The Hand

by Guy de Maupassant

The Hand (1883) is a gruesome and creepy story about the mystery
surrounding the death of an enigmatic Englishman named Sir John Rowell.
The good sir, it seems, was fond of hunting. Quite fond.
And Maupassant drops a solitary creepy line on the reader to emphasize
the point, 'I have also frequently been man-hunting.' I find this story rather
unnerving. If scary campfire stories are your thing, you are going to enjoy
this popular horror story.
This story is featured in our collection of Halloween Stories and our Gothic
Literature Study Guide.

All were crowding around M. Bermutier, the judge, who was giving his opinion
about the Saint-Cloud mystery. For a month this inexplicable crime had been
the talk of Paris. Nobody could make head or tail of it.

M. Bermutier, standing with his back to the fireplace, was talking, citing the
evidence, discussing the various theories, but arriving at no conclusion.

Some women had risen, in order to get nearer to him, and were standing
with their eyes fastened on the clean-shaven face of the judge, who was
saying such weighty things. They, were shaking and trembling, moved by
fear and curiosity, and by the eager and insatiable desire for the horrible,
which haunts the soul of every woman. One of them, paler than the others,
said during a pause:
"It's terrible. It verges on the supernatural. The truth will never be known."

The judge turned to her:

"True, madame, it is likely that the actual facts will never be discovered. As
for the word 'supernatural' which you have just used, it has nothing to do
with the matter. We are in the presence of a very cleverly conceived and
executed crime, so well enshrouded in mystery that we cannot disentangle it
from the involved circumstances which surround it. But once I had to take
charge of an affair in which the uncanny seemed to play a part. In fact, the
case became so confused that it had to be given up."

Several women exclaimed at once:

"Oh! Tell us about it!"

M. Bermutier smiled in a dignified manner, as a judge should, and went on:

"Do not think, however, that I, for one minute, ascribed anything in the case
to supernatural influences. I believe only in normal causes. But if, instead of
using the word 'supernatural' to express what we do not understand, we
were simply to make use of the word 'inexplicable,' it would be much better.
At any rate, in the affair of which I am about to tell you, it is especially the
surrounding, preliminary circumstances which impressed me. Here are the
facts:

"I was, at that time, a judge at Ajaccio, a little white city on the edge of a bay
which is surrounded by high mountains.

"The majority of the cases which came up before me concerned vendettas.

There are some that are superb, dramatic, ferocious, heroic. We find there
the most beautiful causes for revenge of which one could dream, enmities
hundreds of years old, quieted for a time but never extinguished; abominable
stratagems, murders becoming massacres and almost deeds of glory. For two
years I heard of nothing but the price of blood, of this terrible Corsican
prejudice which compels revenge for insults meted out to the offending
person and all his descendants and relatives. I had seen old men, children,
cousins murdered; my head was full of these stories.

"One day I learned that an Englishman had just hired a little villa at the end
of the bay for several years. He had brought with him a French servant,
whom he had engaged on the way at Marseilles.

"Soon this peculiar person, living alone, only going out to hunt and fish,
aroused a widespread interest. He never spoke to any one, never went to the
town, and every morning he would practice for an hour or so with his
revolver and rifle.

"Legends were built up around him. It was said that he was some high
personage, fleeing from his fatherland for political reasons; then it was
affirmed that he was in hiding after having committed some abominable
crime. Some particularly horrible circumstances were even mentioned.

"In my judicial position I thought it necessary to get some information about

this man, but it was impossible to learn anything. He called himself Sir John
Rowell.

"I therefore had to be satisfied with watching him as closely as I could, but I
could see nothing suspicious about his actions.

"However, as rumors about him were growing and becoming more

widespread, I decided to try to see this stranger myself, and I began to hunt
regularly in the neighborhood of his grounds.

"For a long time I watched without finding an opportunity. At last it came to

me in the shape of a partridge which I shot and killed right in front of the
Englishman. My dog fetched it for me, but, taking the bird, I went at once to
Sir John Rowell and, begging his pardon, asked him to accept it.

"He was a big man, with red hair and beard, very tall, very broad, a kind of
calm and polite Hercules. He had nothing of the so-called British stiffness,
and in a broad English accent he thanked me warmly for my attention. At the
end of a month we had had five or six conversations.

"One night, at last, as I was passing before his door, I saw him in the garden,
seated astride a chair, smoking his pipe. I bowed and he invited me to come
in and have a glass of beer. I needed no urging.

"He received me with the most punctilious English courtesy, sang the praises
of France and of Corsica, and declared that he was quite in love with this
country.

"Then, with great caution and under the guise of a vivid interest, I asked him
a few questions about his life and his plans. He answered without
embarrassment, telling me that he had travelled a great deal in Africa, in the
Indies, in America. He added, laughing:

"'I have had many adventures.'

"Then I turned the conversation on hunting, and he gave me the most
curious details on hunting the hippopotamus, the tiger, the elephant and
even the gorilla.

"I said:

"'Are all these animals dangerous?'

"He smiled:

"'Oh, no! Man is the worst.'

"And he laughed a good broad laugh, the wholesome laugh of a contented

Englishman.

"'I have also frequently been man-hunting.'

"Then he began to talk about weapons, and he invited me to come in and

see different makes of guns.

"His parlor was draped in black, black silk embroidered in gold. Big yellow
flowers, as brilliant as fire, were worked on the dark material.

"He said:

"'It is a Japanese material.'

"But in the middle of the widest panel a strange thing attracted my attention.
A black object stood out against a square of red velvet. I went up to it; it was
a hand, a human hand. Not the clean white hand of a skeleton, but a dried
black hand, with yellow nails, the muscles exposed and traces of old blood
on the bones, which were cut off as clean as though it had been chopped off
with an axe, near the middle of the forearm.

"Around the wrist, an enormous iron chain, riveted and soldered to this
unclean member, fastened it to the wall by a ring, strong enough to hold an
elephant in leash.

"I asked:

"'What is that?'

"The Englishman answered quietly:

"'That is my best enemy. It comes from America, too. The bones were
severed by a sword and the skin cut off with a sharp stone and dried in the
sun for a week.'
"I touched these human remains, which must have belonged to a giant. The
uncommonly long fingers were attached by enormous tendons which still had
pieces of skin hanging to them in places. This hand was terrible to see; it
made one think of some savage vengeance.

"I said:

"'This man must have been very strong.'

"The Englishman answered quietly:

"'Yes, but I was stronger than he. I put on this chain to hold him.'

"I thought that he was joking. I said:

"'This chain is useless now, the hand won't run away.'

"Sir John Rowell answered seriously:

"'It always wants to go away. This chain is needed.'

"I glanced at him quickly, questioning his face, and I asked myself:

"'Is he an insane man or a practical joker?'

"But his face remained inscrutable, calm and friendly. I turned to other
subjects, and admired his rifles.

"However, I noticed that he kept three loaded revolvers in the room, as

though constantly in fear of some attack.

"I paid him several calls. Then I did not go any more. People had become
used to his presence; everybody had lost interest in him.

"A whole year rolled by. One morning, toward the end of November, my
servant awoke me and announced that Sir John Rowell had been murdered
during the night.

"Half an hour later I entered the Englishman's house, together with the police
commissioner and the captain of the gendarmes. The servant, bewildered
and in despair, was crying before the door. At first I suspected this man, but
he was innocent.

"The guilty party could never be found.

"On entering Sir John's parlor, I noticed the body, stretched out on its back, in
the middle of the room.
"His vest was torn, the sleeve of his jacket had been pulled off, everything
pointed to, a violent struggle.

"The Englishman had been strangled! His face was black, swollen and
frightful, and seemed to express a terrible fear. He held something between
his teeth, and his neck, pierced by five or six holes which looked as though
they had been made by some iron instrument, was covered with blood.

"A physician joined us. He examined the finger marks on the neck for a long
time and then made this strange announcement:

"'It looks as though he had been strangled by a skeleton.'

"A cold chill seemed to run down my back, and I looked over to where I had
formerly seen the terrible hand. It was no longer there. The chain was
hanging down, broken.

"I bent over the dead man and, in his contracted mouth, I found one of the
fingers of this vanished hand, cut--or rather sawed off by the teeth down to
the second knuckle.

"Then the investigation began. Nothing could be discovered. No door,

window or piece of furniture had been forced. The two watch dogs had not
been aroused from their sleep.

"Here, in a few words, is the testimony of the servant:

"For a month his master had seemed excited. He had received many letters,
which he would immediately burn.

"Often, in a fit of passion which approached madness, he had taken a switch

and struck wildly at this dried hand riveted to the wall, and which had
disappeared, no one knows how, at the very hour of the crime.

"He would go to bed very late and carefully lock himself in. He always kept
weapons within reach. Often at night he would talk loudly, as though he were
quarrelling with some one.

"That night, somehow, he had made no noise, and it was only on going to
open the windows that the servant had found Sir John murdered. He
suspected no one.

"I communicated what I knew of the dead man to the judges and public
officials. Throughout the whole island a minute investigation was carried on.
Nothing could be found out.
"One night, about three months after the crime, I had a terrible nightmare. I
seemed to see the horrible hand running over my curtains and walls like an
immense scorpion or spider. Three times I awoke, three times I went to sleep
again; three times I saw the hideous object galloping round my room and
moving its fingers like legs.

"The following day the hand was brought me, found in the cemetery, on the
grave of Sir John Rowell, who had been buried there because we had been
unable to find his family. The first finger was missing.

"Ladies, there is my story. I know nothing more."

The women, deeply stirred, were pale and trembling. One of them exclaimed:

"But that is neither a climax nor an explanation! We will be unable to sleep

unless you give us your opinion of what had occurred."

The judge smiled severely:

"Oh! Ladies, I shall certainly spoil your terrible dreams. I simply believe that
the legitimate owner of the hand was not dead, that he came to get it with
his remaining one. But I don't know how. It was a kind of vendetta."

One of the women murmured:

"No, it can't be that."

And the judge, still smiling, said:

"Didn't I tell you that my explanation would not satisfy you?"