in years, I knew in my heart that she was alive. Day and night came and went and she was still in the land of the living. Now,” he stopped and pointed viciously at the grave. “Now, humanities cruelty has taken my cornerstone from me.” He turned his pointing finger into a fist shaking it at thin air. I knew not what to do or say.

I put my arm around his shoulder. The dew had soaked through his great coat but I knew it was not the dew that made him shake. It was fitting that it started to rain long before we left. He slid from the bench to the wet ground.

“Would I have not made her a good husband? Could I have not cherished her above all living things on Earth? Could I have not provided her with a home to make her proud?” He pounded the ground with his fists, “why Watson, why?” He fell to the ground on his elbows. “Why?” He sat up glaring at me. “Why? You know women better than I! Why!?” He shouted.

The last thing in the world I wanted to tell him was the reasoning in my heart.

“Why?!” He shouted again. “For the love of God tell me why?” He thumped his chest with mortal regret.

It was all I could do to speak, “because above all things on this Earth, she loved you most.” I choked as I spoke.

“How could you say that? Look at where we are.”

“I have known a woman’s love Holmes. I have never known a love as powerful as what I have witness between the two of you. There was something stronger than love happening here. Something I have not a name to describe. This was not a woman Holmes,” I looked at my friend then at her grave. “This creature was so much more than a woman.” Looking at her grave and feeling the grief coming from Holmes, “I now understand why women could never measure up.” I paused. Holmes was just staring at me. “A woman had to measure up to her in order to be a female in your eyes. No woman could do that.”

“She was the other half of me. She was the parts of me that I could not be. In all the areas of my life where I was weak, she was stronger than me.”

After that night, we never talked about Ara ever again. When Holmes came back from Reichenback Falls he had changed. He was a little darker, a little more morose. After her death, he withdrew from public life though he worked on two more cases. He did a few things but not many at all. He retreated to the cottage in Sussex that she had left him and did a study of bees. Holmes changed. What he said was true, his cornerstone was gone. His world had changed and he was unable to change with it.  

I learned a lot about my friend that night at the cemetery. Only after that point did I realize why Holmes never trusted women. Why he was almost to the point of hating them. He had given his whole heart to a woman who had refused him. An amazing creature that; it is hard not to judge all women by, which is exactly what Homes did. He judged all women by the acts of one.

My wife now disagrees with me and gives me an entirely new point to look upon. That Holmes loved her so much, when he asked her to marry him, he married her in his heart. Much as a nun marries Jesus when she takes her vows. Upon this we both agree; no other woman could compare to the one he already loved. I had often thought that Irene Adler was the woman that he judged all women by; oh how wrong I was.

When my friend died, he was given a much deserved hero’s burial. His one wish was to be buried at her side. After so strange a relationship in life, they could be joined in death. It was my duty, my pleasure to make sure this happened.

I have no doubt that many of you will read my account with disgust. Books and pages may take flight across many rooms in agitation. Countless lectures, arguments and papers, have been written about my great friend. Dissecting every aspect of his life. His work. No one (I think not even Mycroft) had a complete picture of who the man really was.

THE END

The Snake and The Rabbit