Carmen (6 page)

“ ‘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 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.
^r
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
^s
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,
^t
you must think about earning your living. You are too stupid to steal
à pastesas
;
^u
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
^v
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.