Carmen

“She was lying then, sir, as she has always lied. I don’t know that that girl ever spoke a word of truth in her life, but when she did speak, I believed her—I couldn’t help myself. She mangled her Basque words, and I believed she came from Navarre. But her eyes and her mouth and her skin were enough to prove she was a gipsy. I was mad, I paid no more attention to anything, I thought to myself that if the Spaniards had dared to speak evil of my country, I would have slashed their faces just as she had slashed her comrade’s. In short, I was like a drunken man, I was beginning to say foolish things, and I was very near doing them.

“‘If I were to give you a push and you tumbled down, good fellow-countryman,’ she began again in Basque, ‘those two Castilian recruits wouldn’t be able to keep me back.’

“Faith, I forgot my orders, I forgot everything, and I said to her, ‘Well, then, my friend, girl of my country, try it, and may our Lady of the Mountain help you through.’

“Just at that moment we were passing one of the many narrow lanes one sees in Seville. All at once Carmen turned and struck me in the chest with her fist. I tumbled backward, purposely. With a bound she sprang over me, and ran off, showing us a pair of legs! People talk about a pair of Basque legs! but hers were far better—as fleet as they were well-turned. As for me, I picked myself up at once, but I stuck out my lance14 crossways and barred the street, so that my comrades were checked at the very first moment of pursuit. Then I started to run myself, and they after me—but how were we to catch her? There was no fear of that, what with our spurs, our swords, and our lances.

“In less time than I have taken to tell you the story the prisoner had disappeared. And besides, every gossip in the quarter covered her flight, poked scorn at us, and pointed us in the wrong direction. After a good deal of marching and countermarching, we had to go back to the guard-room without a receipt from the governor of the jail.

“To avoid punishment, my men made known that Carmen had spoken to me in Basque; and to tell the truth, it did not seem very natural that a blow from such a little creature should have so easily overthrown a strong fellow like me. The whole thing looked suspicious, or, at all events, not over-clear. When I came off guard I lost my corporal’s stripes, and was condemned to a month’s imprisonment. It was the first time I had been punished since I had been in the service. Farewell, now, to the sergeant’s stripes, on which I had reckoned so surely!

“The first days in prison were very dreary. When I enlisted I had fancied I was sure to become an officer, at all events. Two of my compatriots, Longa and Mina, are captains-general, after all. Chapalangarra was a colonel, and I have played tennis a score of times with his brother, who was just a needy fellow like myself. ‘Now,’ I kept crying to myself, ‘all the time you served without being punished has been lost. Now you have a bad mark against your name, and to get yourself back into the officers’ good graces you’ll have to work ten times as hard as when you joined as a recruit.’ And why have I got myself punished? For the sake of a gipsy hussy, who made game of me, and who at this moment is busy thieving in some corner of the town. Yet I couldn’t help thinking about her. Will you believe it, sir, those silk stockings of hers with the holes in them, of which she had given me such a full view as she took to her heels, were always before my eyes? I used to look through the barred windows of the jail into the street, and among all the women who passed I never could see one to compare with that minx of a girl—and then, in spite of myself, I used to smell the acacia blossom she had thrown at me, and which, dry as it was, still kept its sweet scent. If there are such things as witches, that girl certainly was one.

“One day the jailer came in, and gave me an Alcala roll.15

“‘Look here,’ said he, ‘this is what your cousin has sent you.’

“I took the loaf, very much astonished, for I had no cousin in Seville. It may be a mistake, thought I, as I looked at the roll, but it was so appetizing and smelt so good, that I made up my mind to eat it, without troubling my head as to whence it came, or for whom it was really intended.

“When I tried to cut it, my knife struck on something hard. I looked, and found a little English file, which had been slipped into the dough before the roll had been baked. The roll also contained a gold piece of two piastres. Then I had no further doubt—it was a present from Carmen. To people of her blood, liberty is everything, and they would set a town on fire to save themselves one day in prison. The girl was artful, indeed, and armed with that roll, I might have snapped my fingers at the jailers. In one hour, with that little file, I could have sawn through the thickest bar, and with the gold coin I could have exchanged my soldier’s cloak for civilian garb at the nearest shop. You may fancy that a man who has often taken the eaglets out of their nests in our cliff would have found no difficulty in getting down to the street out of a window less than thirty feet above it. But I didn’t choose to escape. I still had a soldier’s code of honour, and desertion appeared to me in the light of a heinous crime. Yet this proof of remembrance touched me. When a man is in prison he likes to think he has a friend outside who takes an interest in him. The gold coin did rather offend me; I should have very much liked to return it; but where was I to find my creditor? That did not seem a very easy task.

“After the ceremony of my degradation I had fancied my sufferings were over, but I had another humiliation before me. That came when I left prison, and was told off for duty, and put on sentry, as a private soldier. You can not conceive what a proud man endures at such a moment. I believe I would have just as soon been shot dead—then I should have marched alone at the head of my platoon, at all events; I should have felt I was somebody, with the eyes of others fixed upon me.

“I was posted as sentry on the door of the colonel’s house. The colonel was a young man, rich, good-natured, fond of amusing himself. All the young officers were there, and many civilians as well, besides ladies—actresses, as it was said. For my part, it seemed to me as if the whole town had agreed to meet at that door, in order to stare at me. Then up drove the colonel’s carriage, with his valet on the box. And who should I see get out of it, but the gipsy girl! She was dressed up, this time, to the eyes, togged out in golden ribbons—a spangled gown, blue shoes, all spangled too, flowers and gold lace all over her. In her hand she carried a tambourine. With her there were two other gipsy women, one young and one old. They always have one old woman who goes with them, and then an old man with a guitar, a gipsy too, to play alone, and also for their dances. You must know these gipsy girls are often sent for to private houses, to dance their special dance, the Romalis, and often, too, for quite other purposes.

“Carmen recognised me, and we exchanged glances. I don’t know why, but at that moment I should have liked to have been a hundred feet beneath the ground.

“‘Agur laguna,’ 16 said she. ‘Oficial mio! You keep guard like a recruit,’ and before I could find a word in answer, she was inside the house.

“The whole party was assembled in the patio, and in spite of the crowd I could see nearly everything that went on through the lattice.17 I could hear the castanets and the tambourine, the laughter and applause. Sometimes I caught a glimpse of her head as she bounded upward with her tambourine. Then I could hear the officers saying many things to her which brought the blood to my face. As to her answers, I knew nothing of them. It was on that day, I think, that I began to love her in earnest—for three or four times I was tempted to rush into the patio, and drive my sword into the bodies of all the coxcombs who were making love to her. My torture lasted a full hour; then the gipsies came out, and the carriage took them away. As she passed me by, Carmen looked at me with those eyes you know, and said to me very low, ‘Comrade, people who are fond of good fritata come to eat it at Lillas Pastia’s at Triana!’

“Then, light as a kid, she stepped into the carriage, the coachman whipped up his mules, and the whole merry party departed, whither I know not.

“You may fancy that the moment I was off guard I went to Triana; but first of all I got myself shaved and brushed myself up as if I had been going on parade. She was living with Lillas Pastia, an old fried-fish seller, a gipsy, as black as a Moor, to whose house a great many civilians resorted to eat fritata, especially, I think, because Carmen had taken up her quarters there.

“‘Lillas,’ she said, as soon as she saw me. ‘I’m not going to work any more to-day. To-morrow will be a day, too.18 Come, fellow-countryman, let us go for a walk!’

“She pulled her mantilla across her nose, and there we were in the street, without my knowing in the least whither I was bound.

“‘Senorita,’ said I, ‘I think I have to thank you for a present I had while I was in prison. I’ve eaten the bread; the file will do for sharpening my lance, and I keep it in remembrance of you. But as for the money, here it is.’

“‘Why, he’s kept the money!’ she exclaimed, bursting out laughing. ‘But, after all, that’s all the better—for I’m decidedly hard up! What matter! The dog that runs never starves!19 Come, let’s spend it all! You shall treat.’

“We had turned back toward Seville. At the entrance of the Calle de la Serpiente she bought a dozen oranges, which she made me put into my handkerchief. A little farther on she bought a roll, a sausage, and a bottle of manzanilla. Then, last of all, she turned into a confectioner’s shop. There she threw the gold coin I had returned to her on the counter, with another she had in her pocket, and some small silver, and then she asked me for all the money I had. All I possessed was one peseta and a few cuartos, which I handed over to her, very much ashamed of not having more. I thought she would have carried away the whole shop. She took everything that was best and dearest, yemas,20 turon,21 preserved fruits—as long as the money lasted. And all these, too, I had to carry in paper bags. Perhaps you know the Calle del Candilejo, where there is a head of Don Pedro the Avenger.22 That head ought to have given me pause. We stopped at an old house in that street. She passed into the entry, and knocked at a door on the ground floor. It was opened by a gipsy, a thorough-paced servant of the devil. Carmen said a few words to her in Romany. At first the old hag grumbled. To smooth her down Carmen gave her a couple of oranges and a handful of sugar-plums, and let her have a taste of wine. Then she hung her cloak on her back, and led her to the door, which she fastened with a wooden bar. As soon as we were alone she began to laugh and caper like a lunatic, singing out, ‘You are my rom, I’m your romi.23

“There I stood in the middle of the room, laden with all her purchases, and not knowing where I was to put them down. She tumbled them all onto the floor, and threw her arms round my neck, saying:

“‘I pay my debts, I pay my debts! That’s the law of the Cales.‘24

“Ah, sir, that day! that day! When I think of it I forget what to-morrow must bring me!”

For a moment the bandit held his peace, then, when he had relighted his cigar, he began afresh.

“We spent the whole day together, eating, drinking, and so forth. When she had stuffed herself with sugar-plums, like any child of six years old, she thrust them by handfuls into the old woman’s water-jar. ‘That’ll make sherbet for her,’ she said. She smashed the yemas by throwing them against the walls. ‘They’ll keep the flies from bothering us.’ There was no prank or wild frolic she didn’t indulge in. I told her I should have liked to see her dance, only there were no castanets to be had. Instantly she seized the old woman’s only earthenware plate, smashed it up, and there she was dancing the Romalis, and making the bits of broken crockery rattle as well as if they had been ebony and ivory castanets. That girl was good company, I can tell you! Evening fell, and I heard the drums beating tattoo.

“‘I must get back to quarters for roll-call,’ I said.

“‘To quarters!’ she answered, with a look of scorn. ‘Are you a negro slave, to let yourself be driven with a ramrod like that! You are as silly as a canary bird. Your dress suits your nature.25 Pshaw! you’ve no more heart than a chicken.’

“I stayed on, making up my mind to the inevitable guard-room. The next morning the first suggestion of parting came from her.

“‘Hark ye, Joseito,’ she said. ‘Have I paid you? By our law, I owed you nothing, because you’re a payllo. But you’re a good-looking fellow, and I took a fancy to you. Now we’re quits. Good-day!’

“I asked her when I should see her again.

“‘When you’re less of a simpleton,’ she retorted, with a laugh. Then, in a more serious tone, ‘Do you know, my son, I really believe I love you a little; but that can’t last! The dog and the wolf can’t agree for long. Perhaps if you turned gipsy, I might care to be your romi. But that’s all nonsense, such things aren’t possible. Pshaw! my boy. Believe me, you’re well out of it. You’ve come across the devil—he isn’t always black—and you’ve not had your neck wrung. I wear a woollen suit, but I’m no sheep.26 Go and burn a candle to your majari,27 she deserves it well. Come, good-by once more. Don’t think any more about La Carmencita, or she’ll end by making you marry a widow with wooden legs.‘28

“As she spoke, she drew back the bar that closed the door, and once we were out in the street she wrapped her mantilla about her, and turned on her heel.

“She spoke the truth. I should have done far better never to think of her again. But after that day in the Calle del Candilejo I couldn’t think of anything else. All day long I used to walk about, hoping I might meet her. I sought news of her from the old hag, and from the fried-fish seller. They both told me she had gone away to Laloro, which is their name for Portugal. They probably said it by Carmen’s orders, but I soon found out they were lying. Some weeks after my day in the Calle del Candilejo I was on duty at one of the town gates. A little way from the gate there was a breach in the wall. The masons were working at it in the daytime, and at night a sentinel was posted on it, to prevent smugglers from getting in. All through one day I saw Lillas Pastia going backward and forward near the guard-room, and talking to some of my comrades. They all knew him well, and his fried-fish and fritters even better. He came up to me, and asked if I had any news of Carmen.

“‘No,’ said I.

“‘Well,’ said he, ‘you’ll soon hear of her, old fellow.’

“He was not mistaken. That night I was posted to guard the breach in the wall. As soon as the sergeant had disappeared I saw a woman coming toward me. My heart told me it was Carmen. Still I shouted:

“‘Keep off! Nobody can pass here!’

“‘Now, don’t be spiteful,’ she said, making herself known to me.

“‘What! you here, Carmen?’

“‘Yes, mi payllo. Let us say few words, but wise ones. Would you like to earn a douro? Some people will be coming with bundles. Let them alone.’

“‘No,’ said I, ‘I must not allow them through. These are my orders.’

“‘Orders! orders! You didn’t think about orders in the Calle del Candilejo!’

“‘Ah!’ I cried, quite maddened by the very thought of that night. ‘It was well worth while to forget my orders for that! But I won’t have any smuggler’s money!’

“‘Well, if you won’t have money, shall we go and dine together at old Dorotea’s?’

“‘No,’ said I, half choked by the effort it cost me. ‘No, I can’t.’

“‘Very good! If you make so many difficulties, I know to whom I can go. I’ll ask your officer if he’ll come with me to Dorotea’s. He looks good-natured, and he’ll post a sentry who’ll only see what he had better see. Good-bye, canary-bird! I shall have a good laugh the day the order comes out to hang you!’

“I was weak enough to call her back, and I promised to let the whole of gipsydom pass in, if that were necessary, so that I secured the only reward I longed for. She instantly swore she would keep her word faithfully the very next day, and ran off to summon her friends, who were close by. There were five of them, of whom Pastia was one, all well loaded with English goods. Carmen kept watch for them. She was to warn them with her castanets the instant she caught sight of the patrol. But there was no necessity for that. The smugglers finished their job in a moment.

“The next day I went to the Calle del Candilejo. Carmen kept me waiting, and when she came, she was in rather a bad temper.

“‘I don’t like people who have to be pressed,’ she said. ‘You did me a much greater service the first time, without knowing you’d gain anything by it. Yesterday you bargained with me. I don’t know why I’ve come, for I don’t care for you any more. Here, be off with you. Here’s a douro for your trouble.’

“I very nearly threw the coin at her head, and I had to make a violent effort to prevent myself from actually beating her. After we had wrangled for an hour I went off in a fury. For some time I wandered about the town, walking hither and thither like a madman. At last I went into a church, and getting into the darkest corner I could find, I cried hot tears. All at once I heard a voice.

“‘A dragoon in tears. I’ll make a philter of them!’

“I looked up. There was Carmen in front of me.

“‘Well, mi payllo, are you still angry with me?’ she said. ‘I must care for you in spite of myself, for since you left me I don’t know what has been the matter with me. Look you, it is I who ask you to come to the Calle del Candilejo, now!’

“So we made it up: but Carmen’s temper was like the weather in our country. The storm is never so close, in our mountains, as when the sun is at its brightest. She had promised to meet me again at Dorotea’s, but she didn’t come.

“And Dorotea began telling me again that she had gone off to Portugal about some gipsy business.

“As experience had already taught me how much of that I was to believe, I went about looking for Carmen wherever I thought she might be, and twenty times in every day I walked through the Calle del Candilejo. One evening I was with Dorotea, whom I had almost tamed by giving her a glass of anisette now and then, when Carmen walked in, followed by a young man, a lieutenant in our regiment.

“‘Get away at once,’ she said to me in Basque. I stood there, dumfounded, my heart full of rage.

“‘What are you doing here?’ said the lieutenant to me. ‘Take yourself off—get out of this.’

“I couldn’t move a step. I felt paralyzed. The officer grew angry, and seeing I did not go out, and had not even taken off my forage cap, he caught me by the collar and shook me roughly. I don’t know what I said to him. He drew his sword, and I unsheathed mine. The old woman caught hold of my arm, and the lieutenant gave me a wound on the forehead, of which I still bear the scar. I made a step backward, and with one jerk of my elbow I threw old Dorotea down. Then, as the lieutenant still pressed me, I turned the point of my sword against his body and he ran upon it. Then Carmen put out the lamp and told Dorotea, in her own language, to take to flight. I fled into the street myself, and began running along, I knew not whither. It seemed to me that some one was following me. When I came to myself I discovered that Carmen had never left me.

“‘Great stupid of a canary-bird!’ she said, ‘you never make anything but blunders. And, indeed, you know I told you I should bring you bad luck. But come, there’s a cure for everything when you have a Fleming from Rome29 for your love. Begin by rolling this handkerchief round your head, and throw me over that belt of yours. Wait for me in this alley—I’ll be back in two minutes.

“She disappeared, and soon came back bringing me a striped cloak which she had gone to fetch, I knew not whence. She made me take off my uniform, and put on the cloak over my shirt. Thus dressed, and with the wound on my head bound round with the handkerchief, I was tolerably like a Valencian peasant, many of whom come to Seville to sell a drink they make out of ‘chufas.‘30 Then she took me to a house very much like Dorotea’s, at the bottom of a little lane. Here she and another gipsy woman washed and dressed my wounds, better than any army surgeon could have done, gave me something, I know not what, to drink, and finally made me lie down on a mattress, on which I went to sleep.

“Probably the woman had mixed one of the soporific drugs of which they know the secret in my drink, for I did not wake up till very late the next day. I was rather feverish, and had a violent headache. It was some time before the memory of the terrible scene in which I had taken part on the previous night came back to me. After having dressed my wound, Carmen and her friend, squatting on their heels beside my mattress, exchanged a few words of ‘chipe calli,’ which appeared to me to be something in the nature of a medical consultation. Then they both of them assured me that I should soon be cured, but that I must get out of Seville at the earliest possible moment, for that, if I was caught there, I should most undoubtedly be shot.

“‘My boy,’ said Carmen to me, ‘you’ll have to do something. Now that the king won’t give you either rice or haddock31 you’ll have to think of earning your livelihood. You’re too stupid for stealing a pastesas.32 But you are brave and active. If you have the pluck, take yourself off to the coast and turn smuggler. Haven’t I promised to get you hanged? That’s better than being shot, and besides, if you set about it properly, you’ll live like a prince as long as the minons33 and the coast-guard don’t lay their hands on your collar.’

“In this attractive guise did this fiend of a girl describe the new career she was suggesting to me,—the only one, indeed, remaining, now I had incurred the penalty of death. Shall I confess it, sir? She persuaded me without much difficulty. This wild and dangerous life, it seemed to me, would bind her and me more closely together. In future, I thought, I should be able to make sure of her love.

“I had often heard talk of certain smugglers who travelled about Andalusia, each riding a good horse, with his mistress behind him and his blunderbuss in his fist. Already I saw myself trotting up and down the world, with a pretty gipsy behind me. When I mentioned that notion to her, she laughed till she had to hold her sides, and vowed there was nothing in the world so delightful as a night spent camping in the open air, when each rom retired with his romi beneath their little tent, made of three hoops with a blanket thrown across them.

“‘If I take to the mountains,’ said I to her, ‘I shall be sure of you. There’ll be no lieutenant there to go shares with me.’

“‘Ha! ha! you’re jealous!’ she retorted, ‘so much the worse for you. How can you be such a fool as that? Don’t you see I must love you, because I have never asked you for money?’

“When she said that sort to thing I could have strangled her.

“To shorten the story, sir, Carmen procured me civilian clothes, disguised in which I got out of Seville without being recognised. I went to Jerez, with a letter from Pastia to a dealer in anisette whose house was the smugglers’ meeting-place. I was introduced to them, and their leader, surnamed El Dancaire, enrolled me in his gang. We started for Gaucin, where I found Carmen, who had told me she would meet me there. In all these expeditions she acted as spy for our gang, and she was the best that ever was seen. She had now just returned from Gibraltar, and had already arranged with the captain of a ship for a cargo of English goods which we were to receive on the coast. We went to meet it near Estepona. We hid part in the mountains, and laden with the rest, we proceeded to Ronda. Carmen had gone there before us. It was she again who warned us when we had better enter the town. This first journey, and several subsequent ones, turned out well. I found the smuggler’s life pleasanter than a soldier’s: I could give presents to Carmen, I had money, and I had a mistress. I felt little or no remorse, for, as the gipsies say, ‘The happy man never longs to scratch his itch.’ We were made welcome everywhere, my comrades treated me well, and even showed me a certain respect. The reason of this was that I had killed my man, and that some of them had no exploit of that description on their conscience. But what I valued most in my new life was that I often saw Carmen. She showed me more affection than ever; nevertheless, she would never admit, before my comrades, that she was my mistress, and she had even made me swear all sorts of oaths that I would not say anything about her to them. I was so weak in that creature’s hands, that I obeyed all her whims. And besides, this was the first time she had revealed herself as possessing any of the reserve of a well-conducted woman, and I was simple enough to believe she had really cast off her former habits.