Carmen — Chapter III, Part 5
“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?
’
