CARMEN
PROSPER MERIMÉE
It has always seemed to me that “Carmen” was a story of great power and told with wonderful skill. I know not whether it be fact, nor whether the author has learned it in the way he says; but so convincing is the narrative, it seems to me impossible that it is a mere product of the imagination. Yet the leading characters are so abnormal that I sometimes wonder why I believe this story so thoroughly. It must be because it is true.
The author, in pursuing certain archæological researches to discover the site of the ancient battle of Munda, comes with his guide upon a secluded amphitheatre among the rocks, where he suddenly encounters an outlaw, José Navarro, whom he makes his friend by the exchange of some simple courtesies and by warning him at the humble venta where they lodge together, of the approach of the officers of justice.
Some days afterwards, while the author was leaning upon the parapet of the quay at Cordova, Carmen, a young gipsy girl of a strange and savage beauty, comes and sits near him. After some conversation he accompanies her to her residence to have his fortune told. Suddenly the door opens, and Navarro, in a very bad humor, enters the room. A quarrel ensues between him and Carmen in the gipsy language, and it appears from the gestures that the young girl is urging the bandit to cut the stranger’s throat. He refuses, takes the author by the arm, leads him into the street, and directs him home.
Some time afterwards the narrator, in passing through Cordova, learns that Navarro has been condemned to death, and upon a visit to the prison the day before his execution, the bandit tells him the strange story of his liaison with this wild and cruel, yet fascinating girl.
At the great cigar factory at Seville she has a bloody altercation with one of her fellow operatives. Navarro, a rough, green soldier stationed in that city, is ordered to conduct her to prison. She talks to him in his own Basque tongue, pretending to be his fellow countryman, and pleads with him to release her. Inflamed with a sudden passion, he suffers her to escape, and is himself degraded and imprisoned. She secretly sends to him in his cell the means of securing his freedom, and after his release she gives him the liveliest proofs of her gratitude and affection. But she is capricious and fickle to the last degree. Urged by jealousy, Navarro kills an officer and is compelled to desert the army, and at her instigation he takes up the life, first of a smuggler, and then of a bandit. She is the controlling spirit of a little band of outlaws, whose diabolical crimes are described in a manner so natural that they cease to appear extraordinary. Navarro slays the husband of Carmen, a one-eyed miscreant, and takes his place as her lawful lord. But she soon falls in love with a picador, and although this passion is as ephemeral as the rest, Navarro is seized with fury. He strives to persuade her to go with him to some distant region where they can begin life anew. He will forgive the past; he asks only her companionship and love. But she spurns him; he may kill her if he likes, but she will not live with him. She scorns even to flee or to defend herself. At his command she rides with him to a lonely place, where he stabs her, while her eyes flash defiance. He buries her in the wood and delivers himself to justice.
In spite of her crimes and infidelities, there is a touch of heroism and magnanimity in this wild creature which commands our admiration, and explains the passion she awakens in the heart of Navarro.
“Carmen” is a short story, meagre both in incidents and characters, but its few touches are those of the master. It is a work of consummate art.