CHAPTER III

“I was born,” he said, “at Elizondo, in the valley of Baztan. My name is

Don Jose Lizzarrabengoa, and you know enough of Spain, sir, to know at

once, by my name, that I come of an old Christian and Basque stock. I

call myself Don, because I have a right to it, and if I were at Elizondo

I could show you my parchment genealogy. My family wanted me to go into

the church, and made me study for it, but I did not like work. I was too

fond of playing tennis, and that was my ruin. When we Navarrese begin

to play tennis, we forget everything else. One day, when I had won the

game, a young fellow from Alava picked a quarrel with me. We took to our

_maquilas_,* and I won again. But I had to leave the neighbourhood.

I fell in with some dragoons, and enlisted in the Almanza Cavalry

Regiment. Mountain folks like us soon learn to be soldiers. Before long

I was a corporal, and I had been told I should soon be made a sergeant,

when, to my misfortune, I was put on guard at the Seville Tobacco

Factory. If you have been to Seville you have seen the great building,

just outside the ramparts, close to the Guadalquivir; I can fancy I see

the entrance, and the guard room just beside it, even now. When Spanish

soldiers are on duty, they either play cards or go to sleep. I, like an

honest Navarrese, always tried to keep myself busy. I was making a chain

to hold my priming-pin, out of a bit of wire: all at once, my comrades

said, ‘there’s the bell ringing, the girls are coming back to work.’ You

must know, sir, that there are quite four or five hundred women employed

in the factory. They roll the cigars in a great room into which no man

can go without a permit from the _Veintiquatro_,** because when the

weather is hot they make themselves at home, especially the young ones.

When the work-girls come back after their dinner, numbers of young men

go down to see them pass by, and talk all sorts of nonsense to them.

Very few of those young ladies will refuse a silk mantilla, and men who

care for that sort of sport have nothing to do but bend down and pick

their fish up. While the others watched the girls go by, I stayed on my

bench near the door. I was a young fellow then--my heart was still in

my own country, and I didn’t believe in any pretty girls who hadn’t

blue skirts and long plaits of hair falling on their shoulders.*** And

besides, I was rather afraid of the Andalusian women. I had not got used

to their ways yet; they were always jeering one--never spoke a single

word of sense. So I was sitting with my nose down upon my chain, when I

heard some bystanders say, ‘Here comes the _gitanella_!’ Then I lifted

up my eyes, and I saw her! It was that very Carmen you know, and in

whose rooms I met you a few months ago.

* Iron-shod sticks used by the Basques.

** Magistrate in charge of the municipal police

arrangements, and local government regulations.

*** The costume usually worn by peasant women in Navarre and

the Basque Provinces.

“She was wearing a very short skirt, below which her white silk

stockings--with more than one hole in them--and her dainty red morocco

shoes, fastened with flame-coloured ribbons, were clearly seen. She had

thrown her mantilla back, to show her shoulders, and a great bunch of

acacia that was thrust into her chemise. She had another acacia blossom

in the corner of her mouth, and she walked along, swaying her hips, like

a filly from the Cordova stud farm. In my country anybody who had seen

a woman dressed in that fashion would have crossed himself. At Seville

every man paid her some bold compliment on her appearance. She had

an answer for each and all, with her hand on her hip, as bold as the

thorough gipsy she was. At first I didn’t like her looks, and I fell to

my work again. But she, like all women and cats, who won’t come if you

call them, and do come if you don’t call them, stopped short in front of

me, and spoke to me.

“‘_Compadre_,’ said she, in the Andalusian fashion, ‘won’t you give me

your chain for the keys of my strong box?’

“‘It’s for my priming-pin,’ said I.

“‘Your priming-pin!’ she cried, with a laugh. ‘Oho! I suppose the

gentleman makes lace, as he wants pins!’

“Everybody began to laugh, and I felt myself getting red in the face,

and couldn’t hit on anything in answer.

“‘Come, my love!’ she began again, ‘make me seven ells of lace for my

mantilla, my pet pin-maker!’

“And taking the acacia blossom out of her mouth she flipped it at me

with her thumb so that it hit me just between the eyes. I tell you, sir,

I felt as if a bullet had struck me. I didn’t know which way to look.

I sat stock-still, like a wooden board. When she had gone into the

factory, I saw the acacia blossom, which had fallen on the ground

between my feet. I don’t know what made me do it, but I picked it up,

unseen by any of my comrades, and put it carefully inside my jacket.

That was my first folly.

“Two or three hours later I was still thinking about her, when a

panting, terrified-looking porter rushed into the guard-room. He told

us a woman had been stabbed in the great cigar-room, and that the guard

must be sent in at once. The sergeant told me to take two men, and go

and see to it. I took my two men and went upstairs. Imagine, sir, that

when I got into the room, I found, to begin with, some three hundred

women, stripped to their shifts, or very near it, all of them screaming

and yelling and gesticulating, and making such a row that you couldn’t

have heard God’s own thunder. On one side of the room one of the women

was lying on the broad of her back, streaming with blood, with an X

newly cut on her face by two strokes of a knife. Opposite the wounded

woman, whom the best-natured of the band were attending, I saw Carmen,

held by five or six of her comrades. The wounded woman was crying out,

‘A confessor, a confessor! I’m killed!’ Carmen said nothing at all. She

clinched her teeth and rolled her eyes like a chameleon. ‘What’s this?’

I asked. I had hard work to find out what had happened, for all the

work-girls talked at once. It appeared that the injured girl had boasted

she had money enough in her pocket to buy a donkey at the Triana Market.

‘Why,’ said Carmen, who had a tongue of her own, ‘can’t you do with a

broom?’ Stung by this taunt, it may be because she felt herself rather

unsound in that particular, the other girl replied that she knew nothing

about brooms, seeing she had not the honour of being either a gipsy

or one of the devil’s godchildren, but that the Senorita Carmen would

shortly make acquaintance with her donkey, when the _Corregidor_ took

her out riding with two lackeys behind her to keep the flies off.

‘Well,’ retorted Carmen, ‘I’ll make troughs for the flies to drink

out of on your cheeks, and I’ll paint a draught-board on them!’ * And

thereupon, slap, bank! She began making St. Andrew’s crosses on the

girl’s face with a knife she had been using for cutting off the ends of

the cigars.

* _Pintar un javeque_, “paint a xebec,” a particular type of

ship. Most Spanish vessels of this description have a

checkered red and white stripe painted around them.

“The case was quite clear. I took hold of Carmen’s arm. ‘Sister mine,’ I

said civilly, ‘you must come with me.’ She shot a glance of recognition

at me, but she said, with a resigned look: ‘Let’s be off. Where is my

mantilla?’ She put it over her head so that only one of her great eyes

was to be seen, and followed my two men, as quiet as a lamb. When we

got to the guardroom the sergeant said it was a serious job, and he must

send her to prison. I was told off again to take her there. I put her

between two dragoons, as a corporal does on such occasions. We started

off for the town. The gipsy had begun by holding her tongue. But when we

got to the _Calle de la Serpiente_--you know it, and that it earns its

name by its many windings--she began by dropping her mantilla on to her

shoulders, so as to show me her coaxing little face, and turning round

to me as well as she could, she said:

“‘_Oficial mio_, where are you taking me to?’

“‘To prison, my poor child,’ I replied, as gently as I could, just as

any kind-hearted soldier is bound to speak to a prisoner, and especially

to a woman.

“‘Alack! What will become of me! Senor Oficial, have pity on me! You are

so young, so good-looking.’ Then, in a lower tone, she said, ‘Let me get

away, and I’ll give you a bit of the _bar lachi_, that will make every

woman fall in love with you!’

“The _bar lachi_, sir, is the loadstone, with which the gipsies declare

one who knows how to use it can cast any number of spells. If you can

make a woman drink a little scrap of it, powdered, in a glass of white

wine, she’ll never be able to resist you. I answered, as gravely as I

could:

“‘We are not here to talk nonsense. You’ll have to go to prison. Those

are my orders, and there’s no help for it!’

“We men from the Basque country have an accent which all Spaniards

easily recognise; on the other hand, not one of them can ever learn to

say _Bai, jaona_!*

* Yes, sir.

“So Carmen easily guessed I was from the Provinces. You know, sir, that

the gipsies, who belong to no particular country, and are always moving

about, speak every language, and most of them are quite at home in

Portugal, in France, in our Provinces, in Catalonia, or anywhere else.

They can even make themselves understood by Moors and English people.

Carmen knew Basque tolerably well.

“‘_Laguna ene bihotsarena_, comrade of my heart,’ said she suddenly. ‘Do

you belong to our country?’

“Our language is so beautiful, sir, that when we hear it in a foreign

country it makes us quiver. I wish,” added the bandit in a lower tone,

“I could have a confessor from my own country.”

After a silence, he began again.

“‘I belong to Elizondo,’ I answered in Basque, very much affected by the

sound of my own language.

“‘I come from Etchalar,’ said she (that’s a district about four hours’

journey from my home). ‘I was carried off to Seville by the gipsies.

I was working in the factory to earn enough money to take me back to

Navarre, to my poor old mother, who has no support in the world but me,

besides her little _barratcea_* with twenty cider-apple trees in it.

Ah! if I were only back in my own country, looking up at the white

mountains! I have been insulted here, because I don’t belong to this

land of rogues and sellers of rotten oranges; and those hussies are

all banded together against me, because I told them that not all their

Seville _jacques_,** and all their knives, would frighten an honest lad

from our country, with his blue cap and his _maquila_! Good comrade,

won’t you do anything to help your own countrywoman?’

* Field, garden.

** Bravos, boasters.

“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

lance* 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.

* All Spanish cavalry soldiers carry 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.*

* _Alcala de los Panaderos_, a village two leagues from

Seville, where the most delicious rolls are made. They are

said to owe their quality to the water of the place, and

great quantities of them are brought to Seville every day.

“‘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_,’ * said she. ‘Oficial mio! You keep guard like a

recruit,’ and before I could find a word in answer, she was inside the

house.

* Good-day, comrade!

“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.* 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!’

* In most of the houses in Seville there is an inner court

surrounded by an arched portico. This is used as a sitting-

room in summer. Over the court is stretched a piece of tent

cloth, which is watered during the day and removed at night.

The street door is almost always left open, and the passage

leading to the court (_zaguan_) is closed by an iron lattice

of very elegant workmanship.

“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.* Come, fellow-countryman, let

us go for a walk!’

* _Manana sera otro dia._--A Spanish proverb.

“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!* Come, let’s spend it all! You

shall treat.’

* _Chuquel sos pirela, cocal terela_. “The dog that runs

finds a bone.”--Gipsy proverb.

“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_,*

_turon_,** 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.*** 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_.’****

* Sugared yolks of eggs.

** A sort of nougat.

*** This king, Don Pedro, whom we call “the Cruel,” and whom

Queen Isabella, the Catholic, never called anything but “the

Avenger,” was fond of walking about the streets of Seville

at night in search of adventures, like the Caliph Haroun al

Raschid. One night, in a lonely street, he quarrelled with a

man who was singing a serenade. There was a fight, and the

king killed the amorous _caballero_. At the clashing of

their swords, an old woman put her head out of the window

and lighted up the scene with a tiny lamp (candilejo) which

she held in her hand. My readers must be informed that King

Don Pedro, though nimble and muscular, suffered from one

strange fault in his physical conformation. Whenever he

walked his knees cracked loudly. By this cracking the old

woman easily recognised him. The next day the _veintiquatro_

in charge came to make his report to the king. “Sir, a duel

was fought last night in such a street--one of the

combatants is dead.” “Have you found the murderer?” “Yes,

sir.” “Why has he not been punished already?” “Sir, I await

your orders!” “Carry out the law.” Now the king had just

published a decree that every duellist was to have his head

cut off, and that head was to be set up on the scene of the

fight. The _veintiquatro_ got out of the difficulty like a

clever man. He had the head sawed off a statue of the king,

and set that up in a niche in the middle of the street in

which the murder had taken place. The king and all the

Sevillians thought this a very good joke. The street took

its name from the lamp held by the old woman, the only

witness of the incident. The above is the popular tradition.

Zuniga tells the story somewhat differently. However that

may be, a street called _Calle del Candilejo_ still exists

in Seville, and in that street there is a bust which is said

to be a portrait of Don Pedro. This bust, unfortunately, is

a modern production. During the seventeenth century the old

one had become very much defaced, and the municipality had

it replaced by that now to be seen.

**** _Rom_, husband. _Romi_, wife.

“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_.’*

* _Calo_, feminine _calli_, plural _cales_. Literally

“black,” the name the gipsies apply to themselves in their

own language.

“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.* Pshaw! you’ve no

more heart than a chicken.’

* Spanish dragoons wear a yellow uniform.

“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.* Go and burn a candle to your _majari_,** 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.’***

* _Me dicas vriarda de jorpoy, bus ne sino braco_.--A gipsy

proverb.

** The Saint, the Holy Virgin.

*** The gallows, which is the widow of the last man hanged

upon it.

“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

Rome* 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.

* _Flamenco de Roma_, a slang term for the gipsies. Roma

does not stand for the Eternal City, but for the nation of

the _romi_, or the married folk--a name applied by the

gipsies to themselves. The first gipsies seen in Spain

probably came from the Low Countries, hence their name of

_Flemings_.

“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_.’* 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.

* A bulbous root, out of which rather a pleasant beverage is

manufactured.

“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 haddock* you’ll have to think of

earning your livelihood. You’re too stupid for stealing _a pastesas_.**

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 _minons_*** and the

coast-guard don’t lay their hands on your collar.’

* The ordinary food of a Spanish soldier.

** _Ustilar a pastesas_, to steal cleverly, to purloin

without violence.

*** A sort of volunteer corps.

“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.

“Our gang, which consisted of eight or ten men, was hardly ever together

except at decisive moments, and we were usually scattered by twos and

threes about the towns and villages. Each one of us pretended to have

some trade. One was a tinker, another was a groom; I was supposed to

peddle haberdashery, but I hardly ever showed myself in large places, on

account of my unlucky business at Seville. One day, or rather one night,

we were to meet below Veger. _El Dancaire_ and I got there before the

others.

“‘We shall soon have a new comrade,’ said he. ‘Carmen has just managed

one of her best tricks. She has contrived the escape of her _rom_, who

was in the _presidio_ at Tarifa.’

“I was already beginning to understand the gipsy language, which nearly

all my comrades spoke, and this word _rom_ startled me.

“What! her husband? Is she married, then?’ said I to the captain.

“‘Yes!’ he replied, ‘married to Garcia _el Tuerto_*--as cunning a gipsy

as she is herself. The poor fellow has been at the galleys. Carmen has

wheedled the surgeon of the _presidio_ to such good purpose that she

has managed to get her _rom_ out of prison. Faith! that girl’s worth

her weight in gold. For two years she has been trying to contrive his

escape, but she could do nothing until the authorities took it into

their heads to change the surgeon. She soon managed to come to an

understanding with this new one.’

* One-eyed man.

“You may imagine how pleasant this news was for me. I soon saw Garcia

_el Tuerto_. He was the very ugliest brute that was ever nursed

in gipsydom. His skin was black, his soul was blacker, and he was

altogether the most thorough-paced ruffian I ever came across in my

life. Carmen arrived with him, and when she called him her _rom_ in my

presence, you should have seen the eyes she made at me, and the faces

she pulled whenever Garcia turned his head away.

“I was disgusted, and never spoke a word to her all night. The next

morning we had made up our packs, and had already started, when we

became aware that we had a dozen horsemen on our heels. The braggart

Andalusians, who had been boasting they would murder every one who came

near them, cut a pitiful figure at once. There was a general rout. _El

Dancaire_, Garcia, a good-looking fellow from Ecija, who was called _El

Remendado_, and Carmen herself, kept their wits about them. The rest

forsook the mules and took to the gorges, where the horses could not

follow them. There was no hope of saving the mules, so we hastily

unstrapped the best part of our booty, and taking it on our shoulders,

we tried to escape through the rocks down the steepest of the slopes. We

threw our packs down in front of us and followed them as best we could,

slipping along on our heels. Meanwhile the enemy fired at us. It was

the first time I had ever heard bullets whistling around me and I

didn’t mind it very much. When there’s a woman looking on, there’s no

particular merit in snapping one’s fingers at death. We all escaped

except the poor _Remendado_, who received a bullet wound in the loins. I

threw away my pack and tried to lift him up.

“‘Idiot!’ shouted Garcia, ‘what do we want with offal! Finish him off,

and don’t lose the cotton stockings!’

“‘Drop him!’ cried Carmen.

“I was so exhausted that I was obliged to lay him down for a moment

under a rock. Garcia came up, and fired his blunderbuss full into his

face. ‘He’d be a clever fellow who recognised him now!’ said he, as he

looked at the face, cut to pieces by a dozen slugs.

“There, sir; that’s the delightful sort of life I’ve led! That night

we found ourselves in a thicket, worn out with fatigue, with nothing to

eat, and ruined by the loss of our mules. What do you think that devil

Garcia did? He pulled a pack of cards out of his pocket and began

playing games with _El Dancaire_ by the light of a fire they kindled.

Meanwhile I was lying down, staring at the stars, thinking of _El

Remendado_, and telling myself I would just as lief be in his place.

Carmen was squatting down near me, and every now and then she would

rattle her castanets and hum a tune. Then, drawing close to me, as if

she would have whispered in my ear, she kissed me two or three times

over almost against my will.

“‘You are a devil,’ said I to her.

“‘Yes,’ she replied.

“After a few hours’ rest, she departed to Gaucin, and the next morning a

little goatherd brought us some food. We stayed there all that day, and

in the evening we moved close to Gaucin. We were expecting news from

Carmen, but none came. After daylight broke we saw a muleteer attending

a well-dressed woman with a parasol, and a little girl who seemed to

be her servant. Said Garcia, ‘There go two mules and two women whom St.

Nicholas has sent us. I would rather have had four mules, but no matter.

I’ll do the best I can with these.’

“He took his blunderbuss, and went down the pathway, hiding himself

among the brushwood.

“We followed him, _El Dancaire_ and I keeping a little way behind. As

soon as the woman saw us, instead of being frightened--and our dress

would have been enough to frighten any one--she burst into a fit of loud

laughter. ‘Ah! the _lillipendi_! They take me for an _erani_!’ *

* “The idiots, they take me for a smart lady!”

“It was Carmen, but so well disguised that if she had spoken any other

language I should never have recognised her. She sprang off her mule,

and talked some time in an undertone with _El Dancaire_ and Garcia. Then

she said to me:

“‘Canary-bird, we shall meet again before you’re hanged. I’m off to

Gibraltar on gipsy business--you’ll soon have news of me.’

“We parted, after she had told us of a place where we should find

shelter for some days. That girl was the providence of our gang. We soon

received some money sent by her, and a piece of news which was still

more useful to us--to the effect that on a certain day two English lords

would travel from Gibraltar to Granada by a road she mentioned. This was

a word to the wise. They had plenty of good guineas. Garcia would have

killed them, but _El Dancaire_ and I objected. All we took from them,

besides their shirts, which we greatly needed, was their money and their

watches.

“Sir, a man may turn rogue in sheer thoughtlessness. You lose your

head over a pretty girl, you fight another man about her, there is a

catastrophe, you have to take to the mountains, and you turn from a

smuggler into a robber before you have time to think about it. After

this matter of the English lords, we concluded that the neighbourhood of

Gibraltar would not be healthy for us, and we plunged into the _Sierra

de Ronda_. You once mentioned Jose-Maria to me. Well, it was there I

made acquaintance with him. He always took his mistress with him on his

expeditions. She was a pretty girl, quiet, modest, well-mannered, you

never heard a vulgar word from her, and she was quite devoted to him.

He, on his side, led her a very unhappy life. He was always running

after other women, he ill-treated her, and then sometimes he would take

it into his head to be jealous. One day he slashed her with a knife.

Well, she only doted on him the more! That’s the way with women, and

especially with Andalusians. This girl was proud of the scar on her arm,

and would display it as though it were the most beautiful thing in the

world. And then Jose-Maria was the worst of comrades in the bargain.

In one expedition we made with him, he managed so that he kept all the

profits, and we had all the trouble and the blows. But I must go back to

my story. We had no sign at all from Carmen. _El Dancaire_ said: ‘One

of us will have to go to Gibraltar to get news of her. She must have

planned some business. I’d go at once, only I’m too well known at

Gibraltar.’ _El Tuerto_ said:

“‘I’m well known there too. I’ve played so many tricks on the

crayfish*--and as I’ve only one eye, it is not overeasy for me to

disguise myself.’

* Name applied by the Spanish populace to the British

soldiers, on account of the colour of their uniform.

“‘Then I suppose I must go,’ said I, delighted at the very idea of

seeing Carmen again. ‘Well, how am I to set about it?’

“The others answered:

“‘You must either go by sea, or you must get through by San Rocco,

whichever you like the best; once you are in Gibraltar, inquire in the

port where a chocolate-seller called _La Rollona_ lives. When you’ve

found her, she’ll tell you everything that’s happening.’

“It was settled that we were all to start for the Sierra, that I was

to leave my two companions there, and take my way to Gibraltar, in

the character of a fruit-seller. At Ronda one of our men procured me

a passport; at Gaucin I was provided with a donkey. I loaded it with

oranges and melons, and started forth. When I reached Gibraltar I found

that many people knew _La Rollona_, but that she was either dead or had

gone _ad finibus terroe_,* and, to my mind, her disappearance explained

the failure of our correspondence with Carmen. I stabled my donkey,

and began to move about the town, carrying my oranges as though to sell

them, but in reality looking to see whether I could not come across any

face I knew. The place is full of ragamuffins from every country in the

world, and it really is like the Tower of Babel, for you can’t go ten

paces along a street without hearing as many languages. I did see some

gipsies, but I hardly dared confide in them. I was taking stock of them,

and they were taking stock of me. We had mutually guessed each other

to be rogues, but the important thing for us was to know whether we

belonged to the same gang. After having spent two days in fruitless

wanderings, and having found out nothing either as to _La Rollona_ or

as to Carmen, I was thinking I would go back to my comrades as soon as I

had made a few purchases, when, toward sunset, as I was walking along a

street, I heard a woman’s voice from a window say, ‘Orange-seller!’

* To the galleys, or else to all the devils in hell.

“I looked up, and on a balcony I saw Carmen looking out, beside a

scarlet-coated officer with gold epaulettes, curly hair, and all

the appearance of a rich _milord_. As for her, she was magnificently

dressed, a shawl hung on her shoulders, she’d a gold comb in her hair,

everything she wore was of silk; and the cunning little wretch, not a

bit altered, was laughing till she held her sides.

“The Englishman shouted to me in mangled Spanish to come upstairs, as

the lady wanted some oranges, and Carmen said to me in Basque:

“‘Come up, and don’t look astonished at anything!’

“Indeed, nothing that she did ought ever to have astonished me. I don’t

know whether I was most happy or wretched at seeing her again. At the

door of the house there was a tall English servant with a powdered head,

who ushered me into a splendid drawing-room. Instantly Carmen said to me

in Basque, ‘You don’t know one word of Spanish, and you don’t know me.’

Then turning to the Englishman, she added:

“‘I told you so. I saw at once he was a Basque. Now you’ll hear what a

queer language he speaks. Doesn’t he look silly? He’s like a cat that’s

been caught in the larder!’

“‘And you,’ said I to her in my own language, ‘you look like an impudent

jade--and I’ve a good mind to scar your face here and now, before your

spark.’

“‘My spark!’ said she. ‘Why, you’ve guessed that all alone! Are you

jealous of this idiot? You’re even sillier than you were before our

evening in the _Calle del Candilejo_! Don’t you see, fool, that at this

moment I’m doing gipsy business, and doing it in the most brilliant

manner? This house belongs to me--the guineas of that crayfish will

belong to me! I lead him by the nose, and I’ll lead him to a place that

he’ll never get out of!’

“‘And if I catch you doing any gipsy business in this style again, I’ll

see to it that you never do any again!’ said I.

“‘Ah! upon my word! Are you my _rom_, pray that you give me orders? If

_El Tuerto_ is pleased, what have you to do with it? Oughtn’t you to

be very happy that you are the only man who can call himself my

_minchorro_?’ *

* My “lover,” or rather my “fancy.”

“‘What does he say?’ inquired the Englishman.

“‘He says he’s thirsty, and would like a drink,’ answered Carmen, and

she threw herself back upon a sofa, screaming with laughter at her own

translation.

“When that girl begins to laugh, sir, it was hopeless for anybody to try

and talk sense. Everybody laughed with her. The big Englishman began to

laugh too, like the idiot he was, and ordered the servant to bring me

something to drink.

“While I was drinking she said to me:

“‘Do you see that ring he has on his finger? If you like I’ll give it to

you.’

“And I answered:

“‘I would give one of my fingers to have your _milord_ out on the

mountains, and each of us with a _maquila_ in his fist.’

“‘_Maquila_, what does that mean?’ asked the Englishman.

“‘Maquila,’ said Carmen, still laughing, ‘means an orange. Isn’t it a

queer word for an orange? He says he’d like you to eat _maquila_.’

“‘Does he?’ said the Englishman. ‘Very well, bring more _maquila_

to-morrow.’

“While we were talking a servant came in and said dinner was ready.

Then the Englishman stood up, gave me a piastre, and offered his arm

to Carmen, as if she couldn’t have walked alone. Carmen, who was still

laughing, said to me:

“‘My boy, I can’t ask you to dinner. But to-morrow, as soon as you hear

the drums beat for parade, come here with your oranges. You’ll find a

better furnished room than the one in the _Calle del Candilejo_, and

you’ll see whether I am still your _Carmencita_. Then afterwards we’ll

talk about gipsy business.’

“I gave her no answer--even when I was in the street I could hear the

Englishman shouting, ‘Bring more _maquila_ to-morrow,’ and Carmen’s

peals of laughter.

“I went out, not knowing what I should do; I hardly slept, and next

morning I was so enraged with the treacherous creature that I made up

my mind to leave Gibraltar without seeing her again. But the moment

the drums began to roll, my courage failed me. I took up my net full of

oranges, and hurried off to Carmen’s house. Her window-shutters had been

pulled apart a little, and I saw her great dark eyes watching for me.

The powdered servant showed me in at once. Carmen sent him out with a

message, and as soon as we were alone she burst into one of her fits of

crocodile laughter and threw her arms around my neck. Never had I seen

her look so beautiful. She was dressed out like a queen, and scented;

she had silken furniture, embroidered curtains--and I togged out like

the thief I was!

“‘_Minchorro_,’ said Carmen, ‘I’ve a good mind to smash up everything

here, set fire to the house, and take myself off to the mountains.’ And

then she would fondle me, and then she would laugh, and she danced about

and tore up her fripperies. Never did monkey gambol nor make such faces,

nor play such wild tricks, as she did that day. When she had recovered

her gravity--

“‘Hark!’ she said, ‘this is gipsy business. I mean him to take me to

Ronda, where I have a sister who is a nun’ (here she shrieked with

laughter again). ‘We shall pass by a particular spot which I shall make

known to you. Then you must fall upon him and strip him to the skin.

Your best plan would be to do for him, but,’ she added, with a certain

fiendish smile of hers, which no one who saw it ever had any desire to

imitate, ‘do you know what you had better do? Let _El Tuerto_ come up

in front of you. You keep a little behind. The crayfish is brave, and

skilful too, and he has good pistols. Do you understand?’

“And she broke off with another fit of laughter that made me shiver.

“‘No,’ said I, ‘I hate Garcia, but he’s my comrade. Some day, maybe,

I’ll rid you of him, but we’ll settle our account after the fashion of

my country. It’s only chance that has made me a gipsy, and in certain

things I shall always be a thorough Navarrese,* as the proverb says.

* _Navarro fino_.

“‘You’re a fool,’ she rejoined, ‘a simpleton, a regular _payllo_. You’re

just like the dwarf who thinks himself tall because he can spit a long

way.* You don’t love me! Be off with you!’

* _Or esorjle de or marsichisle, sin chisnar lachinguel_.

“The promise of a dwarf is that he will spit a long way.”--A

gipsy proverb.

“Whenever she said to me ‘Be off with you,” I couldn’t go away. I

promised I would start back to my comrades and wait the arrival of the

Englishman. She, on her side, promised she would be ill until she left

Gibraltar for Ronda.

“I remained at Gibraltar two days longer. She had the boldness to

disguise herself and come and see me at the inn. I departed, I had a

plan of my own. I went back to our meeting-place with the information as

to the spot and the hour at which the Englishman and Carmen were to pass

by. I found _El Dancaire_ and Garcia waiting for me. We spent the night

in a wood, beside a fire made of pine-cones that blazed splendidly. I

suggested to Garcia that we should play cards, and he agreed. In the

second game I told him he was cheating; he began to laugh; I threw the

cards in his face. He tried to get at his blunderbuss. I set my foot on

it, and said, ‘They say you can use a knife as well as the best ruffian

in Malaga; will you try it with me?’ _El Dancaire_ tried to part us. I

had given Garcia one or two cuffs, his rage had given him courage, he

drew his knife, and I drew mine. We both of us told _El Dancaire_ he

must leave us alone, and let us fight it out. He saw there was no means

of stopping us, so he stood on one side. Garcia was already bent double,

like a cat ready to spring upon a mouse. He held his hat in his

left hand to parry with, and his knife in front of him--that’s their

Andalusian guard. I stood up in the Navarrese fashion, with my left arm

raised, my left leg forward, and my knife held straight along my right

thigh. I felt I was stronger than any giant. He flew at me like an

arrow. I turned round on my left foot, so that he found nothing in front

of him. But I thrust him in the throat, and the knife went in so far

that my hand was under his chin. I gave the blade such a twist that it

broke. That was the end. The blade was carried out of the wound by a

gush of blood as thick as my arm, and he fell full length on his face.

“‘What have you done?’ said _El Dancaire_ to me.

“‘Hark ye,’ said I, ‘we couldn’t live on together. I love Carmen and I

mean to be the only one. And besides, Garcia was a villain. I remember

what he did to that poor _Remendado_. There are only two of us left now,

but we are both good fellows. Come, will you have me for your friend,

for life or death?’

“_El Dancaire_ stretched out his hand. He was a man of fifty.

“‘Devil take these love stories!’ he cried. ‘If you’d asked him for

Carmen he’d have sold her to you for a piastre! There are only two of us

now--how shall we manage for to-morrow?’

“‘I’ll manage it all alone,’ I answered. ‘I can snap my fingers at the

whole world now.’

“We buried Garcia, and we moved our camp two hundred paces farther on.

The next morning Carmen and her Englishman came along with two muleteers

and a servant. I said to _El Dancaire_:

“‘I’ll look after the Englishman, you frighten the others--they’re not

armed!’

“The Englishman was a plucky fellow. He’d have killed me if Carmen

hadn’t jogged his elbow.

“To put it shortly, I won Carmen back that day, and my first words were

to tell her she was a widow.

“When she knew how it had all happened--

“‘You’ll always be a _lillipendi_,’ she said. ‘Garcia ought to have

killed you. Your Navarrese guard is a pack of nonsense, and he has sent

far more skilful men than you into the darkness. It was just that his

time had come--and yours will come too.’

“‘Ay, and yours too!--if you’re not a faithful _romi_ to me.’

“‘So be it,’ said she. ‘I’ve read in the coffee grounds, more than once,

that you and I were to end our lives together. Pshaw! what must be, will

be!’ and she rattled her castanets, as was her way when she wanted to

drive away some worrying thought.

“One runs on when one is talking about one’s self. I dare say all these

details bore you, but I shall soon be at the end of my story. Our new

life lasted for some considerable time. _El Dancaire_ and I gathered a

few comrades about us, who were more trustworthy than our earlier ones,

and we turned our attention to smuggling. Occasionally, indeed, I must

confess we stopped travellers on the highways, but never unless we were

at the last extremity, and could not avoid doing so; and besides, we

never ill-treated the travellers, and confined ourselves to taking their

money from them.

“For some months I was very well satisfied with Carmen. She still served

us in our smuggling operations, by giving us notice of any opportunity

of making a good haul. She remained either at Malaga, at Cordova, or at

Granada, but at a word from me she would leave everything, and come to

meet me at some _venta_ or even in our lonely camp. Only once--it was at

Malaga--she caused me some uneasiness. I heard she had fixed her fancy

upon a very rich merchant, with whom she probably proposed to play her

Gibraltar trick over again. In spite of everything _El Dancaire_ said to

stop me, I started off, walked into Malaga in broad daylight, sought for

Carmen and carried her off instantly. We had a sharp altercation.

“‘Do you know,’ said she, ‘now that you’re my _rom_ for good and all, I

don’t care for you so much as when you were my _minchorro_! I won’t be

worried, and above all, I won’t be ordered about. I choose to be free to

do as I like. Take care you don’t drive me too far; if you tire me

out, I’ll find some good fellow who’ll serve you just as you served _El

Tuerto_.’

“_El Dancaire_ patched it up between us; but we had said things to each

other that rankled in our hearts, and we were not as we had been before.

Shortly after that we had a misfortune: the soldiers caught us, _El

Dancaire_ and two of my comrades were killed; two others were taken.

I was sorely wounded, and, but for my good horse, I should have fallen

into the soldiers’ hands. Half dead with fatigue, and with a bullet in

my body, I sought shelter in a wood, with my only remaining comrade.

When I got off my horse I fainted away, and I thought I was going to

die there in the brushwood, like a shot hare. My comrade carried me to a

cave he knew of, and then he sent to fetch Carmen.

“She was at Granada, and she hurried to me at once. For a whole

fortnight she never left me for a single instant. She never closed her

eyes; she nursed me with a skill and care such as no woman ever showed

to the man she loved most tenderly. As soon as I could stand on my feet,

she conveyed me with the utmost secrecy to Granada. These gipsy women

find safe shelter everywhere, and I spent more than six weeks in a house

only two doors from that of the _Corregidor_ who was trying to arrest

me. More than once I saw him pass by, from behind the shutter. At last I

recovered, but I had thought a great deal, on my bed of pain, and I had

planned to change my way of life. I suggested to Carmen that we should

leave Spain, and seek an honest livelihood in the New World. She laughed

in my face.

“‘We were not born to plant cabbages,’ she cried. ‘Our fate is to live

_payllos_! Listen: I’ve arranged a business with Nathan Ben-Joseph at

Gibraltar. He has cotton stuffs that he can not get through till you

come to fetch them. He knows you’re alive, and reckons upon you. What

would our Gibraltar correspondents say if you failed them?’

“I let myself by persuaded, and took up my vile trade once more.

“While I was hiding at Granada there were bull-fights there, to which

Carmen went. When she came back she talked a great deal about a skilful

_picador_ of the name of Lucas. She knew the name of his horse, and how

much his embroidered jacket had cost him. I paid no attention to this;

but a few days later, Juanito, the only one of my comrades who was left,

told me he had seen Carmen with Lucas in a shop in the Zacatin. Then

I began to feel alarmed. I asked Carmen how and why she had made the

_picador’s_ acquaintance.

“‘He’s a man out of whom we may be able to get something,’ said she.

‘A noisy stream has either water in it or pebbles. He has earned twelve

hundred reals at the bull-fights. It must be one of two things: we

must either have his money, or else, as he is a good rider and a plucky

fellow, we can enroll him in our gang. We have lost such an one an such

an one; you’ll have to replace them. Take this man with you!’

“‘I want neither his money nor himself,’ I replied, ‘and I forbid you to

speak to him.’

“‘Beware!’ she retorted. ‘If any one defies me to do a thing, it’s very

quickly done.’

“Luckily the _picador_ departed to Malaga, and I set about passing in

the Jew’s cotton stuffs. This expedition gave me a great deal to do, and

Carmen as well. I forgot Lucas, and perhaps she forgot him too--for the

moment, at all events. It was just about that time, sir, that I met you,

first at Montilla, and then afterward at Cordova. I won’t talk about

that last interview. You know more about it, perhaps, than I do. Carmen

stole your watch from you, she wanted to have your money besides, and

especially that ring I see on your finger, and which she declared to be

a magic ring, the possession of which was very important to her. We had

a violent quarrel, and I struck her. She turned pale and began to cry.

It was the first time I had ever seen her cry, and it affected me in the

most painful manner. I begged her to forgive me, but she sulked with me

for a whole day, and when I started back to Montilla she wouldn’t kiss

me. My heart was still very sore, when, three days later, she joined me

with a smiling face and as merry as a lark. Everything was forgotten,

and we were like a pair of honeymoon lovers. Just as we were parting she

said, ‘There’s a _fete_ at Cordova; I shall go and see it, and then I

shall know what people will be coming away with money, and I can warn

you.’

“I let her go. When I was alone I thought about the _fete_, and about

the change in Carmen’s temper. ‘She must have avenged herself already,’

said I to myself, ‘since she was the first to make our quarrel up.’ A

peasant told me there was to be bull-fighting at Cordova. Then my blood

began to boil, and I went off like a madman straight to the bull-ring. I

had Lucas pointed out to me, and on the bench, just beside the barrier,

I recognised Carmen. One glance at her was enough to turn my suspicion

into certainty. When the first bull appeared Lucas began, as I had

expected to play the agreeable; he snatched the cockade off the bull and

presented it to Carmen, who put it in her hair at once.*

* _La divisa_. A knot of ribbon, the colour of which

indicates the pasturage from which each bull comes. This

knot of ribbon is fastened into the bull’s hide with a sort

of hook, and it is considered the very height of gallantry

to snatch it off the living beast and present it to a woman.

“The bull avenged me. Lucas was knocked down, with his horse on his

chest, and the bull on top of both of them. I looked for Carmen, she had

disappeared from her place already. I couldn’t get out of mine, and I

was obliged to wait until the bull-fight was over. Then I went off to

that house you already know, and waited there quietly all that evening

and part of the night. Toward two o’clock in the morning Carmen came

back, and was rather surprised to see me.

“‘Come with me,’ said I.

“‘Very well,’ said she, ‘let’s be off.’

“I went and got my horse, and took her up behind me, and we travelled

all the rest of the night without saying a word to each other. When

daylight came we stopped at a lonely inn, not far from a hermitage.

There I said to Carmen:

“‘Listen--I forget everything, I won’t mention anything to you. But

swear one thing to me--that you’ll come with me to America, and live

there quietly!’

“‘No,’ said she, in a sulky voice, ‘I won’t go to America--I am very

well here.’

“‘That’s because you’re near Lucas. But be very sure that even if

he gets well now, he won’t make old bones. And, indeed, why should I

quarrel with him? I’m tired of killing all your lovers; I’ll kill you

this time.’

“She looked at me steadily with her wild eyes, and then she said:

“‘I’ve always thought you would kill me. The very first time I saw you I

had just met a priest at the door of my house. And to-night, as we were

going out of Cordova, didn’t you see anything? A hare ran across the

road between your horse’s feet. It is fate.’

“‘Carmencita,’ I asked, ‘don’t you love me any more?’

“She gave me no answer, she was sitting cross-legged on a mat, making

marks on the ground with her finger.

“‘Let us change our life, Carmen,’ said I imploringly. ‘Let us go away

and live somewhere we shall never be parted. You know we have a hundred

and twenty gold ounces buried under an oak not far from here, and then

we have more money with Ben-Joseph the Jew.’

“She began to smile, and then she said, ‘Me first, and then you. I know

it will happen like that.’

“‘Think about it,’ said I. ‘I’ve come to the end of my patience and my

courage. Make up your mind--or else I must make up mine.’

“I left her alone and walked toward the hermitage. I found the hermit

praying. I waited till his prayer was finished. I longed to pray myself,

but I couldn’t. When he rose up from his knees I went to him.

“‘Father,’ I said, ‘will you pray for some one who is in great danger?’

“‘I pray for every one who is afflicted,’ he replied.

“‘Can you say a mass for a soul which is perhaps about to go into the

presence of its Maker?’

“‘Yes,’ he answered, looking hard at me.

“And as there was something strange about me, he tried to make me talk.

“‘It seems to me that I have seen you somewhere,’ said he.

“I laid a piastre on his bench.

“‘When shall you say the mass?’ said I.

“‘In half an hour. The son of the innkeeper yonder is coming to serve

it. Tell me, young man, haven’t you something on your conscience that is

tormenting you? Will you listen to a Christian’s counsel?’

“I could hardly restrain my tears. I told him I would come back, and

hurried away. I went and lay down on the grass until I heard the bell.

Then I went back to the chapel, but I stayed outside it. When he had

said the mass, I went back to the _venta_. I was hoping Carmen would

have fled. She could have taken my horse and ridden away. But I found

her there still. She did not choose that any one should say I had

frightened her. While I had been away she had unfastened the hem of her

gown and taken out the lead that weighted it; and now she was sitting

before a table, looking into a bowl of water into which she had just

thrown the lead she had melted. She was so busy with her spells that at

first she didn’t notice my return. Sometimes she would take out a bit of

lead and turn it round every way with a melancholy look. Sometimes she

would sing one of those magic songs, which invoke the help of Maria

Padella, Don Pedro’s mistress, who is said to have been the _Bari

Crallisa_--the great gipsy queen.*

* Maria Padella was accused of having bewitched Don Pedro.

According to one popular tradition she presented Queen

Blanche of Bourbon with a golden girdle which, in the eyes

of the bewitched king, took on the appearance of a living

snake. Hence the repugnance he always showed toward the

unhappy princess.

“‘Carmen,’ I said to her, ‘will you come with me?’ She rose, threw away

her wooden bowl, and put her mantilla over her head ready to start. My

horse was led up, she mounted behind me, and we rode away.

“After we had gone a little distance I said to her, ‘So, my Carmen, you

are quite ready to follow me, isn’t that so?’

“She answered, ‘Yes, I’ll follow you, even to death--but I won’t live

with you any more.’

“We had reached a lonely gorge. I stopped my horse.

“‘Is this the place?’ she said.

“And with a spring she reached the ground. She took off her mantilla and

threw it at her feet, and stood motionless, with one hand on her hip,

looking at me steadily.

“‘You mean to kill me, I see that well,’ said she. ‘It is fate. But

you’ll never make me give in.’

“I said to her: ‘Be rational, I implore you; listen to me. All the

past is forgotten. Yet you know it is you who have been my ruin--it is

because of you that I am a robber and a murderer. Carmen, my Carmen, let

me save you, and save myself with you.’

“‘Jose,’ she answered, ‘what you ask is impossible. I don’t love you

any more. You love me still, and that is why you want to kill me. If

I liked, I might tell you some other lie, but I don’t choose to give

myself the trouble. Everything is over between us two. You are my _rom_,

and you have the right to kill your _romi_, but Carmen will always be

free. A _calli_ she was born, and a _calli_ she’ll die.’

“‘Then, you love Lucas?’ I asked.

“‘Yes, I have loved him--as I loved you--for an instant--less than I

loved you, perhaps. But now I don’t love anything, and I hate myself for

ever having loved you.’

“I cast myself at her feet, I seized her hands, I watered them with my

tears, I reminded her of all the happy moments we had spent together,

I offered to continue my brigand’s life, if that would please her.

Everything, sir, everything--I offered her everything if she would only

love me again.

“She said:

“‘Love you again? That’s not possible! Live with you? I will not do it!’

“I was wild with fury. I drew my knife, I would have had her look

frightened, and sue for mercy--but that woman was a demon.

“I cried, ‘For the last time I ask you. Will you stay with me?’

“‘No! no! no!’ she said, and she stamped her foot.

“Then she pulled a ring I had given her off her finger, and cast it into

the brushwood.

“I struck her twice over--I had taken Garcia’s knife, because I had

broken my own. At the second thrust she fell without a sound. It seems

to me that I can still see her great black eyes staring at me. Then they

grew dim and the lids closed.

“For a good hour I lay there prostrate beside her corpse. Then I

recollected that Carmen had often told me that she would like to lie

buried in a wood. I dug a grave for her with my knife and laid her in

it. I hunted about a long time for her ring, and I found it at last.

I put it into the grave beside her, with a little cross--perhaps I did

wrong. Then I got upon my horse, galloped to Cordova, and gave myself up

at the nearest guard-room. I told them I had killed Carmen, but I would

not tell them where her body was. That hermit was a holy man! He prayed

for her--he said a mass for her soul. Poor child! It’s the _calle_ who

are to blame for having brought her up as they did.”