A Scandal in Bohemia
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In
his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to
love for Irene Adler.
He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a
lover he would have placed himself in a false position.
2
He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the
observer—excellent for drawing the veil from men’s motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to
admit such intrusions into his own delicate temperament was to introduce a distracting factor.
Grit in a sensitive instrument would not be more
disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his.
3
And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and
questionable memory.
I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away from each other. My own complete
happiness, and the home-centred interests were sufficient to absorb all my attention, while Holmes
remained in Baker Street, buried among his old
books.
4