(no subject)
April 12th, 1896
I have cause now to remember the determined optimism of that previous afternoon with fondness, though I must also berate myself for not noticing the tell-tale signs. ‘Desperate times,’ indeed. Holmes had followed the lead with his characteristically ruthless thoroughness, but that lead had failed to produce results. And as he found his efforts rewarded with another dead-end, a noticeable change came over his personality. I have had occasion to observe these violent moods more than once, but I fear that - as both friend and physician - I am no closer to understanding them. How a mind as inventive and perpetually curious as his can succumb to the wasting periods of inertia it so strongly rebels against remains a mystery to me, but I have come to dread them above all else. Whatever his incredible faculties, Holmes remains human - and each remarkable skill and talent must be balanced out by an echoing fault. While a creature of infinite industry and victim to so few common vices, his inability to accept defeat cries of pride and is as destructive as any more conventional sin. He thrives at the challenge while resenting his difficulty in overcoming it; at best, a dangerous juxtaposition.
Even now, it has a hold on him. I find myself compelled to write in an attempt to drown out the sound of that wretched violin - music as beautiful and fascinatingly complex as its creator, but also dark and faintly sinister. I have never been musically inclined, and I confess I lack the sensitivity to sound that makes good music such a source of joy and delight to my companion. And yet, as absurd as it seems to me to even think it, I can feel the notes he plays now. They resonate against the edges of my very bones, and it is a painful sensation. I begin to feel as though my entire body were constructed of glass, and that the notes are composed of something harder and stronger; one wrong chord could shatter every limb. Exquisite agony! If the music creates such fragility in me, I can only imagine what it is doing to my friend. I long to rush into the room and tear the bow from his hands, dash the offending bit of wood and string to the ground. But in the action lies madness. All these careful lines we’ve drawn, the strange support beams that sustain this peculiar friendship; to cross them creates yet another danger of its own.
Well, if I will not cross my boundaries, I must trust that Holmes will not cross his; that this is another period we must simply wait to pass.
But oh, that damned violin!
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