"The Flayed Hand" (La Main d'Écorché) by Guy de Maupassant

Published 1875.

Earlier we had a story entitled "The Hand", which is awfully similar to this one, but this story here came first, and its likely the later story is merely an evolution of this one.

Trappists: the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, a Catholic religious order of cloistered monastics that branched off from the Cistercians, who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. They are named after La Trappe Abbey, the monastery from which the movement and religious order originated informally in 1664, and then formally in 1892.

breviary: a book of the prayers, hymns, psalms, and readings for the canonical hours

I couldn't figure out what a French pronunciation of Bourdean should have been, I'm not entirely sure it is a French name at all, so I just used an English pronunciation :-P I mean, I could see where it might be related to, or derived from, any of several French words, but Bourdean itself just doesn't look properly French to me. Is it the same name as Bourdain, just spelled differently? I have no idea.

The picture used is of an insane patient at a French asylum, from an etching of the book "Des Maladies mentales considérées sous les rapports médical, hygiénique et médico-légal" (About mental illnesses, concerned in medical, hygienic and forensic medical relations), 1838, by Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol.

To follow along: https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0605861h.html

Felt like much of this was read in a bit of a hurried manner. I was tired, and being tired I am more likely to revert to my naturally faster manner of speaking. Oops.

And I can tell how utterly exhausted I was by the very high rate of errors in such a short story that required my re-recording for a number of spots. Although at least one, breviary, I would never have guessed a long e sound for that first e, even were I at my most alert. What a strange pronunciation for that word...