"MACBETH, THOU SHALT BE KING!"  
Mademoiselle Lenormand took the hand, which her client held out to her, with a feeling almost akin to veneration.
"Will you have the whole truth?" she asked, "or shall I tell you only the good and conceal the evil, as I would to one of those effeminate creatures, to whose nervous irritability you are sometimes subject?"
"Tell me all," said the young man briefly.
"See that you remember the order which you have given me," she said, emphasizing the word "order." "Your hand, which is the most perfect of any that I have ever seen, presents all the virtuous sentiments, and all the human weaknesses; it reveals at once the most heroic and the most hesitating of characters. Most of the lines of your palm dazzle by their brilliancy, while others seem to point to the darkest and most painful hours. I am about to reveal to you an enigma more difficult to read than the Theban Sphinx; for even as you will be greater than ?dipus, so will you be more unhappy. Shall I go on, or shall I stop?"
"Go on," he said.
"I obey you," and again she emphasized the word "obey."
"We will begin with the most powerful of the seven[Pg 371] planets; all seven are impressed upon your hand, and are placed in their recognized order.
"Jupiter is at the extremity of your index finger. Let us begin with him. Perhaps some confusion will result from this method of procedure, but we will bring forth order out of chaos.
"Jupiter then in your hand is placed at the extremity of your index finger, which means that you will be the friend and the enemy of the great men of this world, and among the fortunate of this age. Notice this sign in the shape of a fan on the fourth joint of this finger; it indicates that you will forcibly levy tribute upon people and kings. See this sort of grafting on the second joint, broken at its seventh branch; that means that you will occupy in succession six positions of dignity, and that you will stop at the seventh."
"Do you know what these positions are?"
"No. All that I can tell you about them is that the last is that of Emperor of the West, which is to-day in the house of Austria.
"See that star under the grating; it betokens that you have a good genius who will watch over you until your eighth lustre, or until you are forty years old. At that time you will probably forget that Providence chose a companion for you, for you will abandon that companion, as a result of a false calculation of human prosperity. The two signs directly beneath that star, which resemble, the one a horseshoe, and the other a chessboard, indicate that after long prosperity you will inevitably fall, and from the greatest height to which man has ever attained. You will fall rather through the influence of women than the strength of men. Four lustres will be the term of your triumph and power.
"This other sign, at the foot of Jupiter, accompanied by these three other stars, indicate that during the last three years of your greatness and prosperity, your enemies will be trying to undermine you, and that three months will suffice to hurl you from your exalted position, and that the[Pg 372] crash of your fall will resound throughout the East and the West. Shall I go on?"
"Go on!" said the young man.
"These two stars at the extremity of the middle finger, which is the finger of Saturn, indicate positively that you will be crowned in the same metropolis which has witnessed the coronations of the kings of France, your predecessors. But the sign of Saturn, placed immediately below these two stars, and governing them, is of the gloomiest import for you.
"On the second joint of this middle finger there are two signs, which are peculiar in that they seem to contradict each other. The triangle denotes a curious, suspicious man, not at all lavish of his means except to his soldiers, and who during his life will receive three wounds: the first on the thigh, the second on the heel, and the third on the little finger. The second of these signs, a star, denotes a magnanimous sovereign, a lover of the beautiful, forming gigantic projects, which are not only impossible of realization, but which none but he would be capable of conceiving.
"This line, which resembles an S, winding over the middle joint, forebodes, besides various other perils, several attempts at assassination, among which there is a prearranged explosion.
"The straight line, the letters C and X, which extend almost to the root of the finger of Saturn, betoken a second alliance, more illustrious than the first."
"But," interrupted the young man, impatiently, "this is the second or third time that you have spoken of this first alliance which is to protect the first eight lustres of my life. How am I to recognize the lady when I see her?"
"She is dark," replied the sibyl; "the widow of a fair-haired man who wore a sword and perished by the axe. She has two children, whom you will adopt for your own. In examining her face you will recognize her by two things: one is that she has a noticeable mark on one of her eyebrows, and the second that in talking she frequently raises her right[Pg 373] hand, being accustomed to holding a handkerchief, which she carries to her mouth whenever she laughs."
"Very well," he returned, "now let us come hack to my horoscope."
"See at the base of the finger of Saturn these two signs, one of which resembles a gridiron without a handle, and the other the six of diamonds.
"They predict that your second wife will destroy your happiness, and that she, unlike your first wife, will be fair and born of a race of kings.
"The figure representing the image of the sun at the end of the third joint of the ring finger, which is the finger of Apollo, proves that you will become an extraordinary personage, rising by your own merit, but especially favored by Jupiter and Mars.
"These four straight lines, placed like a palisade below this image of the sun, betoken that you will struggle in vain against a power which, unaided, will stop you in your career.
"Beneath these four straight lines we find again that serpentine line, in the form of the letter ............