[Soundtrack for this episode:
(1) The Adventure of the Botanical Monograph
I was alone with Holmes in his upstairs lodgings, one dreary
February late-afternoon, which in
shading into evening, turned but from a wan to a gloomier grey,
myself flipping fretfully through the evening papers in a vain search for something to
distract my dyspepsia, while Holmes sat deep in a brown study -- a burnt-umber
study -- pondering I knew not what, motionless but for his long and bony
fingers drumming a slow but steady devil’s tattoo, which (truth to tell) was beginning to play upon
my nerves. It was, then, with
something of relief, when we heard a muffled knock at the downstairs door,
followed by a brief exchange of words, not individually audible, but among
which I could make out the familiar tones of Mrs Hudson, our housekeeper, then
booted footsteps leading up the stairs to our rooms.
“Come in, sir!” barked Holmes, before even our visitor could
rap or otherwise announce himself.
“You’ll be wanting to rest your legs after your long walk through the
London fog, the moreso as you have been limping on your left leg.”
The
door opened, and a gentleman a bit
above the middle age stood on the
threshold, somewhat flushed, whether from his recent exertions (which
themselves presented something of a mystery, whose meaning I could not divine,
since to all appearances he could easily have afforded a hansom
and spared himself the effort) or from (perhaps additionally) some discomfort
at having thus been so cleanly pinned to the descriptive butterfly-board, sight
unseen. It is indeed disconcerting
when Holmes indulges in such show-offy flights of transspection; one always wonders whether he might
likewise be discerning disorders yet deeper than shortness of breath or a game
leg.
“I--“
the stranger stammered.
“Come
in, Mr Landstrasser, come in, come in!” cried Holmes, suddenly all hospitality,
waving our visitor over to a comfortable chair by the hearth, and proceeding to
the sideboard, from which he retrieved a cut-glass flagon. “Brandy?” he enquired, with a lift of one
brow and holding forth the flask;
then set it down again, adding, “But I forgot; you don’t drink.”
For
a moment our guest was predictably nonplussed, but then relaxed and almost
smiled. “I’ve heard tell of these
diagnostic tricks of yours, Mr Holmes,” he said, good-sportingly enough. “I won’t inquire how you arrived at
your conclusions, which are of course quite accurate.”
Holmes
shrugged off the compliment, if such it was, simply murmuring “Elementary”
under his breath, before likewise taking up a chair before the fire, and,
steepling his fingers, gave the visitor his full attention. “Proceed.”
“I
have come to you,” he began directly, manfully taking the bull by the horns,
with no coyness or shilly-shally, “about a most delicate subject, -- But perhaps you have already guessed
what it is?” This last was said as
though in teasing jest, a tiny thrust at Holmes’ rather irksome habit of
intrusive insights, but possibly also privately wondering whether such might
actually somehow be the case.
“No,
no,” said Holmes with a dry and deprecating laugh, “I assure you, I have not the
faintest idea. That you have been
lately bereaved of a loved-one, after a long illness, and that you harbor growing concerns about your unavowed ipsigeneric
paraphilia -- which you disguise very well, and do well to disguise, --“ Brought up short by an annoyed
expression from our visitor, Holmes let the sentence end unfinished, and went
on in a more matter-of-fact voice.
“But these are conditions that you have been living with for some time,
and I do not suppose that they supplied the crisis that sent you forth from
your house in such haste, without even pausing to collect your gloves--“ A glance at his red chapped hands
confirmed the accuracy of this observation “-- and halfway across London to
Baker Street, where you have been pacing up and down upon the sidewalk beneath
these windows for the past ten minutes, before working up the courage to knock.
-- You have my full attention.”
“Quite
correct,” our visitor said, less stunned by this effrontery than one might have
expected, though I personally was not surprised: the secret of his inversion was something he had been
carrying about in his bosom for many years, no doubt since the first fumblings
at Eton, and as a physician I can report that, though such a habitus may, in a
well-regulated gentleman such as our visitor, be imperceptible to a layman, yet
the sufferer himself goes through life as self-consciously as though covered richly
in pimples. In any event he
went on, still self-composed, “The
matter at hand does not concern my affective life -- which is, at all events”
(he added with a touch of asperity) “entirely my own affair.” He paused, as though in challenge, and
Holmes nodded assent.
“The
problem rather involves a … an object; a simple … item, but one whose presence I cannot explain. I found it in the drawer of my
escritoire.”
“I
see,” said Holmes, nodding. “Have
you perchance brought along this … item,
with you?” he added in a sort of counter-challenge of his own, knowing that
the visitor had not.
Our
guest shook his head in something like embarrassment or irritation. “No I -- forgot. Clean slipped my mind.”
“Well,
no matter,” said Holmes easily.
“It wouldn’t have fit into your greatcoat pocket in any case, the moreso
as the latter is already largely occupied by your service revolver.”
“Yes,
ah -- a souvenir from the Crimea,” returned our guest, coloring slightly. “That’s where I got this leg.”
~
By now I had set the newssheet aside, and was discreetly
taking notes. If the reader
imagines that these narratives
which it has been my privilege to lay before the public over the years,
are spun out of mere memory, long after the events, he does me too much credit: my mnemonic powers are no more than
average. But I conscientiously
take copious notes.
“It
was,” continued our visitor, warming to his own tale, “a sort of monograph or
notebook, bound in dark morocco, and imprinted in the lower corner of the cover
with a monogram in an alphabet I did not recognize.”
Holmes
motioned for him to proceed.
“I
turned it over in my hands in some perplexity, as though mere handling of the
object might induce it to give up its secrets, for I could not imagine how it
could have made its way into my drawer, which is always kept locked. Moreover, the discretion of my
manservant, who has been with me for upwards of twenty years, can absolutely be
relied upon--“
Holmes
interrupted with an impatient wave;
he was not interested in the details of some puerile Locked Room
Mystery.
“Thus
at length, with reluctance, I opened the cover.”
Holmes
visibly tensed.
“Then
what was my bafflement at beholding, on the title page, in large gothic
letters,
Das Seelenleben der Pflanzen:
eine intime Monographie.
Vom Herrn Dr. N.
Landstrasser verfasst.
Holmes,
seeming startled, dropped his pipe and stared.
“On
each page,” he continued, “was depicted a different herb, etched in the style
of Linnaeus, labeled in Latin, and delicately tinted with watercolor. But what most astonished me was that,
pinned to each page, was an actual specimen of the plant itself, dried and
pressed -- these must have been assembled by a master botanist over the course
of travels around half the globe, not omitting Tibet and Patagonia.”
Holmes,
by now, was growing visibly disturbed.
“I
had been especially admiring the depiction of the Cyclamen cyprium, one of my favorite plants, most artistically
depicted, and to the accompanying specimen of which there seemed to cling,
though dried and faded, a distant fragrance, as though of Mediterranean
meadows.
“And
yet, turning the page, what was my horror upon finding--“ (here he paused for effect) “-- a
portrait of a professionally well-known medicinal specific, lately much
investigated in Vienna, but without a specimen attached. It yields an alkaloid with which I
believe you are familiar, Mr Holmes.”
“Erythroxylum coca,” Holmes
muttered; and his voice was
hoarse.
“Now,
the problem, as you will already have gathered, was this: Whoever could have abstracted and made
off with that specimen -- who so
desperate as to force the drawer in a locked room of a house well shut-up for
the night, circled by a spike-topped wrought-iron fence, its grounds guarded by
savage mastiffs? -- Naturally I
though of … coming to … you.”
At
this, Holmes leapt to his feet.
“R-r-raus !” he shouted, flinging our visitor
his cape and cane, his straight arm pointing rigidly towards the door.
I
stared dumbstruck.
“Weg mit Dir, du Schuft. So’n Schabernack, ‘ne Schweinerei. Diese sogenannte ‘Monographie’
hast Du nicht mit Dir gebracht, weil es sowas gar nicht gibt!” His voice gave way, and he stood mutely
trembling with rage, as our guest, no longer limping, left laughing by the door.
“Moriarty,” I thought, suddenly grasping the
situation. “You fiend.”
~
~
~
*
Für psychologisch
tiefgreifende Krimis,
in pikanter
amerikanischer Mundart,
und christlich
gesinnt,
klicken Sie bitte
hier:
*
(2) Der Traum vom einsamen Radfahrer
Es war eben nur kurz nach meiner Promovierung zum Doktor der
Medizin, als ich noch mich als Forscher im Physiologischen Institut Brückes in Wien
tätig machte, da kam es zu mir im Labor
eine mir bisher unbekannte junge Dame -- fast würde ich sagen, ein aufgeblümtes
Mädchen -- in herkömmlicher Volkstracht;
diese äußerte sich bescheiden, ob ich vielleicht der Herr Doktor S.
Freud wäre. Ich bejahte
knapp -- denn es war mir in jenen Tagen
viel zu viel zu verrichten aufgeladen: “Bin Arzt”, und zuckte die
Achseln.
Leicht lächelnd.
“Mm. Und was für denn einer?”
“Bin Nervenarzt.”
“Also Nerrrven-arzt,” sagte sie,
nachdenkend.
Ich blieb stumm, und starrte sie an.
“Aber… doch so … wenn ich störe …” und machte sich daran,
sich zu entfernen.
“Ach nee -- Herein.
‘tschüldigung. Bißle überarbeitet,
jetzt im Augenblick. Aber
bitte.” Und ich lud sie ein, sich
niederzusetzen.
Das tat sie eben, mit wohlerzogener Niedlichkeit; worauf mein Herz hörte momentan auf, zu
klopfen …
“To what do I owe the honour?” frug ich -- auf
englisch; weiß nicht genau
warum. Und dann erstaunte, als sie
mich leise, und auf leicht provinziel-gefärbter Sprechweise, ansprechend bat,
einen Traum von ihr zu deuten.
“Einen Traum? Aber weshalb stören Sich mich, ein so
erbärmlich kleinliches Ding, oder Unding vielmehr! Das ist alles ja doch nur sovieso Quatsch im Kopf -- vergessen Sie das lieber!”
“J-ja, das wissen Sie bestens, Herr Doktor;
aber wenn Sie doch meine
Lubie nichtsdestoweniger schon gütigst
dulden möchten, die kitzelt mich und
kitzelt, wie der Ohrwurm im Ohr!”
Ich überlegte eine Weile (aber was ich mir nur da alles
überlegte, blieb mir zunächst unklar), und dann willigte ein.
“Aber doch nit hier, im Labor. Bin beschäftigt und, nu, was weiß ich -- all die Leute,
hinaus, herein … Sie möchten ganz bequem hinauf zu mir in die Bude kommen,
diesen Abend, nach Arbeitsschluss.”
Und ich nannte ihr die Strasse.
Das mochte sie gern.
Sie ließ mir ihre Karte, und ging weg.
 |
"Wenn ich komme,
küsse ich Dich
rot und dick …”
|
~
Ganz wie verabredet, kam sie zu mir, die lange dunkle Treppe
hinauf, bis ins Logis.
Ich fühlte mich ein bißchen verlegen, als wäre diese
Verabredung ein “rendezvous”, ein “Stelldichein”. Was gar nicht der Fall war.
Sie trat ein, und liess ihre Nerz-Stola langsam von
Schultern hinabgleiten. Dann
setzte sie sich.
Ich wollte nicht plaudern, nur die medizinische
Angelegenheit verrichten und dann -- Schluss damit.
“Nun ja also.
Zur Sache.”
Ich sah sie an.
Sie erwiderte meinen Blick, aber ohne zu reden.
“Den Traum, bitte, wenn Sie wollen.”
Sie überlegte ein weilchen; endlich sprach sie.
“Ein Mann.”
“Ein ... Mann,” wiederholte ich, unsicher.
“Auf einem Fahrrad.”
“Auf -- na und?”
“-- Ist alles.”
Da fing ich an, eifrig meine Brille zu polieren, um einen
Augenblick zum Nachdenken freizuhaben.
“Nun, meine gnädige -- allerdings -- wenn ich nur fragen darf -- Was ist denn das für
ein Satz? Ihm fehlt das Zeitwort,
ohne wessen ein Satz ist lahm!
Subjekt, meinetwegen -- aber Prädikat, mein gnädiges Fräulein, ich
bitte beflissen -- Prädikat!”
Ihre Augen sanken ab.
“Noch gibt’s keines.”
Einen Seufzer.
“Nun ja denn, so soll es sein.
Bis nächstes mal.”
~
Merkwürdigerweise, träumte ich jene Nacht, und zwar so: daß ich selbst auf einem Fahrrad sass,
ganz im Lande, und -- sie verfolgte …
~
Es verging dann drei Wochen, ohne dass sie zu mir im Labor
käme; ich meinte, sie hatte mich
wahrscheinlich vergessen. Sie aber vergass ich gar nicht.
Dann plötzlich, einen Sonntagmorgen sogar, da ich ganz
allein im Labor mich bei meinen Versuchen beschäftigte, trat sie ein, diesmal
ohne mal anzuklopfen.
Sie setzte sich, und ohne weiteres, sagte vorher: “Ich habe einen Traum gemacht.”
Als wär’ ich nur leicht interessiert. “Na und? Was für einer?”
Leicht errötend.
“Denselben.”
“Sie haben jenen Traum also wieder- und weiter-geträumt?”
Und dann, ohne zu antworten -- stand sie plötzlich auf, und
floh aus dem Zimmer!
[ Fortzusetzen/To be continued … ]
[Still unwritten:
Note to self.
Have an interlude in which Freud goes about his business in
the town, without thinking overtly of his visitor.
He wonders if he will run into her -- in the small world of
Vienna -- but he does not.
No: It is the enclosed
hothouse of the laboratory -- and of his own dream-world -- in which alone her
existence is privileged.
Dazu -- at this early date in Freud's career: Hypnosis!]
{ For further
particulars,
compare our essay
here.
}
{{ And for a similarly enigmatic Übertragung-based mystery,
{{{ For additional Victoriana,
this }}}
.
