Carmen

“‘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?’ [38 - 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,[39 - Navarro fino.] as the proverb says.

“‘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.[40 - Or esorjle de or marsichisle, sin chisnar lachinguel. “The promise of a dwarf is that he will spit a long way.”—A gipsy proverb.] You don’t love me! Be off with you!’

“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.[41 - 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.