The Prussian Terror Part 13

"The prince is imaginative, sire," said Benedict laughing. "He attributes to some very simple anecdotes and hasty sketches an excellence which they do not possess."

But the king replied as if answering his own thought, the thought which had led him to visit the young man.

"Yesterday," he said, addressing Benedict and turning towards him, as he always did in conversation, "you said something about a science which interested me in former days, namely, chiromancy. My thoughts carry me on towards the mysterious unexplored regions of the human mind, of nature, of creation. I should like to know they are based upon logic, on physiology, for instance."

"I know, sire," replied Benedict, smiling, "that is why I ventured yesterday to mention the occult sciences to Your Majesty."

"You know. But how?" demanded the king.

"I should be a poor student, sire, if I had limited my enquiries to the hands only, and had not united the study of Lavater and Gall to that of Arpentigny. I saw at once in the form of your hands and head those precious apt.i.tudes which are shown in phrenology by the well-developed organs of the poetic faculty and of the love of harmony, which betoken the student of natural science. The protection accorded by Your Majesty to the poor herbalist, Lampe, arose not from benevolence only, but from the conviction that certain men are empowered to receive a revelation, and that it is not always the highly placed ones of earth to whom truth is thus manifested."

"It is true," said the king. "Other men may see the stars shining in the midnight silence, but it seems to me that I actually hear that 'music of the spheres' spoken of by Pythagoras. And I am proud to think that while I stand on the summit of earthly society, there are, immediately above me, intermediate angelic influences which carry on a boundless electric chain, linking us not merely with our own little planetary system, but with others--with the whole universe."

"I do not venture," the king continued with a smile, "to discourse openly on these beliefs. I should get the reputation of 'a king of dreams,' about the worst a king can have. But to you, who are a dreamer like myself, I do say--yes, I believe in these celestial influences, and I believe that each mortal has, in that precious casket which he calls his skull, the signs of his destiny. He may strive to alter or delay its course, but it will bear him on irresistibly to fortune, success, or misery, as the case may be.

"And I speak with conviction because I have had proofs. In early youth I once met a gipsy woman in the course of a solitary walk. She examined my hand and told me certain things which came to pa.s.s. I wish to believe you, but I must have proofs. Can you read the past in my hand even as the gipsy read the future. Can you, do you, sincerely believe you have this power?"

"I do, sire. And I think actual science will tell you what has before been perhaps merely guessed at by intuition or tradition."

"Well then," said the king, extending his hand, "now tell me what you read."

"Sire," replied Benedict, "I do not know how far I dare--"

"Dare what?" enquired the king.

"What if I read only a threatening future?"

"We live in days when no predictions, however terrible, can exceed the reality of the convulsions which are taking place around us. What can you predict for me that can be so terrible? Is it the loss of my kingdom? I lost more than a kingdom when I lost the vision of sun and sky, of earth and sea. Take my hand, and tell me what is written."

"Everything?"

"Everything. As for misfortunes, is it not better to know of them than to encounter them unforeseen?"

Benedict bowed so deeply over King George's hand that he almost touched it with his lips.

"A truly royal hand," he said, after having glanced over it, "a beneficent hand; an artistic hand."

"I did not ask for compliments, sir," said the king, smiling.

"See, my dear master," said Benedict, addressing Kaulbach, "how well the Mount of Apollo, there, under the ring-finger, is developed! Apollo bestows love of the arts; he is the giver of intelligence, of all that is brilliant and creates brilliance. It is he who gives the hope of an immortal name, calm of the soul, the sympathy that creates love. Look at the Mount of Mars, represented by the part opposite the thumb. This is what gives courage, both civil and military, calm, coolness in danger, resignation, pride, devotion, resolution, and the strength of resistance. Unfortunately, Saturn is against us. Saturn threatens. You know, sire, Saturn is Fate. Now, I ought to tell you, the lines of Saturn are not only unfavourable; they are calamitous."

And here Benedict raised his head and looking at the king with the utmost respect and sympathy:

"I might continue more intimately yet, sire," he said, "and reveal your whole character in its most secret recesses. I might sketch your inclinations one by one to you to their lightest shades; but I should prefer to pa.s.s at once to graver facts. At twelve years old, Your Majesty had a serious illness."

"It is true," said the king.

"At nineteen, a line extends both towards the brain and towards the Mount of the Sun--a nervous seizure on one side; on the other, something resembling death, but which is not death--an eclipse! And worse than that, an eclipse is momentary one night!"

"The gipsy told me literally the same as you--something that resembles death, but is not death! The fact is that at the age of nineteen I pa.s.sed through great trouble."

"Stay! Here, sire, on Jupiter there is a marvellous gleam; one of the highest seats of human fortune--about the age of thirty-nine."

"Again the words of the gipsy. At thirty-nine I became king."

"I was ignorant of the precise dates," said Benedict, "but it might be supposed that I knew them. Let me look for a fact that I could not have known. Ah, I see it. Yes, it is certainly here. An agony of terror, an accident due to water. What is it? A boat in danger? A tempest watched from the sh.o.r.e? The imminent wreck of a vessel containing some one beloved? There is fearful terror, but terror only; for there is a rescue traced close to the line of fate. Your Majesty undoubtedly experienced terrible anxiety for the life of some one greatly beloved.'

"Do you hear this, Ernest?" said the king addressing his son.

"Oh, my father!" said the young prince, throwing his arms around his father's neck. Then, to Benedict: "Yes, indeed, my poor father was in terrible fear. I was bathing in the sea at Nordeney. I can swim fairly well; but without perceiving it I let myself be carried away on a current; and, upon my word, I was on the point of sinking when I grasped the arm of an honest fisherman who had come to my a.s.sistance. One second more, and all would have been over with me."

"And I was there," said the king. "I could hear his cries, I stretched my arms towards him--it was all I could do. Gloucester offered his kingdom for a horse: and I would gladly have given mine for a ray of light. Do not let us think of it. All the misfortunes of the future together are not more terrible than the shadow of that misfortune which did not happen."

"And so, sire?" said Benedict.

"And so I am convinced," said the king. "I have no need of further proofs. Let us pa.s.s on to the future."

Benedict looked with great attention at the king's hand. He hesitated a moment and asked for a magnifying gla.s.s, to see more distinctly. It was brought.

"Sire," he said, "you are about to be drawn into a great war. One of your nearest neighbours will not only betray, but will despoil you; and notwithstanding--look, monseigneur!" he said to the prince, "the line of the Sun shows victory: but an empty victory, useless, without fruit."

"And then?" asked the king.

"Oh, sire, what do I read in this hand!"

"Good tidings, or bad?"

"You told me to keep nothing from you, sire."

"And I repeat it. Tell me then; this victory--"

"This victory, as I have told Your Majesty, leads to nothing. Here is the Line of the Sun broken off above the Line of the Head by a line starting from Mars which also cuts the Mount of Jupiter."

"And that foretells?"

"A defeat. But however--No," said Benedict, seeking to read the most mysterious secrets from the royal hand; "moreover, it is not the last word of your destiny. Here is the Line of the Sun after its breakage starting afresh, reaching the ring-finger and stopping at its base. And there see further, above this line traversing Jupiter, a straight line like a furrow crowned with a star, as a sceptre is crowned with a diamond."

"And that prophesies?"

"Restoration."

"Then according to you, I shall lose the throne and reconquer it?"

Benedict turned towards the prince.

"Your hand, if you please, monseigneur."

The prince gave him his hand.