Cheirophilia: the Hands of Rachel Ashley

Philip Ashley inspecting the delicate white hands 

of his cousin Rachel by candlelight [a] 

 

'There are some women [...] who through no fault of their own impel disaster. 

Whatever they touch, somehow turns to tragedy.' - Nick Kendall [b]

 

 

I. 

 

Jean Baudrillard insists that the slender and lively hands of women are of greater symbolic and seductive beauty than their eyes or hidden sexual organs, and I suspect that Philip Ashley - the naive and inexperienced (possibly unreliable) narrator of Daphne du Maurier's Gothic novel My Cousin Rachel (1951) - may very well agree with this assertion. 

 

For he certainly seems to be partial, shall we say, to the delicate white hands of his older, twice-widowed, half-Italian, very alluring cousin Rachel ... 

 

 

II.

 

From the first time he meets her, with, at that time, hate in his heart for the woman he believes responsible for the death of his beloved guardian, Ambrose, Philip notices her hands clasped in her lap: 

 

"I had never seen hands so small before on an adult person. They were very slender, very narrow, like the hands of someone in a portrait painted by an old master and left unfinished." [80]

 

When Rachel finishes drinking her tea and places her cup and saucer back on the tray, he is once again "aware of her hands, narrow and small and very white" [85], noticing also that she has "two rings, fine stones both of them, on her fingers" [85].

 

So, whilst I'm not saying Philip is a cheirophile or hand fetishist, it's certainly true that when talking to Rachel he finds it hard to retain eye contact and that his gaze does not wander from her face towards her breasts or feet, for example, but almost exclusively to her hands: 

 

"I shifted my gaze from her eyes down to her hands. They were clasped in front of her, small and very still. It was easier to speak somehow if I did not look directly at her, but at her hands." [99]

 

It's true also that he is fascinated by the manner in which the fingers on her right hand would touch and play with the ring on her left hand: "I watched them tighten upon it" [99] and then gradually relax their hold. 

 

No doubt Philip is hoping that Rachel will one day hold something of his own in her hands - and I don't mean his heart. At one point, whilst watching her hands, he imagines himself sitting naked in his chair before her; exposed and all his fantasies revealed unto her. 

 

His childhood friend Louise is not mistaken to say to him: "'How simple it must be for a woman of the world, like Mrs Ashley, to twist a young man like yourself around her finger'" [133].

 

III.

When not clasping her hands in front of her, or playing with her rings, or stroking the head of the dog, Rachel sometimes cups her chin in her hands or puts them to her face in a defensive gesture; at other times she gives Philip a hand to hold or kiss. And, like a true Italian, when she grows animated in conversation she gestures somewhat excessively with her hands.

 

It is sometime before Philip finally gets to hold her hands in his own, or to remove her gloves so as to passionately kiss her hands. But his joy in so doing doesn't last long. For after Rachel makes it perfectly clear that she has no intention of ever marrying him, Philip reflects how her hands lose their warmth and, when he does attempt to hold them, "the fingers struggled for release, and the rings scratched, cutting at my palm" [270].

 

During his prolonged period of illness, Philip is nursed by Rachel. But the feel of her hand upon his fevered brow and neck isn't soothing; it is, rather, hard and gripping like ice. When finally he begins to recover his senses and his strength, however, he is content to lie in bed holding her hand in silence:

 

"I ran my thumb along the pale blue veins that showed always on the back of hers, and turned the rings. I continued thus for quite a time, and did not talk." [289]

 

 

IV.

Finally, the questions that all readers must address arise: Are Rachel's the hands of a murderess? Does she stir ground laburnum seeds into his tisana? 

 

By the end of the book, Philip certainly has his suspicions and after noticing how Rachel stirs the tisana with a spoon in her left hand [c], he comes to the following fatal conclusion:

 

"I had held [her hand] many times, in love, before. Felt the small size of it, turned the rings upon the fingers, seen the blue veins upon the back, touched the small close-filed nails. Now, as it rested in my hand, I saw it, for the first time, put to another purpose. I saw it take the laburnum pods, in deft fashion, and empty out the seeds; then crush the seeds, and rub them in her palm. I remembered once I had told her that her hands were beautiful, and she had answered, with a laugh, that I was the first to tell her so." [321]

 

Finally, Rachel has the accident that kills her (one that Philip is complicit in, if not criminally responsible for). Climbing down to where she lay "amongst the timber and the stones" [335], he takes her hands in his for the last time and, despite being cold, he "went on holding her hands until she died" [335].  

 

 

Notes

 

[a] Screenshot from My Cousin Rachel (dir. Roger Michell, 2017), starring Rachel Weisz as Rachel Ashley and Sam Claflin as Philip Ashley. 

 

[b] This is the warning Philip's godfather, Nick Kendall, gives him on the eve of his 25th birthday, with reference to his beloved cousin Rachel. See Daphne du Maurier, My Cousin Rachel (Virago Press, 2017), p. 246. All future page references to this edition of the novel will be given directly in the post.

 

[c] Whilst I'm sure most readers will accept that being left-handed is perfectly natural and not a sign of evil, the fact remains that left-handedness has long been associated with negative qualities and malevolent activity; the word sinister derives from the Latin word for left.

 

 

Feeling the Clutch of The Beast With Five Fingers

 Your flesh will creep at the hand that crawls ...!

 

 

I. 

 

The Beast with Five Fingers is a creepy 1946 American horror film directed by Robert Florey from a screenplay by Curt Siodmak, loosely based on the 1919 short story of the same name by W. F. Harvey, and starring Robert Alda, Andrea King, and Peter Lorre.

 

Set in Italy, the plot revolves around a murderous hand that has detached itself from the corpse of a dead pianist and which attempts to kill the heirs to his will [1].

 

 

II. 

 

Harvey was an English writer of short stories, most notably in the macabre and horror genres. Sadly, having been dogged by ill health for much of his adult life, he died, aged 52, in 1937, so didn't get to see the cinematic adaptation of his most famous story. 

 

The movie did, however, stimulate a posthumous resurgence of interest in his writing and his strange tales have continued to amuse readers to this day [2]. 

 

As indicated, apart from the title and the idea of a murderous disembodied hand, the film has little in common with W. F. Harvey's original story and it's the latter I'd like to offer a reading of here ...

 

 

III.

 

Adrian Borlsover: a wonderful man from an eccentric family who, after losing his sight aged fifty, developed the most remarkable sense of touch and was exceedingly clever with his hands; he was even credited towards the close of his life "with powers of touch that seemed almost uncanny" [3]. 

Like Maurice Pervin, the protagonist of D. H. Lawrence's short story 'The Blind Man' [4], so at home is Borlsover within the invisible world of touch, that whilst his loss of sight is something of an inconvenience, it doesn't profoundly affect him: "Life was still very full and strangely serene for the blind man, peaceful with the almost incomprehensible peace of immediate contact in darkness." [5]

 

Adrian Borlsover is a botanist and a bachelor. His elder brother George had married, however, and left behind him a son, Eustace; another remarkable man with an interest in plants. The two men were not unfond of one another, but had little contact. One day, the nephew discovers that his uncle has an unusual gift:

 

"Two years before his death Adrian Borlsover developed, unknown to himself, the not uncommon power of automatic writing. Eustace made the discovery by accident. Adrian was sitting reading in bed, the forefinger of his left hand tracing the Braille characters, when his nephew noticed that a pencil the old man held in his right hand was moving slowly along the opposite page. He left his seat in the window and sat down beside the bed. The right hand continued to move, and now he could see plainly that they were letters and words which it was forming."

 

It seems that the old man is either possessed by a spirit who is keen to communicate with Eustace, or that the writing hand is itself alive independently of the brain that is usually thought to have central control over the body and its organs [6].  

 

Upon Adrian Borlsover's death, Eustace inherits his valuable collection of books and wonders where he'll find room for them all. He also comes into possession of a sealed wooden box believed to contain a live rat: though, of course, that's not a six-toed albino rodent he can hear moving around inside ... 

 

Of course, the thing escapes and hides in the library, knocking heavy books of the shelves with a crash. Eustace still thinks it to be a rat, even as he learns from a solicitor's letter that his uncle had had his right hand removed after his death and requested that such be sent to him.  

 

Turning on the electric light, he finally catches sight of the thing:

 

"About ten yards in front of him, crawling along the floor, was a man's hand. Eustace stared at it in utter astonishment. It was moving quickly, in the manner of a geometer caterpillar, the fingers humped up one moment, flattened out the next; the thumb appeared to give a crab-like motion to the whole. While he was looking, too surprised to stir, the hand disappeared round the corner. Eustace ran forward. He no longer saw it, but he could hear it as it squeezed its way behind the books on one of the shelves."

 

Eustace manages to trap it there, behind the books. And then, assisted by his secretary, Saunders - a fellow with "a somewhat dubious reputation [...] but whose powers as a mathematician, combined with his business abilities, were invaluable to Eustace" - he manages to put the beast with five fingers back in the box and screw it shut. 

 

Placing the box in an old desk, Eustace and Saunders then sit talking until the early hours about what had both witnessed and hoping to find some explanation that would allow them to overcome their fear and to eventually forget the matter. 

 

The next morning, they decide to take another look at the thing: "They went into the library and opened the desk. The box was as they had left it on the previous night." Saunders opens the box and removes the now unmoving but still warm (still soft and supple) hand. Eustace confirms it's definitely his dead uncle's hand: "'I should know those long thin fingers anywhere.'"

 

They put it back in the box and back in the locked draw of the desk. A week later, they have a very vivid story to tell at the little supper Eustace gave on All Hallow's Eve. 

 

Unfortunately, the hand escapes from its entrapment and starts scaring the staff as it creeps about the house. One of the maids, Emma, treads on it; another, Jane, gets a scare whilst doing the dishes. Eustace and Saunders decide to try and catch it again; or, failing that, they hope and trust that being an amputated appendage it won't live for long.

 

However, after both encountering the hand on separate occasions and beginning to suspect the thing is mocking them, they decide to set the dogs on it: "For a fortnight nothing happened. Then the hand was caught, not by the dogs, but by [the housekeeper's] gray parrot," Peter. 

 

Well, that's not quite true; the parrot and the hand have a tussle and poor Peter is strangled. But the fatal commotion does allow Eustace to grab the latter: "There was a ragged gash across the back where the bird's beak had torn it, but no blood oozed from the wound. He noticed with disgust that the nails had grown long and discolored."

 

Initialy, Eustace decides to burn the beastly thing: 

 

"But he could not burn it. He tried to throw it into the flames, but his own hands, as if restrained by some old primitive feeling, would not let him. And so Saunders found him pale and irresolute, with the hand still clasped tightly in his fingers." 

 

So instead Eustace nails it to a board: 

 

"He took up a nail, and before Saunders had realised what he was doing had driven it through the hand, deep into the board. 

      'Oh, my aunt,' he giggled hysterically, 'look at it now,' for the hand was writhing in agonized contortions, squirming and wriggling upon the nail like a worm upon the hook." 

 

Or perhaps like Christ upon his Cross ... 

The directly pinned hand is then locked in a safe: "'We'll keep it there till it dies,'" says Eustace. "'May I burn in hell if I ever open the door of that safe again.'"

 

Harvey, could, I suppose, have ended the story here - or even here on this happy note with which he closes the third section of the tale: 

 

"Eustace Borlsover went back to his old way of life. Old habits crept over and covered his new experience. He was, if anything, less morose, and showed a greater inclination to take his natural part in country society."

 

But, he doesn't; instead, he adds a fourth section to the tale ... which opens with a burglary: the safe is discovered open and empty. The police inspector informs Eustace that they discovered a strange note which read: "'I've got out, Eustace Borlsover, but I'll be back before long.'" 

 

If that's not a threat, it certainly sounds like one to my ears. Eustace decides to hide away in Brighton for a time and suggests to Saunders they might even do well to leave England entirely for a few months. 

 

Of course the hand turns up - having sneaked down to Brighton inside one of Saunders's gloves. Eustace throws it in the bathroom, where it becomes trapped like a spider in the tub:

 

"Saunders, with a lighted candle in his hand, looked over the edge of the bath. There it was, old and maimed, dumb and blind, with a ragged hole in the middle, crawling, staggering, trying to creep up the slippery sides, only to fall back helpless."     

 

However, smarter than most spiders, the hand finds a way out of the tub by climbing up the plug chain and out the window before either of the men can stop it. Poor Eustace faints and is ill for a fortnight afterwards. To the concern of his doctor, he won't let anyone turn the lights out or open the windows after this latest incident.

 

Saunders tells him not to worry and restates that, in his opinion, the hand can't live for much longer. But, of course, the evil thing soon turns up again: interrupting a game of chess between the two men. 

 

Funny enough, however, although Saunders is duly freaked out by the hand trying to gain entry through the locked window, Eustace seems surprisingly nonchalant and he explains that there's o reason to be frightened:

 

"'There's nothing supernatural about that hand, Saunders. I mean it seems to be governed by the laws of time and space. It's not the sort of thing that vanishes into thin air or slides through oaken doors. And since that's so, I defy it to get in here. We'll leave the place in the morning. I for one have bottomed the depths of fear.'"

 

But what about the chimney? They had forgotten to block that up. Hurriedly - and carelessly - they attempt to start a fire in the grate using oil from an old reading lamp. Unfortunately, the flames shoot up uncontrollably with a roar and before long the entire room is ablaze. Eustace vainly attempts to beat out the flames with a blanket while Saunders ran to the door and fumbles with the bolts in his panic.

 

The key is also stiff in the lock, but turns at last:  

 

"For half a second Saunders stopped to look back. Afterwards he could never be quite sure as to what he had seen, but at the time he thought that something black and charred was creeping slowly, very slowly, from the mass of flames towards Eustace Borlsover. For a moment he thought of returning to his friend, but the noise and the smell of the burning sent him running down the passage crying, 'Fire! Fire!' He rushed to the telephone to summon help, and then back to the bathroom - he should have thought of that before - for water. As he burst open the bedroom door there came a scream of terror which ended suddenly, and then the sound of a heavy fall."

 

 

IV.

 

I remembered this story - and was compelled to re-read it - when a few days ago I received an astonishing photograph sent to me by the poet and playwright Síomón Solomon (see above). 

 

The photo depicts the latter much like Eustace Borlsover in his library, surrounded by heavy-looking hardback books and seemingly unaware of the five-fingerered demon that has manifested behind him and is in the process of trying to dislodge a tome in order that it might hide itself in the space created.

 

One notices, of course, that unlike the hand in Harvey's tale, this one has a distinctly feminine quality and even wears a large ring on its middle finger. And, for a hand partialist such as myself who believes the slender and lively hands of women are of greater symbolic and seductive beauty than their hidden sexual organs, that's of great erotic interest. [7]  

 

The Beast with Five Fingers suddenly becomes Mother Fist and Her Five Daughters; she who never gets angry, never gets bored and doesn't need feeding [8].  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Click here to watch the original theatrical trailer on YouTube courtesy of Warner Bros. 

 

[2] Wordsworth Editions produced an excellent volume of Harvey's work containing forty-five tales under the title The Beast with Five Fingers, ed. and with an introduction by David Stuart Davies in 2009.  

 

[3] I am quoting from Harvey's tale as it appears in the 2005 Project Gutenberg eBook of Famous Modern Ghost Stories, as originally edited by Dorothy Scarborough (G. P. Putnam's Sons: The Knickerbocker Press, 1921): click here.

[4] Written in 1918, Lawrence's story is thus contemporaneous with Harvey's. 'The Blind Man' was first published in The English Review in July 1920. It then appeared alongside nine other short stories in the collection England, My England published in New York by Thomas Seltzer in October 1922 and in London by Martin Secker in January 1924. I have writtn on 'The Blind Man' in a post published in March 2019: click here.   

[5] That's Lawrence writing of Pervin, not Harvey writing of Borlsover, in 'The Blind Man', England, My England, ed. Bruce Steele (Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 46. 

[6] This latter idea is not so unimaginable for a reader of D. H. Lawrence, who in an essay writes this:

      "We have a curious idea of ourselves. We think ourselves as a body with a spirit in it [...] or a body with a mind in it. [...] It is a funny sort of superstition. Why should I look at my hand, as it so cleverly writes these words, and decide that it is a mere nothing compared to the mind that directs it? Is there really any huge difference between my hand and my brain? [...] My hand is alive, it flickers with a life of its own. It meets all the strange universe, in touch, and learns a vast number of things, and knows a vasrt number of things [...] and is just as much me as is my brain, my mind, or my soul. Why should I imagine that there is a me which is more me than my hand is? Since my hand is absolutely alive, me alive."

      - D. H. Lawrence, 'Why the Novel Matters', in Study of Thomas Hardy and Other Essays, ed. Bruce Steele (Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 193. 

 

[7] See the post on hand partialism dated 27 December 2012: click here.  

 

[8] This phrase is taken from 'Nocturnal Turnings or How Siamese Twins Have Sex', a short story by Truman Capote found in his collection of writings entitled Music for Chameleons (Random House, 1980). 

      It was also borrowed by Marc Almond for the title of his third studio album (Some Bizarre, 1987) and I'm referencing the track 'Mother Fist' that is featured on this album in the last line. Click here to listen to the song on YouTube. 

 

 

Notes on 'The Ladybird' (Pt. 2)

If I were a little ladybird

And had four little wings

I'd fly to thee -

 

 

This post is a continuation of Notes on 'The Ladybird' (Pt.1): click here. 

 

 

V. 

 

And speaking of secret knowledge ... The Count, it turns out, subscribes to occultism and is a member of a secret society. One of his beliefs concerns the true (invisible) nature of fire and the blackness of the sun. As I have discussed this in a previous post, I won't go into details here [g]. 

 

Essentially, the Count's point is that, like fire, true love isn't white and ideal; it may look that way on the surface, but underneath it's dark; "a throbbing together in darkness" [180]. Daphne is unconvinced. Nevertheless, she could see the darkness in his eyes and perceived the "invisible, cat-like fire stirring deep inside them [...] coming towards her" [181]. And so she turns and hurries away. 

 

During the summer, she rather forgets about Count Dionys and remembers she has a husband; one who was shortly to return. Nevertheless, the Count's words have penetrated her unconscious: "So it was that in her own way she thought often enough of the Count's world inside-out." [181] And so it was she shivered when thinking of Basil, whose love had made her nerve-worn. 

 

She determined not to think of the Count and the secret love he offered: he was not merely an "impudent little fellow" [182], but a madman. Better off with Basil; "an adorable, tall, well-bred Englishman" [182] with a penchant for silk underwear. He might get on her nerves, but better that than the Count and his foreign unreality. 

 

"But still she used the Count's thimble." [183] Until, that is, she loses it (down the back of the sofa, as we shall see).

 

 

VI. 

 

In late Autumn, Daphne decides to visit the Count once more. She finds him collecting chestnuts and thinking to himself that "'the same power which put up the mountains could pull them down again'" [186], a thought that makes him happy. In other words, the Count has found his god at last: and he's a god of destruction who tears down the world of man as well as the mountains. 

 

Daphne thinks him foolish as well as perverse. He calls her a plucked white lily and tells her that he cares only about her invisible root - that's what he wishes to discover, though not with kisses, but with the hammer that beats in his heart. She again bids him farewell and takes her leave. "And henceforth she thought only of her husband, of Basil. She made the Count die out of her." [189] 

 

But when Basil returns to England and she hears his terribly cultured voice - "like cold blue steel" [190] - on the telephone, her heart "contracted with fear" [189] (which is never a great sign). When he arrives home, within moments he is on his knees and kissing her feet in amorous worship. Again, I have commented elsewhere on this scene, so won't discuss it here in any detail [h]. 

 

Needless to say, Daphne is a little frightened - almost horrified - but she was also "thrilled deep down to her soul" [193] and a little giddy with the sense of her own pale power: "She really felt she could glow white and fill the universe [...]" [193] 

 

While Daphne is semi-enjoying her new goddess status, Basil plonks himself on the sofa and pushes his hands "between the deep upholstery of the back and the seat" [193]. And lo and behold, he pulls out a plum - or, rather, Daphne's lost thimble, which seems to fascinate him almost as much as it does her. He questions her about it and is told the tale of Count Dionys. 

 

Then Basil returns to worshipping his wife - this time admiring her sacred white hands and wonderful Prosperine fingers [i], begging her to accept the sacrifice of himself (which sounds suspiciously like a euphemism and it's probably la petite mort that he desires, rather than actual death) [j]. 

 

Placed back on a pedestal and subject to Basil's adoration-lust, Daphne is soon feeling ill again. For alas, she was not the goddess he thought her. And of course she starts to dream about Count Dionys and "to yearn wistfully for him" [196]. So she decides, shortly before Christmas, to go visit him again - though this time accompanied by Basil. 

 

 

VII. 

 

Perhaps wishing to seem mysterious and full of the darkness that Count Dionys so loves, Daphne wears black furs and a black lace veil for her visit. She is worried, however, that he will still find her too modern in her beauty and effective loveliness. 

 

Uncertain whether the Count is mocking her with his compliments and flattering remarks, Daphne is sure of one thing - he doesn't like Basil: "Nay more, she could feel that the presence of her tall, gaunt, idealistic husband was hateful to the little swarthy man" [199], despite his polite manner. 

 

Strangely, however, Basil is fascinated by the Count. And before long Daphne is ignored by both men, as they exchange their philosophies of life: "She might just as well have been an ugly little nobody, for all the notice that was taken of her." [200] Nevertheless, she follows the argument between Basil and the Count - sympathetic to the latter, but agreeing with the former, whose words she believed to be true. 

 

In brief: Basil argues for love and the Count says there is something else; something unnameable beyond love (we know, of course, as readers of Lawrence, what this is: it's power and the so-called sacred responsibility of power as exercised by natural aristocrats). 

 

Daphne is not impressed by the Count's arguments, even though Basil finds what the latter says terribly amusing. And curiously enough, "it was now Basil who was attracted by the Count, and Daphne who was repelled" [204]. But if she now almost hates the Count, her grudge against her "white-faced, spiritually intense husband was sharp as vinegar" [205]. In all honesty, she feels let down by the pair of them - men!

 

What next? A gay romance? A queer threesome? No - that's not quite Lawrence's style. But Basil does invite the Count to stay with him and Daphne, at his in-laws mansion, for a fortnight before being shipped back to Austria. Of course, this was rather naively inviting trouble ... 

 

 

VIII. 

 

Whilst staying at her parents place, the house in which she was born, Daphne thinks with fondness of the working-people and regrets the fact that, ultimately, her consciousness "seemed to make a great gulf between her and the lower classes" [211]. She accepted this as a form of fate - even as her doom: "She could never meet in real contact anyone but a super-conscious finished being like herself: or like her husband [...]" [211] 

 

That said, there was the Count: he had something that was hot and invisible; "a dark flame of life that might warm the cold white fire of her own blood" [211]. However, whilst he stays at her home, she mostly avoids contact with him. In fact, all three - Daphne, Basil, and their queer guest - avoided one another as much as possible. And the days slipped by ... 

 

At night, when alone in his room and alone in his soul, the Count likes to sing "the old songs of his childhood" [212], in a small, high-pitched voice: "It was a curious noise: the sound of a man who is alone in his own blood: almost the sound of a man who is going to be executed." [212] 

 

One night, Daphne hears this strange "bat-like sound of the Count's singing to himself" [212]. And, even though unable to understand a word, the crooning made her forget everything. And so, after that first night, she listens out for the sound of his voice. Indeed, it became "almost an obsession with her" [212]; she had to hear him - and she had to respond to this call from the beyond that promised to transport her out of herself and out of her world. 

 

When the singing stopped, Daphne went to sleep; "a queer, light, bewitched sleep" [213]. This enchantment continues into the daytime: "She felt strange and light, as if pressure had been removed from around her [...] her feet felt so light, and her breathing delicate and exquisite" [213]. 

 

One night, the Count doesn't sing and Daphne is terrified lest the spell be broken and she is thrown back into her old life. She waits like one doomed throughout the following day. Happily, that night the singing resumes - and Daphne can resist no longer; she goes to his room, answering his peculiar call.

 

Whilst sitting outside his room and trying to find the courage to enter, a new song begins; the most terrible song of all, a kind of inhuman serenade: "It began with a rather dreary, slow, horrible sound, like death." [214] Still, this does the trick and Daphne knocks desperately on his door and pushes her way past the astonished figure of the Count when he answers, into the darkness of his room. 

 

There's an awkward silence as they sit together in the dark. If she remained more or less spellbound, he was genuinely a little embarrassed by her presence in his room and unsure what to do: 

 

"Then suddenly, without knowing, he went across in the dark [...] And he sat beside her on the couch. But he did not touch her. Neither did she move. The darkness flowed about them thick like blood, and time seemed dissolved in it. They sat with the small, invisible distance between them, motionless, speechless, thoughtless." [215] 

 

Lawrence continues, in his own unique manner: 

 

"Then suddenly he felt her fingertips touch on his arm, and a flame went over him that left him no more a man. He was something seated in flame [...] like an Egyptian king-god [...]" [216] 

 

Daphne slides to the floor and presses her face against his feet, her hair against ankles, and there she clung, crying, whilst he sat erect and motionless. Unable to offer her much of a future in this world, he promises that she will be his in the next life: 

 

"'In the dark you are mine. And when you die you are mine. But in the day, you are not mine, because I have no power in the day. In the night, in the dark, and in death, you are mine. [...] So don't forget - you are the night-wife of the ladybird [...]" [216-17] 

 

Is that really likely to satisfy a woman? I mean, it's nice to know you have someone waiting who wants you in the afterlife for all eternity. But that doesn't pay the bills and mostly it just seems an elaborate way for him to take his leave of her whilst, at the same time, making her feel - as Madonna would say - like a virgin / touched for the very first time [k]. 

 

 

IX.

 

After this, Daphne's face takes on a delicate stillness and purity, which even Basil notices. And this new innocence negates his ecstatic desire for her: "She was so still, like a virgin girl. And it was this quiet, intact quality of virginity in her which puzzled him most, puzzled his emotions and his ideas. He became suddenly ashamed to make love to her." [217-18] 

 

They decide to live more as brother and sister than man and wife from this point on. This suits Daphne, who has decided she belongs to the Count, but it also suits Basil: "The excitement of desire had left him, and now he seemed to see clear and feel true for the first time in his life." [218] 

 

The Count leaves, but not without giving another esoteric pep talk to Daphne: 

 

"'Don't forget me. Always remember me. I leave my soul in your hands and your womb. Nothing can ever separate us, unless we betray one another. [...] And never fail to believe in me. Because even on the other side of death I shall be watching for you. I shall be king in Hades when I am dead. And you will be at my side [...] since you are the wife of the ladybird." [220] 

 

One can't help wondering how many other women the Count has said this to ...? It seems a well-rehearsed speech to me.

 

And one can't help thinking that it's the kind of poisonous sweet nonsense which male cult leaders whisper into the ears of their female followers; one could easily imagine Charles Manson, for example, saying this to one of his devoted hippie girls. No wonder when he abandons Daphne, the Count laughs to himself. 

 

 

Notes

 

[g] Readers who are interested should see 'On the Scintillation of Being' (9 Jan 2018): click here. 

 

[h] Readers who are interested should see 'On the Transsexual Consummation of Foot Fetishism' (25 July 2013): click here. 

 

[i] For my thoughts on hand partialism, see the post of 27 Dec 2012: click here. 

 

[j] In many ways, Basil is similar to the character of Everard in Lawrence's novel Mr Noon: both men have a sensual nature which they disguise with their idealism; both like to kiss the feet of the woman they adore as a white goddess; and both are prepared to sacrifice themselves, if only they might receive their gratification first. See Mr Noon, ed. Lindeth Vasey, (Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 191-92.

 

[k] Madonna, 'Like a Virgin', single release (31 Oct 1984) from the album of the same title (Sire Records, 1984), written by Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. Click here to watch the official video, dir. Mary Lambert, on YouTube.

Onychophilia: Notes on Two Types of Nail Fetish

I. 

Ninkondi (one of the variant plural forms of nkondi, meaning 'hunter') are fetish objects made by the Kongo people of Central Africa's Congo region. They are intended not merely to offer protection, but to house a powerful spirit that can be enlisted to track down one's enemies, inflicting misfortune or illness upon them.

As can be seen in the above image, a nkondi is usually a carved human figure - though it can sometimes be an animal - with a cavity in the abdomen, into which a medicine man stuffs ingredients thought to have supernatural properties. The figures range in size from small to life-size and are sometimes adorned with feathers.

Nails (or blades) were driven into the figure in order to affirm an oath or curse - or perhaps to activate the spirit within. Controversially, some scholars believe that the native peoples were influenced in this practice by images that Portuguese missionaries carried with them from Europe of Christ nailed to the cross and Saint Sebastian pierced with arrows. 

Fascinating as all this is, I have to confess that when it comes to nail fetishes, I'm more interested in the long, sharp fingernails of beautiful young women, than rusty bits of iron banged into a wooden figure for the purposes of witchcraft ...

II.

Whilst fingernail fetish is often framed and discussed within the wider category of hand partialism, I think that it deserves critical attention in its own right. For the nails are not like any other part of the hand in that they are not composed of living material; they are made, rather, of a tough protective protein called alpha-keratin.

D. H. Lawrence describes his fingernails as "ten little weapons between me and an inanimate universe, they cross the mysterious Rubicon between me alive and things [...] which are not alive, in my own sense".

Thus, I think there's something in the claim that what nail (and hair) fetishists are ultimately aroused by is death; that they are, essentially, soft-core necrophiles.* Having said that, the human nail as a keratin structure (known as an unguis) is closely related to the claws and hooves of other animals, so I suppose one could just as legitimately suggest a zoosexual origin to the love of fingernails.

Whilst some readers will best like fingernails in their natural state - i.e., unvarnished and unadorned - I have to express a preference for added colour; preferably red or black. I know there's a wide variety of other colours and shades available, but they don't excite my interest so much. Nor do I care for overly decorative designs and fancy finishes.

Finally, whilst clearly having something in common, I think that amychophilia is quite disinct from onychophilia; the latter is a love of fingernails as things in themselves; the former a love of the pain they can inflict, when grown long and sharp.

In other words, the amorous subject who desires to be violently scratched is a kind of masochist; whilst an onychophile, in the purest sense, would be more aroused by simply observing the following scene, described in fetishistic detail by Daphne du Maurier:

"The Marquise lay on her chaise-longue on the balcony of the hotel. She wore only a wrapper, and her sleek gold hair, newly set in pins, was bound close to her head in a turquoise bandeau that matched her eyes. Beside her chair stood a little table, and on it were three bottles of nail varnish all of a different shade.
      She had dabbed a touch of colour on to three separate finger-nails, and now she held her hand in front of her to see the effect. No, the varnish on the thumb was too red, too vivid, giving a heated look to her slim olive hand, almost as if a spot of blood had fallen there from a fresh-cut wound.
      In contrast, her fore-finger was a striking pink, and this too seemed to her false, not true to her present mood. It was the elegant rich pink of drawing-rooms, of ball-gowns, of herself standing at some reception, slowly moving to and fro her ostrich feather fan, and in the distance the sound of violins.
      The middle finger was touched with a sheen of silk neither crimson nor vermilion, but somehow softer, subtler; the sheen of a peony in bud, not yet opened to the heat of the day but with the dew of the morning upon it still. [...]
      Yes, that was the colour. She reached for cotton-wool and wiped away the offending varnish from her other finger-nails, and then slowly, carefully, she dipped the little brush into the chosen varnish and, like an artist, worked with swift, deft strokes.
      When she had finished she leant back in her chaise-longue, exhausted, waving her hands before her in the air to let the varnish harden - a strange gesture, like that of a priestess." 


Notes

* There has been at least one recorded case in which an illicit lover derived pleasure from eating the nail trimmings of corpses (necro-onychophagia), thereby lending support to the theory that nail fetishism has a far darker and more ghoulish undercurrent. See R. E. L. Masters and Eduard Lea, Perverse Crimes in History: Evolving concepts of sadism, lust-murder, and necrophilia - from ancient to modern times (Julian Press, 1963). 

D. H. Lawrence, 'Why the Novel Matters', in Study of Thomas Hardy and Other Essays, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 193.

Daphne du Maurier, 'The Little Photographer', in The Birds and Other Stories, (Virago Press, 2004), p. 160.

The photo on the left at the top of the post is of a 19th-century nkondi figure belonging to the Arts of Africa Collection of the Brooklyn Museum, NY. The photo on the right, is an advertising poster for a nail bar, available to buy on eBay: click here.