"Holmes?" John Watson said one evening as they reclined in their respective chairs in Baker Street, "would you mind if I asked you a series of questions that may seem odd and perhaps a bit intrusive, if I assure you there is a reason behind them?"
"I am not in the habit," Sherlock Holmes drawled, "of avoiding questions asked in earnest." He reached to his side-table and snatched up his pipe. "Neither do I stand to be interrogated. But, seeing as I have never distrusted you, I say ask away and we will see if your purpose can lighten an otherwise ordinary, slightly dull evening." He scraped a matchstick against the table leg and lit his pipe.
"As you know, after your case in Paris was finished last month I went on to Greece before coming home. There, purely for my own education, I took it upon myself to study some writings of ancient doctors, and I encountered a rare medical phenomenon I've never heard described before."
"And you want to screen me for this condition?" Holmes asked with a chuckle. "Very well. Proceed, doctor. Seeing as how we are relaxing in our living room I suppose I don't need to go to the trouble of scheduling an appointment? That alone will make any extra medical care I receive well worthwhile."
"You do not, generally, make appointments when you come to my practice, Holmes, and so therefore I will ignore your insinuation that scheduling important medical care is somehow a burden on your life."
"Touche. Please, doctor, do continue. My apologies. And what is the purpose of this non-appointment?"
"Just a couple questions. As I said, they may seem odd, so please feel free to refuse me any answer you wish. I assure you I mean you no offence by what I ask, but what I say me seem like it couldn't possibly be relevant. I have a purpose, however, and I hope you will cooperate with me."
Holmes cocked his head, looking at his friend for a moment while he puffed on his pipe. "You have considered this," he announced. "For some time in fact. No, no, Watson, don't give me that look. It is simplicity itself how I know. You are flexing your right hand seemingly unconsciously, but your words are steady and calculated. You have, therefore, rehearsed what you will say but are nevertheless hesitant to begin. I shall not impede you, Watson. Please, ask me your odd questions, and I will attempt to be as honest as I can in my answers."
"To start, then, how do you know that I'm, well, me? When you walk into our rooms and see me, how do you recognize me?"
Holmes took a puff of his pipe before pulling it away and frowning darkly. "My dear fellow, what a strange question! You may as well ask how the brain works, and that is a far more complicated tangle than even the most brilliant scientific minds of our era will be able to unravel. How could I explain all the tiny details and remembrances and deductions that happen over the course of a moment when I glimpse you? Besides the fact that this is our home, that I expect to see you here, and that I recognize a hundred little things about you… I suppose I don't know how I recognize you. But if I can't trust my senses and my mind, what can I trust?"
"Yes, Holmes, but when you look at me, how do you know it is me and not one of a million mustached, brown-haired men in England?"
"Again, Watson, it's senses, deductions. You always have the same hands, the same build, the same distinguishing features. Shall I list them, or do you know your own?" He grinned.
"List them," Watson said seriously. "Do it in order of what you look for. When you see me, what do you look at first?"
Holmes blinked at him in surprise, his grin disappearing. "Your mustache, I suppose," he said, trying to answer correctly even though he wasn't sure there was a correct answer. "Then the scar on your jaw, then the scar near your eye. The calluses on your hands, the build of your body, the way you hold your wounded limbs… I'm not entirely sure about the order, for, as I'm sure you understand, it all happens so fast I'm not conscious of it. But, since you are asking, beyond those I suppose I could look at your clothes, your possessions, your positioning in the room… though I am quite unsure as to why I would need to. All these things combine, and then I know instinctively this is my Watson and I adjust my behavior accordingly, for you are my friend and not some stranger or client."
"I see. But Holmes, if I changed those things, especially one of the things you look at first, would you still know me? If I shaved my mustache, covered my scars, miraculously healed my wounded limbs, changed my clothes, left Baker Street forever, changed my voice, and stopped writing so there were no calluses on my hands? Would you meet me in the shops and know who I was?"
Holmes chuckled, almost nervously. "Well, it would make it decidedly difficult, I suppose, but that would be because you wouldn't look like Watson, would you? I would likely ask what was going on with you just like I am about to ask now. Watson, what is the purpose of this questioning?"
"Holmes, did you notice what you left out of that list?"
"Hmm? I mentioned almost everything of importance."
"Except my face."
"Watson? What do you mean? I certainly said that I look at your face first of all."
"No, Holmes. You said you look at my mustache and my scars."
"Yes. And? That is your face, is it not?"
"No, Holmes. Those are just distinguishing features on my face."
"Is there a difference?" Holmes asked, waving his free hand through the air in clear exasperation.
"I think so, Holmes. I'm not sure how to explain it, but, well, that's not the way everyone else does it."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I… try to think about it this way: when I see you, all I look at is your face and I know it's you. If you changed everything else about yourself I would still know it's you. If the change was natural, I mean, not like when you put on one of your disguises. If you, say, grew a beard, changed your hair color, shrunk by half a meter, and had one of your limbs amputated, I could still look at your face and know it's you. Look at your own hand, at the scar on your thumb. Distinguishing, yes?"
"Yes..."
"Even as a medical man, Holmes, I didn't notice it until we'd been living together for over two months. Normal people, or, I suppose I should say the majority of people, we just… look at someone's face and know who they are. We don't look at thumbs and trouser legs and minute scars on someone's body. Just their face. We know from that."
Holmes laughed, but it wasn't the kind of self-assured, whole-bodied laugh like was normal for him. "My dear Watson, eyes are just eyes. Noses are noses, mouths are mouths. There are some superficial differences, certainly, but if we had the ability to swap them around from one face to another do you really think it would matter?"
"Yes. I do. Were you completely bald and your skin completely unblemished I could look at only your face and know you."
"So," Holmes said slowly, "what are you saying?"
"I think you are an example of a rare medical phenomenon. I think you can't see faces."
Holmes sucked in a deep breath, and his jaw was clenched. "I must ask you," he ground out, "to explain yourself."
"It is certainly not that you can't see," Watson said quickly. "You can see as well as any man, and perhaps better, for you've trained yourself to see absolutely everything else besides faces. What neither you nor I have considered before is why you've so meticulously yet naturally trained your eyes to take in every detail of people. I think it's because you see faces, but you don't register them as different from each other."
"My friend," Holmes said uncertainly, his hands turning his pipe in circles as he held it and his breaths not as regular as they had been, "without offense to you, I believe it was yourself who pointed out there are millions of brown haired, brown eyed men in London with mustaches. I daresay they have noses and mouths as well. It is everything else that distinguishes you, is it not?"
"No. Not to most people. Most people can see all faces as individual and unique even if there are no mustaches and no scars. Which, by the by, seems, to the best of my knowledge, to be perhaps the reason you are fond of me."
"Watson?"
"People with your condition seem to be drawn towards ugliness, which can be remembered and recognized easier than normal faces."
"Certainly you're not saying you are ugly," Holmes snorted dismissively.
"You demonstrate my point exactly, Holmes. You think I am not because you cannot actually see me. And, without offence to you, you were the one who pointed out my scars are some of the first things you see. To you, they help you identify my face where everything else is common and indistinguishable. Therefore, to you they are not hideous, yet I assure you that everyone else tries not to look at them."
"But… I know! Mary thought you were handsome, Watson, and you wouldn't deny that. Would you accuse her of not even knowing what you look like?"
"Yes, Holmes, Mary thought I was handsome. Of course she did, but she loved me in spite of my scars, not because of them. She'd have preferred me without them, not only because they are ugly but because they represented painful moments for me. And Mary, she was gorgeous… but you couldn't see that, could you? Is it any wonder that you don't find women beautiful or men handsome? You're too focused on identifying them by the stains on their clothes and the dirt under their fingernails to see the perfect symmetry of a face. Now that I say it, beauty must be damned hard to identify, for beautiful people often share physical traits that make them attractive, but ugliness is almost always unique."
"I… but Watson…"
"I think it explains why you hardly ever make eye contact with me. Have you noticed that? When I try to look you in the eye yours inevitably slide away from mine. At first I thought you were rude. Then I thought you might be trying not to stare at my scars. Then, I stopped caring and accepted it as a part of who you are, but now I wonder."
"Watson..."
"It could also help us understand why you're naturally observant…"
"Stop!" Holmes cried. He stood quickly, throwing his pipe to the side. He stalked to Watson's chair, towering over it. "I said I will not be interrogated in my own home, and I will not be accused of this sort of thing. If you question my eyesight and my judgment so much then feel free to leave." He was practically growling, and Watson sat still as Holmes stalked away into his room.
He was still sitting like he had been when Holmes came back out and left, slamming both the living room door and the front door behind him. Each time he did so Watson flinched, and he sighed deeply when Holmes was gone, putting his head in his hands. Had there been anyone around, they would have heard him murmuring a long line of regrets, wishing he'd kept his theory to himself.
Sherlock Holmes was cold when he returned, and so, it appeared, was Watson. His friend hadn't gone to bed and was still sitting in his chair, shivering slightly in his sleep. Holmes sighed, covering Watson with a blanket before kneeling in front of the hearth and stoking the fire high enough he began to feel the slight singe of heat on his face and he could hear Watson stirring. He tilted his head slightly, letting the fire warm his face and letting the corners of his eyes land on Watson so the doctor would know he knew he was awake.
"Where did you go?" asked Watson softly after some time had passed and Holmes hadn't moved.
He sat without turning back to Watson, watching the flames dance and holding out his fingers even though they were no longer chilled. "Nowhere. Around," he murmured. "Looking at people, the ones I could find, I mean. It's late now, and I found no one but myself for a long time. I stayed with him for a while. Thinking. But then I decided I would rather be home. Forgive me for snapping at you?"
"Of course. Forgive me for being so insensitive? For a doctor who prides himself on a decent bedside manner I was ignorant of the signs you weren't receiving my words well."
"Of course, Watson. You did warn me, after all. And your theory... is the correct one. I believe so, at least. I've been trying to remember, to decide if all the things you said could possibly be true. There are many variables, and as you know me so well I am sure you are aware I have been mulling over all of them. For one thing, I don't see my school friends often, but when I do they always have to remind me who they are. I never thought a thing about it, but now that I am I realize that sometimes when women change their hair I don't know them right away. Even Mrs. Hudson. I… you really just… look at people? And know right away? My seemingly insignificant issues with recognition may be some symptom of a larger phenomenon?"
"Yes, Holmes. I do see people's faces and know them right away. And yes, I think you may not have the capacity to do the same. I thought knowing this would help explain your thought processes and the way you see the world. I never meant to offend you."
"I know, Watson. Tell me about what you learned during your studies."
"The ancient doctors who described the condition classified it as a memory problem, but I admit I don't think that is the case. There's nothing wrong with your memory; you're simply blind to faces. Heaven knows you're blind to nothing else no matter how small. I believe, if my theory is true,that it could also explain how you're sometimes ignorant of the times when I'm upset with you and the times when I'm happy with you alike. You don't see the emotion on my face. You can still make your deductions, of course. You can follow my eye movements, see my mouth move, and somehow unravel an entire train of thought from small details like those, which is certainly something I have never done. I don't pay attention to those kinds of micro expressions. But basic emotions usually shown on a face have, in the past, escaped you."
"I suppose that is another point which I cannot deny," Holmes murmured.
"It could also help explain why you're so hesitant to be at parties or anywhere in public when you're not on a case. That's a lot of faces not to look at, a lot of people to memorize just by thumbs and mustaches. And for what purpose? So you can make small talk, which you also despise? My dear man, is it any wonder that you prefer your own company?"
"Perhaps not," Holmes mumbled. "It's… strange, to say the least. To think that I don't really know the people I love. What else did you learn?"
"That it's very possible Mycroft has a similar condition. It seems to either run in families or be brought about by a serious head injury. One doctor observed that a man didn't know his own brother when he met him in the marketplace instead of at home, and that brother once failed to recognize his own son. A different doctor recorded that a man who had suffered a stroke later couldn't recognize an artist's portrait of himself and suffered from severe, seemingly unpredictable, bouts of depression and despair. Sound familiar?"
"You mean… those horrible drawings in the Strand look more like me than I think they do?"
"Yes, Holmes. They do. Everyone else sees it but you. And, now that I think of it, Mycroft. Didn't he once complain they got us both all wrong?"
"He did. And you think my black moods may have more of a basis than I know?"
"I believe it's quite possible."
"And the only reason I like you is because I can see you better than I see anyone else," Holmes mumbled darkly.
"No," Watson said quickly. "Not the only reason. I never said the only reason. At least I certainly hope it wouldn't be, or has my own loyalty and our shared friendship fallen away now that you've realized I am not as handsome as you thought?" Though his words were serious, his tone was light and playful.
Holmes chuckled. "Of course not," he answered. "But now, as you can imagine, I'm questioning many things I thought were fact in my life." He shrugged slightly. "Why I befriended you, for example. I flattered myself back when I met you Watson; I thought agreeing to live with you was a part of my own personal maturation, that it was somehow evidence that I was a better person when I was friendly and patient and helpful to another person, especially to a wounded doctor. Now I must confront the idea that perhaps I only cared about you precisely because you were a wounded doctor. You had a recognizable limp, a stiff way you held your arm, and fresh wounds on your face. Would I have liked you if it weren't for those characteristics which allowed me to see you well? Have all the people I've loved been simply because of some physical feature? Mrs. Hudson, she has two crooked teeth and a mole on her left cheek. Would I know her without them?"
"Holmes… if you were blind completely wouldn't you still be my friend?"
"How can I know, Watson? I can't, just like I can't know if I would have befriended you if I wasn't 'face blind.' What kind of a man am I ?"
"You are a great one." Watson was beside him, then, and his words were hard and insistent. "And you are my friend, no matter anything else. We met because we both needed a place to live, would have met even if the battle that wounded me hadn't scarred my face. And you were kind and generous to me before you got the chance to know me well. You were good to me even when I was too weak to leave the living room, even when you should have been annoyed with me for needing you to help me. I overdid it the first day I moved in, remember? You held me while I retched what I'd eaten and ensured I was alright."
"You did, didn't you? I'd forgotten. You think that makes me a good person? A good friend?"
"Yes. You've always been a good friend to me, and I hope you don't regret that."
"No. Never, Watson. I just… I'd like to be alone for a while, I think."
"Of course." Watson stood and was about to turn to go when Holmes reached out and grabbed his arm, his gaze still never leaving the fire.
"I meant, well, alone with you still in the room somewhere." Holmes wasn't looking at him, but he knew Watson well enough to know he was grinning.
"Of course," Watson said, his voice soft. "Care if I fall asleep?"
"No," Holmes said, and he grinned slightly, too. "I never have before. I've even kept lecturing long after you've fallen asleep before."
"I know. Sometimes I wake back up before you've finished. And, by the by, I do believe that's a quirk that's all your own."
"I have a feeling, Watson, that you are quite correct." He smiled very slightly, and finally turned away from the fire. Watson was yawning widely, and Holmes sat with his back against the couch as Watson settled down on top of it. A moment later a pillow and blanket flopped beside him, Watson having pulled them off the cushions for him.
He took them gratefully, looking into the fire as he wrapped the blanket around himself. He found his pipe lying on the floor and packed it with new tobacco before lighting it with a coal from the fire, finally finishing his smoke as he watched the flames he'd stoked slowly die down.
"Thank you, Watson," he murmured eventually. "Strange, isn't it? That we always seem to have these conversations late at night? For you, who value all the sleep you can get, it must become annoying. Though you did attempt to start this early, didn't you? I am at fault for the lateness this time. I apologize for walking away like that, I…" he trailed off, hearing the soft snuffling that told him Watson had fallen asleep. "Goodnight, my friend," he murmured. He rose, pulling his blanket off his shoulders and covering Watson with it. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes briefly.
"One day," he announced to no one who was listening, "I will look you in the eyes."
Author's Note:
Thank you for reading my story. I sincerely hope you enjoyed. This story was pure speculative fun to write, and is not a serious argument regarding the Holmes canon. Thank you.
The title was taken from 1 Corinthians 13:12: For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then shall I know, even as also I am known.
About face blindness:
Face blindness, also known as Prosopagnosia, is a real condition. There is no cure, and most people who suffer from face blindness find alternate ways of identifying people through context clues, though this doesn't always work. Some people born with face blindness may not realize they have this condition. All the "ancient doctors" writings were completely fabricated.
According to the NHS: a person with prosopagnosia may avoid social interaction and develop social anxiety disorder. They may also have difficulty forming relationships or experience problems with their career. Feelings of depression are common. Some people with prosopagnosia cannot recognise certain facial expressions, judge a person's age or gender, or follow a person's gaze. Others may not even recognise their own face in the mirror or in photos. Prosopagnosia can affect a person's ability to recognise objects, such as places or cars. Many people also have difficulty navigating. This can involve an inability to process angles or distance, or problems remembering places and landmarks. Following the plot of films or television programmes can be almost impossible for someone with prosopagnosia because they struggle to recognise the characters. Someone with prosopagnosia may worry that they appear rude or not interested when they fail to recognise a person.