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acdholmesfestTitle: Love as fearful torment
Recipient:saintdionysus
Author: [redacted]
Rating: NC-17 (M for Ao3)
Characters, including any pairing(s): Holmes/Watson
Warnings: Mentions of sexual content
Summary: "It begins – as it often has between Dr Watson and myself – with a visit to the opera." Holmes and Watson see Wagner's Parsifal, which sparks a conversation that leads to a tradition. As they get to know themselves and each other better, Parsifal remains the same pure fool, fulfilling in each version of his story his destination of reuniting the Holy Spear and Holy Grail.
Author's note: behind the cut
Author's Note:
Wagner’s Parsifal, based on the story of Arthurian knight Percival or Parzival, is an opera written in the 19th century. The themes of the opera were heavily influenced by Schopenhauer’s writings, which favours compassion and resisting temptation through negating the will. (Side note: The love Wagner felt for Schopenhauer does not appear to have been mutual at all) As a story it concludes an interesting arc for Wagner, who wrote about riotous love (Das Liebesverbot), then lovers who are redeemed only in death (Tristan und Isolde), and finally the rejection of love in his last completed opera. An article in the New Yorker refers to Parsifal’s plot as ‘paranoid, sex-panicked.’ Wagner started writing Parsifal as a man recently obsessed with Buddhism and his friend’s wife and finishes it only a year before he dies, famous and beloved. He is buried near where his operas were most famously performed, the theater built for his work in Bayreuth.
The story of this opera is based on the story of Parsifal, who as a "pure fool" is the only one who might protect the Holy Grail, retrieve the Holy Spear, and cure the pain of King Amfortas in the process. Parsifal stumbles upon the forest of King Amfortas and gets recruited by Gurnemanz, who as the eldest Knight of the Grail explains to Parsifal all that he needs to know. In order to complete his quest, Parsifal has to enter the magical garden of the malevolent Klingsor. Klingsor orders Kundry, the shape-shifting sorceress, to seduce Parsifal. She fails and is rejected, and Parsifal gets the Holy Spear, which he eventually returns to King Amfortas’ side.
A theme that Wagner’s interpretation of these (pre-)Arthurian stories emphasises is sehnen, yearning, or longing. Tristan and Isolde yearn for each other, and they cannot be allowed their desires, they long to be free of them until they long for death. This theme of unfulfilled desire is present in Parsifal too, though here it is in the end resolved. Parsifal's rejection of Kundry allows him to heal Amfortas’ wound. Amfortas begged for forgiveness for failing to protect the Holy Spear, and suffered greatly. In the end it is Parsifal’s compassion that grants him this forgiveness. Parsifal understands his pain, resists the feminine temptation, and cures the wound with the weapon that had inflicted it.
---------------
It begins – as it often has between Dr Watson and myself – with a visit to the opera. Usually we find ourselves in high spirits afterwards, eager to talk of themes and artistic intent, and in Watson’s case, endless concerns for other works that are similar. It is after a splendid performance of Wagner’s Parsifal that he and I forfeit the use of a cab in favour of a walk home. It is early enough in the year for the air to be crisp yet, but our cheeks are aglow with excitement from the evening we have spent together.
"But Holmes." He stops me with a hand on my arm, and I turn to look at him. His cheeks are bright, as are his eyes, but his mouth is unhappy, and I knew what he would say next: "How could it possibly be irrelevant?"
"Because art should be able to stand on its own, my dear Watson," I tell him, fond with him as I am with our well-worn argument even after only knowing each other a short while. "It should not require endless study before one can enjoy a piece of music or theatre, and in fact tonight proves that it does not."
"But – " he stammers. "King Arthur. This is like saying you do not need to understand German, or that the enjoyment of Tristan und Isolde would have been complete without knowing of the original story."
I cannot contain my smile at that, I had not known of the original until we had gone to see Tristan und Isolde together, only a year or so ago. "It was summarised in the program, Watson," I tell him.
He throws his hands up in despair. "You are incorrigible," he exclaims, but I can tell from his voice his own fondness. "Now why do you think I am always asking you about the music if not to better understand the leitmotifs, to further my own enjoyment of the performance?"
"Oh Watson," I say, my voice revealing how I might laugh. "I could not begin to presume to understand your mind." He laughs at me then, and I realise the truth of what I have said only after already speaking. But I do not take it back.
***
Watson indulges me, on nights where neither of us finds sleep easily and it is too late already to play my violin without disturbing the neighbours. One evening he returns from his club with a triumphant grin. Normally his nights out leave him angry and mean, uncomfortably sharp-tongued and drunk. Tonight I can tell from his collar that he has been drinking, from his cuffs what he has eaten, but it takes until he hands me a neatly wrapped parcel that I realise his grin does not come from an unexpected gambling win.
"Open it," he urges, and I do. It is a book, second hand but in good condition, the leather cover worn but whole. The Tales of King Arthur, the front reads. I smile at him. He has brought me several books about these stories of medieval England, and I have read not one of them. I should feel worse about the rudeness of my lack of appreciation for his generosity, but I am hoping for something else.
"Oh Watson," I tell him, and I let my eyes flick over to where a growing stack of books stands on the corner of the mantlepiece, "you shouldn’t have."
"But I did," he decides. He hangs his coat in the hall, and sets his hat down, before calling for some tea to be brought up. "Now sit, Holmes. I shall read it to you."
It takes every inch of self-control I have not to crow with victory, but I think he suspects this is what I have been angling for. I take care to look away from him until I can suppress my smile however. It wouldn’t do for him to know.
*
"I do not like this," I complain; it has been hours of endless rambling about the divine spear and chalice, that reunification of the whole, split apart into the feminine and masculine. And anyway, if it’s supposed to be about the feminine evils: "Why was it the spear then that wounded the king? Should it not be a chalice-inflicted wound?"
"He hurt himself," Watson explains, looking concerned. He holds his finger on the page to mark where I interrupted him. "It was not the sorceress Kundry that caused his injury, it was his own failure to resist her. Klingsor is able to use the spear on Amfortas, causing his wound, because Amfortas did not resist. Don’t you see? It is not just Klingsor who hurt his own masculinity, even if King Amfortas did not go so far as to castrate himself deliberately."
"His impulses, the manly masculine spear. The wound that wouldn’t heal. Yes, all that." I’m bored of it, and I stand up to fetch my violin. I play the motifs I remember from the opera, and think about the reading Watson has done with my back to him.
Klingsor could not resist his impure thoughts, and castrates himself to bridle them, but it does not work. His response is to build a magical garden specifically to tempt Knights of the Grail. I cannot agree with Watson. It does not matter that there is feminine and masculine, a chalice and a spear. There is a third entity that was present at Christ’s crucifixion, Kundry witnessed it and laughed, paying the price for her lack of compassion through her enslavement by Klingsor. How could Amfortas’ single lapse be comparable?
We are not making much progress with the original poem, but when I turn around to tell Watson I wish to take a break and read something else, he has his eyes closed. His mouth is slack the way it only is when he has fallen asleep on the sofa, or sometimes right before I wake him for a case. I play on, thinking about resisting temptation all the while.
*
"It seems," I muse, much later, "that too often men rely on women to resolve – to realign their souls."
"What a poetic thing to say," Watson tells me, his voice too low for me to read its tone. I sit up to better assess his features. "Don’t mind me," he hastens to say. "What made you think of that?"
"Bluebeard," I answer, and he nods his agreement. We are being jostled by the train, on our way back to London. The Stoner girls’ misery has reminded me of it. "Remember what you said about the spear hurting the king Amfortas because he failed to resist the feminine temptation of Kundry?"
"Indeed I do," he tells me, clearly surprised now. He sits up properly and so do I. He looks as if he might be getting a headache, and I resolve to ensure a quiet evening at Baker Street so he does not further agitate himself.
"Her very curse is her lack of agency, yet she is indispensable. The woman alone knows what is just, what is necessary, and sets all the events in motion. Her only reward is to be free."
"I suppose for Kundry it might be a true relief, after her long entrapment. But I see what you mean, if it ends where it started, why did it need to damage so many?"
"Parsifal’s mother Herzeleide, the king’s father, their senseless deaths," not to mention everything else set into motion by the apparently all-encompassing importance of protecting the Spear and Chalice.
"It seems unfair, does it not?" he asks me. It does.
*
"What of this twice in a lifetime chance, then?" Watson asks, very carefully, when we are walking through the park. We have finished our latest case, and have taken up our habit of reading the original story again. If he wants to talk about Parsifal, I will indulge him. "To – to get into the king’s forest." Adolescence and middle-age as two portals to finding the place where the Holy Grail is kept.
"There may be something to say for that," I agree, "I often find, however, that the first chance is taken from most, only the luckiest few, those without obligations, get to make any choice at all in their adolescence."
He seems disappointed at first, but then hums thoughtfully. "The choice that is not really a choice."
"Or is it?" I ask, "I do not think that we can know. Is it will? Or is it circumstance?"
We talk of the opera further, but he seems to have stumbled into one of his own moods of melancholy. They are fewer than mine, less severe usually. But I hear him cry that night, as I have heard him before during these moods, where he looks at me like everything hurts. I play the violin for him, the most soothing pieces I can imagine, and sometimes it just makes it worse, but he never asks me to stop. Occasionally these moods devolve into the sort of despondency that has Watson stay out late, and return with blood-red stains to his collar, so full of alcohol it pours out of him when he speaks. And all he will speak of then is sin, and temptation, and the impossible draw of redemption.
*
During our next interruption of the reading of the original, Watson reads me a book on philosophy. The author thinks music is our salvation, for which I cannot fault him, but philosophers tend to be entirely too sure of themselves for my taste. Watson has been talking for months about his hypothesis that Schopenhaufer’s work influenced Wagner, and he has finally brought proof.
"But did not Schopenhaufer argue that love cannot be found in one woman only?" I interrupt Watson to say. "And by that logic do not Parsifal and Tristan und Isolde contradict each other?"
"I suppose," Watson says, looking stupefied by my sudden passion for the topic after my long insisted upon reluctance. "That it is about the renouncing of desires, the search for inner peace through will." He thinks for a minute as I restuff my pipe. "But perhaps, Holmes, the answer is easier. Did Wagner not eventually marry his long-term mistress? That might have influenced his writing."
"Too many parameters," I grumble. "Your theory cannot be tested Watson." He laughs at me, and I let him. It is far better than the worried glances I have been getting of late, or the pained expression everything I do seems to provoke.
*
When Watson leaves me, we have not yet finished the medieval reading of Parsifal. I fear bringing it up, lest I won’t be able to conceal my hurt at having been abandoned. I see him radiate love for his wife, and celebrate my victory over my own will, how I resisted temptation, alone. I lose all interest in Arthurian tales, full of excitement as they may be, for reasons I do not care to examine. Sometimes I cannot help myself, and my raging mind demands I consider whether if Watson were Guinevere, would I be Lancelot for being illegitimate or Arthur for being first?
Instead of reading with Watson until late at night, I am forced to stare at the fire, or turn again to noisy or dangerous distractions. He comes to stay, of course, sometimes for more than a few nights at a time, in his old room at Baker Street. But it is never the same, to know that he is with me because his wife is with friends or tired of his late comings and goings during a case, or at one point, because she is at a sanatorium, recovering from the strain on her lungs that London has caused.
One evening, when we have just finished dinner and are sitting in Watson’s study, them on the sofa, me on the chair in front of his fire, he brings it up.
"Parsifal?" his wife asks, never pausing her handiwork. "Is that the one where everyone is constantly begging for death?"
He laughs, his eyes shine at her. She would have been too young to have seen the opera when it was in London. "You’ve heard of it?" I ask, therefore.
Her eyes are sharp when she looks up at me. "I saw it at Bayreuth, as a girl," she tells me. I feel chastised in my assumption, and nod my understanding. "I always preferred the Italian operas, personally."
"For the lyricism?" I ask, and we end up having a rather inspired conversation about music. Watson of course cannot follow it for the most part, but when I turn to him to ask if he preferred we changed the topic, his eyes are brimming with something I fear to examine. I let him be content listening, after that.
*
When I leave Watson, and I hide like a coward as I hear him cry for me, Parsifal is not on my mind. It is only when I am due to return that I contemplate the theme of second chances. We had met some time after our first, if such consideration of a man’s lifetime is to be taken as fact, having both passed adolescence prior to meeting. I would return rather closer to the second chance for both of us. Middle age. When I thought of Watson during my years of absence, I imagined him as I had seen him, with his wife, in front of the fire. He had been happy there, in the rooms above his clinic. Perhaps they have a child, I had thought after the first year since I had last seen Watson had passed. Perhaps they have more than one now, I think as I look out across the sea. The ferry from France is not long, but the first sight of the shore of the country I know Watson to reside in inspires a contemplation I have so far been able to avoid. Little Rosie, or Beth. A plain, nice name. Thomas Watson, perhaps. Harry, after his brother, or maybe Arthur after her father.
Only as I look at the shore, do I let myself imagine what it might be like to be on the other side of this channel. What if the situations had been reversed? I hold no illusions as to the nature of Watson’s, or indeed my own, affections, but I never doubted that I was a dear friend to him. I had frequently been forced to remind myself that I might never return, but now that I am returning, with only one thing left to do, I imagine how it would feel to have Watson returned to me after presuming him to be dead, and I reel at the thought. I decide then that I must find a way to show Watson that I had to be gone this long, that there was no other way but the one I had chosen to achieve what I must, that I had constantly considered him and his happiness. So that I might earn his forgiveness.
*
He does forgive me, before I even ask it of him, and I tell him I need him for a case instead of crying at his feet with gratitude. So he helps me, and we unravel the last thread together.
It happens occasionally, after a case that trials my intellect, or the limits of my physical capabilities, that I fall ill. This case, the one that had lasted for years, the one that took me around the world in a mad hunt, felled me as soon as it was resolved. I was more ill than I had yet been, but could not help laughing as he appeared at my bedside, much as he had when I pretended to be dying, with his bag, and his concern, and he stayed well on the other side of the room. We both remember when Culverton Smith’s little box had caused me to offend Watson so gravely.
"I am truly ill, this time," I promise him, my voice sore and feeble, "but I shan’t be dying. You may do as you please Watson, I know how you like to fuss."
He scoffs at me, but takes my temperature, and cools my brow, and feeds me sips of weak broth until I beg to be left alone after no more than half a cup. "Truly alone?" he asks, standing up with some hesitation that I am too weak to deduce the cause of.
"Why do you ask?"
"I had thought – the manuscript." He clears his throat. "Holmes – " He says then.
"Yes?"
"Could I – come back? I have been staying here occasionally, and there is a buyer for my practice, but he wants the rooms above it also." He pauses and I look around my room, how it is messy but has been kept clean, by what I am now beginning to suspect was a joint effort on the part of Watson and Mrs Hudson. "It has been rather empty since – well. Mary."
"Of course," I say, understanding, and wanting him home too. "Yes, my dear – my dear fellow of course, please. But don’t bother my poor head with the manuscript please, let us start with something lighter."
He laughs but relents, and starts a retelling of King Arthur’s many adventures, one I had not heard before. I dream about them, all through my illness and recovery, the vivid fever dreams fuelled by stories of danger and glory at the relentless pace of pounding through a forest on horseback. I don’t tell Watson this, for fear he will stop reading to me but I suspect him of knowing regardless.
Sometimes I dream of him, sitting next to my bed, as I drift in and out of awareness. The tedium of illness, the boredom of spending long hours staring at the ceiling, has caused me to imagine things that were not there on many occasions before, and it has driven me out of bed before it was time even more regularly. It has never been so cruel as to show me Watson, in nothing but his nightclothes, in the full light of day, holding my hand.
"Watson," I promise my conjured friend, for even in a fever dream he should not look so heart-broken. "I promised this won’t be the way I go. This will not be the end."
"What will it be then?" he says, sounding haggard and exhausted, his fingers clenching around mine. "A swim in the Thames? A client that tires of your insults? Malnutrition?"
"No, no," I laugh, even as I hear my own lungs rattle with the effort, "I have far greater sins than those!" He looks to be in pain, and so I urge him to take some laudanum. He shakes his head no and I try to sit up to make him, and then my dream changes.
*
As soon as I am able to, I return to my cases. At my doctor’s request however, I go nowhere at night, in the rain, or alone. I do not mind overmuch, although I do complain, for it brings me time to get reacquainted with my dearest friend, as well as everything else I left behind in London.
"I prefer the Parsifal central thesis," I tell him one night, after some contemplation in front of our fire. I have been reading Watson’s published tales of our cases, and am constantly torn between begging for forgiveness and demanding he asks for mine. He describes me so cruelly, at times, and so longingly at others. Undecided as to which way my final opinion shall lie, I try to distract him with a well-worn topic of discussion. "The Tristan und Isolde tension rests on romantic love, which is not so interesting. I prefer the idea that the human will shapes one’s personality. Perhaps it is a maturation of Wagner’s thoughts. The emphasis on Mitleid might even be considered an answer to the Sehnen of Tristan und Isolde."
He smiles at me in an entirely too soft way. "Enlightenment through compassion, and compassion as the answer to yearning," he says, like I am made new for him. I scoff at the idea, and feel the need to fall to his feet burn through my chest. At night when I reconsider all that we have done throughout the day I will be pleased that he understands my efforts, but not while the fire is still lit. "Shall I read a bit more then?"
It takes longer than it should for me to collect my thoughts and look at him. "Please," I tell him, because I do enjoy hearing his voice, especially when he speaks only for me, in the privacy of our rooms.
"Stretch out then," he tells me, as he reaches for the book and finds the right page. I set aside his publications, they will be there for me to read another day, and do as he tells me. Watson is different since I have returned, or perhaps it is his return to me that changed him. I won’t know that it isn’t my leaving, or something that happened in between, but he seems patient now, where he was sharp and often angry before. His attitude to my habits has changed, too. Before, he did not like my indulgence in long stretches of staring at the ceiling, wrapped in my bathrobe, spread out on the sofa, and now he does not like my denial of what he terms ‘rest’. The cases we have had since my return to work have indeed not been restful, but they have kept us rather busy, which I find offers a different sort of relief. I lie back on the sofa, and look at the ceiling, and let his voice wash over me.
*
During our time in Oxford, where I research anatomical findings of prison-based dissections, and we solve a case to do with tests and scholarships, I work such long hours that I see Watson rarely outside of the times that the library is closed. We are staying in rooms near the library, so occasionally I meet him for lunch. Just as often, however, I forget to eat entirely until the librarian urges me to go to the dining hall, a necessary interruption and a small price to pay for access to rooms and texts.
"Watson," I greet him on one such evenings. He has kept a spot free beside him, and fills my wine glass for me as I sit down.
"Will you want to return to your researches after we eat?" he asks, and I tell him I am quite done for the day. It is a lie, but a comfortable one. He has been spending more and more time at various clubs about town, and I care not one bit for the way he stumbles back into our rooms later than me several times a week. He is so happy to see me now, that I forgive myself my fibbing immediately. "Master Kölbing here has some thoughts about our Parsifal studies," he says, with a proud little head gesture.
"The Master Kölbing?" I hiss at him, and he nods. It proves a splendid evening, where Watson and I use our opportunity to question Master Kölbing on destiny. He argues wonderfully that Herzeleide, in trying to prevent her son from meeting the same fate as his father, created the pure fool destined to find the spear. Watson is so animated by this conversation that he comes with me to the library the next morning, and we spend the day at a table between the anatomy and literature sections, each conducting our own studies.
*
"Then what is the difference between Amfortas and Parsifal?" I ask him, when we finally have finished the tedium of the medieval manuscript. He has recently returned from Switzerland and France, and I am loathe to let him out of my sight at all. "Is it simply that Parsifal rejects the advances of Kundry?"
He laughs, and it is almost too much to bear, the intimacy of our rooms, the light of the candles. "I don’t think it’s simply the rejection. I should say it is about enforcing will, and compassion."
"Did Amfortas get all the same chances he did?" I wonder out loud, thinking of how often we make decisions that seem harmless and find out later the magnitude of their effects. "Was he aware of the pain it would cause to fall for temptation?"
"I don’t know," Watson tells me, "we can look through the book later this evening if you wish?"
He chuckles then, half-away in thought. "A bit queer, is it not? The wounded manhood as a punishment for giving in to temptation, the purity of Parsifal that is shown mostly in his not-wanting. The pain it causes him to be with a woman?"
Queer is exactly the word that comes to my mind also, but I will not be telling Watson this. I will also not be telling him that I have heard him say those same words on many occasions, but never before in a tone that didn’t bely his all-consuming contempt. I don’t wish to know what might have changed his mind. I huff at my pipe and pretend to be thinking my original question over. What makes one worthy? Why is one of these men able to complete the quest?
If I were braver I would agree with him, and remind him that Amfortas and Parsifal are more joined to each other than either of them is to Kundry. That it is Parsifal touching Amfortas with the spear, after recognizing his passion and agony, that heals and absolves him. It is that action too that releases Kundry from her curse, which seems to involve mostly kissing men.
*
"I think, Holmes," he tells me, at the resolution of the case of the Dancing Men, "that a great many things have been invented just so some men can feel superior over others."
"Like what?" I ask, drawing on my pipe. I think of the case that brought us Watson’s late wife, the opulence that surrounded the sad bastard Sholto.
"Like this insistence on denying temptation, and perhaps even your insistence that your transport is irrelevant." He looks angry now and I cannot tell if he is talking about the case, or Parsifal, or me, "would it be so terrible to feel – to love. To indulge without harming another cannot be so great a sin among all those sins we have encountered."
I’m not sure where he is going with this musing but would prefer to have a discussion on hypothetical sinning in our rooms where no one can overhear us. "Let us set off for home," I suggest, steering us to the exit of the park. He frowns at me, and opens his mouth to argue with me. "Watson, we can talk about it at home," I say. He exhales.
We do not talk about it, another case is waiting for us when we get back to our rooms, and Watson sends me a look saying he won’t forget but he does, for he never brings it up again.
*
Among all the cases that I did manage to solve, and all the ones I did not, only some are worthy of mention in Watson’s annals in the Strand. Some that are worthy are not to be talked about because of the sensitive nature of the case, and some are unworthy of publication because they were unsolved, uninteresting, or classified. One case that was unfortunately all three took us through Germany in an agonizing search for something I have sworn not to talk about. By the time we had reached Berlin and realised we would not be able to bring this case to a satisfying conclusion, I had been ready to shake down the nearest pharmacist for even a poorly prepared one-percent solution of my favoured cocaine. I dared regret bringing Watson, because despite his invaluable help to me on so many occasions, he could not help me with an unsolvable case, and he did prevent me from doing what I so craved.
We are sitting at the Berlin train station with our cases by our feet, mulling over ways to make it back to Baker Street with the least amount of time wasted, when Watson looks up at me. "Holmes," he says, very insistent where for days he has been mild and placid to offset my growing resentment. "We could go south."
"It’ll take longer," I remind him, "we could take the ferry from Holland and arrive a day earlier at least."
"But Holmes," he taps the map, "we could pass through Bayreuth." I look at the map and see that he is right. It would only delay us by a few hours. The decision is made before I look back up at him.
We arrive to find that there are only few seats left, and we have to lean forward in our seats to see well, but finally, we see in person again what we have spent so many hours poring over. I find I know the libretto almost entirely from memory, and from the look on Watson’s face he is the same. We are entranced – riveted. The whole time I cannot think of anything but this marvellous artistry, that has come together through such dedication and determination on so many parts. I did not feel this way before, and I should not have worried that our intensive study would make my enjoyment lesser. Indeed, Watson had been right all along, my understanding of the importance of this story, the depths of humanity that it explores, enhances my joy to euphoria.
We did not have time to find a place to spend the night before going to the opera house, and it is very late when we leave again, which means that when the cabby tells us there will not be many places able to take us we believe him. I find myself unbothered by anything, and both Watson and I are unflappable despite the difficulties. The cabby manages to find us a place at a hotel on the edge of town, which has one room left, and we take it eagerly. It is later than seems possible considering how energised we were by the performance when we get to the room, and Watson is in a positively impish mood. He hums and spins, and shrugs out of his jacket before placing his bag on the bed.
"Ho-olmes," he says, suggestive in a way I’ve not heard him before. I look over to him, and see him grinning widely. He has clearly found something in his bags, and plays at showing me, until he draws out the bottle of whiskey he must have had with him since we left London with flourish.
"You sly demon," I tell him, for whiskey in front of a fire after a night out with Watson is the closest thing to hellish temptation I can imagine. We draw in the chairs the room is furnished with, and our stockinged feet touch on the stool, which is as close to the heat as we can stand. We toast to the fantastic performance, and argue until the sky starts lightening about the importance of having performers that are fluent in the language they sing in.
We finally retire so late and so drunk that I do not notice we have neglected to set an alarm until I wake up from Watson’s string of curses. "The train?" I ask, blinking my eyes open.
"Long gone," he tells me, and I don’t mind so much anymore at all.
"I will arrange another night," Watson promises me, and I look up at him to find he is already dressed. I hum my assent and turn around, hoping to sleep some more.
When Watson returns with breakfast and suggestions for the day we’ll be spending here, it is so much later that I struggle to imagine what might have happened. Because of the state I am in I interrupt an eager story to say: "Where were you?"
He stutters to a halt. "Downstairs, at the reception," he tells me, and I know he speaks the truth. "The man at the reception talked to me about places we might go. Did you miss me?"
"I slept," I tell him, and he laughs. "Apologies for my tone, Watson, do continue."
When we pass the reception on our way out, the man at the reception smiles at us in a way that I am not used to seeing, and Watson smiles back at him, in a way I am used to seeing, but not in public. I think about it for the rest of the day, as we walk through the Bavarian nothing that is Bayreuth and both agree to be grateful for the mild weather, for had there been rain there would have been even less to see. "Did you wish to take tea at the hotel?" I ask when the evening draws near.
"Actually," Watson stops to look at me. "I was given a recommendation, we could – "
"Of course," I agree. I do not feel too hungry and if Watson wants to have a look then we will. He steers me a ways down narrow streets, occasionally checking some paper he is holding. When we arrive, judging by his satisfied hum, all I see is a house. I look around, and notice several things at once, most notably the hum coming from inside.
"Here?" I ask, turning to him, and he stands firm and comfortable. I look at his paper and see an address, and instructions. Ask for Magdalena. "Watson, you don’t – we can’t." I look up at the house once more. "Watson?"
"If you’d rather not," he says, "we shan’t. But the gentleman downstairs asked, and the laws are different here. We wouldn’t be recognised, and it has been so long since I have – well."
He must register the look on my face for he pats my hand, and seems to be about to tell me we can leave when the door opens. "What?" asks an angry German voice, discordant with the neatly arranged hair, daintily painted lips. Watson puts her at ease with the sequence he must have learned this morning, and we are invited in. He looks back at me, and I nudge him forward. No one could recognise us here.
I knew of course that Watson enjoyed evenings at his club, that he indulged a bit more than he wished to occasionally, that he gambled, that when we first took up rooms together he would stay out late and come back smelling of unsavoury things I daren’t ask him about. I had never imagined that he might have been dancing on these occasions. But by the way he moves through this crowd as if he has been here before, orders for us, and keeps a hand on my shoulder when people stare at us until they look away again, I am forced to conclude that he must have more than a passing familiarity with the molly houses of London and beyond, and that the lipstick I had seen on his collar from time to time had not necessarily belonged to women at all.
"Don’t look so surprised," he laughs around his beer when we’re seated and waiting for our food to come. "Surely you’ve been to a place like this before, for a case if nothing else?"
"It is not this place that surprises me," I tell him, warmer than I should have been. I cannot help myself. "It is you," I add, as if I had not already given away more than I ever planned to. At least this strange new world in which Watson called a person guarding the door of a molly house sweetheart with as much ease as he has just uncorked his beer tells me that the probability of him having me arrested are slim. He smiles at me, sweet as anything, and we eat our dinners, hearty German fare, while discussing Parsifal further.
When a piano starts playing, Watson hollers with the rest of the clientele, and draws me to standing. I wonder what he wants right until he draws me onto the dancefloor, and by then I am too busy marvelling at the riotous crowd to pull away. What if this spell breaks as soon as we leave Germany? Or even as soon as we step back onto the quiet streets? I let him lead, and laugh with him at the merry tunes, the eager crowd, the comfort of his hand around my waist.
When the music slows down he pulls me closer, and during one such slow song he whispers at me, loud enough for me but no one else. "Did you really not know?" he asks, and I am forced to admit my ignorance.
"I watched you marry a woman, Watson," I remind him, and he huffs against my collar in a way that makes me shiver.
"I confess my lack of imagination made it impossible for me to think of any other solution to my hopeless wants," he admits, and before I can stop myself I have leaned back, and read on his face what he had thought poorly hidden, and I had thoroughly dismissed as impossible so long ago.
His lips on mine confirm, if nothing else, that he is not a novice. Might this be our second chance, I wonder, when I kiss him in return, slow even when the music picks back, refusing any longer to let an outside factor dictate our relation to each other. I take much convincing before we leave, worried that this illusion might shatter in the cold night air, but he steals little glances at me as we hurry through the streets.
In the lobby of the hotel the illusion does shatter. It is so late, nobody should be up anymore, but as we are ushered in from the cold by a doorman, a man’s voice calls out for Watson.
"And you must he Holmes then!" he says, cheery and bright as he shakes my hand. "Fancy that, Linda, my old army pal and his famous detective friend."
"Bill," Watson greets, and we are all introduced to each other.
"You here for a – " Mr Murray lowers his voice as he leans in, "a case?"
"No, no," I tell him. "We were in Berlin for one, but Watson was very insistent that we might pass through here on our return. For the opera, of course."
"Yes," Mrs Murray says, "us too. Marvellous isn’t it?"
"Indeed," I agree. Watson, being much better at this sort of conversational congress than I am, rounds off the meeting nicely, and before I know it we are standing in our room.
I only notice in that moment that something is troubling my Watson, and I start to ask but he halts me with his hand held up.
"We cannot," he says.
"Because someone knows us here?" I ask, remembering how I felt so certain the spell would not last outside of Magdalena’s. "If it’s because you would prefer not to, I assure you – "
"It’s unsafe," he says. "We cannot risk life and liberty, and besides we are drunk. It would be better if we were to sleep now, so we might take the train tomorrow."
"Damn you!" I roar, unable to contain my frustration any longer. Watson steps back in surprise, I’ve hurt him. "Please," I say, gently now. "Do not deny me when we are – when it might..."
"I cannot corrupt you," he says, his shoulders sloping and his mouth stubborn.
"Watson," I beg. "I have always been as I am. Have we not spoken endlessly of will and temptation? Do you not understand how I feel about these things?"
"You are indifferent to love," he tells me.
"Of a woman," I correct, and I try to come closer to him, but he steps back once more. "Not of you, I am – beyond lost for you. I cannot – could not risk it. Our life, our friendship."
He shakes his head, as if the thoughts need rearranging. I felt much the same, earlier this evening, and wish so fervently we were home, that we might call for something hot to settle us. "We are not – you couldn’t be."
"Please," I say, "if you have ever listened to me - ever tried to trust me, know this. I have loved you since the very beginning, John."
He laughs, like he’ll say you can’t have, but he looks at me, and he lets me reach for him and trace his brows and the shells of his ears and admire his remarkable familiarity. "Me too," he says, and I don’t believe it at all. "I hated marrying Mary," he tells me, like it is his greatest secret. "Even though I loved her, I knew I did not love her well. But she forgave me, before she passed, for loving you since the very beginning."
I kiss him, and think of how I might try to love him well.
When we are in bed together, and he is on me, I voice my feverish thoughts on how we must be destined for each other if everything we do to try and pull away causes the heart’s sorrow. How I feel as though despite missing my first chance this must be my second, and he laughs, gentle and warm. "Am I the secret garden then? Destined to be destroyed by a poor fool with the sign of a cross?"
I shudder at the thought, "I hope not." Besides; I would not be the pure fool Parsifal, I would be King Amfortas, wounded by my own desire, incurably damned. I pull at his clothes with more insistence and he stops his mapping of my jaw in favour of moving away and undressing. He reveals more and more, standing between the bed and the fire, outlined and haloed and real, as he hangs his clothes neatly, and I try to keep up. He hangs my clothes too, and is on me again when I reach out for him. He ends my shame and suffering with his touch, and once he moves inside me, I feel the curse I bore for all of my life lifting. For he loves me, and he has told me so.
A/N at the end:
The stories of Arthurian knights are a part of a storytelling tradition that Wagner continued, and that we continue today, where we allow the themes that speak to us to continue their relevance. He injected much Christianity into Parsifal, I make Holmes and Watson kiss. In this story Holmes learns how to connect to stories. He notices how the adventure of the speckled band is similar to Bluebeard, and how Tristan und Isolde presents love in a very different light than Parsifal does. Tristan and Isolde, a 12th century story that probably influenced the story of Guinevere and Lancelot, centers on love. The role of King Arthur in the well-known love-triangle as the more legitimate partner and a disrupting third is represented by King Mark in Tristan and Isolde, and Wagner shows how tormented this love leaves all parties involved.
Watson attempts to find answers to the questions he has about virtue and decency both in real life and in the texts they read. Did Wagner write about a love-triangle because he was in one? Can desire be mitigated by will? Should it be? Kölbing, a German academic who studied English literature, would probably not have liked these musings much, although I hope he will forgive me for borrowing his existence and scholarship for this story. He was known for applying German philosophy of science to literature but hopefully still enchanted enough by stories to appreciate showing up in one. I don’t know if he was ever in Oxford, let alone in 1895, which would bother him, but I will allow myself the indulgence.
If you’ve read this, and thought ‘well, actually’ please let me know! I haven’t taken a literature class since undergrad, and I’ve never even seen Parsifal. What did I miss?
Recipient:
saintdionysusAuthor: [redacted]
Rating: NC-17 (M for Ao3)
Characters, including any pairing(s): Holmes/Watson
Warnings: Mentions of sexual content
Summary: "It begins – as it often has between Dr Watson and myself – with a visit to the opera." Holmes and Watson see Wagner's Parsifal, which sparks a conversation that leads to a tradition. As they get to know themselves and each other better, Parsifal remains the same pure fool, fulfilling in each version of his story his destination of reuniting the Holy Spear and Holy Grail.
Author's note: behind the cut
Author's Note:
Wagner’s Parsifal, based on the story of Arthurian knight Percival or Parzival, is an opera written in the 19th century. The themes of the opera were heavily influenced by Schopenhauer’s writings, which favours compassion and resisting temptation through negating the will. (Side note: The love Wagner felt for Schopenhauer does not appear to have been mutual at all) As a story it concludes an interesting arc for Wagner, who wrote about riotous love (Das Liebesverbot), then lovers who are redeemed only in death (Tristan und Isolde), and finally the rejection of love in his last completed opera. An article in the New Yorker refers to Parsifal’s plot as ‘paranoid, sex-panicked.’ Wagner started writing Parsifal as a man recently obsessed with Buddhism and his friend’s wife and finishes it only a year before he dies, famous and beloved. He is buried near where his operas were most famously performed, the theater built for his work in Bayreuth.
The story of this opera is based on the story of Parsifal, who as a "pure fool" is the only one who might protect the Holy Grail, retrieve the Holy Spear, and cure the pain of King Amfortas in the process. Parsifal stumbles upon the forest of King Amfortas and gets recruited by Gurnemanz, who as the eldest Knight of the Grail explains to Parsifal all that he needs to know. In order to complete his quest, Parsifal has to enter the magical garden of the malevolent Klingsor. Klingsor orders Kundry, the shape-shifting sorceress, to seduce Parsifal. She fails and is rejected, and Parsifal gets the Holy Spear, which he eventually returns to King Amfortas’ side.
A theme that Wagner’s interpretation of these (pre-)Arthurian stories emphasises is sehnen, yearning, or longing. Tristan and Isolde yearn for each other, and they cannot be allowed their desires, they long to be free of them until they long for death. This theme of unfulfilled desire is present in Parsifal too, though here it is in the end resolved. Parsifal's rejection of Kundry allows him to heal Amfortas’ wound. Amfortas begged for forgiveness for failing to protect the Holy Spear, and suffered greatly. In the end it is Parsifal’s compassion that grants him this forgiveness. Parsifal understands his pain, resists the feminine temptation, and cures the wound with the weapon that had inflicted it.
---------------
It begins – as it often has between Dr Watson and myself – with a visit to the opera. Usually we find ourselves in high spirits afterwards, eager to talk of themes and artistic intent, and in Watson’s case, endless concerns for other works that are similar. It is after a splendid performance of Wagner’s Parsifal that he and I forfeit the use of a cab in favour of a walk home. It is early enough in the year for the air to be crisp yet, but our cheeks are aglow with excitement from the evening we have spent together.
"But Holmes." He stops me with a hand on my arm, and I turn to look at him. His cheeks are bright, as are his eyes, but his mouth is unhappy, and I knew what he would say next: "How could it possibly be irrelevant?"
"Because art should be able to stand on its own, my dear Watson," I tell him, fond with him as I am with our well-worn argument even after only knowing each other a short while. "It should not require endless study before one can enjoy a piece of music or theatre, and in fact tonight proves that it does not."
"But – " he stammers. "King Arthur. This is like saying you do not need to understand German, or that the enjoyment of Tristan und Isolde would have been complete without knowing of the original story."
I cannot contain my smile at that, I had not known of the original until we had gone to see Tristan und Isolde together, only a year or so ago. "It was summarised in the program, Watson," I tell him.
He throws his hands up in despair. "You are incorrigible," he exclaims, but I can tell from his voice his own fondness. "Now why do you think I am always asking you about the music if not to better understand the leitmotifs, to further my own enjoyment of the performance?"
"Oh Watson," I say, my voice revealing how I might laugh. "I could not begin to presume to understand your mind." He laughs at me then, and I realise the truth of what I have said only after already speaking. But I do not take it back.
***
Watson indulges me, on nights where neither of us finds sleep easily and it is too late already to play my violin without disturbing the neighbours. One evening he returns from his club with a triumphant grin. Normally his nights out leave him angry and mean, uncomfortably sharp-tongued and drunk. Tonight I can tell from his collar that he has been drinking, from his cuffs what he has eaten, but it takes until he hands me a neatly wrapped parcel that I realise his grin does not come from an unexpected gambling win.
"Open it," he urges, and I do. It is a book, second hand but in good condition, the leather cover worn but whole. The Tales of King Arthur, the front reads. I smile at him. He has brought me several books about these stories of medieval England, and I have read not one of them. I should feel worse about the rudeness of my lack of appreciation for his generosity, but I am hoping for something else.
"Oh Watson," I tell him, and I let my eyes flick over to where a growing stack of books stands on the corner of the mantlepiece, "you shouldn’t have."
"But I did," he decides. He hangs his coat in the hall, and sets his hat down, before calling for some tea to be brought up. "Now sit, Holmes. I shall read it to you."
It takes every inch of self-control I have not to crow with victory, but I think he suspects this is what I have been angling for. I take care to look away from him until I can suppress my smile however. It wouldn’t do for him to know.
*
"I do not like this," I complain; it has been hours of endless rambling about the divine spear and chalice, that reunification of the whole, split apart into the feminine and masculine. And anyway, if it’s supposed to be about the feminine evils: "Why was it the spear then that wounded the king? Should it not be a chalice-inflicted wound?"
"He hurt himself," Watson explains, looking concerned. He holds his finger on the page to mark where I interrupted him. "It was not the sorceress Kundry that caused his injury, it was his own failure to resist her. Klingsor is able to use the spear on Amfortas, causing his wound, because Amfortas did not resist. Don’t you see? It is not just Klingsor who hurt his own masculinity, even if King Amfortas did not go so far as to castrate himself deliberately."
"His impulses, the manly masculine spear. The wound that wouldn’t heal. Yes, all that." I’m bored of it, and I stand up to fetch my violin. I play the motifs I remember from the opera, and think about the reading Watson has done with my back to him.
Klingsor could not resist his impure thoughts, and castrates himself to bridle them, but it does not work. His response is to build a magical garden specifically to tempt Knights of the Grail. I cannot agree with Watson. It does not matter that there is feminine and masculine, a chalice and a spear. There is a third entity that was present at Christ’s crucifixion, Kundry witnessed it and laughed, paying the price for her lack of compassion through her enslavement by Klingsor. How could Amfortas’ single lapse be comparable?
We are not making much progress with the original poem, but when I turn around to tell Watson I wish to take a break and read something else, he has his eyes closed. His mouth is slack the way it only is when he has fallen asleep on the sofa, or sometimes right before I wake him for a case. I play on, thinking about resisting temptation all the while.
*
"It seems," I muse, much later, "that too often men rely on women to resolve – to realign their souls."
"What a poetic thing to say," Watson tells me, his voice too low for me to read its tone. I sit up to better assess his features. "Don’t mind me," he hastens to say. "What made you think of that?"
"Bluebeard," I answer, and he nods his agreement. We are being jostled by the train, on our way back to London. The Stoner girls’ misery has reminded me of it. "Remember what you said about the spear hurting the king Amfortas because he failed to resist the feminine temptation of Kundry?"
"Indeed I do," he tells me, clearly surprised now. He sits up properly and so do I. He looks as if he might be getting a headache, and I resolve to ensure a quiet evening at Baker Street so he does not further agitate himself.
"Her very curse is her lack of agency, yet she is indispensable. The woman alone knows what is just, what is necessary, and sets all the events in motion. Her only reward is to be free."
"I suppose for Kundry it might be a true relief, after her long entrapment. But I see what you mean, if it ends where it started, why did it need to damage so many?"
"Parsifal’s mother Herzeleide, the king’s father, their senseless deaths," not to mention everything else set into motion by the apparently all-encompassing importance of protecting the Spear and Chalice.
"It seems unfair, does it not?" he asks me. It does.
*
"What of this twice in a lifetime chance, then?" Watson asks, very carefully, when we are walking through the park. We have finished our latest case, and have taken up our habit of reading the original story again. If he wants to talk about Parsifal, I will indulge him. "To – to get into the king’s forest." Adolescence and middle-age as two portals to finding the place where the Holy Grail is kept.
"There may be something to say for that," I agree, "I often find, however, that the first chance is taken from most, only the luckiest few, those without obligations, get to make any choice at all in their adolescence."
He seems disappointed at first, but then hums thoughtfully. "The choice that is not really a choice."
"Or is it?" I ask, "I do not think that we can know. Is it will? Or is it circumstance?"
We talk of the opera further, but he seems to have stumbled into one of his own moods of melancholy. They are fewer than mine, less severe usually. But I hear him cry that night, as I have heard him before during these moods, where he looks at me like everything hurts. I play the violin for him, the most soothing pieces I can imagine, and sometimes it just makes it worse, but he never asks me to stop. Occasionally these moods devolve into the sort of despondency that has Watson stay out late, and return with blood-red stains to his collar, so full of alcohol it pours out of him when he speaks. And all he will speak of then is sin, and temptation, and the impossible draw of redemption.
*
During our next interruption of the reading of the original, Watson reads me a book on philosophy. The author thinks music is our salvation, for which I cannot fault him, but philosophers tend to be entirely too sure of themselves for my taste. Watson has been talking for months about his hypothesis that Schopenhaufer’s work influenced Wagner, and he has finally brought proof.
"But did not Schopenhaufer argue that love cannot be found in one woman only?" I interrupt Watson to say. "And by that logic do not Parsifal and Tristan und Isolde contradict each other?"
"I suppose," Watson says, looking stupefied by my sudden passion for the topic after my long insisted upon reluctance. "That it is about the renouncing of desires, the search for inner peace through will." He thinks for a minute as I restuff my pipe. "But perhaps, Holmes, the answer is easier. Did Wagner not eventually marry his long-term mistress? That might have influenced his writing."
"Too many parameters," I grumble. "Your theory cannot be tested Watson." He laughs at me, and I let him. It is far better than the worried glances I have been getting of late, or the pained expression everything I do seems to provoke.
*
When Watson leaves me, we have not yet finished the medieval reading of Parsifal. I fear bringing it up, lest I won’t be able to conceal my hurt at having been abandoned. I see him radiate love for his wife, and celebrate my victory over my own will, how I resisted temptation, alone. I lose all interest in Arthurian tales, full of excitement as they may be, for reasons I do not care to examine. Sometimes I cannot help myself, and my raging mind demands I consider whether if Watson were Guinevere, would I be Lancelot for being illegitimate or Arthur for being first?
Instead of reading with Watson until late at night, I am forced to stare at the fire, or turn again to noisy or dangerous distractions. He comes to stay, of course, sometimes for more than a few nights at a time, in his old room at Baker Street. But it is never the same, to know that he is with me because his wife is with friends or tired of his late comings and goings during a case, or at one point, because she is at a sanatorium, recovering from the strain on her lungs that London has caused.
One evening, when we have just finished dinner and are sitting in Watson’s study, them on the sofa, me on the chair in front of his fire, he brings it up.
"Parsifal?" his wife asks, never pausing her handiwork. "Is that the one where everyone is constantly begging for death?"
He laughs, his eyes shine at her. She would have been too young to have seen the opera when it was in London. "You’ve heard of it?" I ask, therefore.
Her eyes are sharp when she looks up at me. "I saw it at Bayreuth, as a girl," she tells me. I feel chastised in my assumption, and nod my understanding. "I always preferred the Italian operas, personally."
"For the lyricism?" I ask, and we end up having a rather inspired conversation about music. Watson of course cannot follow it for the most part, but when I turn to him to ask if he preferred we changed the topic, his eyes are brimming with something I fear to examine. I let him be content listening, after that.
*
When I leave Watson, and I hide like a coward as I hear him cry for me, Parsifal is not on my mind. It is only when I am due to return that I contemplate the theme of second chances. We had met some time after our first, if such consideration of a man’s lifetime is to be taken as fact, having both passed adolescence prior to meeting. I would return rather closer to the second chance for both of us. Middle age. When I thought of Watson during my years of absence, I imagined him as I had seen him, with his wife, in front of the fire. He had been happy there, in the rooms above his clinic. Perhaps they have a child, I had thought after the first year since I had last seen Watson had passed. Perhaps they have more than one now, I think as I look out across the sea. The ferry from France is not long, but the first sight of the shore of the country I know Watson to reside in inspires a contemplation I have so far been able to avoid. Little Rosie, or Beth. A plain, nice name. Thomas Watson, perhaps. Harry, after his brother, or maybe Arthur after her father.
Only as I look at the shore, do I let myself imagine what it might be like to be on the other side of this channel. What if the situations had been reversed? I hold no illusions as to the nature of Watson’s, or indeed my own, affections, but I never doubted that I was a dear friend to him. I had frequently been forced to remind myself that I might never return, but now that I am returning, with only one thing left to do, I imagine how it would feel to have Watson returned to me after presuming him to be dead, and I reel at the thought. I decide then that I must find a way to show Watson that I had to be gone this long, that there was no other way but the one I had chosen to achieve what I must, that I had constantly considered him and his happiness. So that I might earn his forgiveness.
*
He does forgive me, before I even ask it of him, and I tell him I need him for a case instead of crying at his feet with gratitude. So he helps me, and we unravel the last thread together.
It happens occasionally, after a case that trials my intellect, or the limits of my physical capabilities, that I fall ill. This case, the one that had lasted for years, the one that took me around the world in a mad hunt, felled me as soon as it was resolved. I was more ill than I had yet been, but could not help laughing as he appeared at my bedside, much as he had when I pretended to be dying, with his bag, and his concern, and he stayed well on the other side of the room. We both remember when Culverton Smith’s little box had caused me to offend Watson so gravely.
"I am truly ill, this time," I promise him, my voice sore and feeble, "but I shan’t be dying. You may do as you please Watson, I know how you like to fuss."
He scoffs at me, but takes my temperature, and cools my brow, and feeds me sips of weak broth until I beg to be left alone after no more than half a cup. "Truly alone?" he asks, standing up with some hesitation that I am too weak to deduce the cause of.
"Why do you ask?"
"I had thought – the manuscript." He clears his throat. "Holmes – " He says then.
"Yes?"
"Could I – come back? I have been staying here occasionally, and there is a buyer for my practice, but he wants the rooms above it also." He pauses and I look around my room, how it is messy but has been kept clean, by what I am now beginning to suspect was a joint effort on the part of Watson and Mrs Hudson. "It has been rather empty since – well. Mary."
"Of course," I say, understanding, and wanting him home too. "Yes, my dear – my dear fellow of course, please. But don’t bother my poor head with the manuscript please, let us start with something lighter."
He laughs but relents, and starts a retelling of King Arthur’s many adventures, one I had not heard before. I dream about them, all through my illness and recovery, the vivid fever dreams fuelled by stories of danger and glory at the relentless pace of pounding through a forest on horseback. I don’t tell Watson this, for fear he will stop reading to me but I suspect him of knowing regardless.
Sometimes I dream of him, sitting next to my bed, as I drift in and out of awareness. The tedium of illness, the boredom of spending long hours staring at the ceiling, has caused me to imagine things that were not there on many occasions before, and it has driven me out of bed before it was time even more regularly. It has never been so cruel as to show me Watson, in nothing but his nightclothes, in the full light of day, holding my hand.
"Watson," I promise my conjured friend, for even in a fever dream he should not look so heart-broken. "I promised this won’t be the way I go. This will not be the end."
"What will it be then?" he says, sounding haggard and exhausted, his fingers clenching around mine. "A swim in the Thames? A client that tires of your insults? Malnutrition?"
"No, no," I laugh, even as I hear my own lungs rattle with the effort, "I have far greater sins than those!" He looks to be in pain, and so I urge him to take some laudanum. He shakes his head no and I try to sit up to make him, and then my dream changes.
*
As soon as I am able to, I return to my cases. At my doctor’s request however, I go nowhere at night, in the rain, or alone. I do not mind overmuch, although I do complain, for it brings me time to get reacquainted with my dearest friend, as well as everything else I left behind in London.
"I prefer the Parsifal central thesis," I tell him one night, after some contemplation in front of our fire. I have been reading Watson’s published tales of our cases, and am constantly torn between begging for forgiveness and demanding he asks for mine. He describes me so cruelly, at times, and so longingly at others. Undecided as to which way my final opinion shall lie, I try to distract him with a well-worn topic of discussion. "The Tristan und Isolde tension rests on romantic love, which is not so interesting. I prefer the idea that the human will shapes one’s personality. Perhaps it is a maturation of Wagner’s thoughts. The emphasis on Mitleid might even be considered an answer to the Sehnen of Tristan und Isolde."
He smiles at me in an entirely too soft way. "Enlightenment through compassion, and compassion as the answer to yearning," he says, like I am made new for him. I scoff at the idea, and feel the need to fall to his feet burn through my chest. At night when I reconsider all that we have done throughout the day I will be pleased that he understands my efforts, but not while the fire is still lit. "Shall I read a bit more then?"
It takes longer than it should for me to collect my thoughts and look at him. "Please," I tell him, because I do enjoy hearing his voice, especially when he speaks only for me, in the privacy of our rooms.
"Stretch out then," he tells me, as he reaches for the book and finds the right page. I set aside his publications, they will be there for me to read another day, and do as he tells me. Watson is different since I have returned, or perhaps it is his return to me that changed him. I won’t know that it isn’t my leaving, or something that happened in between, but he seems patient now, where he was sharp and often angry before. His attitude to my habits has changed, too. Before, he did not like my indulgence in long stretches of staring at the ceiling, wrapped in my bathrobe, spread out on the sofa, and now he does not like my denial of what he terms ‘rest’. The cases we have had since my return to work have indeed not been restful, but they have kept us rather busy, which I find offers a different sort of relief. I lie back on the sofa, and look at the ceiling, and let his voice wash over me.
*
During our time in Oxford, where I research anatomical findings of prison-based dissections, and we solve a case to do with tests and scholarships, I work such long hours that I see Watson rarely outside of the times that the library is closed. We are staying in rooms near the library, so occasionally I meet him for lunch. Just as often, however, I forget to eat entirely until the librarian urges me to go to the dining hall, a necessary interruption and a small price to pay for access to rooms and texts.
"Watson," I greet him on one such evenings. He has kept a spot free beside him, and fills my wine glass for me as I sit down.
"Will you want to return to your researches after we eat?" he asks, and I tell him I am quite done for the day. It is a lie, but a comfortable one. He has been spending more and more time at various clubs about town, and I care not one bit for the way he stumbles back into our rooms later than me several times a week. He is so happy to see me now, that I forgive myself my fibbing immediately. "Master Kölbing here has some thoughts about our Parsifal studies," he says, with a proud little head gesture.
"The Master Kölbing?" I hiss at him, and he nods. It proves a splendid evening, where Watson and I use our opportunity to question Master Kölbing on destiny. He argues wonderfully that Herzeleide, in trying to prevent her son from meeting the same fate as his father, created the pure fool destined to find the spear. Watson is so animated by this conversation that he comes with me to the library the next morning, and we spend the day at a table between the anatomy and literature sections, each conducting our own studies.
*
"Then what is the difference between Amfortas and Parsifal?" I ask him, when we finally have finished the tedium of the medieval manuscript. He has recently returned from Switzerland and France, and I am loathe to let him out of my sight at all. "Is it simply that Parsifal rejects the advances of Kundry?"
He laughs, and it is almost too much to bear, the intimacy of our rooms, the light of the candles. "I don’t think it’s simply the rejection. I should say it is about enforcing will, and compassion."
"Did Amfortas get all the same chances he did?" I wonder out loud, thinking of how often we make decisions that seem harmless and find out later the magnitude of their effects. "Was he aware of the pain it would cause to fall for temptation?"
"I don’t know," Watson tells me, "we can look through the book later this evening if you wish?"
He chuckles then, half-away in thought. "A bit queer, is it not? The wounded manhood as a punishment for giving in to temptation, the purity of Parsifal that is shown mostly in his not-wanting. The pain it causes him to be with a woman?"
Queer is exactly the word that comes to my mind also, but I will not be telling Watson this. I will also not be telling him that I have heard him say those same words on many occasions, but never before in a tone that didn’t bely his all-consuming contempt. I don’t wish to know what might have changed his mind. I huff at my pipe and pretend to be thinking my original question over. What makes one worthy? Why is one of these men able to complete the quest?
If I were braver I would agree with him, and remind him that Amfortas and Parsifal are more joined to each other than either of them is to Kundry. That it is Parsifal touching Amfortas with the spear, after recognizing his passion and agony, that heals and absolves him. It is that action too that releases Kundry from her curse, which seems to involve mostly kissing men.
*
"I think, Holmes," he tells me, at the resolution of the case of the Dancing Men, "that a great many things have been invented just so some men can feel superior over others."
"Like what?" I ask, drawing on my pipe. I think of the case that brought us Watson’s late wife, the opulence that surrounded the sad bastard Sholto.
"Like this insistence on denying temptation, and perhaps even your insistence that your transport is irrelevant." He looks angry now and I cannot tell if he is talking about the case, or Parsifal, or me, "would it be so terrible to feel – to love. To indulge without harming another cannot be so great a sin among all those sins we have encountered."
I’m not sure where he is going with this musing but would prefer to have a discussion on hypothetical sinning in our rooms where no one can overhear us. "Let us set off for home," I suggest, steering us to the exit of the park. He frowns at me, and opens his mouth to argue with me. "Watson, we can talk about it at home," I say. He exhales.
We do not talk about it, another case is waiting for us when we get back to our rooms, and Watson sends me a look saying he won’t forget but he does, for he never brings it up again.
*
Among all the cases that I did manage to solve, and all the ones I did not, only some are worthy of mention in Watson’s annals in the Strand. Some that are worthy are not to be talked about because of the sensitive nature of the case, and some are unworthy of publication because they were unsolved, uninteresting, or classified. One case that was unfortunately all three took us through Germany in an agonizing search for something I have sworn not to talk about. By the time we had reached Berlin and realised we would not be able to bring this case to a satisfying conclusion, I had been ready to shake down the nearest pharmacist for even a poorly prepared one-percent solution of my favoured cocaine. I dared regret bringing Watson, because despite his invaluable help to me on so many occasions, he could not help me with an unsolvable case, and he did prevent me from doing what I so craved.
We are sitting at the Berlin train station with our cases by our feet, mulling over ways to make it back to Baker Street with the least amount of time wasted, when Watson looks up at me. "Holmes," he says, very insistent where for days he has been mild and placid to offset my growing resentment. "We could go south."
"It’ll take longer," I remind him, "we could take the ferry from Holland and arrive a day earlier at least."
"But Holmes," he taps the map, "we could pass through Bayreuth." I look at the map and see that he is right. It would only delay us by a few hours. The decision is made before I look back up at him.
We arrive to find that there are only few seats left, and we have to lean forward in our seats to see well, but finally, we see in person again what we have spent so many hours poring over. I find I know the libretto almost entirely from memory, and from the look on Watson’s face he is the same. We are entranced – riveted. The whole time I cannot think of anything but this marvellous artistry, that has come together through such dedication and determination on so many parts. I did not feel this way before, and I should not have worried that our intensive study would make my enjoyment lesser. Indeed, Watson had been right all along, my understanding of the importance of this story, the depths of humanity that it explores, enhances my joy to euphoria.
We did not have time to find a place to spend the night before going to the opera house, and it is very late when we leave again, which means that when the cabby tells us there will not be many places able to take us we believe him. I find myself unbothered by anything, and both Watson and I are unflappable despite the difficulties. The cabby manages to find us a place at a hotel on the edge of town, which has one room left, and we take it eagerly. It is later than seems possible considering how energised we were by the performance when we get to the room, and Watson is in a positively impish mood. He hums and spins, and shrugs out of his jacket before placing his bag on the bed.
"Ho-olmes," he says, suggestive in a way I’ve not heard him before. I look over to him, and see him grinning widely. He has clearly found something in his bags, and plays at showing me, until he draws out the bottle of whiskey he must have had with him since we left London with flourish.
"You sly demon," I tell him, for whiskey in front of a fire after a night out with Watson is the closest thing to hellish temptation I can imagine. We draw in the chairs the room is furnished with, and our stockinged feet touch on the stool, which is as close to the heat as we can stand. We toast to the fantastic performance, and argue until the sky starts lightening about the importance of having performers that are fluent in the language they sing in.
We finally retire so late and so drunk that I do not notice we have neglected to set an alarm until I wake up from Watson’s string of curses. "The train?" I ask, blinking my eyes open.
"Long gone," he tells me, and I don’t mind so much anymore at all.
"I will arrange another night," Watson promises me, and I look up at him to find he is already dressed. I hum my assent and turn around, hoping to sleep some more.
When Watson returns with breakfast and suggestions for the day we’ll be spending here, it is so much later that I struggle to imagine what might have happened. Because of the state I am in I interrupt an eager story to say: "Where were you?"
He stutters to a halt. "Downstairs, at the reception," he tells me, and I know he speaks the truth. "The man at the reception talked to me about places we might go. Did you miss me?"
"I slept," I tell him, and he laughs. "Apologies for my tone, Watson, do continue."
When we pass the reception on our way out, the man at the reception smiles at us in a way that I am not used to seeing, and Watson smiles back at him, in a way I am used to seeing, but not in public. I think about it for the rest of the day, as we walk through the Bavarian nothing that is Bayreuth and both agree to be grateful for the mild weather, for had there been rain there would have been even less to see. "Did you wish to take tea at the hotel?" I ask when the evening draws near.
"Actually," Watson stops to look at me. "I was given a recommendation, we could – "
"Of course," I agree. I do not feel too hungry and if Watson wants to have a look then we will. He steers me a ways down narrow streets, occasionally checking some paper he is holding. When we arrive, judging by his satisfied hum, all I see is a house. I look around, and notice several things at once, most notably the hum coming from inside.
"Here?" I ask, turning to him, and he stands firm and comfortable. I look at his paper and see an address, and instructions. Ask for Magdalena. "Watson, you don’t – we can’t." I look up at the house once more. "Watson?"
"If you’d rather not," he says, "we shan’t. But the gentleman downstairs asked, and the laws are different here. We wouldn’t be recognised, and it has been so long since I have – well."
He must register the look on my face for he pats my hand, and seems to be about to tell me we can leave when the door opens. "What?" asks an angry German voice, discordant with the neatly arranged hair, daintily painted lips. Watson puts her at ease with the sequence he must have learned this morning, and we are invited in. He looks back at me, and I nudge him forward. No one could recognise us here.
I knew of course that Watson enjoyed evenings at his club, that he indulged a bit more than he wished to occasionally, that he gambled, that when we first took up rooms together he would stay out late and come back smelling of unsavoury things I daren’t ask him about. I had never imagined that he might have been dancing on these occasions. But by the way he moves through this crowd as if he has been here before, orders for us, and keeps a hand on my shoulder when people stare at us until they look away again, I am forced to conclude that he must have more than a passing familiarity with the molly houses of London and beyond, and that the lipstick I had seen on his collar from time to time had not necessarily belonged to women at all.
"Don’t look so surprised," he laughs around his beer when we’re seated and waiting for our food to come. "Surely you’ve been to a place like this before, for a case if nothing else?"
"It is not this place that surprises me," I tell him, warmer than I should have been. I cannot help myself. "It is you," I add, as if I had not already given away more than I ever planned to. At least this strange new world in which Watson called a person guarding the door of a molly house sweetheart with as much ease as he has just uncorked his beer tells me that the probability of him having me arrested are slim. He smiles at me, sweet as anything, and we eat our dinners, hearty German fare, while discussing Parsifal further.
When a piano starts playing, Watson hollers with the rest of the clientele, and draws me to standing. I wonder what he wants right until he draws me onto the dancefloor, and by then I am too busy marvelling at the riotous crowd to pull away. What if this spell breaks as soon as we leave Germany? Or even as soon as we step back onto the quiet streets? I let him lead, and laugh with him at the merry tunes, the eager crowd, the comfort of his hand around my waist.
When the music slows down he pulls me closer, and during one such slow song he whispers at me, loud enough for me but no one else. "Did you really not know?" he asks, and I am forced to admit my ignorance.
"I watched you marry a woman, Watson," I remind him, and he huffs against my collar in a way that makes me shiver.
"I confess my lack of imagination made it impossible for me to think of any other solution to my hopeless wants," he admits, and before I can stop myself I have leaned back, and read on his face what he had thought poorly hidden, and I had thoroughly dismissed as impossible so long ago.
His lips on mine confirm, if nothing else, that he is not a novice. Might this be our second chance, I wonder, when I kiss him in return, slow even when the music picks back, refusing any longer to let an outside factor dictate our relation to each other. I take much convincing before we leave, worried that this illusion might shatter in the cold night air, but he steals little glances at me as we hurry through the streets.
In the lobby of the hotel the illusion does shatter. It is so late, nobody should be up anymore, but as we are ushered in from the cold by a doorman, a man’s voice calls out for Watson.
"And you must he Holmes then!" he says, cheery and bright as he shakes my hand. "Fancy that, Linda, my old army pal and his famous detective friend."
"Bill," Watson greets, and we are all introduced to each other.
"You here for a – " Mr Murray lowers his voice as he leans in, "a case?"
"No, no," I tell him. "We were in Berlin for one, but Watson was very insistent that we might pass through here on our return. For the opera, of course."
"Yes," Mrs Murray says, "us too. Marvellous isn’t it?"
"Indeed," I agree. Watson, being much better at this sort of conversational congress than I am, rounds off the meeting nicely, and before I know it we are standing in our room.
I only notice in that moment that something is troubling my Watson, and I start to ask but he halts me with his hand held up.
"We cannot," he says.
"Because someone knows us here?" I ask, remembering how I felt so certain the spell would not last outside of Magdalena’s. "If it’s because you would prefer not to, I assure you – "
"It’s unsafe," he says. "We cannot risk life and liberty, and besides we are drunk. It would be better if we were to sleep now, so we might take the train tomorrow."
"Damn you!" I roar, unable to contain my frustration any longer. Watson steps back in surprise, I’ve hurt him. "Please," I say, gently now. "Do not deny me when we are – when it might..."
"I cannot corrupt you," he says, his shoulders sloping and his mouth stubborn.
"Watson," I beg. "I have always been as I am. Have we not spoken endlessly of will and temptation? Do you not understand how I feel about these things?"
"You are indifferent to love," he tells me.
"Of a woman," I correct, and I try to come closer to him, but he steps back once more. "Not of you, I am – beyond lost for you. I cannot – could not risk it. Our life, our friendship."
He shakes his head, as if the thoughts need rearranging. I felt much the same, earlier this evening, and wish so fervently we were home, that we might call for something hot to settle us. "We are not – you couldn’t be."
"Please," I say, "if you have ever listened to me - ever tried to trust me, know this. I have loved you since the very beginning, John."
He laughs, like he’ll say you can’t have, but he looks at me, and he lets me reach for him and trace his brows and the shells of his ears and admire his remarkable familiarity. "Me too," he says, and I don’t believe it at all. "I hated marrying Mary," he tells me, like it is his greatest secret. "Even though I loved her, I knew I did not love her well. But she forgave me, before she passed, for loving you since the very beginning."
I kiss him, and think of how I might try to love him well.
When we are in bed together, and he is on me, I voice my feverish thoughts on how we must be destined for each other if everything we do to try and pull away causes the heart’s sorrow. How I feel as though despite missing my first chance this must be my second, and he laughs, gentle and warm. "Am I the secret garden then? Destined to be destroyed by a poor fool with the sign of a cross?"
I shudder at the thought, "I hope not." Besides; I would not be the pure fool Parsifal, I would be King Amfortas, wounded by my own desire, incurably damned. I pull at his clothes with more insistence and he stops his mapping of my jaw in favour of moving away and undressing. He reveals more and more, standing between the bed and the fire, outlined and haloed and real, as he hangs his clothes neatly, and I try to keep up. He hangs my clothes too, and is on me again when I reach out for him. He ends my shame and suffering with his touch, and once he moves inside me, I feel the curse I bore for all of my life lifting. For he loves me, and he has told me so.
A/N at the end:
The stories of Arthurian knights are a part of a storytelling tradition that Wagner continued, and that we continue today, where we allow the themes that speak to us to continue their relevance. He injected much Christianity into Parsifal, I make Holmes and Watson kiss. In this story Holmes learns how to connect to stories. He notices how the adventure of the speckled band is similar to Bluebeard, and how Tristan und Isolde presents love in a very different light than Parsifal does. Tristan and Isolde, a 12th century story that probably influenced the story of Guinevere and Lancelot, centers on love. The role of King Arthur in the well-known love-triangle as the more legitimate partner and a disrupting third is represented by King Mark in Tristan and Isolde, and Wagner shows how tormented this love leaves all parties involved.
Watson attempts to find answers to the questions he has about virtue and decency both in real life and in the texts they read. Did Wagner write about a love-triangle because he was in one? Can desire be mitigated by will? Should it be? Kölbing, a German academic who studied English literature, would probably not have liked these musings much, although I hope he will forgive me for borrowing his existence and scholarship for this story. He was known for applying German philosophy of science to literature but hopefully still enchanted enough by stories to appreciate showing up in one. I don’t know if he was ever in Oxford, let alone in 1895, which would bother him, but I will allow myself the indulgence.
If you’ve read this, and thought ‘well, actually’ please let me know! I haven’t taken a literature class since undergrad, and I’ve never even seen Parsifal. What did I miss?
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Date: 2020-04-20 10:23 am (UTC)I decided for this fic to fully lean into my own obsessive need to layer and layer until it's puff-pastry levels of complicated. I hope it was half as satisfying as puff-pastry.