Editor's Note: It is not generally known that Dr. John H. Watson had a daughter; he never mentioned her. It is, in fact, quite possible that he was never allowed to meet her, and so his reticence on the matter is understandable.
What is known is that Mary Watson, nee Morstan, received an annulment of her marriage to Dr. Watson in 1893 under somewhat mysterious and secretive circumstances, and that, while he continued to speak fondly of her, he never publicly mentioned the divorce, and, as far as we have been able to ascertain, never communicated with her again, although at the time of the separation she was carrying their first child.
This very interesting document was found by that daughter, Violet Morstan, amongst unrelated papers such as the will and various deeds which were kept in a locked cabinet. It is a sheaf of loose leaves, carelessly scrawled upon sadly yellowed foolscap -it is to be hoped that the current owner takes steps to see that it is preserved. It is evident that Miss Morstan understood both its value and its import, for she preserved it carefully, but kept it secret, and passed it to her own son only after extracting grave and solemn oaths from him not to reveal its contents.
The MS was handed down through several generations before being presented to a man outside the family, in whose possession it was discovered after his recent death. Rumour of its existence was leaked at last to the public by a surviving friend, and thus came to our attention.
It is easy to draw the conclusion that this journal was the reason for the separation of Dr. Watson and his wife; it is peculiar that it came to be in Mrs. Watson's possession, especially since it was his stated intention to burn it, as he apparently had disposed of other, possibly similar, writings in the past; but there is no actual evidence that this is the case.
The journal is undated, which is a pity, but the contents of the journal point to that interval between the supposed death of Sherlock Holmes and his reappearance some three years later. We have little doubt about its authenticity; although forgeries are common, the handwriting is unquestionably that of the good doctor, though naturally more carelessly scrawled than his few surviving manuscripts (which were clean copies prepared for typesetting), and, while the writing and style vary considerably from entry to entry, though in the same characteristic hand, in some ways the shifts of mood and the occasional contradiction strengthen the case for the authenticity of the manuscript. But judge for yourself.
In the transcript which follows we have taken the liberty of editing the original to give it the appearance of a relatively concise narrative; the original contains much in the way of irrelevancies and musings, and events are not presented in such a coherent order. The entire document in its original and unedited state will, we hope, eventually be made available to the public.
Excerpts From
The Secret Diary of John H. Watson, MD
It is very late. I have crawled here to my consulting-room, like a rat out of a drain, while the household sleeps--
How terrible it is to suffer so great, so devastating, a loss, and to be forbidden to unburden one's heart to some sympathetic ear! I have actually feared for my sanity at times over these last few months--that I might find myself blurting out some appalling secret, or suddenly altogether paralysed by grief, and unable to function in my daily tasks.
I fear--I greatly fear--the danger of discovery. But I have ever been moved to write down my thoughts when I am in trouble--at times of turmoil it has often brought me calm and clarity when all else failed. I hope it may be the case this time.
I am not sure how I should start... I have undertaken nothing like this since I married, and I find my hand immobilized by the terrible thought that these scribblings should be discovered--and yet here in my own consulting-room amongst my other papers, surely they are safe?
In any case, something must be done. My melancholy has already taxed the patience of my poor, long-suffering wife, who must, in some secret corner of her heart, be relieved that the one who so often stole my company and attentions from her is no more, and if she nurses an unspoken bitterness for even now I seem to spend more time with his ghost than with her, I cannot by any means blame her.
Twice now she has told me, so gently and with such concern, that I cried out his name in my sleep. Mary is a dear creature, and feels for me in my trouble--but I must find some outlet, lest I speak more in my insensate state than is safe. Terrified is probably not too strong a word to apply to my mood, for exposure might mean not only ruin for me, but for the memory of my best and dearest friend, and that I cannot abide. I would die rather than allow his name to be tarnished with shame.
I suppose shame is among the many emotions in which I am foundering, but even that bears examination. It is not a simple matter--perhaps no human feeling is. Ashamed--of Holmes? Hardly. I have always held him in the greatest respect, and not infrequently in awe. Ashamed of my own actions? At this date, with some perspective upon them? Not at all. Whence then shame, if it originates neither with him nor with me?
It has an external source. For myself, I am justified--but to picture myself faced with an accusation from outside--ah, that is shame which makes me blench. I know what it is in most men's minds, and though, in the course of an unusually full life, I have learned to fear the judgment of others rarely, for everyone there is a limit, and this is, after all, far past mine.
I shall be up all night and never face the task at this rate. I have made the decision to write it down. I must do so. When I feel I have relieved the weight of secret grief, which is so great a burden to my heart, I will consign the MS to the flames, and, I hope, be able once again to go about my business with a clearer mind, better able to endure my catastrophic loss.
So when did it begin? Well, from the moment I met Sherlock Holmes, I suppose. Yet I would not date the moment of my perdition--for so I must sometimes regard it, though at other times I see it as my salvation--from the moment of his admission, or even from the moment of--well, of the original sin. No, it came somewhat later.
It must have been as late in the night as it is now when the whole thing truly began--quite late, certainly, for the light of the moon shone brightly in through the window above the curtain. I woke, as one does at times, from a deep dreamless sleep to a full, quiet wakefulness. I remembered without shock all that had happened during that strange, fateful night.
I have done a terrible thing, I thought, eerily calm. I am damned, I am defiled. There can be no atonement for this vile sin I have all willingly committed.
I did not think of Holmes, though he lay still beside me, of the part he had played--somehow I blamed only myself, as if he were the innocent, and I the seducer. I called myself unclean, stained as I was with the fruit of my sin; I called myself damned. And yet--strange to say, though my mind and brain cried "Guilty!", I lay there quite comfortably, my body as spent and pleased with its own prowess as ever it has lain beside a dusky native whore or--God forgive me!--beside my beloved Mary.
God bless Mary, dear little Mary! She loves me as much as ever a woman loved a man, despite our differences, and she must never know. Never! I burn with shame to think that she might find this diary, and yet I am compelled, driven, to write it all down--my heart drives me--unless it is the devil who does so.
Oh Shame! It is so hard to write the words, but I must write them: as I lay there, feeling now this, now that, my companion stirred beside me, and, turning my head, I saw that he too had wakened, and was gazing back at me. It might have been the moonlight that woke him, for it was bright; I could see him clearly in the unearthly shimmer--the aquiline nose, the great eyes, soft with sleep, the natural pallor of his hollow cheeks--not a beautiful face, ah God! Never a beautiful face, though shapely enough and well proportioned, and yet to me,to me at that moment--he seemed an angel in his beauty.
I thought, then, that he had read my thoughts in my look, for he gazed at me in silence, and in the mystic light he looked vulnerable--neither afraid nor anxious, yet there was a waiting sadness in his expression, as if he knew the disappointing words of rejection, even of recrimination, that quivered on my lips, and was quietly braced to receive them with pain, as a condemned man, beyond struggling, might lay his head acquiescently on the block.
Now I wonder: that moonlight, brilliant though it was, shone from behind me--could even he have divined my mood, or sensed it with some subtle intuition of which I still suspect him for all his eloquent protests--or was it that he knew--from experience? Or from his knowledge of myself?--what was my mood as we lay together for the first time, that morning?
It was, I think, his look that saved us--or damned me--God have mercy on us! I saw his heart in his eyes, and mine was moved: I could not, not for the world or for my soul, not even for his, have hurt him at that moment. Afterward it was too late. I am damned, I thought again, and a great lightness settled upon me. If I were damned already, then I was free.
Free. I felt it then, and I remember it now, so far away in time--the bonds of all I had known of nature and propriety, of what shaky piety I still flattered myself of having: bonds that I had thought unbreakable in myself, unbendable even, shredded away as if made of the flimsiest gauze, and left me free.
What could I do? I was, for a moment, truly a free man. It had all occurred in a second. And freely I put my arms around his thin shoulders, and pulled him to me, and held him to my heart as if I never meant to let him go. I think he chuckled, very softly. Skin to skin we lay, two men naked as Adam, and I did not care a whit for any angels that peered in my window. I would not have cared just then had the Lord Mayor walked in. I might have invited him to join us.
Am I horrified to see these words condemning me in black and white for what I am, and for what my greatest friend was? Yes, perhaps. My face still burns, and my hand trembles and scrawls with the difficulty of a spastic. It is terrible to see, set out in stark, plain words, my sin.
And yet my eyes burn too, with tears, and they are neither tears of shame nor of repentance, but of simple--of innocent--grief.
Damn it! It was love which moved me that night, that loosed those bonds and set me free. I had never known such love before I met him, nor since his passing--I beg God, protect my Mary from this confession--and I miss him. No matter that I was very often angry with him, or that he was as frustrating and mystifying as a woman can be, and often as cruel--more so, if possible. I loved Sherlock Holmes with all my heart.
There. If I am made to stand before the throne of Heaven on the day of reckoning, I will stand straight and hold my head erect, and when I am questioned as to the nature of my sin, I will answer, "My sin was Love, and if that is enough to condemn me, then send me to Hell. If Love is a sin, I will go willingly" ... for I know he has gone before me, for the self-same sin...And if I cannot see him again on this Earth, I must take my chances in another world.
Indeed I would gladly suffer the torments of the damned to see him again, if for only a moment.
I am exhausted... I did not realize what a strain this would be. It is relief and fear and shame all at once. And great grief. God, God! How I miss him!