Saved Archived Meta: Sherloki1854 (pt.2)

[221bcrow]

How Watson came back to life to save Holmes

In HLV, Sherlock’s heart starts beating again because “John Watson is definitely in danger”. In the ACD canon, Watson defeats certain madness and death in The Devil’s Foot because he realises that Holmes will die if he, Watson, does not save him. Else, that story is quite telling as well: it is far too romantic in its descriptions, Watson refers to “discretion”, a mirror to Holmes commits a crime in passionate revenge, and Holmes and Watson are living in an isolated cottage in Cornwall, for crying out loud! (And I think that there might be only one bedroom, by the way.)

 

My participation in some of his adventures was always a privilege which entailed discretion and reticence upon me.

 

It was, then, in the spring of the year 1897 that Holmes’s iron constitution showed some symptoms of giving way […][H]e was induced at last, on the threat of being permanently disqualified from work, to give himself a complete change of scene and air. Thus it was that in the early spring of that year we found ourselves together in a small cottage near Poldhu Bay, at the further extremity of the Cornish peninsula.

What follows now is a ridiculously long and romantic description of bleak but heartbreakingly beautiful Cornwall. Which would be entirely unnecessary if the story’s main point was actually to show a detective’s work and not to become the perfect covert romance.  

 

[They] entered abruptly into our little sitting-room on Tuesday, March the 16th, shortly after our breakfast hour, as we were smoking together, preparatory to our daily excursion upon the moors.

“Mr. Holmes,” said the vicar in an agitated voice, “the most extraordinary and tragic affair has occurred during the night. It is the most unheard-of business. We can only regard it as a special Providence that you should chance to be here at the time, for in all England you are the one man we need.”

I glared at the intrusive vicar with no very friendly eyes; but Holmes took his pipe from his lips and sat up in his chair like an old hound who hears the view-halloa.

First of all, they are so snug in “our” cottage after “our” breakfast, intending to take “our” walks. Secondly, Watson “glaring” at a vicar, trying to protect Holmes, is just a perfect image. He will not succeed, of course, and they go investigate.

 

My friend smiled and laid his hand upon my arm. “I think, Watson, that I shall resume that course of tobacco-poisoning which you have so often and so justly condemned,” said he. “With your permission, gentlemen, we will now return to our cottage, for I am not aware that any new factor is likely to come to our notice here. I will turn the facts over in my mind […]”

(If I were single and with a friend, I personally would not call a holiday cottage “ours”. Here it is done all the time.)

 

Finally he laid down his pipe and sprang to his feet.

“It won’t do, Watson!” said he with a laugh. “Let us walk along the cliffs together and search for flint arrows. We are more likely to find them than clues to this problem. To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces. The sea air, sunshine, and patience, Watson–all else will come.

"Now, let us calmly define our position, Watson,” he continued as we skirted the cliffs together.

Holmes is not getting anywhere with his theories, so what does he do? Take Watson on a romantic walk on the Cornwall coast.

 

I was shaving at my window in the morning when I heard the rattle of hoofs and, looking up, saw a dog-cart coming at a gallop down the road. It pulled up at our door, and our friend, the vicar, sprang from it and rushed up our garden path. Holmes was already dressed, and we hastened down to meet him.

“My window” sounds like there was one room with several windows to me, but that is not really conclusive. What is, though, is that Watson does not mention what Holmes was doing “already dressed” (implying he was not, before) in the same room as Watson, which is still shaving.

 

One realized the red-hot energy which underlay Holmes’s phlegmatic exterior when one saw the sudden change which came over him from the moment that he entered the fatal apartment. In an instant he was tense and alert, his eyes shining, his face set, his limbs quivering with eager activity.

I do not feel like I needed to say anything about this.

 

Another experiment which he made was of a more unpleasant nature, and one which I am not likely ever to forget.

No, you will not forget that experiment, and for a very good reason…

 

“[W]e will, however, take the precaution to open our window to avoid the premature decease of two deserving members of society, and you will seat yourself near that open window in an armchair unless, like a sensible man, you determine to have nothing to do with the affair. Oh, you will see it out, will you? I thought I knew my Watson. This chair I will place opposite yours, so that we may be the same distance from the poison and face to face. […]”

They were not long in coming. I had hardly settled in my chair before I was conscious of a thick, musky odour, subtle and nauseous. At the very first whiff of it my brain and my imagination were beyond all control. A thick, black cloud swirled before my eyes, and my mind told me that in this cloud, unseen as yet, but about to spring out upon my appalled senses, lurked all that was vaguely horrible, all that was monstrous and inconceivably wicked in the universe. Vague shapes swirled and swam amid the dark cloud-bank, each a menace and a warning of something coming, the advent of some unspeakable dweller upon the threshold, whose very shadow would blast my soul. A freezing horror took possession of me. I felt that my hair was rising, that my eyes were protruding, that my mouth was opened, and my tongue like leather. The turmoil within my brain was such that something must surely snap. I tried to scream and was vaguely aware of some hoarse croak which was my own voice, but distant and detached from myself. At the same moment, in some effort of escape, I broke through that cloud of despair and had a glimpse of Holmes’s face, white, rigid, and drawn with horror–the very look which I had seen upon the features of the dead. It was that vision which gave me an instant of sanity and of strength. I dashed from my chair, threw my arms round Holmes, and together we lurched through the door, and an instant afterwards had thrown ourselves down upon the grass plot and were lying side by side, conscious only of the glorious sunshine which was bursting its way through the hellish cloud of terror which had girt us in. Slowly it rose from our souls like the mists from a landscape until peace and reason had returned, and we were sitting upon the grass, wiping our clammy foreheads, and looking with apprehension at each other to mark the last traces of that terrific experience which we had undergone.

“Upon my word, Watson!” said Holmes at last with an unsteady voice, “I owe you both my thanks and an apology. It was an unjustifiable experiment even for one’s self, and doubly so for a friend. I am really very sorry.”

“You know,” I answered with some emotion, for I have never seen so much of Holmes’s heart before, “that it is my greatest joy and privilege to help you.”

Finding a more romantic scene in any book whatsoever is impossible. At least, I am a book-addict and have failed to find any for years and years.

 

For a moment I wished that I were armed. Sterndale’s fierce face turned to a dusky red, his eyes glared, and the knotted, passionate veins started out in his forehead, while he sprang forward with clenched hands towards my companion.

Watson wishes for a gun because Holmes is threatened. It reminds me of Holmes swearing to Killer Evans that he would kill him if he murdered Watson. It goes both ways.

 

Sterndale sat down with a gasp, overawed for, perhaps, the first time in his adventurous life. There was a calm assurance of power in Holmes’s manner which could not be withstood.

Reading such statements is painful because they are so obvious…

 

“Should I appeal to the law? Where were my proofs? I knew that the facts were true, but could I help to make a jury of countrymen believe so fantastic a story? I might or I might not. But I could not afford to fail. My soul cried out for revenge. I have said to you once before, Mr. Holmes, that I have spent much of my life outside the law, and that I have come at last to be a law to myself.

Dr Leon Sterndale serves as a mirror for Holmes: he determines what is just, and Holmes understands him and lets him go. What is interesting is that Holmes’s mirror is a man who committed a crime in revenge because he passionately loved somebody. And we all know that Holmes would kill for Watson (3GAR).

 

Perhaps, if you loved a woman, you would have done as much yourself. At any rate, I am in your hands. You can take what steps you like. As I have already said, there is no man living who can fear death less than I do.”

[Holmes lets Sterndale go.]

“You would not denounce the man?”

“Certainly not,” I answered.

“I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and if the woman I loved had met such an end, I might act even as our lawless lion-hunter has done. Who knows?

Two things of importance: a) Sterndale knows/assumes that Holmes does not “love a woman”, and b) we should not believe Holmes’s statement for a few valid reasons. Apart from the fact that we know that Holmes is perfectly capable of love, Holmes himself will take Sterndale’s stance in 3GAR, and moreover, what Holmes says is a verbal repetition of Sterndale’s assertion and really does not sound like something Holmes would say sua sponte.

 

And now, my dear Watson, I think we may dismiss the matter from our mind […].”

Please take a moment to appreciate the singular form of “mind”: they share their thoughts. Beautiful.

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Code “red” in Sherlock Holmes

I know everybody has had enough of this reading of “red scarves/kerchiefs/collars=gay” in Victorian code, but why do they keep turning up?

 

Sherlock:

The Sign of Four, 1888

In the early dawn I woke with a start, and was surprised to find him standing by my bedside, clad in a rude sailor dress with a pea-jacket, and a coarse red scarf round his neck.

The Beryl Coronet, 1886

He hurried to his chamber and was down again in a few minutes dressed as a common loafer. With his collar turned up, his shiny, seedy coat, his red cravat, and his worn boots, he was a perfect sample of the class.

 

And Mycroft too:

The Greek Interpreter, 1888

Mycroft took snuff from a tortoise-shell box, and brushed away the wandering grains from his coat front with a large, red silk handkerchief.

The Final Problem, 1891

Holmes to Watson: “You will find a small brougham waiting close to the curb, driven by a fellow with a heavy black cloak tipped at the collar with red.”

(Again: red around the neck.)

 

(And if you want to have something to have fun with, am I the only one who thinks that Holmes is posing as a rent boy at the docks in that scene in The Sign of Four?)

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Badass John Watson is ACD CANON - Captain John Watson was never a goldfish.

Here the many times when Holmes asks Watson to bring his gun along and when Watson has to fight for Holmes’s and his own safety. 

Holmes always relies on Watson to see them through…

A Study in Scarlet, 1881: 
“Have you any arms?”
“I have my old service revolver and a few cartridges.”
“You had better clean it and load it. He will be a desperate man, and though I shall take him unawares, it is as well to be ready for anything.”

The Speckled Band, 1883: I should be very much obliged if you would slip your revolver into your pocket. An Eley’s No. 2 is an excellent argument with gentlemen who can twist steel pokers into knots.

The Sing of Four, 1888: “Have you a pistol, Watson?”/“I have my old service-revolver in my desk.”/“You had best take it, then. It is well to be prepared. […]”

The Hound of the Baskervilles, 1888: “I will come,” said I. / “Then get your revolver”

The Copper Beeches, 1889: “I tell you that he is a clever and dangerous man. I should not be very much surprised if this were he whose step I hear now upon the stair. I think, Watson, that it would be as well for you to have your pistol ready.”

Black Peter, 1895: I heard a click of steel and a bellow like an enraged bull. The next instant Holmes and the seaman were rolling on the ground together. He was a man of such gigantic strength that, even with the handcuffs which Holmes had so deftly fastened upon his wrists, he would have very quickly overpowered my friend had Hopkins and I not rushed to his rescue. Only when I pressed the cold muzzle of the revolver to his temple did he at last understand that resistance was vain. We lashed his ankles with cord, and rose breathless from the struggle.

The Devil’s Foot, 1897: For a moment I wished that I were armed 

The Six Napoleons, 1900: I was not surprised when Holmes suggested that I should take my revolver with me

Thor Bridge, 1900: 
“Watson,” said he, “I have some recollection that you go armed upon these excursions of ours.”
It was as well for him that I did so, for he took little care for his own safety when his mind was once absorbed by a problem so that more than once my revolver had been a good friend in need. I reminded him of the fact.
“Yes, yes, I am a little absent-minded in such matters. But have you your revolver on you?”

Lady Frances Carfax, 1902: Well, there’s nothing for it now but a direct frontal attack. Are you armed?

The Three Gables, 1903: It may have been the icy coolness of my friend, or it may have been the slight clatter which I made as I picked up the poker. 

 

And in addition to the physical side of defending Holmes (seriously, Holmes would have died at about thirty without Watson), Watson is his partner mentally as well, as I showed before.

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John Watson is far too clever

sherloki1854

It always makes me mad when Watson is a bumbling idiot in an adaptation or pastiche etc. He is Holmes’s partner, not his pet! So this is meant to show that badass Watson is canon! (A birthday present for myself.) ;)  

Holmes is a drama queen not only in Sherlock: in canon, he shows off as much as humanly possible with his deductions, and particularly in front of Watson, who humours him and expresses his admiration. This led a lot of people to the (awful) assumption that Holmes essentially only wanted an idiot who would adulate him, and it is important to me to show that even though Watson constantly undervalues himself (Holmes even speaks of Watson’s “modesty” in The Blanched Soldier) and it is thus difficult to find evidence, he was, in fact, a perfectly intelligent man. But sometimes he does let through that he follows Holmes’s deductions – he knows Holmes and his methods. And he is able to apply it:

 

The Resident Patient, 1886
I was sufficiently conversant with Holmes’s methods to be able to follow his reasoning, and to see that the nature and state of the various medical instruments in the wicker basket which hung in the lamplight inside the brougham had given him the data for his swift deduction.

The Norwood Builder, 1894
Familiar as I was with my friend’s methods, it was not difficult for me to follow his deductions, and to observe the untidiness of attire, the sheaf of legal papers, the watch-charm, and the breathing which had prompted them. Our client, however, stared in amazement.

The Solitary Cyclist, 1895
“At least it cannot be your health,” said he, as his keen eyes darted over her; “so ardent a bicyclist must be full of energy.”
She glanced down in surprise at her own feet, and I observed the slight roughening of the side of the sole caused by the friction of the edge of the pedal.

The Devil’s Foot, 1897
“Well, as you seem to have made the discovery, whatever it may be, and the vicar to have had it second-hand, perhaps you had better do the speaking,” said Holmes.
I glanced at the hastily clad clergyman, with the formally dressed lodger seated beside him, and was amused at the surprise which Holmes’s simple deduction had brought to their faces.

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Exactly how “intimate” Holmes and Watson are

This is a pretty pointless compilation of how “intimate” they are in canon. It’s my birthday tomorrow so I can post something just for fun. Actually, that is a terrible excuse. I would have posted this bit of nonsensical meta anyway. ;)

The Speckled Band, 1883

• This is my intimate friend and associate, Dr. Watson, before whom you can speak as freely as before myself.
• They have known each other for two years and are already that intimate? It would be a normal thing to say today, but this is 1883 and the Victorians were – let’s call it peculiar about this sort of thing.

The Yellow Face, 1888

• For two hours we rambled about together, in silence for the most part, as befits two men who know each other intimately.
• Read as: they did not have to speak their thoughts out loud because the both already knew exactly what the other would be thinking. Well, it is canon that Holmes can (and does) read Watson’s thoughts.

The Greek Interpreter, 1888

• During my long and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Sherlock Holmes I had never heard him refer to his relations, and hardly ever to his own early life.
• Again, “long and intimate”; also he does finally refer to his family in this story. So basically, The Greek Interpreter is “meeting the family” (plus, obviously, another crime/date).

The Final Problem, 1891

• […] the very intimate relations which had existed between Holmes and myself […]
• And even more – “very intimate”? Watson, are you trying to say something?

The Devil’s Foot, 1897

• In recording from time to time some of the curious experiences and interesting recollections which I associate with my long and intimate friendship with Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have continually been faced by difficulties caused by his own aversion to publicity.
• See above; but now, a few years later, Watson has dropped all pretence of “acquaintance” and simply says “friendship”. This does not fit modern language/terms, but, for instance, Oscar Wilde referred to Lord Alfred Douglas as his “friend”, and Maurice and Clive are “friends”.

The Dancing Men, 1898

• I gave a start of astonishment. Accustomed as I was to Holmes’s curious faculties, this sudden intrusion into my most intimate thoughts was utterly inexplicable.
• And here, the mind-reading episode. It is a pretty impossible thing to do if you do not know somebody by heart. Even for Holmes it would probably be impossible on anybody else. But Holmes is not the only one who does it: Watson knows Holmes exactly as well. How about these two quotations: To me, who knew his every mood and habit, […] (A Scandal in Bohemia) and but it seemed to me, accustomed as I was to his every mood, […] (The Navel Treaty).

Watson, you are truly awful at keeping your secret, do you know?

By the way, just wondering, what exactly does “intimate” imply? ;)