Carmen

"Is it really gold?" she said, gazing at it with rapt attention.

When we started off again, it was quite dark. Most of the shops were shut, and the streets were almost empty. We crossed the bridge over the Guadalquivir, and at the far end of the suburb we stopped in front of a house of anything but palatial appearance. The door was opened by a child, to whom the gipsy spoke a few words in a language unknown to me, which I afterward understood to be _Romany_, or _chipe calli_--the gipsy idiom. The child instantly disappeared, leaving us in sole possession of a tolerably s.p.a.cious room, furnished with a small table, two stools, and a chest. I must not forget to mention a jar of water, a pile of oranges, and a bunch of onions.

As soon as we were left alone, the gipsy produced, out of her chest, a pack of cards, bearing signs of constant usage, a magnet, a dried chameleon, and a few other indispensable adjuncts of her art. Then she bade me cross my left hand with a silver coin, and the magic ceremonies duly began. It is unnecessary to chronicle her predictions, and as for the style of her performance, it proved her to be no mean sorceress.

Unluckily we were soon disturbed. The door was suddenly burst open, and a man, shrouded to the eyes in a brown cloak, entered the room, apostrophizing the gipsy in anything but gentle terms. What he said I could not catch, but the tone of his voice revealed the fact that he was in a very evil temper. The gipsy betrayed neither surprise nor anger at his advent, but she ran to meet him, and with a most striking volubility, she poured out several sentences in the mysterious language she had already used in my presence. The word _payllo_, frequently reiterated, was the only one I understood. I knew that the gipsies use it to describe all men not of their own race. Concluding myself to be the subject of this discourse, I was prepared for a somewhat delicate explanation. I had already laid my hand on the leg of one of the stools, and was studying within myself to discover the exact moment at which I had better throw it at his head, when, roughly pushing the gipsy to one side, the man advanced toward me. Then with a step backward he cried:

"What, sir! Is it you?"

I looked at him in my turn and recognised my friend Don Jose. At that moment I did feel rather sorry I had saved him from the gallows.

"What, is it you, my good fellow?" I exclaimed, with as easy a smile as I could muster. "You have interrupted this young lady just when she was foretelling me most interesting things!"

"The same as ever. There shall be an end to it!" he hissed between his teeth, with a savage glance at her.

Meanwhile the _gitana_ was still talking to him in her own tongue. She became more and more excited. Her eyes grew fierce and bloodshot, her features contracted, she stamped her foot. She seemed to me to be earnestly pressing him to do something he was unwilling to do. What this was I fancied I understood only too well, by the fashion in which she kept drawing her little hand backward and forward under her chin. I was inclined to think she wanted to have somebody"s throat cut, and I had a fair suspicion the throat in question was my own. To all her torrent of eloquence Don Jose"s only reply was two or three shortly spoken words.

At this the gipsy cast a glance of the most utter scorn at him, then, seating herself Turkish-fashion in a corner of the room, she picked out an orange, tore off the skin, and began to eat it.

Don Jose took hold of my arm, opened the door, and led me into the street. We walked some two hundred paces in the deepest silence. Then he stretched out his hand.

"Go straight on," he said, "and you"ll come to the bridge."

That instant he turned his back on me and departed at a great pace. I took my way back to my inn, rather crestfallen, and considerably out of temper. The worst of all was that, when I undressed, I discovered my watch was missing.

Various considerations prevented me from going to claim it next day, or requesting the _Corregidor_ to be good enough to have a search made for it. I finished my work on the Dominican ma.n.u.script, and went on to Seville. After several months spent wandering hither and thither in Andalusia, I wanted to get back to Madrid, and with that object I had to pa.s.s through Cordova. I had no intention of making any stay there, for I had taken a dislike to that fair city, and to the ladies who bathed in the Guadalquivir. Nevertheless, I had some visits to pay, and certain errands to do, which must detain me several days in the old capital of the Mussulman princes.

The moment I made my appearance in the Dominican convent, one of the monks, who had always shown the most lively interest in my inquiries as to the site of the battlefield of Munda, welcomed me with open arms, exclaiming:

"Praised be G.o.d! You are welcome! My dear friend. We all thought you were dead, and I myself have said many a _pater_ and _ave_ (not that I regret them!) for your soul. Then you weren"t murdered, after all? That you were robbed, we know!"

"What do you mean?" I asked, rather astonished.

"Oh, you know! That splendid repeater you used to strike in the library whenever we said it was time for us to go into church. Well, it has been found, and you"ll get it back."

"Why," I broke in, rather put out of countenance, "I lost it--"

"The rascal"s under lock and key, and as he was known to be a man who would shoot any Christian for the sake of a _peseta_, we were most dreadfully afraid he had killed you. I"ll go with you to the _Corregidor_, and he"ll give you back your fine watch. And after that, you won"t dare to say the law doesn"t do its work properly in Spain."

"I a.s.sure you," said I, "I"d far rather lose my watch than have to give evidence in court to hang a poor unlucky devil, and especially because--because----"

"Oh, you needn"t be alarmed! He"s thoroughly done for; they might hang him twice over. But when I say hang, I say wrong. Your thief is an _Hidalgo_. So he"s to be garrotted the day after to-morrow, without fail.* So you see one theft more or less won"t affect his position.

Would to G.o.d he had done nothing but steal! But he has committed several murders, one more hideous than the other."

* In 1830, the n.o.ble cla.s.s still enjoyed this privilege.

Nowadays, under the const.i.tutional _regime_, commoners have attained the same dignity.

"What"s his name?"

"In this country he is only known as Jose Navarro, but he has another Basque name, which neither your nor I will ever be able to p.r.o.nounce.

By the way, the man is worth seeing, and you, who like to study the peculiar features of each country, shouldn"t lose this chance of noting how a rascal bids farewell to this world in Spain. He is in jail, and Father Martinez will take you to him."

So bent was my Dominican friend on my seeing the preparations for this "neat little hanging job" that I was fain to agree. I went to see the prisoner, having provided myself with a bundle of cigars, which I hoped might induce him to forgive my intrusion.

I was ushered into Don Jose"s presence just as he was sitting at table.

He greeted me with a rather distant nod, and thanked me civilly for the present I had brought him. Having counted the cigars in the bundle I had placed in his hand, he took out a certain number and returned me the rest, remarking that he would not need any more of them.

I inquired whether by laying out a little money, or by applying to my friends, I might not be able to do something to soften his lot. He shrugged his shoulders, to begin with, smiling sadly. Soon, as by an after-thought, he asked me to have a ma.s.s said for the repose of his soul.

Then he added nervously: "Would you--would you have another said for a person who did you a wrong?"

"a.s.suredly I will, my dear fellow," I answered. "But no one in this country has wronged me so far as I know."

He took my hand and squeezed it, looking very grave. After a moment"s silence, he spoke again.

"Might I dare to ask another service of you? When you go back to your own country perhaps you will pa.s.s through Navarre. At all events you"ll go by Vittoria, which isn"t very far off."

"Yes," said I, "I shall certainly pa.s.s through Vittoria. But I may very possibly go round by Pampeluna, and for your sake, I believe I should be very glad to do it."

"Well, if you do go to Pampeluna, you"ll see more than one thing that will interest you. It"s a fine town. I"ll give you this medal," he showed me a little silver medal that he wore hung around his neck.

"You"ll wrap it up in paper"--he paused a moment to master his emotion--"and you"ll take it, or send it, to an old lady whose address I"ll give you. Tell her I am dead--but don"t tell her how I died."

I promised to perform his commission. I saw him the next day, and spent part of it in his company. From his lips I learned the sad incidents that follow.

CHAPTER III

"I was born," he said, "at Elizondo, in the valley of Baztan. My name is Don Jose Lizzarrabengoa, and you know enough of Spain, sir, to know at once, by my name, that I come of an old Christian and Basque stock. I call myself Don, because I have a right to it, and if I were at Elizondo I could show you my parchment genealogy. My family wanted me to go into the church, and made me study for it, but I did not like work. I was too fond of playing tennis, and that was my ruin. When we Navarrese begin to play tennis, we forget everything else. One day, when I had won the game, a young fellow from Alava picked a quarrel with me. We took to our _maquilas_,* and I won again. But I had to leave the neighbourhood.

I fell in with some dragoons, and enlisted in the Almanza Cavalry Regiment. Mountain folks like us soon learn to be soldiers. Before long I was a corporal, and I had been told I should soon be made a sergeant, when, to my misfortune, I was put on guard at the Seville Tobacco Factory. If you have been to Seville you have seen the great building, just outside the ramparts, close to the Guadalquivir; I can fancy I see the entrance, and the guard room just beside it, even now. When Spanish soldiers are on duty, they either play cards or go to sleep. I, like an honest Navarrese, always tried to keep myself busy. I was making a chain to hold my priming-pin, out of a bit of wire: all at once, my comrades said, "there"s the bell ringing, the girls are coming back to work." You must know, sir, that there are quite four or five hundred women employed in the factory. They roll the cigars in a great room into which no man can go without a permit from the _Veintiquatro_,** because when the weather is hot they make themselves at home, especially the young ones.

When the work-girls come back after their dinner, numbers of young men go down to see them pa.s.s by, and talk all sorts of nonsense to them.

Very few of those young ladies will refuse a silk mantilla, and men who care for that sort of sport have nothing to do but bend down and pick their fish up. While the others watched the girls go by, I stayed on my bench near the door. I was a young fellow then--my heart was still in my own country, and I didn"t believe in any pretty girls who hadn"t blue skirts and long plaits of hair falling on their shoulders.*** And besides, I was rather afraid of the Andalusian women. I had not got used to their ways yet; they were always jeering one--never spoke a single word of sense. So I was sitting with my nose down upon my chain, when I heard some bystanders say, "Here comes the _gitanella_!" Then I lifted up my eyes, and I saw her! It was that very Carmen you know, and in whose rooms I met you a few months ago.

* Iron-shod sticks used by the Basques.

** Magistrate in charge of the munic.i.p.al police arrangements, and local government regulations.

*** The costume usually worn by peasant women in Navarre and the Basque Provinces.

"She was wearing a very short skirt, below which her white silk stockings--with more than one hole in them--and her dainty red morocco shoes, fastened with flame-coloured ribbons, were clearly seen. She had thrown her mantilla back, to show her shoulders, and a great bunch of acacia that was thrust into her chemise. She had another acacia blossom in the corner of her mouth, and she walked along, swaying her hips, like a filly from the Cordova stud farm. In my country anybody who had seen a woman dressed in that fashion would have crossed himself. At Seville every man paid her some bold compliment on her appearance. She had an answer for each and all, with her hand on her hip, as bold as the thorough gipsy she was. At first I didn"t like her looks, and I fell to my work again. But she, like all women and cats, who won"t come if you call them, and do come if you don"t call them, stopped short in front of me, and spoke to me.

""_Compadre_," said she, in the Andalusian fashion, "won"t you give me your chain for the keys of my strong box?"

""It"s for my priming-pin," said I.

""Your priming-pin!" she cried, with a laugh. "Oho! I suppose the gentleman makes lace, as he wants pins!"

"Everybody began to laugh, and I felt myself getting red in the face, and couldn"t hit on anything in answer.

""Come, my love!" she began again, "make me seven ells of lace for my mantilla, my pet pin-maker!"