"But, holy Jesus, look at him, Messire!" replied Dame Aloyse. "He has been lying there since the evening of June 7; and it is now the 2d of July, and during that whole time he has not spoken one word,—has not even seemed to see me or to know me, and has been like one dead, alas! Look, if you touch his hand, he doesn't appear to notice it!"
"So much the better, I tell you, Dame Aloyse! I pray that he may be as long as possible in awaking to the remembrance of his sorrows. If he can continue, as I trust he will, another month in this weak state, without knowing or thinking about anything, he will recover, beyond a doubt."
"He will recover!" said Aloyse, raising her eyes to heaven as if offering thanks to God.
"Yes, he will recover if there is no relapse. And you may say so to that pretty maid who comes twice a day to get news of him; for there is an affair with some great lady hidden under all this, is there not? Sometimes that sort of thing is very delightful, and sometimes fatal."
"Yes, indeed, it is fatal; you are quite right, Master Nostredame," said Aloyse; with a sigh.
"God grant that he recover from his passion as well as from his illness, Dame Aloyse! if indeed illness and passion haven't always the same cause and the same effect. But I will answer for the one, and not for the other."
Nostradamus opened the soft and apparently lifeless hand that he held in his, and looked very carefully and attentively at the palm; he even lifted the skin from the fore and middle fingers. He seemed to be racking his brain to remember something.
"It is strange!" he said in an undertone, as if he were talking to himself. "Several times I have examined this hand, and every time it has seemed to me as if I had already examined it long ago. But what are the marks which have struck me so? The mensal line is of favorable length; the medial is a little doubtful; but the line of life is perfect. There is nothing extraordinary about it. The predominating characteristic of this youth should be a steadfast will, firm and unswerving as the arrow aimed by a sure hand. That is not what has aroused my wonder heretofore. And then my memories are too confused not to refer to some long ago time; and your master is not more than twenty-five, is he, Dame Aloyse?"
"He is only twenty-four, Messire."
"He was born in 1533, then. Do you know the day?"