I am lost without my Boswell.
I've surprised myself by admitting as much, but at least there is a rich client to distract him -- and me -- from that uncharacteristic sentimentality. But I would be less than honest if I did not admit as well that it is clear that he has not lost as much as I. Or rather, that he has no reason to regret what is gone from him.
In near a decade I have never seen him so comfortable inside his own skin, not sober, not more than a few minutes at a time, when the griefs of others have had all his attention or when the triumph of justice has given him cause to smile. I have done prodigies to see that smile, to see him forget a while the crash of guns and the pain of wounds that will never fully heal.
No. I will not dwell upon it. I do not wish to know what she has done, that colonial brat he has taken to wife, to smooth the lines of grief from his brow and banish the ghosts of Maiwand from his eyes.
And yet, if he is happy, why did he come?