It is said of some men that “he would cut off his right arm before doing thus-and-such.” Of Etienne, it used to be said that he would sacrifice a limb before violating the smallest rule of etiquette. But now people say, rather, that he actually did cut off his right arm out of politeness, for several years ago something happened at a party to that general effect-accounts vary, for I get the impression it was in some way disgraceful to his family. At any rate the details are unknown to me, but the tale rings true. He has become a great patron of woodcarvers and silversmiths, whom he pays to make artificial hands for him. Some of them are shockingly lifelike. The hand he extended to help me down out of the carriage was carved of ivory with fingernails fashioned from mother-of-pearl. When we dined on roast grouse in his quarters, he had switched to a hand of carven ebony, permanently gripping a serrated knife, which he used to cut his meat, though it looked as if it would have made an excellent weapon, too! And after dinner, when he undertook to seduce me, he wore a special hand carved out of jade, with an extremely oversized middle finger. That digit was, in fact, a perfect reproduction of a man’s erect phallus. As such it was nothing I had not already seen in various private “art” collections in and around Versailles, for lords, and even ladies, love to have such things in their private chambers, as proof of their sophistication, and many of their rooms are veritable Shrines to the god Priapus. But I was caught unawares by a hidden feature of this hand: it must have been hollow, and stuffed with clockwork, for when Etienne d’Arcachon tripped a hidden lever, it suddenly came alive, and began to hum and buzz like a hornet in a bottle. Inside, it seemed, was a coil spring that had been tightly wound in advance.
I need hardly tell you, reader, that events of the past few days had left me rather tightly wound myself, and I can assure you that the tension was gone from my body long before it was gone from the spring.
You may despise me for having reveled in fleshly pleasure while Dr. von Pfung was laid out with a stroke, but to have been pent up in a stifling carriage with a dying man for all that time had left me with a ravening to partake of life. I closed my eyes at the moment of climax and fell back onto the bed, exhausting my lungs in a long cry, and feeling all tension drain from my body. Etienne executed some deft maneuver of which I was scarcely aware. When I opened my eyes, I found that the jade phallus had been withdrawn and replaced by a real one, that of Etienne d’Arcachon. Again, you may well doubt my judgment in allowing myself to be taken in this way. That is your prerogative. Indeed, to marry such a man would be a grievous error. But in looking for a lover, one could do worse than a man who is clean, extremely polite, and has a madly vibrating jade phallus for a right forefinger. The warmth of his trunk felt good against my thighs; it did not occur to me to object; before I could really consider my situation, I realized that he was already climaxing inside of me.
Still in the damnable Ardennes, creeping northwards, pausing from time to time to observe the movements of the French battalions. These woods cannot possibly go on much farther. At least we have grown accustomed to the territory now, and know how to make our way. But at times we seem to move no faster than mice chewing their way through wood.
When I woke up in the bed of Etienne d’Arcachon the next morning, he had, in typical fashion, already left; but somewhat less typically, he had written me a love-poem and left it on the bedside table.
Some ladies boast of ancient pedigrees
And prate about their ancestors a lot
But cankers flourish on old family trees
Whose mossy trunks do oft conceal rot.
My lady’s blood runs pure as mountain streams
So I don’t care if her high rank was bought
Her beauty lends fresh vigor to my dreams
Of children free of blemish and of blot.
His quarters was a little chateau on the east bank of the Meuse. Out the window I could see Belgian river-boats-variously leased, borrowed, bought, or commandeered-coming upstream, their decks crowded with French soldiers. I dressed and went downstairs to find Dr. von Pfung’s carriage-driver waiting for me.
The night before, I had explained my friend’s plight to Etienne d’Arcachon, who had made arrangements for his own personal physician to administer treatment. Having personally witnessed the violence inflicted upon no less a personage than the King of France himself by the Royal Physician, I had assented to this with some ambivalence. Indeed, Dr. von Pfung’s driver now informed me that the poor man had been bled twice during the night and was now very weak. He had signalled his desire to return to the Palatinate without delay, in hopes that he might look upon Heidelberg Castle one last time before he went to his long home.
The driver and I both understood that this would be impossible. According to the tale I had told my host, we were there as forward observers representing Liselotte. If that were true, we should either stay with the main body, or retire westwards towards St. Cloud-never run ahead of the invasion force. Yet Dr. von Pfung wanted to do just that, whereas I needed to strike out for the north and inform the Prince of Orange that his southern flank was soon to be free of French troops. And so we devised a plan, which was that our little group would leave that day on the pretext of taking Dr. von Pfung back to the west, but that when conditions were right, the carriage would break eastwards towards Heidelberg while I would go north accompanied by the two cavalrymen (who have imposing names and titles but whom I now call by their Christian names, Hans and Joachim). When eyebrows were raised about this later, as seemed more than likely, I would claim that the others had turned out to be Protestant spies, working for William of Orange, and that I had been borne along against my will.
The plan unfolded correctly at first; we crossed the Meuse again as if going back into the west, but then began to make our way northwards up the bank, fighting against an increasing stream of south-bound military traffic. For since the boats were coming up against the river’s current, most of them were drawn by teams of animals on the banks.
After we had traveled north for about half a day we came to a ferry, where we resolved to part ways. I went into the carriage and kissed Dr. von Pfung and said some words to him-though all words, especially ones improvised in haste, seemed inadequate, and the doctor managed to say more with his eyes and his one good hand than I did with my entire faculties. I changed once again into a man’s clothes, hoping to pass myself off as a page to Hans and Joachim, and mounted a pony we’d borrowed from the stables of Etienne d’Arcachon. After some haggling with the ferryman-who was loath to venture across through the regimental traffic-the carriage was driven onto the ferry, its wheels were chocked, the horses hobbled, and the short voyage across the Meuse began.
They had almost reached the eastern bank when they were hailed by a French officer on one of the south-bound vessels. He had perceived, through his spyglass, Dr. von Pfung’s coat of arms painted on the door of the carriage, and recognized him as coming from the Palatinate.
Now, the driver had a letter from Etienne d’Arcachon giving him permission to travel west -but he had now been observed crossing the Meuse eastwards. His only hope was therefore to make a run for it. That is what he attempted to do when the ferry reached the east bank. The only available road ran parallel to the bank for some distance before turning away from the river into a village. He therefore had to drive along in full view of all the boats crowding the river, whose decks were thronged with French musketeers. Some of the boats were armed with swivel-guns as well. By this time a hue and cry had gone up among the boats, and there was plenty of time for them to load their guns as the carriage disembarked from the ferry. The officer had traded his spyglass for a saber, which he raised high, then brought down as a signal. Instantly, the French boats were completely obscured in clouds of powder-smoke. The valley of the Meuse was filled with flocks of birds that erupted from the trees, startled by the sound of the guns. The carriage was reduced to splinters, the horses torn apart, and the fates of the brave driver and his stricken passenger perfectly obvious.