“As she spoke she removed the bar that secured the door, and once in the street, she wrapped herself in her mantilla and turned her back on me.
“She spoke truly. I should have been wise to think no more of her; but after that day on Rue de Candilejo, I could think of nothing else. I walked about all day long, hoping to meet her. I asked the old woman and the eating-house keeper for news of her. Both replied that she had gone to Laloro,[28] which was their way of designating Portugal. Probably they said that in accordance with Carmen’s instructions, but I very soon found out that they lied. Several weeks after my day on Rue de Candilejo, I was on duty at one of the gates of the city. A short distance from the gate there was a breach in the wall; men were at work repairing it during the day, and at night a sentinel was posted there to prevent smuggling. During the day I saw Lillas Pastia going to and fro around the guard-house, and talking with some of my comrades; all of them knew him, and they knew his fish and his fritters even better. He came to me and asked me if I had heard from Carmen.
“‘No,’ said I.
“‘Well, you will, compadre.’
“He was not mistaken. At night I was stationed at the breach. As soon as the corporal had retired, I saw a woman coming towards me. My heart told me that it was Carmen. However, I shouted:
“‘Go back! You cannot pass!’
“‘Don’t be disagreeable,’ she said, showing me her face.
“‘What! is it you, Carmen?’
“‘Yes, my countryman. Let us talk a little and talk quick. Do you want to earn a douro? There are some men coming with bundles; let them alone.’
“‘No,’ I replied. ‘I must prevent them from passing; those are my orders.’
“‘Orders! orders! So you’ve forgotten the Rue de Candilejo?’
“‘Ah!’ I exclaimed, completely overwhelmed by the bare memory of that day, ‘that would be well worth the penalty of forgetting orders; but I want no smugglers’ money.’
“‘Well, if you don’t want money, would you like to go again to old Dorothy’s and dine?’
“‘No,’ I said, half suffocated by the effort it cost me, ‘I cannot.’
“‘Very good. If you are so stiff-backed, I know whom to apply to. I will go to your officer and offer to go to Dorothy’s with him. He looks like a good fellow, and he will put some man on duty here who will see no more than he ought to see. Farewell, Canary. I shall laugh with all my heart on the day when the orders are to hang you.’
“I was weak enough to call her back, and I promised to allow all gypsydom to pass, if necessary, provided that I obtained the only reward that I desired. She instantly swore to keep her word on the next day, and hastened away to notify her friends, who were close by. There were five of them,—Pastia was one—all well laden with English goods. Carmen kept watch. She was to give warning with her castanets the instant that she saw the patrol; but she did not need to do it. The smugglers did their work in an instant.
“The next day I went to Rue de Candilejo. Carmen kept me waiting, and when she came she was in a villainous temper.
“‘I don’t like people who make you ask them so many times,’ she said. ‘You did me a very great service the first time, without knowing whether you would gain anything by it. Yesterday, you bargained with me. I don’t know why I came, for I don’t love you any more. Here, take this douro for your trouble.’
“I was within an ace of throwing the money at her head, and I was obliged to make a violent effort over myself to keep from striking her. After we had quarrelled for an hour, I left the house in a rage. I wandered about the city a long while, tramping hither and thither like a madman; at last I entered a church, and, seeking out the darkest corner, wept scalding tears. Suddenly I heard a voice:
“‘A dragoon’s tears! I must make a love-philtre of them!’
“I raised my eyes; Carmen stood in front of me.
“‘Well, my countryman, are you still angry with me?’ she said. ‘It must be that I love you, in spite of what I know of you, for since you left me, I don’t know what is the matter with me. See, I am the one now who asks you to come to Rue de Candilejo.’
“So we made our peace; but Carmen’s moods were like the weather in our country. Among our mountains a storm is never so near as when the sun shines brightest. She promised to meet me again at Dorothy’s, and she did not come. And Dorothy told me coolly that she had gone to Laloro on business of Egypt.
“As I knew already from experience what to think on that subject, I sought Carmen wherever I thought that she could possibly be, and I passed through Rue de Candilejo twenty times a day. One evening I was at Dorothy’s, having almost tamed her by treating her now and then to a glass of anisette, when Carmen came in, followed by a young officer, a lieutenant in our regiment.
“‘Off with you, quick,’ she said to me in Basque.
“I sat as if stupefied, with rage in my heart.
“‘What are you doing here?’ the lieutenant asked me; ‘decamp, leave this house!’
“I could not take a step; I was like a man who has lost the use of his limbs. The officer, seeing that I did not withdraw, and that I had not even removed my forage cap, lost his temper, seized me by the collar, and shook me roughly. I do not know what I said to him. He drew his sword, and I my sabre. The old woman grasped my arm, and the lieutenant struck me a blow on the forehead, the mark of which I still bear. I stepped back and knocked Dorothy down with a blow of my elbow; then, as the lieutenant followed me, I held the point of my sabre to his breast, and he spitted himself on it. Thereupon Carmen put out the lamp and told Dorothy in her language to fly. I myself rushed out into the street and started to run, I knew not whither. It seemed to me that some one was following me. When I came to my senses, I found that Carmen had not left me.
“‘You great idiot of a canary!’ she exclaimed; ‘you can’t do anything but make a fool of yourself! I told you, you know, that I should bring you bad luck. Well! there’s a cure for everything when one has for one’s friend a Roman Fleming.[29] First of all, put this handkerchief on your head, and toss me that belt. Wait for me in this passage. I will return in two minutes.’
“She disappeared, and soon brought me a striped cloak, which she had obtained heaven knows where. She bade me take off my uniform and put on the cloak over my shirt. Thus attired, with the handkerchief with which she had bound up the wound on my head, I looked not unlike a peasant from Valencia, so many of whom came to Seville to sell their chufas[30] orgeat. Then she took me into a house much like Dorothy’s, at the end of a narrow lane. She and another gypsy washed me and dressed my wound better than any surgeon could have done, and gave me something, I don’t know what, to drink; finally, they laid me on a mattress, and I went to sleep.
“Probably those women had mingled with my drink one of those soporific drugs of which they know the secret, for I did not wake until very late the next day. I had a terrible headache and a little fever. It was some time before I remembered the terrible scene in which I had taken part the night before. After dressing my wound, Carmen and her friend, both squatting beside my mattress, exchanged a few words of chipe calli, which seemed to be a medical consultation. Then they united in assuring me that I should soon be cured, but that I must leave Seville at the earliest possible moment; for, if I should be caught, I would inevitably be shot.
“‘My boy,’ said Carmen, ‘you must do something. Now that the king gives you neither rice nor dried fish,[31] you must think about earning your living. You are too stupid to steal à pastesas[32]; but you are strong and active; if you have any pluck, go to the coast and be a smuggler. Haven’t I promised to be the cause of your being hung? That’s better than being shot? However, if you go about it the right way you will live like a prince as long as the miñons[33] and the coast-guards don’t get their hands on your collar.’
“In this engaging way did that diabolical girl point out to me the new career for which she destined me, the only one, to tell the truth, which remained open to me, now that I had incurred the death penalty. Need I tell you, señor? she prevailed upon me without much difficulty. It seemed to me that I should become more closely united to her by that life of perils and of rebellion. Thenceforth I felt that I was sure of her love. I had often heard of a band of smugglers who infested Andalusia, mounted on good horses, blunderbuss in hand, and their mistresses en croupe. I imagined myself trotting over mountain and valley with the pretty gypsy behind me. When I spoke to her about it she laughed until she held her sides, and told me that there was nothing so fine as a night in camp, when every rom retires with his romi under the little tent formed of three hoops with canvas stretched over them.
“‘If I ever have you in the mountains,’ I said to her, ‘I shall be sure of you! There, there are no lieutenants to share with me.’
“‘Oh! you are jealous,’ she replied. ‘So much the worse for you! Are you really stupid enough for that? Don’t you see that I love you, as I have never asked you for money?’
“When she talked like that I felt like strangling her.
“To cut it short, señor, Carmen procured a civilian’s costume for me in which I left Seville without being recognised. I went to Jerez with a letter from Pastia to a dealer in anisette, whose house was a rendezvous for smugglers. There I was presented to those gentry, whose leader, one Dancaïre, took me into his troop. We started for Gaucin, where I found Carmen, who had agreed to meet me there. In our expeditions she served us as a spy, and a better spy there never was. She was returning from Gibraltar and she had already arranged with the master of a vessel to bring a cargo of English goods which we were to receive on the coast. We went to Estepona to wait for it, and concealed a portion in the mountains. Then, laden with the rest, we journeyed to Ronda. Carmen had preceded us thither, and it was she who let us know the opportune moment to enter the town. That first trip and several succeeding ones were fortunate. The smuggler’s life pleased me better than that of a soldier. I made presents to Carmen; I had money and a mistress. I suffered little from remorse, for, as the gypsies say: ‘The scab does not itch when one is enjoying one’s self.’ We were well received everywhere; my companions treated me well, and even showed me much consideration. The reason was that I had killed a man, and there were some among them who had not such an exploit on their consciences. But what appealed to me most strongly in my new life was that I saw Carmen often. She was more affectionate with me than ever; but before our comrades she would not admit that she was my mistress; and she had even made me swear all sorts of oaths never to say anything about her. I was so weak before that creature that I obeyed all her whims. Moreover, it was the first time that she had exhibited herself to me with the reserve of a virtuous woman, and I was simple enough to believe that she had really corrected herself of her former manners.
“Our troop, which consisted of eight or ten men, seldom met except at critical moments; ordinarily we were scattered about by twos and threes, in different towns and villages. Each of us claimed to have a trade; one was a tinker, another a horse-dealer; I was a silk merchant, but I seldom showed my face in the large places because of my unfortunate affair at Seville.
“One day, or rather one night, our rendezvous was at the foot of Veger. Dancaïre and I arrived there before the rest. He seemed in very high spirits.
“‘We are going to have another comrade,’ he said. ‘Carmen has just played one of her best tricks. She has managed the escape of her rom, who was at the presidio at Tarifa.’
“I was already beginning to understand the gypsy tongue, which almost all my comrades spoke, and that word rom gave me a shock.
“‘What’s that? her husband! is she married?’ I asked the captain.
“‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘to Garcia the One-Eyed, a gypsy, as sharp as herself. The poor fellow was at the galleys. Carmen bamboozled the surgeon at the presidio so successfully that she has obtained her rom’s liberty. Ah! that girl is worth her weight in gold. For two years she has been trying to manage his escape. Every scheme failed until they took it into their heads to change surgeons. With the new one she seems to have found a way to come to an understanding very soon.’
“You can imagine the pleasure that that news afforded me. I soon saw Garcia the One-Eyed; he was surely the most loathsome monster that ever gypsydom reared; black of skin, and blacker of heart, he was the most unblushing villain that I have ever met in my life. Carmen came with him; and when she called him her rom in my presence, you should have seen the eyes she made at me and her grimaces when Garcia turned his head. I was angry, and I did not speak to her that night. In the morning we had made up our bales and were already on the march, when we discovered that a dozen horsemen were at our heels. The braggart Andalusians, who talked of nothing but massacring everybody, made a most pitiful show. It was a general save himself who could. Dancaïre, Garcia, a handsome fellow from Ecija whom we called the Remendado, and Carmen, did not lose their heads. The rest had abandoned the mules, and had plunged into the ravines, where horses could not follow them. We could not keep our animals, and we hastily unpacked the best of our booty and loaded it on our shoulders, then tried to escape down the steep slopes of the cliffs. We threw our bundles before us and slid down on our heels after them as best we could. Meanwhile the enemy were peppering us; it was the first time that I had ever heard the whistle of bullets, and it didn’t affect me very much. When one is under the eye of a woman, there is no merit in laughing at death. We escaped, all except the poor Remendado, who received a shot in the loins. I dropped my bundle and tried to carry him.
“‘Fool!’ shouted Garcia, ‘what have we to do with carrion? Finish him and don’t lose the stockings!’
“‘Drop him!’ Carmen called to me.
“Fatigue forced me to place him on the ground a moment, behind a rock. Garcia stepped up and discharged his blunderbuss at his head.
“‘It will be a clever man who will recognise him now,’ he said, glancing at his face, which was torn to shreds by a dozen bullets.
“Such, señor, was the noble life I led. That night we found ourselves in a copse, utterly worn out and ruined by the loss of our mules. What does that infernal Garcia do but pull a pack of cards from his pocket and begin to play with Dancaïre by the light of a fire which they kindled. Meanwhile I had lain down and was gazing at the stars, thinking of the Remendado and saying to myself that I would rather be in his place. Carmen was sitting near me, and from time to time she played with the castanets and sang under her breath. Then, drawing nearer as if to speak to me, she kissed me, almost against my will, two or three times.
“‘You are the devil!’ I said to her.
“‘Yes,’ she replied.
“After a few hours’ rest she started for Gaucin, and the next day a young goatherd brought us food. We remained there the whole day, and at night went in the direction of Gaucin. We expected to hear from Carmen. No one appeared. At daybreak we saw a muleteer conducting a well-dressed woman with a parasol, and a small girl who seemed to be her servant. Garcia said:
“‘Here’s two mules and two women sent to us by Saint Nicholas; I should rather have four mules; but no matter, I’ll make the best of it.’
“He took his blunderbuss and crept down toward the path, keeping out of sight in the underbrush. We followed him, Dancaïre and I, at a short distance. When we were within arm’s length we showed ourselves and called to the muleteer to stop. The woman when she saw us, instead of being frightened—and our costumes were quite enough to frighten her—shouted with laughter.
“‘Ha! ha! the lillipendi, to take me for an erani!’[34]
“It was Carmen, but so perfectly disguised that I should not have recognised her if she had spoken a different tongue. She jumped down from her mule and talked for some time in a low tone with Dancaïre and Garcia, then said to me:
“‘We shall meet again, Canary, before you’re hung. I am going to Gibraltar on business of Egypt. You will hear of me soon.’
“We parted, after she had told us of a place where we could obtain shelter for a few days. That girl was the Providence of our party. We soon received some money which she sent us, and some information which was worth much more to us; it was to the effect that on such a day two English noblemen would leave Gibraltar for Grenoble by such a road. A word to the wise is sufficient. They had a store of good guineas. Garcia wanted to kill them, but Dancaïre and I objected. We took only their money and watches, in addition to their shirts, of which we were in sore need.
“Señor, a man becomes a rascal without thinking of it. A pretty girl steals your wits, you fight for her, an accident happens, you have to live in the mountains, and from a smuggler you become a robber before you know it. We considered that it was not healthy for us in the neighbourhood of Gibraltar, after the affair of the noblemen, and we buried ourselves in the Sierra de Ronda. You once mentioned José Maria to me; well, it was there that I made his acquaintance. He took his mistress on his expeditions. She was a pretty girl, clean and modest and well-mannered; never an indecent word, and such devotion. As a reward, he made her very unhappy. He was always running after women, he maltreated her, and sometimes he took it into his head to pretend to be jealous. Once he struck her with a knife. Well, she loved him all the better for it. Women are made like that, especially the Andalusians. She was proud of the scar she had on her arm, and showed it as the most beautiful thing in the world. And then José Maria was the worst kind of a comrade, to boot. In an expedition that we made together, he managed matters so well that he had all the profit, we all the blows and trouble. But I resume my story. We heard nothing at all from Carmen.
“‘One of us must go to Gibraltar to find out something about her,’ said Dancaïre; ‘she should have arranged some affair for us. I would go, but I am too well known at Gibraltar.’
“The One-Eyed said:
“‘So am I too; everybody knows me there, and I’ve played so many games on the lobsters[35]! and as I have only one eye, I am hard to disguise.’
“‘Shall I go then?’ said I in my turn, overjoyed at the bare thought of seeing Carmen again; ‘tell me, what must I do?’
“The others said to me:
“‘Arrange it so as to go by sea or by San Roque, as you choose; and when you get to Gibraltar, ask at the harbour where a chocolate seller called Rollona lives; when you have found her, you can learn from her what’s going on yonder.’
“It was agreed that we three should go together to the Sierra de Gaucin, where I was to leave my companions and go on to Gibraltar in the guise of a dealer in fruit. At Ronda, a man who was in our pay had procured me a passport; at Gaucin they gave me a donkey; I loaded him with oranges and melons, and started. When I reached Gibraltar, I found that Rollona was well known there, but that she was dead or had gone to the ends of the earth,[36] and her disappearance explained, in my opinion, the loss of our means of correspondence with Carmen. I put my donkey in a stable, and, taking my oranges, I walked about the city as if to sell them, but in reality to see if I could not meet some familiar face. There are quantities of riff-raff there from all the countries on earth, and it is like the Tower of Babel, for you cannot take ten steps on any street without hearing as many different languages. I saw many gypsies, but I hardly dared to trust them; I sounded them and they sounded me. We divined that we were villains; the important point was to know whether we belonged to the same band. After two days of fruitless going to and fro, I had learned nothing concerning Rollona or Carmen, and was thinking of returning to my comrades after making a few purchases, when, as I passed through a street at sunset, I heard a woman’s voice calling to me from a window: ‘Orange-man!’ I looked up and saw Carmen on a balcony, leaning on the rail with an officer in red, gold epaulets, curly hair—the whole outfit of a great noble. She too was dressed magnificently: a shawl over her shoulders, a gold comb, and her dress all silk; and the saucy minx—always the same!—was laughing so that she held her sides. The Englishman called to me in broken Spanish to come up, that the señora wanted some oranges; and Carmen said in Basque:
“‘Come up, and don’t be surprised at anything.’
“In truth nothing was likely to surprise me on her part. I do not know whether I felt more joy or grief at seeing her again. There was a tall English servant with powdered hair, at the door, who ushered me into a gorgeous salon. Carmen instantly said to me in Basque:
“‘You don’t know a word of Spanish; you don’t know me.’ Then, turning to the Englishman: ‘I told you I recognised him at once as a Basque; you will hear what a strange tongue it is. What a stupid look he has, hasn’t he? One would take him for a cat caught in a pantry.’
“‘And you,’ I said to her in my language, ‘have the look of a brazen-faced slut, and I am tempted to slash your face before your lover.’
“‘My lover!’ she said; ‘did you really guess that all by yourself? And you are jealous of this simpleton? You are more of a fool than you were before our evenings in Rue de Candilejo. Don’t you see, blockhead that you are, that I am doing the business of Egypt at this moment, and in the most brilliant fashion too? This house is mine, the lobster’s guineas will be mine; I lead him by the end of the nose, and I will lead him to a place he will never come out of.’
“‘And I,’ I said, ‘if you go on doing the business of Egypt in this way, I will see to it that you won’t do it again.’
“‘Ah! indeed! Are you my rom, to give me orders? The One-Eyed thinks it’s all right, what business is it of yours? Oughtn’t you to be content to be the only man who can say that he’s my minchorrò?’[37]
“‘What does he say?’ asked the Englishman.
“‘He says that he is thirsty and would like to drink a glass,’ Carmen replied.
“And she threw herself on a couch, roaring with laughter at her translation.
“When that girl laughed, señor, it was impossible to talk sense. Everybody laughed with her. The tall Englishman began to laugh too, like the fool that he was, and ordered something to be brought for me to drink.
“While I was drinking:
“‘Do you see that ring he has on his finger?’ she asked me; ‘I will give it to you if you want.’
“I replied:
“‘I would give a finger to have your lord on the mountains, each of us with a maquila in his hand.’
“‘Maquila—what does that mean?’ asked the Englishman.
“‘Maquila,’ said Carmen, still laughing, ‘is an orange. Isn’t that a curious word for orange? He says that he would like to give you some maquila to eat.’
“‘Yes?’ said the Englishman. ‘Well! bring some maquila to-morrow.’
“While we were talking, the servant entered and said that dinner was ready. Thereupon the Englishman rose, gave me a piastre and offered Carmen his arm, as if she could not walk alone. Carmen, still laughing, said to me:
“‘I can’t invite you to dinner, my boy; but to-morrow, as soon as you hear the drums beating for the parade, come here with some oranges. You will find a room better furnished than the one on Rue de Candilejo, and you will see whether I am still your Carmencita. And then we will talk about the business of Egypt.’
“I made no reply, and after I was in the street I heard the Englishman calling after me:
“‘Bring some maquila to-morrow!’ and I heard Carmen’s shouts of laughter.
“I went out, having no idea what I should do. I slept little, and in the morning I found myself so enraged with that traitress that I had resolved to leave Gibraltar without seeing her; but at the first beat of the drum all my courage deserted me; I took my bag of oranges and hurried to Carmen. Her blinds were partly open, and I saw her great black eye watching me. The powdered servant ushered me in at once; Carmen gave him an errand to do, and as soon as we were alone she burst out with one of her shouts of crocodile laughter and threw herself on my neck. I had never seen her so lovely. Arrayed like a Madonna, perfumed—silk-covered furniture, embroidered hangings—ah!—and I, dressed like the highwayman that I was!
“‘Minchorrò!’ said Carmen, ‘I have a mind to smash everything here, to set fire to the house, and fly to the mountains!’
“And such caresses! and such laughter! and she danced, and she tore her falbalas; never did monkey go through more antics, more deviltry, more grimacing. When she had resumed her gravity:
“‘Listen,’ she said, ‘let us talk of Egypt. I want him to take me to Ronda, where I have a sister who’s a nun (a fresh outburst of laughter here). We shall go by a place that I will let you know. Do you fall upon him; strip him clean! The best way would be to finish him; but,’ she added, with a diabolical smile which she assumed at certain times, and no one had any desire to imitate that smile at such times,—‘do you know what you must do? Let the One-Eyed appear first. Do you stay back a little; the lobster is brave and a good shot; he has good pistols. Do you understand?’
“She interrupted herself with a fresh burst of laughter that made me shudder.
“‘No,’ I said, ‘I hate Garcia, but he is my comrade. Some day, perhaps, I will rid you of him, but we will settle our accounts after the fashion of my country. I am a gypsy only by chance; and in certain things I shall always be a downright Navarrese, as the proverb says.’
“She retorted:
“‘You are a blockhead, a fool, a genuine payllo! You are like the dwarf who thinks he’s tall when he can spit a long way. You don’t love me—be off!’
“When she said ‘be off!’ I could not go. I promised to leave Gibraltar, to return to my comrades and wait for the Englishman; she, on her side, promised to be ill until it was time to leave Gibraltar for Ronda. I stayed at Gibraltar two more days. She had the audacity to come to see me at my inn, in disguise. I left the city; I, too, had my plan. I returned to our rendezvous, knowing the place and hour when the Englishman and Carmen were to pass. I found Dancaïre and Garcia waiting for me. We passed the night in a wood beside a fire of pine cones, which blazed finely. I proposed a game of cards to Garcia. He accepted. In the second game I told him he was cheating; he began to laugh. I threw the cards in his face. He tried to take his gun, but I put my foot on it and said to him: ‘They say you can handle a knife like the best jaque in Malaga—will you try it with me?’ Dancaïre tried to separate us. I had struck Garcia two or three times with my fist. Anger made him brave; he drew his knife and I mine. We both told Dancaïre to give us room and a fair field. He saw that there was no way of stopping us, and he walked away. Garcia was bent double, like a cat on the point of springing at a mouse. He held his hat in his left hand to parry, his knife forward. That is the Andalusian guard. I took my stand Navarrese fashion, straight in front of him, with the left arm raised, the left leg forward, and the knife along the right thigh. I felt stronger than a giant. He rushed on me like a flash; I turned on my left foot, and he found nothing in front of him; but I caught him in the throat, and my knife went in so far that my hand was under his chin. I twisted the blade so sharply that it broke. That was the end. The knife came out of the wound, forced by a stream of blood as big as your arm. He fell to the ground as stiff as a stake.
“‘What have you done?’ Dancaïre asked me.
“‘Look you,’ said I; ‘we couldn’t live together. I love Carmen, and I wish to be her only lover. Besides, Garcia was a villain, and I remember what he did to poor Remendado. There are only two of us left, but we are stout fellows. Tell me, do you want me for your friend, in life or death?’
“Dancaïre gave me his hand. He was a man of fifty.
“‘To the devil with love affairs!’ he cried. ‘If you had asked him for Carmen, he’d have sold her to you for a piastre. There’s only two of us now; how shall we manage to-morrow?’
“‘Let me do it all alone,’ I replied. ‘I snap my fingers at the whole world now.’
“We buried Garcia and pitched our camp again two hundred yards away. The next day Carmen and her Englishman passed, with two muleteers and a servant.
“I said to Dancaïre:
“‘I will take care of the Englishman. Frighten the others—they are not armed.’
“The Englishman had pluck. If Carmen had not struck his arm, he would have killed me. To make my story short, I won Carmen back that day, and my first words to her were to tell her that she was a widow. When she learned how it had happened:
“‘You will always be a lillipendi!’ she said. ‘Garcia ought to have killed you. Your Navarrese guard is all folly, and he has put out the light of better men than you. It means that his time had come. Yours will come too.’
“‘And yours,’ I retorted, ‘unless you’re a true romi to me.’
“‘All right,’ said she, ‘I’ve read more than once in coffee grounds that we were to go together. Bah! let what is planted come up!’
“And she rattled her castanets, as she always did when she wished to banish some unpleasant thought.
“We forget ourselves when we are talking about ourselves. All these details tire you, no doubt, but I shall soon be done. The life we were then leading lasted quite a long time. Dancaïre and I associated with ourselves several comrades who were more reliable than the former ones, and we devoted ourselves to smuggling, and sometimes, I must confess, we stopped people on the highroad, but only in the last extremity and when we could not do otherwise. However, we did not maltreat travellers, and we confined ourselves to taking their money. For several months I had no fault to find with Carmen; she continued to make herself useful in our operations, informing us of profitable strokes of business we could do. She stayed sometimes at Malaga, sometimes at Cordova, sometimes at Granada; but at a word from me, she would leave everything and join me at some isolated tavern, or even in our camp. Once only—it was at Malaga—she caused me some anxiety. I knew that she had cast her spell upon a very rich merchant, with whom she probably proposed to repeat the Gibraltar pleasantry. In spite of all that Dancaïre could say, I left him and went to Malaga in broad daylight; I sought Carmen and took her away at once. We had a sharp explanation.
“‘Do you know,’ she said, ‘that since you have been my rom for good and all I love you less than when you were my minchorrò? I don’t choose to be tormented or, above all, to be ordered about! What I want is to be free and to do what I please. Look out that you don’t drive me too far. If you tire me out I will find some good fellow who will serve you as you served the One-Eyed.’
“Dancaïre made peace between us; but we had said things to each other that remained on our minds and we were no longer the same as before. Soon after an accident happened to us. The troops surprised us, Dancaïre was killed, and two more of my comrades; two others were captured. I was seriously wounded and but for my good horse I should have fallen into the soldiers’ hands. Worn out with fatigue, and with a bullet in my body, I hid in some woods with the only comrade I had left. I fainted when I dismounted, and I thought that I was going to die in the underbrush like a wounded rabbit. My comrade carried me to a cave that we knew, then he went in search of Carmen. She was at Granada, and she instantly came to me. For a fortnight she did not leave me a moment. She did not close an eye; she nursed me with a skill and attention which no woman ever showed for the man she loved best. As soon as I could stand she took me to Granada with the utmost secrecy. Gypsies find sure places of refuge everywhere, and I passed more than six weeks in a house within two doors of the corregidor who was looking for me. More than once as I looked out from behind a shutter I saw him pass. At last I was cured; but I had reflected deeply on my bed of pain and I proposed to change my mode of life. I spoke to Carmen of leaving Spain and of seeking an honest livelihood in the New World. She laughed at me.
“‘We were not made to plant cabbages,’ said she; ‘our destiny is to live at the expense of the payllos. Look you, I have arranged an affair with Nathan Ben-Joseph of Gibraltar. He has some cotton stuffs that are only waiting for you, to pass the frontier. He knows that you are alive. He is counting on you. What would our Gibraltar correspondents say if you should go back on your word?’
“I allowed her to persuade me and I resumed my wretched trade.
“While I was in hiding in Granada there were some bull-fights which Carmen attended. When she returned she had much to say of a very skilful picador named Lucas. She knew the name of his horse and how much his embroidered jacket cost. I paid no attention to it. Juanito, my last remaining comrade, told me some days later that he had seen Carmen with Lucas in a shop on the Zacatin. That began to disturb me. I asked Carmen how and why she had made the picador’s acquaintance.
“‘He’s a fellow with whom one can do business,’ she said. ‘A river that makes a noise has either water or stones. He won twelve hundred reals in the bull-fights. One of two things must happen: either we must have that money, or else, as he’s a good rider and a fellow of good pluck, we must take him into our band. Such a one and such a one are dead and you need some one in their places. Take him.’
“‘I don’t want either his money or his person,’ I said, ‘and I forbid you to speak to him.’
“‘Beware!’ said she, ‘when any one defies me to do a thing it’s soon done!’
“Luckily the picador left for Malaga, and I turned my attention to bringing in the Jew’s bales of cotton. I had a great deal to do in that affair, and so did Carmen; and I forgot Lucas; perhaps she forgot him, too, for the moment at least. It was about that time, señor, that I met you, first near Montilla, then at Cordova. I will say nothing about our last interview. Perhaps you remember it better than I do. Carmen stole your watch; she wanted your money, too, and above all, that ring that I see on your finger, which, she said, was a magnificent ring, which it was most important for her to own. We had a violent quarrel, and I struck her. She turned pale and shed tears, and that produced a terrible effect on me. I asked her to forgive me, but she sulked a whole day, and, when I started to return to Montilla, she refused to kiss me. My heart was very heavy, when, three days later, she came to see me with a laughing face and gay as a lark. Everything was forgotten, and we were like lovers of two days’ standing. At the moment of parting, she said to me:
“‘There’s to be a fête at Cordova; I am going to it, and I shall find out what people are going away with money and let you know.’
“I let her go. When I was alone, I mused upon that fête and upon Carmen’s change of humour. ‘She must have had her revenge already,’ I thought, ‘as she was the first to make advances.’ A peasant told me that there were bulls at Cordova. My blood began to boil, and like a madman, I started for the city and went to the public square. Lucas was pointed out to me, and on the bench next to the barrier, I recognised Carmen. A single glance at her was enough to satisfy me. Lucas, when the first bull appeared, played the gallant, as I had foreseen. He tore the cockade[38] from the bull and carried it to Carmen, who instantly put it in her hair. The bull took it upon himself to avenge me. Lucas was thrown down, with his horse across his chest and the bull on top of them both. I looked for Carmen; she was no longer in her seat. It was impossible for me to leave the place where I was, and I was compelled to wait until the end of the sports. Then I went to the house that you know, and I lay in wait there all the evening and part of the night. About two o’clock Carmen returned, and was rather surprised to see me.
“‘Come with me,’ I said to her.
“‘All right!’ said she; ‘let us go.’
“I went for my horse and took her behind me, and we rode all the rest of the night without exchanging a word. At daybreak we stopped at a lonely venta, near a little hermitage. There I said to Carmen:
“‘Listen; I will forget everything; I will never say a word to you about anything that has happened; but promise me one thing—that you will go to America with me and remain quietly there.’
“‘No,’ she said, sullenly, ‘I don’t want to go to America. I am very well off here.’
“‘That is because you are near Lucas; but understand this, if he recovers, he won’t live to have old bones. But, after all, why should I be angry with him? I am tired of killing all your lovers; you are the one I will kill.’
“She looked earnestly at me with that savage look of hers, and said:
“‘I have always thought that you would kill me. The first time I saw you, I had just met a priest at the door of my house. And that night when we left Cordova, didn’t you see anything? A hare crossed the road between your horse’s feet. It is written.’
“‘Carmen, don’t you love me any more?’ I asked her.
“She made no reply. She was seated with her legs crossed, on a mat, and making figures on the ground with her finger.
“‘Let us change our mode of life, Carmen,’ I said to her in suppliant tone. ‘Let us go somewhere to live where we shall never be parted. You know, we have a hundred and twenty ounces buried under an oak, not far from here. Then, too, we have funds in the Jew Ben-Joseph’s hands.’
“She smiled and said:
“‘Me first, then you. I know that it is bound to happen so.’
“‘Reflect,’ I continued; ‘I am at the end of my patience and my courage; make up your mind, or I shall make up mine.’
“I left her and walked in the direction of the hermitage. I found the hermit praying. I waited until his prayer was at an end; I would have liked to pray, but I could not. When he rose I went to him.
“‘Father,’ I said, ‘will you say a prayer for some one who is in great danger?’
“‘I pray for all who are afflicted,’ he said.
“‘Can you say a mass for a soul which perhaps is soon to appear before its Creator?’
“‘Yes,’ he replied, gazing fixedly at me.
“And, as there was something strange in my manner, he tried to make me talk.
“‘It seems to me that I have seen you before,’ he said.
“I placed a piastre on his bench.
“‘When will you say the mass?’ I asked.
“‘In half an hour. The son of the innkeeper yonder will come soon to serve it. Tell me, young man, have you not something on your conscience which torments you? Will you listen to the advice of a Christian?’
“I felt that I was on the point of weeping. I told him that I would come again, and I hurried away. I lay down on the grass until I heard the bell ring. Then I returned, but I remained outside the chapel. When the mass was said, I returned to the venta. I hoped that Carmen would have fled—she might have taken my horse and made her escape—but I found her there. She did not propose that any one should say that I had frightened her. During my absence she had ripped the hem of her dress, to take out the lead. Now she was standing by a table, watching the lead, which she had melted and had just thrown into a bowl filled with water. She was so engrossed by her magic that she did not notice my return at first. At one moment she would take up a piece of lead and turn it in every direction with a melancholy air; then she would sing one of those ballads of magic in which they invoke Maria Padilla, Don Pedro’s mistress, who, they say, was the Bari Crallisa, or the great queen of the gypsies.[39]
“‘Carmen,’ I said, ‘will you come with me?’
“She rose, pushed her bowl away, and put her mantilla over her head, as if ready to start. My horse was brought, she mounted behind me, and we rode away.
“‘So, my Carmen,’ I said, after we had ridden a little way, ‘you will go with me, won’t you?’
“‘I will go with you to death, yes, but I won’t live with you any more.’
“We were in a deserted ravine; I stopped my horse.
“‘Is this the place?’ she said.
“And with one spring she was on the ground. She took off her mantilla, dropped it at her feet, and stood perfectly still, with one hand on her hip, looking me in the eye.
“‘You mean to kill me, I can see that,’ she said; ‘it is written, but you will not make me yield.’
“‘Be reasonable, I beg,’ I said to her. ‘Listen to me. All of the past is forgotten. However, as you know, it was you who ruined me; it was for your sake that I became a robber and a murderer. Carmen! my Carmen! let me save you and myself with you.’
“‘José,’ she replied, ‘you ask something that is impossible. I no longer love you; you do still love me, and that is the reason you intend to kill me. I could easily tell you some lie; but I don’t choose to take the trouble. All is over between us. As my rom, you have a right to kill your romi; but Carmen will always be free. Calli she was born, calli she will die.’
“‘Then you love Lucas?’ I demanded.
“‘Yes, I did love him, as I loved you, for a moment—but less than I loved you, I think. Now, I love nobody, and I hate myself for having loved you.’
“I threw myself at her feet, I took her hands, I drenched them with my tears. I reminded her of all the blissful moments we had passed together. I offered to remain a brigand to please her. Everything, señor, everything; I offered her everything, if only she would love me again.
“She said to me:
“‘To love you again is impossible. I will not live with you.’
“Frenzy took possession of me. I drew my knife. I would have liked her to show some fear and to beg for mercy, but that woman was a demon.
“‘For the last time,’ I cried, ‘will you stay with me?’
“‘No! no! no!’ she replied, stamping the ground with her foot.
“And she took from her finger a ring I had given her and threw it into the underbrush.
“I struck her twice. It was the One-Eyed’s knife, which I had taken, having broken my own. She fell at the second stroke, without a sound. I fancy that I still see her great black eye gazing at me; then it grew dim and closed. I remained utterly crushed beside that corpse for a long hour. Then I remembered that Carmen had often told me that she would like to be buried in a wood. I dug a grave with my knife and laid her in it. I hunted a long while for her ring and found it at last. I placed it in the grave with her, also a small crucifix. Perhaps I did wrong. Then I mounted my horse, galloped to Cordova, and gave myself up at the first guard-house. I said that I had killed Carmen, but I have refused to tell where her body is. The hermit was a holy man. He prayed for her! He said a mass for her soul. Poor child! The Cales are guilty, for bringing her up so.”
IV
Spain is one of those countries where we find to-day in the greatest numbers those nomads who are scattered over all Europe, and are known by the names of Bohemians, Gitanos, Gypsies, Zigeuner, etc. Most of them live, or rather lead a wandering existence, in the provinces of the south and east, in Andalusia, Estremadura, and the kingdom of Murcia; there are many in Catalonia. These latter often cross the frontier into France. They are to be seen at all the fairs in the Midi. Ordinarily the men carry on the trades of horse-dealer, veterinary, and clipper of mules; they combine therewith the industry of mending kettles and copper implements, to say nothing of smuggling and other illicit traffic. The women tell fortunes, beg, and sell all sorts of drugs, innocent or not.
The physical characteristics of the gypsy are easier to distinguish than to describe, and when you have seen a single one, you can readily pick out a person of that race from a thousand others. Features and expression—these above all else separate them from the natives of the countries where they are found. Their complexion is very dark, always darker than that of the peoples among whom they live. Hence the name Cale—black—by which they often refer to themselves. Their eyes, which are perceptibly oblique, well-shaped, and very black, are shaded by long, thick lashes. One can compare their look to nothing save that of a wild beast. Audacity and timidity are depicted therein at once, and in that respect their eyes express accurately enough the character of the race—crafty, insolent, but naturally afraid of blows, like Panurge. As a general rule, the men are well-knit, slender, and active; I believe that I have never seen a single one overburdened with flesh. In Germany, the gypsy women are often very pretty; beauty is very rare among the gitanas of Spain. When they are very young, they may pass for rather attractive ugly women; but when they have once become mothers, they are repulsive. The uncleanliness of both sexes is beyond belief, and one who has never seen the hair of a gypsy matron would find it hard to form an idea of it, even by imagining it as like the coarsest, greasiest, dustiest horsehair. In some large cities of Andalusia, some of the girls who are a little more attractive than the rest take more care of their persons. They go about dancing for money—dances very like those which are forbidden at our (Parisian) public balls during the Carnival. M. Borrow, an English missionary, the author of two very interesting works on the gypsies of Spain, whom he had undertaken to convert at the expense of the Bible Society, asserts that there is no known instance of a gitana having a weakness for a man not of her race. It seems to me that there is much exaggeration in the eulogium which he bestows on their chastity. In the first place, the great majority of them are in the plight of Ovid’s ugly woman: Casta quam nemo rogavit. As for the pretty ones, they are, like all Spanish women, exacting in the choice of their lovers. A man must please them and deserve them. M. Borrow cites as a proof of their virtue an instance which does honour to his own virtue, and above all to his innocence. An immoral man of his acquaintance, he says, offered several ounces of gold to a pretty gitana, to no purpose. An Andalusian to whom I told this anecdote declared that that same immoral man would have had better luck if he had shown only two or three piastres, and that to offer ounces of gold to a gypsy was as poor a way to persuade her as to promise a million or two to a servant girl at an inn. However that may be, it is certain that the gitanas display a most extraordinary devotion to their husbands. There is no peril or privation which they will not defy, in order to assist them in their need. One of the names by which the gypsies call themselves—romi or spouses—seems to me to bear witness to the respect of the race for the marriage state. In general, we may say that their principal virtue is patriotism, if we may call by that name the fidelity which they observe in their relations with persons of the same origin as themselves, the zeal with which they help one another, and the inviolable secrecy which they maintain in respect to compromising affairs. Indeed, we may remark something similar in all associations that are shrouded in mystery and are outside of the law.
A few months ago, I visited a tribe of gypsies settled in the Vosges. In the cabin of an old woman, the patriarch of the tribe, there was a gypsy unknown to her family, suffering from a fatal disease. That man had left a hospital, where he was well cared for, to die among his compatriots. For thirteen weeks he had been in bed in the cabin of his hosts, and much better treated than the sons and sons-in-law who lived in the same house. He had a comfortable bed of straw and moss, with reasonably white sheets, whereas the rest of the family, to the number of eleven, slept on boards three feet long. So much for their hospitality. The same woman who was so humane to her guest said in his presence: “Singo, singo, homte hi mulo.” “Before long, before long, he must die.” After all, the life of those people is so wretched that the certainty of death has no terrors for them.
A remarkable feature of the gypsy character is their indifference in the matter of religion. Not that they are atheists or skeptics. They have never made profession of atheism. Far from that, they adopt the religion of the country in which they live; but they change when they change countries. The superstitions which among ignorant peoples replace religious sentiments are equally foreign to them. Indeed, how could superstition exist among people who, in most cases, live on the credulity of others! I have observed, however, among Spanish gypsies, a strange horror at the thought of touching a dead body. There are few of them whom money could hire to carry a corpse to the cemetery.
I have said that most gypsy women dabble in fortune-telling. They are very skillful at it. But another thing that is a source of very great profit to them is the sale of charms and love-philtres. Not only do they keep frogs’ feet to fix fickle hearts, or powdered lodestone to force the unfeeling to love; but at need they make potent conjurations which compel the devil to lend them his aid. Last year a Spanish woman told me the following story: She was passing one day along Rue d’Alcala, sad and distraught, when a gypsy sitting on the sidewalk called after her: “Your lover has been false to you, fair lady.”—It was the truth.—“Do you want me to bring him back?”—You will imagine how joyfully the offer was accepted, and what unbounded confidence was naturally inspired by a person who could thus divine at a glance the inmost secrets of the heart. As it would have been impossible to proceed to magic rites in the most frequented street in Madrid, they made an appointment for the morrow.—“Nothing easier than to bring the unfaithful one back to your feet,” said the gitana. “Have you a handkerchief, a scarf, or a mantilla that he has given you?”—The lady gave her a silk handkerchief.—“Now sew a piastre into a corner of it, with crimson silk; half a piastre into another; a piecette here; a two real piece here. Then you must sew a gold piece in the centre; a doubloon would be best.”—The doubloon and the rest were duly sewn into the handkerchief.—“Now, give it to me; I will take it to the Campo-Santo when the clock strikes twelve. Come with me, if you want to see some fine deviltry. I promise you that you will see the man you love to-morrow.”—The gypsy started alone for the Campo-Santo, for the lady was too much afraid of the devils to accompany her. I leave you to guess whether the poor love-lorn creature saw her handkerchief or her faithless lover again.
Despite their poverty and the sort of aversion which they inspire, the gypsies enjoy a certain consideration none the less among unenlightened peoples, and they are very proud of it. They feel a haughty contempt for intelligence, and cordially despise the people who give them hospitality. “The Gentiles are such fools,” said a gypsy of the Vosges to me one day, “that there’s no merit in tricking them. The other day a peasant woman called to me on the street, and I went into her house. Her stove was smoking, and she asked me for a spell, to make it burn. I told her to give me first of all a big piece of pork. Then I mumbled a few words in rommani. ‘You are a fool,’ I said, ‘you were born a fool, a fool you will die.’—When I was at the door, I said to her in good German: ‘The infallible way to keep your stove from smoking is not to make any fire in it.’—And I ran off at full speed.”
The history of the gypsies is still a problem. To be sure, we know that the first bands of them, very small in numbers, showed themselves in the east of Europe early in the fifteenth century; but no one can say whence they came to Europe, or why; and, which is more extraordinary, we have no idea how they multiplied so prodigiously, in a short time, in several countries at a great distance from one another. The gypsies themselves have preserved no tradition concerning their origin, and, although most of them speak of Egypt as their original fatherland, it is because they have adopted a fable that was spread abroad concerning them many, many years ago.
Most Orientalists who have studied the gypsy language believe that they came originally from India. In fact, it seems that a great number of the roots of the rommani tongue and many of its grammatical forms are found in phrases derived from the Sanskrit. We can understand that, in their long wanderings, the gypsies may have adopted many foreign words. In all the dialects of the rommani, we find many Greek words. For example: cocal, bone, from κόκκαλον; petalli, horseshoe, from πέταλον; cafi, nail, from καρφί, etc. To-day, the gypsies have almost as many different dialects as there are bands of their race living apart from one another. Everywhere they speak the language of the country in which they live more readily than their own, which they seldom use except as a means of speaking freely before strangers. If we compare the dialect of the gypsies of Germany with that of the Spaniards, who have had no communication with the former for centuries, we discover a very great number of words common to the two; but the original tongue has been noticeably modified everywhere, although in different degrees, by the contact with the more cultivated tongues, which these nomads have been constrained to employ. German on the one side, Spanish on the other, have so modified the substance of the rommani that it would be impossible for a gypsy of the Black Forest to converse with one of his Andalusian brethren, although they need only exchange a few sentences to realise that each of them is speaking a dialect derived from the same parent tongue. A few words in very frequent use are common, I believe, to all dialects; for instance, in all the vocabularies which I have had an opportunity to see, pani means water, manro, bread, mas, meat, and lon, salt.
The names of the numbers are almost the same everywhere. The German dialect seems to me much purer than the Spanish; for it has retained a number of the primitive grammatical forms, while the gitanos have adopted those of the Castilian tongue. A few words, however, are exceptions to this rule and attest the former community of the dialects. The preterit tenses in the German dialect are formed by adding ium to the imperative, which is always the root of the verb. The verbs in the Spanish rommani are all conjugated like Castilian verbs of the first conjugation. From the infinitive jamar, to eat, they regularly make jamé, I have eaten; from lillar, to take, lillé, I have taken. But some old gypsies say, on the other hand, jayon, lillon. I know no other verbs which have retained this ancient form.
While I am thus parading my slight acquaintance with the rommani tongue, I must note a few words of French argot, which our thieves have borrowed from the gypsies. The Mystères de Paris has taught good society that chourin means knife. The word is pure rommani; tchouri is one of the words common to all the dialects. M. Vidocq calls a horse grès—that is another rommani word—gras, gre, graste, gris. Add the word romanichel, which in Parisian slang means gypsies. It is a corruption of rommane tchave, gypsy youths. But an etymology of which I am proud is that of frimousse, expression, face—a word which all schoolboys use, or did use in my day. Observe first that Oudin, in his curious dictionary, wrote in 1640 firlimouse. Now, firla, fila, in rommani means face; mui has the same meaning, it exactly corresponds to the Latin os. The combination firlamui was instantly understood by a gypsy purist, and I believe it to be in conformity with the genius of his language.
This is quite enough to give the readers of Carmen a favourable idea of my studies in rommani. I will close with this proverb, which is quite apropos: En retudi panda nasti abela macha—“a fly cannot enter a closed mouth.”