“I see . . . Can I tell what I see? will you be obliged to me? First I see happiness, but it is all in the past. I also see love, but it is drowned in blood . . .”
“In my blood?”
“In a woman’s blood. And then the blood of another woman. And then yours, a little later on.”
Demetrios shrugged his shoulders, and when he turned, he perceived Melitta fleeing down the alley at full speed.
“It has given her a fright,” said Chimairis.
“But there is no question of Melitta or of me. Let things take their course, since nothing can be prevented. Your destiny was certain even before your birth. Go. I shall say no more.” And she dropped his hand.
III
LOVE AND DEATH
“A woman’s blood. Afterwards another woman’s blood. Afterwards yours, but a little later on.”
Demetrios repeated these words to himself as he walked, and in spite of himself, his belief in them weighed upon him. He had never had any faith in oracles drawn from the bodies of victims or the movements of planets. These affinities seemed too problematical. But the complex lines of the hand have, in themselves, an exclusively personal horoscopic aspect which he considered with uneasiness. The fortune-teller’s prediction haunted his mind.
In his turn, he examined the palm of his left hand, on which his life was summed up in secret and indelible signs.