Carmen — Chapter III, Part 2
“As she spoke, she drew back the bar that closed the door, and once we were out in the street she wrapped her mantilla about her, and turned on her heel.
“She spoke the truth.
I should have done far better never to think of her again.
But after that day in the _Calle del Candilejo_ I couldn’t think of anything else.
All day long I used to walk about, hoping I might meet her.
I sought news of her from the old hag, and from the fried-fish seller.
They both told me she had gone away to _Laloro_, which is their name for Portugal.
They probably said it by Carmen’s orders, but I soon found out they were lying.
Some weeks after my day in the _Calle del Candilejo_ I was on duty at one of the town gates.
A
little way from the gate there was a breach in the wall.
The masons were working at it in the daytime, and at night a sentinel was posted on it, to prevent smugglers from getting in.
All through one day I saw Lillas Pastia going backward and forward near the guard-room, and talking to some of my comrades.
They all knew him well, and his fried-fish and fritters even better.
He came up to me, and asked if I had any news of Carmen.
“‘No,’ said I. “‘Well,’ said he, ‘you’ll soon hear of her, old fellow.
’ “He was not mistaken.
That night I was posted to guard the breach in the wall.
As soon as the sergeant had disappeared I saw a woman coming toward me.
My heart told me it was Carmen.
Still I shouted: “‘Keep off!
Nobody can pass here!
’ “‘Now, don’t be spiteful,’ she said, making herself known to me.
“‘What!
you here, Carmen?
’ “‘Yes, _mi payllo_.
Let us say few words, but wise ones.
Would you like to earn a douro?
Some people will be coming with bundles.
Let them alone.
’ “‘No,’ said I, ‘I must not allow them through.
These are my orders.
’ “‘Orders!
orders!
You didn’t think about orders in the _Calle del Candilejo_!
’ “‘Ah!
’ I cried, quite maddened by the very thought of that night.
‘It was well worth while to forget my orders for that!
But I won’t have any smuggler’s money!
’ “‘Well, if you won’t have money, shall we go and dine together at old Dorotea’s?
’ “‘No,’ said I, half choked by the effort it cost me.
‘No, I can’t. ’ “‘Very good!
If you make so many difficulties, I know to whom I can go.
I’ll ask your officer if he’ll come with me to Dorotea’s. He looks good-natured, and he’ll post a sentry who’ll only see what he had better see.
Good-bye, canary-bird!
I shall have a good laugh the day the order comes out to hang you!
’ “I was weak enough to call her back, and I promised to let the whole of gipsydom pass in, if that were necessary, so that I secured the only reward I longed for.
She instantly swore she would keep her word faithfully the very next day, and ran off to summon her friends, who were close by.
There were five of them, of whom Pastia was one, all well loaded with English goods.
Carmen kept watch for them.
She was to warn them with her castanets the instant she caught sight of the patrol.
But there was no necessity for that.
The smugglers finished their job in a moment.
“The next day I went to the _Calle del Candilejo_.
Carmen kept me waiting, and when she came, she was in rather a bad temper.
“‘I don’t like people who have to be pressed,’ she said.
‘You did me a much greater service the first time, without knowing you’d gain anything by it.
Yesterday you bargained with me.
I don’t know why I’ve come, for I don’t care for you any more.
Here, be off with you.
Here’s a douro for your trouble.
’ “I very nearly threw the coin at her head, and I had to make a violent effort to prevent myself from actually beating her.
After we had wrangled for an hour I went off in a fury.
For some time I wandered about the town, walking hither and thither like a madman.
At last I went into a church, and getting into the darkest corner I could find, I cried hot tears.
All at once I heard a voice.
“‘A dragoon in tears.
I’ll make a philter of them!
’ “I looked up.
There was Carmen in front of me.
“‘Well, _mi payllo_, are you still angry with me?
’ she said.
‘I must care for you in spite of myself, for since you left me I don’t know what has been the matter with me.
Look you, it is I who ask you to come to the _Calle del Candilejo_, now!
’ “So we made it up: but Carmen’s temper was like the weather in our country.
The storm is never so close, in our mountains, as when the sun is at its brightest.
She had promised to meet me again at Dorotea’s, but she didn’t come.
“And Dorotea began telling me again that she had gone off to Portugal about some gipsy business.
“As experience had already taught me how much of that I was to believe, I went about looking for Carmen wherever I thought she might be, and twenty times in every day I walked through the _Calle del Candilejo_.
One evening I was with Dorotea, whom I had almost tamed by giving her a glass of anisette now and then, when Carmen walked in, followed by a young man, a lieutenant in our regiment.
“‘Get away at once,’ she said to me in Basque.
I stood there, dumfounded, my heart full of rage.
“‘What are you doing here?
’ said the lieutenant to me.
‘Take yourself off--get out of this.
’ “I couldn’t move a step.
I felt paralyzed.
The officer grew angry, and seeing I did not go out, and had not even taken off my forage cap, he caught me by the collar and shook me roughly.
I don’t know what I said to him.
He drew his sword, and I unsheathed mine.
The old woman caught hold of my arm, and the lieutenant gave me a wound on the forehead, of which I still bear the scar.
I made a step backward, and with one jerk of my elbow I threw old Dorotea down.
Then, as the lieutenant still pressed me, I turned the point of my sword against his body and he ran upon it.
Then Carmen put out the lamp and told Dorotea, in her own language, to take to flight.
I fled into the street myself, and began running along, I knew not whither.
It seemed to me that some one was following me.
When I came to myself I discovered that Carmen had never left me.
“‘Great stupid of a canary-bird!
’ she said, ‘you never make anything but blunders.
And, indeed, you know I told you I should bring you bad luck.
But come, there’s a cure for everything when you have a Fleming from Rome* for your love.
Begin by rolling this handkerchief round your head, and throw me over that belt of yours.
Wait for me in this alley--I’ll be back in two minutes.
* _Flamenco de Roma_, a slang term for the gipsies.
Roma does not stand for the Eternal City, but for the nation of the _romi_, or the married folk--a name applied by the gipsies to themselves.
The first gipsies seen in Spain probably came from the Low Countries, hence their name of _Flemings_.
“She disappeared, and soon came back bringing me a striped cloak which she had gone to fetch, I knew not whence.
She made me take off my uniform, and put on the cloak over my shirt.
Thus dressed, and with the wound on my head bound round with the handkerchief, I was tolerably like a Valencian peasant, many of whom come to Seville to sell a drink they make out of ‘_chufas_.
’* Then she took me to a house very much like Dorotea’s, at the bottom of a little lane.
Here she and another gipsy woman washed and dressed my wounds, better than any army surgeon could have done, gave me something, I know not what, to drink, and finally made me lie down on a mattress, on which I went to sleep.
* A bulbous root, out of which rather a pleasant beverage is manufactured.
“Probably the woman had mixed one of the soporific drugs of which they know the secret in my drink, for I did not wake up till very late the next day.
I was rather feverish, and had a violent headache.
It was some time before the memory of the terrible scene in which I had taken part on the previous night came back to me.
After having dressed my wound, Carmen and her friend, squatting on their heels beside my mattress, exchanged a few words of ‘_chipe calli_,’ which appeared to me to be something in the nature of a medical consultation.
Then they both of them assured me that I should soon be cured, but that I must get out of Seville at the earliest possible moment, for that, if I was caught there, I should most undoubtedly be shot.
“‘My boy,’ said Carmen to me, ‘you’ll have to do something.
Now that the king won’t give you either rice or haddock* you’ll have to think of earning your livelihood.
You’re too stupid for stealing _a pastesas_.
** But you are brave and active.
If you have the pluck, take yourself off to the coast and turn smuggler.
Haven’t I promised to get you hanged?
That’s better than being shot, and besides, if you set about it properly, you’ll live like a prince as long as the _minons_*** and the coast-guard don’t lay their hands on your collar.
’ * The ordinary food of a Spanish soldier.
** _Ustilar a pastesas_, to steal cleverly, to purloin without violence.
*** A sort of volunteer corps.
“In this attractive guise did this fiend of a girl describe the new career she was suggesting to me,--the only one, indeed, remaining, now I had incurred the penalty of death.
Shall I confess it, sir?
She persuaded me without much difficulty.
This wild and dangerous life, it seemed to me, would bind her and me more closely together.
In future, I thought, I should be able to make sure of her love.
“I had often heard talk of certain smugglers who travelled about Andalusia, each riding a good horse, with his mistress behind him and his blunderbuss in his fist.
Already I saw myself trotting up and down the world, with a pretty gipsy behind me.
When I mentioned that notion to her, she laughed till she had to hold her sides, and vowed there was nothing in the world so delightful as a night spent camping in the open air, when each _rom_ retired with his _romi_ beneath their little tent, made of three hoops with a blanket thrown across them.
“‘If I take to the mountains,’ said I to her, ‘I shall be sure of you.
There’ll be no lieutenant there to go shares with me.
’ “‘Ha!
ha!
you’re jealous!
’ she retorted, ‘so much the worse for you.
How can you be such a fool as that?
Don’t you see I must love you, because I have never asked you for money?
’
